So I was thinking to continue this evening talking with you about the first grade precept and looking at the three pure precepts, three pure cumulative precepts. And the first one is to refrain from or put an end to all evil, the second one to practice

[01:03]

all good and the third to benefit all beings, that's one way to put it. This other way actually which I mentioned to you is the precept of discipline or restraint, the precept of amassing all wholesome things and the precept of maturing or developing all beings. By the way, I kind of spelled that third one wrong, I think it's fourth grade. I think artha means object or topic or something.

[02:04]

So it's the precept of developing or purifying or benefiting the realm of the beings. So under the first precept, the one of samvara sila, the precept of discipline or restraint, under our set of precepts we have ten precepts under that heading. And I just wanted to say something about the feeling, some of the feelings that happened for me around the word evil, which I kind of like to remember is live spelled backwards. Because that's kind of the essence of evil, it's life reversed so to speak, or it's life messed with in some very fundamental way.

[03:09]

It's life where you grasp it fundamentally or it's life where you approach it. It's life where you approach it or life where you go away from it. Rather than just leaving it alone, we violate it somehow by messing with it. That's the fundamental evil. Before we grasp it, the way we grasp it is we say it's there in some way. We make it into some kind of existence and then we can grasp it. Or same thing, we grasp it by mapping existence onto it. This is the fundamental evil, fundamental sin. We freeze it, we freeze life and we do the same thing to death in a sense.

[04:25]

Although when we're dead it doesn't seem to be much of a problem but when we're dying we freeze dying too. Or we approach it or we make it an object, we make it into a thing. We also violate dying. We create evil around dying, we create evil around living. I'll go into this in more detail when we get into the commentary on this first precept but I just want to start by saying something about what I see as fundamental evil. But also my feeling is when every time we say first is to avoid all evil, I kind of cringe when I hear the word evil. I feel like I'm in some kind of church or something, some fundamentalist church. Evil, I feel uncomfortable saying to avoid evil. I don't like saying embrace evil either though. But anyway, I will parenthetically remark, maybe I will, we'll see, I might get right

[05:34]

into it, that I've been doing some other kinds of reading about evil which I alluded to when I said something about that really the way we learn not to murder is because of punishment. But I would say there's two reasons why we learn about not to murder. One is, especially little boys, we think about killing our dad but we don't think we'll be able to pull it off. And also we don't want to get rid of him because we need him. So both because we need him and because he's bigger than us we kind of forget about that thing about murdering him. But little boys, according to certain people, do think about murdering their dads and getting their mom. And it's not out of empathy for dad that you give it up. It's out of you need him and you wouldn't be able to succeed.

[06:35]

That's what some people say anyway. These little guys are evil in certain ways. They have evil thoughts according to certain things and they have all kinds of unconscious imagery about it too. But another thing they have is all kinds of other stuff. Anyway, the point is that by denying evil and by denying murderous impulses we hope to have harmony. And I was going to bring up some of this stuff which I just did a little bit. But when I thought about it, I thought, don't bring it up. You're going to make some people nervous. You're going to cause some disharmony in the community. I thought, that's right. If I don't bring it up, the reason why I don't want to bring it up is because I don't want to cause any disturbance. And so I just put out this idea for you for now. And I'd be happy to get into it more later. And that is, there is some association, especially in Asia, between denial and harmony.

[07:41]

And we know that to some extent around here too. And they're also in the West a little bit more, but also in the East. There's some association between honesty and conflict. When you say association, you mean people think of the first and make the second? That honesty leads to conflict. Yeah, if you're honest with people, that might cause conflict. Or if you express yourself honestly about something, it might cause conflict or even disruption of a relationship. Whereas if you deny certain things that you feel, that might keep harmony. So that's another part of the discussion I feel around evil, is that just staying away from the whole topic, in some ways, part of us feels like we'll keep things more harmonious. As we get into the topic of evil, we're somewhat afraid, either talking about evil out there or evil inside, that it may cause some disharmony.

[08:49]

And I think I share some of that feeling, because I noticed as I thought of certain things to talk about, certain psychological things about murder, where it comes from, how it gets trained out of us and stuff like that, or how we repress it, how we act it out in other ways. If I get into talking about these things, I notice it would... not I know, but I feel that I would be getting into a situation where some disharmony might come up, where people might be upset, and I noticed that I wanted to get away from that upset and not bring it up. It's some feeling like that. So, part of what I'd like you to do, actually, is keep this kind of thing in mind. Watch it to see what you... around ethical issues and around issues of evil and stuff like that, internal and external, watch sort of your orientation, watch what you shrink from and things like that. Watch your opinions and your values around these things, see what you can learn. Do you want to know my preference?

[10:04]

Sure. I'd like to go on. Okay, okay. I'd like to read to you that... just read through this commentary on these first precepts. First of all, the one we've gone into some detail on is, life is not to kill. Let the Buddha seed grow and succeed to the wisdom life of the Buddha, taking no life. Life is not killed. These are the words of Dogen Zenji, translated by Karls and me. So, the way we translate it, there's no kind of like prohibitory tone in there. That's the way some other people translate it. They say stuff like, do not cut off life, do not kill. We say, life is not killed. It's a difference. The way I'm choosing, this is our understanding of what it says, but also

[11:07]

I think this is a much more exciting understanding of the teaching too, much more inspiring rather than this prohibitory tone. Oh, and another thing I wanted to say to you is that in the preface to this, the guy says, this teaching, both Dogen's words and Kyogo's commentary, this teaching is for people who have received the precepts already. Okay, so part of some people's worry about, well, what about, you know, if you say this stuff to people, won't they misunderstand? This is for people who already have made a gesture in the direction of saying, I'd like to receive these precepts, study these precepts, figure out how to live with these precepts. This is for people who are studying the precepts and so on, not for people who do not have some commitment to them, both on the ethical level, compassionate level, and also even on the Buddha mind level.

[12:10]

So again, these precepts are in Dogen's comments and Kyogo's interpretation are to help us enter Buddha's mind and understand Buddha's teaching. Okay, so it's with these kinds of people that this stuff is written. Okay, and another thing I want to say was that I'd like to remind myself and you as we go through these precepts that I feel each one of these precepts is an opportunity for us and also for Dogen and Kyogo to teach a particular aspect of Buddha Dharma. Okay, and I'd like myself and you to keep in mind this so that at the end of going through these, if we ever get through, you can sort of go down the list of these 10 precepts and say,

[13:15]

this precept points out has this kind of Dharma in it, this precept has this kind of Dharma, this kind of precept has this kind of Dharma, this emphasizes this teaching, this emphasizes that teaching, this kind of thing, which I think it will be possible. I might forget to help you try to do that, but you might be able to have like a summary, just a kind of a sense of when you hear the precept, you can sort of go, that teaching is for that precept or those teachings go with that precept. Now, some people also you may have heard in the early amassing of the Buddhist teachings, originally there were two baskets. You know, have you ever heard of the three baskets? It's called the Tripitaka. Tripitaka means three baskets. Originally there was Tipitaka, okay, two baskets. The two baskets were the Vinaya, which was a collection of monastic rules and histories and stories about these monastic rules,

[14:21]

histories of how they came to be composed and stories about people following them and not following them. So it was that basket. The other basket was the basket of Dharma, the Sutras of the Buddha. Anybody in a Buddhist community had to receive and live with these rules, but in order to be liberated from suffering you had to understand and taste this Dharma. So, in the early setup, the precepts were sort of like the price of admission to the group and also of course to promote harmony in the Sangha and make a nice group of people by following these rules in the world, but it was the Dharma that was the reason why they were there and that

[15:21]

was what they used to realize salvation. Now, these precepts at this point in Buddhist life, precepts of the Zen school are not like that anymore. We have actually monastic rules like, don't talk about the samovar, but we do not yet have too much of a teaching. It's developing gradually. I guess Galen's got some teaching about it, something about some demons or something. We don't have yet a beautiful Buddha Dharma that actually uses the samovar rule at his door. It's actually kind of like a rule, isn't it? It's a rule, you do it. If you don't do it, you get busted, right? Whereas, these precepts are not exactly rules, they're more like

[16:23]

vehicles to Buddha's mind. So, these precepts are not like rules, they are Dharma themselves. They are ways you can taste the Dharma. And in a sense, these 10 precepts are like a beautiful summary of the Buddha Dharma in terms of daily life. Rather than in terms of philosophical principles like dependent co-arising, emptiness, impermanence, not-self, mindfulness, and so on and so forth, they are daily life examples of those things I just mentioned. So, you see, it's a kind of a different approach, I feel, these precepts. Okay, so that's kind of background now. I just read what Dogen Zenji wrote, and this is what I feel is what you call the essential level,

[17:29]

and then I feel that Kyogo is also trying to elucidate the essential level, but he's giving us more material to do that. I still feel that Kyogo's message is not the literal level, of course, and he says that, you'll hear that, but not even the compassionate level, that he's also on this essential level of directing our mind to the Buddha mind, to realization of the Buddha way, but talking more, because it's hard for some people to extract from these three sentences by Dogen enough to get the feeling for the teaching here. So I'll just read this, if I can, I'll see if I can be able to do it, and I'll go back over it then. So Kyogo's essence says, living and dying are not before and after.

[18:31]

Just not taking life is manifesting the whole works, or the manifestation of the whole works. When we understand that life is the manifestation of the whole works, the words quotes to kill and quotes not to kill are not used as they are understood in the world. When the term the three worlds are mind only, all things have true marks, and to kill and not to kill are beyond their literal meaning. This is what's meant by one, excuse me, just one vehicle or one brilliant indestructible precious precept. Killing and not killing are not the same, but this precept of Buddha is beyond such discussion.

[19:36]

With humans and celestials precepts, that is the precepts of the impure, bad results are brought forth by killing, but nothing is separated by beginning cause and end effect, just as a shadow comes along with form. So in the monk's precepts, since the three worlds are detested, the fruits of human and celestials are not sought after because they want no residual future karma. Although their intentions vary, they discriminate killing and not killing from the point of view of cyclic rebirth. Not killing is found in all versions of Mahayana precepts. In each instance of not to kill, it is not in reference to beginning or end, but just not to kill.

[20:51]

Not to kill is mind-only. Not to kill is the three worlds. Not to kill is sentient beings. Not to kill is not to kill. Not to kill is one precept. Not to kill is ten precepts. This is the meaning of maintaining Buddhist precepts. Besides this, do not expect any other result. The precept light of the Buddha issues from the mouth according to conditions and is not without causes. The light of the precepts is not blue, yellow, red, white, or black. It is not form. It is not mind. It is neither existing nor not existing. It is not of the things of cause and effect. How do we understand these words? As the light of the precepts is already the true mark,

[22:04]

all things are not to be denied. Yet it's said, not blue, yellow, red, white, black, not form, not mind. However, among all things that belong to the three worlds now, not one thing is without being blue, yellow, red, white, black. Then where can we see the precept light? Because of this, the not of not form, not mind, and so on, is not the not of yes and no. So we should know that it is the not Tathagata. The excellent expression and radiance of not Tathagata is itself things of blue, yellow, red, white, and black, form, mind, existence, non-existence, cause and effect. This being so, when we receive Buddha's precepts, there is no skin,

[23:09]

flesh, bones, and marrow of transmigration in birth and death. And it is said that we are the same rank as a greatly enlightened one. Of the same rank as a greatly enlightened one means that we are the same rank as sentient beings. When we understand, attaining the way together with all sentient beings, what is there to be killed? When we talk about life, we don't exclude grasses and trees. When we trust the precepts of Buddha's bodhisattvas and the Mahayana, this points to a place where there is no killing. It is called primary purity, or the true children of all Buddhas. This being so, the essay says, life is not killed. Let the Buddhaseed grow and succeed to the life of wisdom

[24:13]

of Buddha taking no life. Life is not killed. The precepts of the Buddha way, in the precepts of the Buddha way, killing in the sense of, quotes, killing intentionally whenever you want by fishing or catching birds, unquote, is not what is being discussed at all. And then there's a question and answer, but I don't like this translation, so I'm not going to read it. It's pretty much, there's nothing much new, just kind of like challenging what's been said and refuted. Okay, now I'd like to go over this and in the process bring up some very challenging stuff. So I think the evening people are going to have a real rough time.

[25:13]

I mean, the people in the morning, people are going to have a real rough time and evening people are going to be up all night. I'm sorry. Okay. Basically what you might have recognized in this presentation, in this commentary, is that old Prajnaparamita dialectic, right? The dialectic of the Diamond Sutra. Tathagata, Tathagata, as no Tathagata is taught by the Tathagata. Therefore, we say Tathagata. Blue, blue, as not blue is it taught by the Tathagata. Therefore, we say blue. Blue, blue, the light is not blue. Therefore, the light is blue. This is the dialectic that's playing around in here. And also what's playing around in here is the dynamic between what we

[26:21]

call dependently co-arisen birth and death and dependently co-arisen awakening. These things are flashing back and forth in this commentary. So in the process of this discussion, I'm going to start introducing what dependently co-arisen stuff is, what dependently co-arisen birth and death is, and what dependently co-arisen suchness or awakening is. Okay, so already it's too much, I'm sorry. So he says living and dying are not before and after. Okay, so already right there you got living and dying and you're not supposed to infect either one of these with making one before or after the other.

[27:23]

So you got living and that's it. You got dying and that's it. All you can say about living is that it's living. All you can say about dying is it's dying and might as well not say anything then, right? Just living, just dying. If you say living is before, that's an example of how you make living into birth and death. If you say dying is after, that's how you make dying into birth and death, into transmigratory birth and death, into misery. That's also how you kill. Dependent co-arising is the basic teaching of Shakyamuni Buddha. It's what he saw in his mind. It was philosophical content

[28:27]

of his enlightenment experience. He had some shamanistic experiences like seeing past lives, developing divine eye and divine ear, being able to understand other people's minds. These are some shamanistic experiences that happened to him in his enlightenment evening. But his wisdom, which he conveyed first of all as his philosophy was basically that, how do you put it, oh, if this exists then that exists. That's what he said basically 12 times. If this exists

[29:35]

then that exists. If this doesn't exist then that doesn't exist. He said that about this 12-fold chain of causation, each one of those links, he said if this exists then that exists. If this doesn't exist then that doesn't exist. If this exists then that exists. He said that around the cycle of birth and death and then back the other way. Four times he did it. If this exists then that exists and then if this doesn't exist then that doesn't exist and then the other direction. This was the content of his awakening and this was his teaching basically. This is his basic teaching. Besides denying everything, selfhood, this is his basic constructive message. That's dependent co-arising or Pratityasamutpada. Yeah, he said he saw ignorance and he saw a circle with 12 links. Ignorance,

[30:45]

current formations, consciousness. Those that saw that link and he said this one here, because there's this one here, there's that one there. Because there's that one there, there's this one here. He did that and if you don't have this one then you don't have that one. He said that. So he went like this in terms of if there's this then there's that. He went that way and he went back the other way and then did it with there isn't this, there isn't that. You go clockwise and counterclockwise. So there's four ways he did it. In other words, he was thorough about it. Okay, then he says, just not taking life is a manifestation of the whole works. Just not killing is a manifestation of the whole works.

[32:07]

Just not killing, in other words, just living is manifestation life or living is a manifestation of the whole works. Dying is a manifestation of the whole works. Leaving life and death alone is just not killing. That's also manifestation of the whole works. So you have life as a manifestation of the whole works. In other words, the entire universe is manifesting itself, the entire dharma is manifesting itself in living, in life as such, in life as it is. That's the total manifestation of the workings of the whole universe which is called dharma. The same for death and dying. Dying is death is dying. That's it. So, not killing is the dharma of leaving these things alone, which is the same as these things

[33:13]

being themselves. So not killing also is just like living and just like dying. Not killing is also Zenkigan. So life is not his total manifestation of the whole works. Death is a total manifestation whole works and not killing is a total manifestation of the whole works, not killing life. When we understand that life is the manifestation of whole works, then the words to kill and not to kill are not used as they are understood in the world. When three worlds are mind only, which is a technical term, but anyway, when three worlds are mind only, all things have true marks. And so what are the true marks of all things? They're dependently co-arisen. They're empty.

[34:20]

No marks. They have no marks. So three worlds mind only means the whole universe is just mind, but it also means everything in the whole universe is just mind. But it doesn't mean that the whole universe is just like your mental activity. It means you cannot separate anything in the universe from something else because everything is just itself, because everything as it is, is the manifestation of everything else. So when you understand that, all things have true marks.

[35:25]

And again, to kill and not to kill are beyond their literal meaning. This is what's called just one vehicle or one brilliant indestructible precious creature. So killing and not killing are not the same. We don't say they're the same. But this precept is beyond this discussion. We're not talking about that here. Now for humans and celestial beings, this precept for people who have outflows, people in that realm, then here we point out that if you kill it brings forth incredibly bad results. And then they make some comment about people who are approaching the precepts from this angle. I don't want to go too much into that right now, but just skip up ahead where it says

[36:35]

that in all Mahayana versions of Mahayana precepts, this precept of not killing is found and in each instant, again, not to kill is not with reference to beginning or end, but is just not to kill. That's it. And then not to kill is mind only, not to kill is three worlds, not to kill is sentient beings, not to kill is not to kill. Not to kill is one precept, not to kill is ten precepts. This is the understanding, or this understanding is the meaning of maintaining Buddhist precepts. Besides this, do not expect any other result. And I remember, I think in that quote from Ecclesiastes about vanity of vanities,

[37:46]

the preacher said, vanity of vanities, all is vanity. I think he said, my child beware of anything beyond these words, vanity of vanities, all is vanity, beware of anything beyond these words. So in a way to say that life is the manifestation of the whole works is like saying vanity of vanity, all is vanity. Does that make sense to you? Anything more than just living is just vanity. And beware of any words beyond this instruction. That is, sit, just sit and everything else is vanity.

[38:55]

Even this class, of course. Anything you're doing here besides just sitting is vanity. Yes? Well, I was about to ask, can you say something or can you talk about what vanity is, but what you just said doesn't answer it. Oh, good. It's not sitting, it's vanity. Right. So, this just sitting and realizing that anything beyond that is vanity, this is another way of, again, talking about what uprightness means. So I would say, you know, zazen is not killing life. Okay, any problem with that? Zazen is not killing life, but also you should understand when you do zazen that life is not

[40:02]

killed. It's not like you're practicing zazen and not killing life, that's zazen, and you think, well, life can be killed, but I'm not doing it. Zazen is also life is not killed, you have that understanding. Zazen is settling into dependent co-arising. To sit upright and contemplate the true marks of things is to sit upright and contemplate dependent co-arising of things. Zazen is also an expression of faith that there's nothing but dependent co-arising. Now, which is the same as saying, zazen expresses the faith that there's nothing but not to kill, or there's nothing but living and there's nothing but dying.

[41:04]

Okay, here's another kind of presentation, which I'll go into more detail. Poor guy, he's so sleepy. It's being taped though, you can listen to it someday when you're awake. Appreciate your effort. Here's an expression by Nagarjuna, which I feel expresses this feeling of life is just the total manifestation of the whole works. Oh, what did he say? Oh, here. This is Nagarjuna's way of saying, zenkigan, okay? I read it this way, and this is Nagarjuna's way of saying, not killing life. It's the first verse of his major work. At nowhere and at no time can entities ever exist

[42:22]

by originating out of themselves, out of others, from both, or from a lack of causes. That's zenkigan. There's no translation. Never are there any existing things found to originate from themselves, from something else, from both, from no cause. This is uprightness, and this is no evil. Or this is live. This is just living. Just living. Just living is not that there's this thing there which is caused by itself, or by another, or by both, or with no cause. Now, birth and death, dependently caused in birth and death, is when you grasp something,

[43:33]

and by grasping it, you condition it. Like grasp life, grasp death, grasp killing. You grasp it, you condition it, and it originates by that. As Mr. Nagar says, precisely at the moment when grasping at something conditions and something that is conditioned originates, one is in the bondage of dependently co-arisen birth and death. It is because every day life, every day living and dying are in the bondage of dependently co-arisen birth and death. Condition, like when you say it's before, that conditions it. Like say life is before, and death is after. By saying that, you condition it. By saying that it's before,

[44:36]

it's something that's conditioned originates. It's born by your conditioning, and that dependently co-arisen birth and death. Born into a concept? Yeah, and through a concept. So wouldn't that be the case of something originating because of something else? Right, right. Okay. This one you're not ready for, but I'll give you this other one. Okay. When he says that nothing exists, that never are there any existing things found to originate from themselves, from something else, from both or from no cause, this does not mean, this is not intended to refute the arising. It is intended as a negation only of an essence

[45:45]

that might be explained by, from themselves or from others. What this does, what this statement does, is it is an affirmation that only dependent co-arising exists. So is that the not the not of yes and no? Yes. Right. It's the not of not to target exactly. Okay. So in the expression, you know, if this exists, then that exists. Okay. Does not mean that when this one essence exists, then another essence apart from it exists.

[46:53]

Okay. The expression, the basic expression, if this exists or because this exists, then that exists, that basic expression, does not mean that when this essence exists by itself, then some other essence exists apart from it. Doesn't mean that. It doesn't mean that when you have this by itself, then you have that by itself. As a matter of fact, it means because this doesn't exist by itself and because this doesn't exist by itself. That's why, because both this and that do not exist by themselves, that's why when this exists, that also exists. The same linkage of cause of when this exists and that exists, you can make this, you can grasp this

[47:58]

and then this is a thing which is conditioned by your grasping and it originates at that moment and that's the birth of birth and death, which is bondage. Then that existence can cause another existence and another bondage. So you can make the same story. Every link in the story exists causing another existence, but each existence puts you in bondage. Okay. But if you remember that the meaning of if this exists, then that exists means that because it doesn't exist, that exists. And that exists because this exists. Because it doesn't exist, they need each other. That's dependently co-arisen nation in the sense it's not putting you into bondage. So now, see if now if I read this, it makes more sense to you, this thing he said,

[49:04]

or maybe not ready for it, I don't know, what do you think? Let me read this again. So he said, beside this do not expect any other result. Besides what? Besides not to kill is not to kill. Besides this, not to kill is not to kill. That's it. Not to kill is one precept. Not to kill is ten precepts. Besides this, do not expect any other result. This is the precept life. And this precept life issues from the mouth of the Buddha according to conditions and is not without causes. It originates in the realm of dependent co-arising, but in that realm, there's only one thing that exists, dependent co-arising. This light, this precept light, which is spoken by the Buddha, is not these colors, right? This is a teaching. It's not this thing.

[50:09]

It's not a thing of cause and effect, but it's not without causes. It's in the realm of cause and effect, but there's not the slightest bit of attributing anything of existence, non-existence, what do you call it, before or after, to these things. Q. How are you saying dependent co-arising exists? A. How am I saying it exists? Yeah. Well, there's appearances. There's living and there's dying. There's not killing. That's how it exists. There's

[51:19]

no other way it exists. Q. But it's not existence in essence? A. No, it's not existence in essence, no. It exists by virtue of the blue, yellow, red, form, not form, existence in non-existence. That's how it exists. But in all those things which are ways that it exists, there's only one thing that exists, really, dependent co-arising. There's no things there, but those are the ways that dependent co-arising exists, and all that's really there is dependent co-arising. Q. Actually, it's a logical necessity. It's practiced by saying, in the realm of dependent co-arising, then dependent co-arising exists. You've established that realm,

[52:22]

and in that realm, that's what exists. But it isn't an attribution of final or ultimate existence to it. This is that realm. This is the nature of a particular kind of game. In this game, that's what there is. So how do we understand these words? The light of the precepts is already the true mark. The light of the precepts is already light. So, you may remember before where it said, sit upright and contemplate the true marks. That's the ultimate way of repentance. Sit upright and contemplate dependent co-arising. That's the ultimate repentance. Sit upright and contemplate the light of the precepts,

[53:25]

which is not these colors. It's not form. It's not existence. It's not non-existence. Contemplate that. That's how to remove the ocean of karmic hindrances. They just melt away in that contemplation. But that contemplation is not like you're sitting there looking at dependent co-arising. It's that you are completely settled into dependent co-arising. It's that you are sitting in zazen expressing your faith that all there is is dependent co-arising. That's what it means to contemplate the true marks. You're sitting there and saying, hey man, all there is is dependent co-arising. Don't bug me. Expect no other results than this. So, if I adjust your posture, it's not because I expect some other result than this. But also, you shouldn't expect any other results than that. I'm a little bit confused. What causes the switch or the change or the transformation

[54:37]

between dependent co-arising and birth and death? Evil. Well, it's like to say before and after. But isn't that included within? If you got before and after and there's no before and after of before and after, then that's fine. If you just got before sitting there, but if you got before and then you got before with life, then you got before mixed up with life. You got this thing called before. Now, do you think that's anything? If you don't, then you don't have anything. You got before. You got just before. That's it. Before is Zenkigen. Question from audience. Pardon? Question from audience. No, it doesn't establish something that's not. No,

[55:38]

our thinking does not establish something that's not. Our thinking establishes something that's not. It doesn't establish it, it just makes it appear. Our thinking makes things appear, but it doesn't establish them. You can't establish these appearances, but in fact, these appearances appear by our thinking. That's right, but not established. That's going too far. Establishment is then … the establishment of these things that appear will cause another appearance, which you call the establishment, which is more birth than death, because you say there's this thing called establishment. Now, if you take the establishment and mix it up with the thing, then you've got it again. You're mixing up the establishment with something, but you can't establish any of this stuff because there's no thing there which is caused by itself, by another, by both, or by no cause. There's no such thing.

[56:40]

Question from audience. It doesn't seem like you can be there at all because of that. No, that's the best part of the magic. This is a magical situation we have here, folks. This is a magical world. We dreamed it up. We conjured it up. This is a magical illusion thing here. We can create illusions to appear. There is the constant production of illusion. There really is that, but these illusions cannot be established. All these things that appear, and they appear by, are evil. They won't appear without evil, and fortunately, there's enough evil to keep the world rolling. These things which are due to the working of our mind, the magical creations, okay, they can't be established. That's where Buddhas live. They live in the world created by illusion. They live in that world, but they don't get caught up. They realize that because of this, we have that, means that because

[57:52]

it doesn't exist, we have that. In other words, they see dependent co-arising only. They see, oh, because of this thing that doesn't exist, you have that thing that exists, and you must have this in order to have that, because this doesn't exist either, and you must have this because that doesn't exist, and you wouldn't have that if this wasn't there. That's where Buddha is living. That's dependent co-arising. It's also exactly the same as birth and death, if you attribute any essence to anything in the process, and since people do, Buddhas come and live there, and the way they act under those circumstances is called dependently co-arisen awakening or dependently co-arisen suchness, and that's why here it says, it's not these colors, okay, but that not is not the not of yes and no. What it is, is it's not Buddha. It's not Tathagata, and the radiance and expression

[58:58]

of not Tathagata is expressed by birth and death, by dependent co-arisen world, and from our point of view, it may look like birth and death. Their behavior is dependently co-arisen suchness because they are not attributing essence to this process, and the way they don't attribute essence to this process is by contemplating birth and death, namely, because of this, there's that. But everybody sees because of this, there's that. Everybody sees cause and effect, right? But it's not before and after. It's not before and after. It's simultaneous, and these things cannot exist without each other because they're both empty. This is the commentary on not killing. Yes, Barbara, you were next. I keep thinking that it's the third or fourth verse where Gardener talks about conditions.

[60:00]

It's the second one. That's the second. It seems like someplace in this discussion on cause, that we're getting the word cause and condition. I don't know, but it seems like I'm impossible to talk about conditions. If you don't think so, you can skip over it, but it's something I've never been quite clear on. Let's see. Those four conditions you mean? I think it's... Yeah, and how that affects this. So the conditions are different from that of cause. How are they different? They say that conditions exist where cause does not exist. I'm not ready for that.

[61:03]

I have to do my homework. Okay. So listen to this again, okay? So if it's not of these things, then how do you understand these words? As the light is already the true mark, all things are not to be denied, yet it is said not blue and so on. However, among all the things in the three worlds, not one thing is not blue and so on. Then how can we see the precept light? Because of this, the not is not the not of yes and no. It is, you should know that it is the not tathagata. The excellent expression and radiance of not tathagata is itself things of blue, yellow, and so on. This being so, when we receive Buddha's precepts, there is no skin, flesh, bones, and marrow of transmigrating independently co-arisen birth and death.

[62:06]

I added independently co-arisen. There's no transmigration in birth and death. And it is said we are the same rank as a greatly enlightened one. In other words, the greatly enlightened ones are the ones who are not caught up in birth and death. They live there, but their conduct is their awakening, and their conduct is simply celebrating that only dependent co-arising exists. There's no entities existing. You create a magical world that causes all our suffering. It isn't so much that the magical world causes our suffering, it's that we created it. It's that we created it and forgot how we created it that causes our suffering. Once it's created, you can come and live in it, no problem. But if you forget how you created it… That how we created it is, again, not separate from this existing

[63:15]

tathagata because it's a fourfold thing, right? How we created it is not separate from because this exists, that exists, but it is the understanding that this entity causes that entity and that's how we stay in birth and death. Or before and after. But as soon as you stop playing that game and start affirming dependent co-arising, you start to turn the process around. But you have to admit, if you believe in these entities, you have to admit that. But that also is celebrating that there's only birth and death. Because you wouldn't be going around saying that there's only dependent co-arising, because you wouldn't be wasting your time emphasizing that you are committing this sin unless you believe that there was really just dependent co-arising. If you believe that there was this other stuff, you probably would just keep denying that you're doing it, denying your evil.

[64:17]

Admitting your evil is celebrating that there's just dependent co-arising. And that's called, and that's not taking life. And that's celebrating Zank again. And that's what Zazen is. I feel kind of sorry for you. I'm sorry. It's kind of a bad time of day to be hearing all this. Earlier, Martin was asking about the moment when we established this habit, or this effort to establish the thoughts we believe in. Is that the same as the future outpost?

[65:23]

Well, it sounds a little bit more basic, more kind of like down to the bone of setting up the possibility for outflows. It might be. It's almost like verbal outflows, actually. But it feels a little bit, it seems a little bit more basic than, for example, holding to views. Maybe it's holding to views too. Let's see, is it holding to views? Anyway, it may be a very, very kind of radical kind of holding to views. It's more like just attributing the view. It's just like saying, it's there. It's there. Is this first establishment of something. Yeah. And just reflexive. You don't even see it. You don't even see you're doing it. It's just such an ingrained habit. Yeah, such an ingrained habit. And that's why it's very good to just kind of like go around, and even if you don't get it, to tell yourself that you've got this habit.

[66:39]

And again, when people hear about dependent co-arising, they want to walk around saying, everything's dependent co-arising, everything's dependent co-arising, therefore everything's empty. It's better to go around and say, I don't believe dependent co-arising. I don't believe everything's dependent co-arising. I don't believe things are empty. I don't believe it's empty. I don't believe it's empty. I don't believe it's empty. Or I believe it's not empty. I believe it exists. I believe that things don't dependently co-arise. I believe that we have essences causing essences, that real things are the causes of real effects. That's what I think. Go around and admit that. It's more honest, and that honesty will cause a conflict. But if you go around saying, this other stuff, denying this evil, you'll be very harmonious and you'll feel like a real Buddhist and feel really comfortable, but it's denial. And it's not going to uproot this process.

[67:41]

If you believe in dependent co-arising, the more you believe in dependent co-arising, the more you'll be comfortable going around saying that you're a sinner. The more you believe in dependent co-arising, it doesn't matter if you're a sinner. Even Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are willing to be sinners because they don't believe in dependent co-arising. They don't believe in existing things, like sinners, so there's no problem being sinners. But if you don't believe in dependent co-arising, if you don't have complete faith in dependent co-arising, then it would be stupid to be a sinner, wouldn't it? Because that's what you'd be, and you'd be that maybe eternally. Watch out before you get in that body. If I was sitting down, I'd probably be sleepy too. See, I'm walking around, it keeps me awake. Anyway, I feel like I'm kind of pushing it too far tonight. I think I'm going to give up, okay, and come back some other day when you're more awake.

[68:43]

And this is on tape, and you can just say, you know, this is something that you have to drill at this. That's why they recite those sutras 80 million times, right? This is a total reversal of, you know, birth and death that we're talking about here. So you're talking about going in the opposite direction of the big habit of the planet. It's not that easy to put up with this, even when you're quite awake. So I don't know if we're going to have any more classes before I go, but you can drill on this for the next three weeks until these little neural pathways are a little bit more, you know, worked out, and you don't feel so kind of like, you know, such a scary new world as this is. This is a, what do you call it, brave new world here, you know, of Diamond Sutra and these other nasty prashantramas. We may not be sleeping, this may just be a reaction to the intolerable.

[69:46]

I don't, I don't, I only have one copy here and it's got my scribbling all over it and it's not, it's not, it's on tape, you can listen to the tape, you can copy off the tape. I don't want to release this yet because it's not done and I don't want the, also people might rip it up and destroy it. Eventually I'll make this copy available, that's part of the problem of working with something that you're translating before it's done, it doesn't feel good to have all these, all these partial translations floating around and people having problems with them and you didn't really mean it that way yet, you know, you're not really set on it. Yes? Are you reading us your translation? Yeah. Are you putting it straight in English? Yeah. I read it, I just read it, it's on tape, but I just read it straight one time and I also did it during satsang, but I was commenting all the time in the middle, I don't think I read it straight through very often. If it's, if it seems, if it seems like I'm withholding the Dharma to do it this way, well maybe I should do something different, but I don't mean to do it that way, I don't

[70:58]

mind you seeing it, just it's not ready yet and if I waited until it's ready, I wouldn't have been able to talk about it so far, but maybe by the time I come back, it'll be ready, you can look at it. I hope, I hope in the next few weeks we can finish it, that part of it. Okay. Thank you for your effort on this rainy evening. May our intention to fully penetrate every being and place, with the true merit of Buddha's way, beings are numberless, I vow to save them, delusions are inexhaustible, I vow

[72:02]

to end them, Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them, Buddha's way is unsurpassable, I vow to become it.

[72:21]

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