I wanted to reiterate a traditional way that the path of Dharma practice has been described in terms of three types of learning, or three types of discipline. So sometimes we say learning or training in virtue, training in concentration or tranquility practices, and training in wisdom. But another way it's described is, again in Sanskrit, Pratimoksha-sambara, Dhyana-sambara

[01:03]

and Anasarava-sambara. Discipline in that which is conducive to liberation, and practicing virtue is that which is conducive to liberation. And then training in concentration practices, or discipline in concentration practices, and then discipline in, either in, ending outflows, or the end of outflows, or discipline which has no outflows. So discipline without outflows is wisdom, or training in wisdom. And, if you practice precepts, and practice concentration together with no outflows, that's

[02:11]

what we sometimes simply put as, to practice virtue and to practice concentration with no gaining idea, which also with no losing idea, to practice virtue and to practice concentration with no view of gain and loss, and no concern for gain and loss. Practicing virtue and concentration in that way, purifies those practices. Practicing those practices in that way is to practice them wisely, to integrate wisdom with virtue and concentration. So, if you just practice virtue and concentration with no gaining idea, basically, that's the

[03:12]

Buddhist practice. But, the subtleties with which we view the situation in terms of gain and loss, take quite a while to actually notice and drop. So, you and I already may notice some gross forms of trying to get something out of practicing virtue. Of course, we know that practicing virtue is beneficial, but to view beneficial activity as a gain, creates suffering, you know, plants the seeds of suffering. To see goodness in terms of gain and loss is an unwise way to see goodness. And also, to see goodness that way, and then wish to get more goodness, and maybe get less

[04:18]

badness, or to see concentration as good, which it is, and see that as a gain, and then try to get it, this is quite familiar to Zen students. Many Zen students come to Sesshin to try to get something, to try to get concentrated, to try to get calm, to try to get enlightened. And they see, many of them see enlightenment as if something that would be a gain if they got it. And not being enlightened, they see sometimes as a loss. But, the Buddha doesn't see attaining enlightenment as a gain. As a matter of fact, the Buddha says, when attaining enlightenment, you don't get anything. That's one of the signs of enlightenment, is that you don't get anything. And also, you don't have the view that you're going to get something, and you've given up

[05:20]

trying to get something, and that opens you to enlightenment. But again, you can, I can probably spot some gross tendencies to try to get something from practice, right? Maybe it's not as gross as it used to be, but anyway, there is that, that is seen in Zen centers, of students who are trying to get something from meditation, get something from practicing precepts, get something from studying the Dharma. This is quite common, you can spot that. But the subtleties are not so easy to see. And that's the part we're looking at now, the subtleties of gaining ideas. For example, which I talked about, we usually don't think of, when something happens, we

[06:33]

usually don't notice that trying to make it meaningful, trying to get meaning out of what's happening, we don't usually think of that as a gain. Usually that happens so fast that we get some meaning out of it, or we try to get some meaning out of what's going on, and then we try to get something more after we got the meaning. But we don't usually notice being able to, that we have, that something means something as kind of like getting something that wasn't offered. But that's a very subtle form of grasping that needs to be given up in order to wisely practice. So in the sutra, the way it talks about this is... First of all it says, in dependence upon names that are connected to signs, the imputational

[07:53]

character is known. So you've heard about the imputational character as one of the fundamental characters that bodhisattvas study. So you might say, well, I heard about it, now how do you actually know it in experience? Well, you know it in dependence. Your knowing of the imputational character, your understanding and actually being able to find it comes to you in dependence upon names. So whenever you use a name you have an opportunity to discover this imputational character. Whenever you use a name, Emanuel, James, Jody, Nancy, whenever you use a name, floor, ceiling, me, you, at that point there's an opportunity to study the imputational character. There's an opportunity to study conceptual grasping, which is one of the characteristics

[08:59]

of phenomena. When you meet somebody and you have a name for them, there's a chance to study these characters, these characteristics of your experience of this person. The first one mentioned, imputational character, how do you find that? Well, look around the name for this thing, and then it's the name in connection to signs. So now look for the signs. And the signs, that requires some more instruction for how to find the signs. But we're being told by the sutra that if you, for future reference, for your ongoing study of wisdom, if you want to know about and study the imputational character, you're The name and the sign are going to be key for you to find it.

[10:03]

Names are easy to find, signs are more subtle, and I'll be talking about signs more today. But perhaps you can see now by this instruction that it's important for bodhisattvas to be wise with the character of phenomena. It looks like what's required is bodhisattvas to pay attention to what's happening. That's not so surprising, right? And notice the names that are being used. That may be somewhat surprising, but anyway, there it is. And maybe a big surprise is bodhisattvas need to study signs. Because that's one of the key conditions for knowing one of the three characteristics of phenomena. And the next is, in dependence upon strongly adhering to the imputational character,

[11:05]

which hopefully you will eventually learn to find and see functioning, by strongly adhering to this imputational character, which you may or may not have discovered so far in your studies, but anyway, you're being told, by strongly adhering to this imputational character as being the other dependent character, one knows the other dependent character. So now the Buddha is telling us that the way you know the other dependent character, which is the fundamental character of all phenomena, that it's other dependent, the way you know the fundamental character of phenomena, really the basic way things are, is that they're dependent co-arising. The way you know this, at this point in the sutra, is by taking it to be something it isn't. Great, huh? The way you know the fundamental character of things is wrong.

[12:10]

That's what the Buddha is telling you. Nice, huh? But you do get to know it, it's just, what do you call it, through a glass darkly. Sorry. But at least you have heard now that the way you know things in their basic, dynamic, impermanent, other dependent way that they are, the way you know them is through imagining them to be not that way. But without projecting this imputation upon them, we actually don't know them. Without doing this thing of names in conjunction with signs, this other dependent character is not really known, or at least it has no meaning until we superimpose names and signs on it.

[13:11]

Then we can interpret it and meaning can come. Then next, independence upon the absence of strongly adhering to the imputational character as being the other dependent character, the thoroughly established character, is known. The way that the other dependent character really is, is known when you stop adhering to the way it really isn't as being the way it really is. Make sense? The way something really is will be revealed to you when you stop strongly adhering, in the absence of strongly adhering, to it being something it isn't. Pretty simple, huh? Relative to some other difficulties, it's pretty simple.

[14:14]

But to be able to not strongly adhere is not so easy, because if you don't strongly adhere, you're not going to know the other dependent, which we want to know it. It's not going to have meaning without the strong adhering, at least it's not going to have the meaning we usually are addicted to. The kind of meaning we need in order to go to the prom. And then another thing which this Chapter 6 tells you is this wonderful process of learning that follows from studying these three characters. So now we know how to learn about them, how to know them. And then it says, towards the end of the Chapter, it says, Gunakara, when Bodhisattvas know characterless phenomena

[15:22]

as they really are, excuse me, when Bodhisattvas know the imputational character, when you study the imputational character, and you know it as it really is, with respect to the other dependent, when you study the imputational character and know how it really is, relative to the other dependent, which you take it to be, then you know characterless phenomena as they really are. If Bodhisattvas are truly able to understand the imagined pattern that arises upon the other dependent pattern of things, then they will be truly able to understand all things are unsigned.

[16:28]

They will understand the unsigned, characterless, signless, the signless character of everything. Understanding characterlessness, understanding signlessness is a big attainment. It comes through knowing correctly the imputational character with respect to the other dependent character. By studying this imputational character, which gets superimposed on the other dependent, and seeing that relationship, you come to understand signlessness, characterlessness, the characterlessness of phenomena, the characterlessness of phenomena, and also you understand characterless phenomena. Gunakara, when Bodhisattvas know the other dependent character as it really is, then they know phenomena of afflicted character.

[17:36]

In other words, you understand that the other dependent character is afflicted because it is always subject or vulnerable to the superimposition so that it can be meaningful. The other dependent character does not offer itself meaningfully or by itself in terms of normal human discourse. So it's always vulnerable to being exploited and misunderstood so that it can be exploited. And so the other dependent character has this afflicted nature, afflicted character, which is what I said before, in a way, that the way you know the other dependent character

[18:44]

is by knowing it to be something it isn't. That's our basic affliction-generating way of knowing things. And then, when Bodhisattvas know the thoroughly established character as it really is, then they know phenomena of purified character. If Bodhisattvas truly are able to understand the thoroughly established pattern, then they will be truly able to understand that all things are purified. All things are purified and also they will be able to understand in such a way that all things will realize their pure nature. Was that clear so far?

[19:46]

Purified? Well, purified means purified of all obstruction to enlightenment. Yes? I understand, I think, conceptually how studying the educational character may get you to the other dependent character, but the next step, I'm not getting how you then it seems like, according to the sutra, you just go from the other dependent character to this purified character, and I'm not understanding that step. So what you heard was, if you study the imputational character, you have some access to the other dependent character? Because, negatively, you understand that the imputational character is an imagination, and then the other dependent character

[20:53]

becomes clear in this negative way, right? You know you know wrong? It becomes a little clearer in the sense that you know wrong, yes. And also you know that there is this afflicted character to phenomena, in that we take them to be something that they aren't. Yes? That step of study to... What's the next step of study, do you imagine? Thoroughly established? Or suchness? You could say suchness? How do you get to the suchness part? Well, you get to the suchness part by... I'll just say, I'll go over this again, but basically you start by studying the other dependent,

[21:55]

which you understand you have some problems with. It's like studying, you know, a family member who you understand you have some problems with, but now you understand that your problems are primarily due to you not seeing them correctly. You know you have some affliction in the relationship, but you don't think the problem is them. You understand from this teaching the problem is that you're imagining them to be something they're not, and this causes a stress in your relationship. So now you've heard that, but you still sort of like listen to the teachings about the nature of this person upon which your misconceptions are based. That's the first step. Then you study your misconceptions, and then you start to understand more about how your misconceptions cause trouble to this basically innocent, wonderful, immediate reality of this person, or this mountain.

[23:02]

As you study this more, you start to more and more be convinced that the way you see things is erroneous, and you get also more familiar with the way you do see things as essences and attributes, and you get to see how, and you also start to more and more see how if you didn't project this nice little packaging job on things, you get to feel more and more how there wouldn't be meaning there. You come to the brink of either the arrival of meaning or the end of meaning. You get more comfortable with meeting events without coming up with any meaning. You stop, and this loosens, this develops this absence, or loosening, or lessening,

[24:04]

lessening, lessening, lessening, absence of strong adhering, and we talked about that yesterday. Is it an absence of strong adhering and a presence of weak adhering? But anyway, there's an absence of strong adhering, and in the absence of strong adhering, you get to see what things are like in the absence of the strong adhering to this wrong view as being what they are. And as you're more and more open to that absence of strong adhering, you open to the absence, just the plain old absence of this wrong view, of this imputation in the other dependent. And you see that absence, and you see that absence, and you face that absence, and you diligently cultivate the realization of that absence of the false view in what's happening. That's the short version of how you do it.

[25:07]

And as you cultivate that, you start to, you're actually now doing the actual Bodhisattva practice, you're actually now cultivating meditation on emptiness of whatever's happening. The suchness, the emptiness, the thoroughly established character. You're actually now able to see, at least conceptually, at least inferentially, you're able to see the absence of this idea of independence in the interdependent. The absence of self-dependence in the other dependent. That's a short version of how you do that. So the big teaching that's on the horizon is to learn how to do that. And then once you can do that, then we talk about how to continue that practice and remove all the signs and transform the other dependent into this, actually transform the other dependent

[26:08]

into being ultimate truth itself. Which originally it isn't. Because it's got these signs which offer the opportunity for creating a misconception about what it is. The long-term process of meditation transforms the other dependent. And the other dependent is sometimes associated with alaya, which is the basis of all our experience from Chapter 5. It transforms this so that the other dependent finally doesn't offer any opportunities for misconception. Needs to have no ground anymore to make up false views. Too bad. You're stuck just helplessly seeing things as they are. But before that,

[27:09]

you can still see things as they aren't, but you wean yourself from it. When you wean yourself from it and see them as they are, then you keep looking at them as they are for a long time, until after a while you can't see them as they aren't anymore. And so there's a first phase, you can see them as they aren't, and you can't see them as they are. Then you can see them as they are and you can still see them as they aren't, but you sometimes take breaks from seeing them as they aren't and see them as they are. And the more you see them as they are, the more you remove the roots or the basis upon seeing them as they aren't. And after a while, you can only see them as they are. And then when you can only see them as they are, then you can see them as they aren't, but only by your great powers of imagination, which is how you did it in the first place, but now you understand that. And then the end of the chapter...

[28:19]

So is that enough? Do you have any more questions at this point? Yes? No, it's not that. I don't understand it that way. You have the sapphire. You have the clear crystal. You put the color blue on top of it or behind it? I think it's better to put it behind it, actually. And then you see a sapphire. Now, seeing the sapphire is the imputation. Not the blue. The sapphire. It's kind of like the color blue is the sign

[29:19]

upon which you can come up with the imputation of something that it isn't. It is a clear crystal with the color blue behind it. Something about the crystal. Then it goes on to say... Just a second. Wait, wait, wait. You said something wrong? Do you want me to let you... Okay, go ahead. Let me just finish, and then you can tell me what I said wrong. Like the what? Then it says that the very clear crystal is not thoroughly established. It is not established in permanent, permanent time or everlasting, everlasting time. And I guess to add to her question earlier,

[30:23]

it's part of the process of why it takes so long to get to suchness that when we first begin to weakly appear as opposed to strongly appear to be imputational on the other dependent, then our mind starts to make something stiff of the other dependent, i.e. clear crystal or whatever. And clear crystal itself is not established in permanent, permanent time. We have to go through the increase in realization. Well, you kind of truncated that statement. You said the clear crystal is not established in permanent, permanent time, in everlasting, everlasting time. You missed that part. As being, as being a sapphire. It doesn't just say that the clear crystal

[31:27]

isn't established in permanent, permanent time, everlasting, everlasting time. It says, as being the sapphire or the ruby. It's not established that way. You could also say it's not established itself, but that's not the point they're making here. And if you turn the jewel a little bit here, or you turn the crystal, or turn the language, it's not established in everlasting time as being the clear crystal, the very clear crystal is not established as being a sapphire, in forever. But there's also another way to say it, is that it is established forever as not being that. So it isn't established forever being that, but it is established forever as not being that.

[32:27]

It's thoroughly established as not being that. But it doesn't put it that way. It says it's not thoroughly established as being that, but it is thoroughly established as not being that. And that is the thoroughly established. It's that it's not that. The way you are, you're always, whatever you are, no matter what you are, you're always forever, you're always not what I think you are, in terms of essences and attributes and signs and stuff like that. But there's something else you said earlier, which I think the part where you're wrong is you said something about what the crystal was, that you could see what the crystal was. The crystal would be something. That's the part which, if you look back on the tape, that part was wrong. So you got the, in a sense, I think it may be useful in this example

[33:29]

that the blue is like the sign upon which you can construct. You've got this very clear crystal, and now you've got this sign, this blue, and using the blue, or you could say, you know, that there's a sign somehow in the clear crystal, but I think it may be better to let the blue be the sign, and then using that sign in conjunction with this clear crystal, or this clear crystal which comes to you along with this sign, you can make up this thing. So the clear crystal is very clear. You can't really see it, I don't think. You can see the blue, but the blue doesn't really have much meaning vis-a-vis the clear crystal. So you interpret the blue as referring to a sapphire, and that's meaningful. Or it's even more meaningful if it's a ruby,

[34:30]

or a diamond, or gold. But anyway, that's maybe... But if you would not... If you'd look at the clear crystal without the blue, you don't really know it. But it does offer you a sign by which you can... I shouldn't say you don't know it. You only know it by imposing upon it ruby, emerald, sapphire, whatever. That's how you know it. In other words, you know it wrongly. If you would not strongly adhere to it being a ruby and so on, then you would have a chance to look at it and see the absence of ruby and so on. But you wouldn't get it to be something else, although you would be understanding it better. It wouldn't be some other... You wouldn't be able to see,

[35:31]

oh, it is now this clear crystal, and you'd have to like project something onto it to make it into a clear crystal to know it and have it be meaningful. We'll go over this many, many times, but I just want to read this next part of Chapter 6 where it says, When Bodhisattvas know characterless phenomena as they really are, with respect to the other dependent, then they completely abandoned the phenomena of afflicted character. And when they abandon the phenomena of afflicted character, they realize the character, the purified character. So it looks like that was too long

[36:38]

since the last time I quoted the sutra, that look on your face. So when you... If you study the imputational character and know it as it really is, then if you study it in relationship to the other dependent, you'll understand... If you study the imputational character as it really is, you'll understand characterless phenomena. When you understand thoroughly the imputational in relationship to the other dependent, you know the afflicted character. And when you study the thoroughly established as it really is, you know the purified character. Then when you know all three of these, and also you start then again with the characterless phenomena, when you know characterless phenomena as it really is,

[37:39]

then you can abandon the afflicted, and when you can abandon the afflicted, you can realize the purified. So you can understand the purified but not realize it. You can know the purified but not realize it. Okay? If you study the thoroughly established, you can know it as it really is. But you have to study the other two in order to realize the purifying function of the thoroughly established. And you still look like you didn't get that, so I'll say it again. First you study the imputational, and then you understand characterless phenomena. You understand signlessness. Does that make sense? Then you study the imputational in relationship to the other dependent, and you understand the afflictive. Okay? Then you study the thoroughly established,

[38:40]

and you understand, you know the thoroughly established. But although you know the thoroughly established, excuse me, I got it wrong, you study the thoroughly established and you know the purified character. You know the purified character by studying the thoroughly established. But you haven't realized it yet. In order to realize it, you have to go back and apply this understanding of the purified and apply the understanding of the characterless to the afflicted. As you apply the characterless to the afflicted, you abandon the afflicted. When you abandon the afflicted, you realize the purified. So you can know the purified, know the afflicted, and know the characterlessness. When you know them, then you go back and use them together to actually abandon, abandon the afflicted, and abandon the afflicted

[39:42]

to realize the purified. So that's parallel to... Maybe I should wait a second before I say what it's parallel to. Yes? I was just thinking, when you were talking to Chris, you said that that thing she said was wrong. Or that she just says it was wrong. And I was thinking of this. It seems like this wrong could be taken sort of personally. So the afflictive character is right there with the wrong. It could be taken in the... So therefore, seeing that as the imputational... seeing the imputational effect on the wrong could be... If you see that, then you kind of purify the sense because you couldn't take it so personally, but you can actually use it to adjust language accordingly

[40:44]

to actually express the correct view or the right understanding. Right. Yes, this is the process of studying the imputational with regard to the other dependent to realize the afflicted and realizing that relationship, you abandon the afflicted and then you realize the purified. This kind of dialogue embodies that process. Yes? I didn't understand the beginning when you said that the imputational character represents the family study. Once I start to break loose, then there's no more sense of family study. So how do you complete family study? Well, when you get to that point, come and talk to me. Yes? I thought you said before

[41:46]

that when you begin to study the purified character, it arises out of the need to recognize the absence in the implicit character. So I'm not clear as to why you recognize the absence when you begin to study the purified character. You have to prove that you have the imputational character in order to recognize the absence. The absence of the imputational character in the other dependent character is the suchness of phenomena. Okay? Once you can see the suchness of phenomena, then you take that suchness with you and you apply it to, for example, afflicted phenomena. You apply it to the other dependent, which you're now looking at the absence of the imputational in the other dependent. However, the other dependent still offers you signs

[42:47]

of compounded phenomena. Okay? It's still offering you the basis by which you can still conjure up misconceptions about it. So it isn't just that you, in this Sutra, it isn't just that you see emptiness. You apply the vision of emptiness to phenomena. And emptiness is, you can say, or thoroughly established, isn't exactly purified phenomena. It is the way you see that phenomena are purified or it is the way you purify phenomena. The suchness is the object that you look at by which the mind and body are purified. So once you see suchness, it isn't that your body and mind have been purified. It is by meditating on suchness, as it says in the first introduction there, by diligently applying yourself and cultivating realization

[43:47]

of this suchness. Realization of the suchness means applying it to things over and over until everything's purified of any obstruction to perfect realization. So it is the purifying, it is the object of purification or it is the purifying object. But when you see it, it doesn't mean that all the purification work is done. So once you realize suchness, then you take that suchness back and mix it in with the afflicted phenomena, with the other dependent, and the other dependent is transformed by interacting with it through the vision of suchness. The other dependent changes. What the other dependent offers starts to be transformed. The ability to identify with emptiness

[45:06]

or to hold the view of emptiness as something is another dependent co-arising that can happen. And there's a sign by which you can identify with emptiness. And then if you take suchness and apply it to that sign by which you identify to emptiness, that sign is removed and you don't identify with emptiness anymore. So that's actually the final sign to remove. It's the most difficult one to remove. But there's a bunch of other difficult ones to remove too which are listed in the scripture. And each type of difficult... There's gazillions of signs but there's ten really difficult ones and they're removed by eighteen types of suchness. Eighteen different types. There's different varieties of absences of imputations. So the imputations are based on different types of signs and then the absences of these imputations in the other dependent

[46:08]

are ways to remove the signs by which you can even make up these false perceptions. So would you correct me to think that anything I identify with I am not to the point to the point beyond my determination? I kind of missed that. Would you say that again? Anything I identify with I am not to the point beyond my determination? As you say, at some stage you reach you get beyond your imputations? You have some vision of suchness you're saying? And then you're still... But in some cases you're applying the imputational to the other dependent? And to the point now

[47:13]

the final stage when you reach that final site which is the sign of emptiness itself. So the stage is to that point I was saying before anything I identify with before I am not so if I'm identified as emptiness at that point I am not emptiness. Can I ask you that question again? Well out of sympathy for the kitchen I'm not going to tell you this

[48:14]

kind of wonderful thing I was going to bring up. I'll tell you tomorrow. But what I think it is okay to say is that which I said at the beginning first we commit to precepts and we take on precept discipline and then we practice tranquility and this is the optimal base for meditating on wisdom or learning the discipline of no outflows. So I hope you continue to train and discipline yourself in virtue and concentration. As you at the beginning of actually starting to study at the beginning

[49:14]

and also in the middle and at the end the basic sort of pedal point or the basic ongoing mindfulness in this wisdom teaching is meditating on the other dependent character phenomena. That's the basic one. That's the one you start with and you keep it up. This is also sometimes called conventional truth and it is a well established recommendation that you don't study the thoroughly established or you don't study suchness until you're well grounded in meditating on the other dependent character. Which means you're well grounded

[50:17]

in meditating on how things don't produce themselves. Things don't have the nature of producing themselves. You're well grounded in that teaching which means not just that you understand it a little bit or a lot but that whatever level of understanding you have about it you think about that all the time. So you have some understanding probably that there's a teaching that everything that exists exists through the influences and power of things other than itself. You've heard that. You understand that somewhat, I think. Some of you maybe understand it better today than you did yesterday. But anyway, you have whatever your current level is that's good. That's what you've got. Let's work with that. But it's important to be mindful of it

[51:18]

on an ongoing basis. So I'm saying I have to keep remembering this teaching and when I remember this teaching I remember the teaching and I remember I reenact or I reinvigorate my current understanding of the teaching that all phenomena have this other dependent character. All phenomena do not produce themselves. So I'm mindful of that teaching and I try to listen to that teaching all day long. That's the basic ongoing work of wisdom. So the Buddha says in the next chapter, chapter 7, I initially teach a lack of own being in terms of production. I initially teach that there is this

[52:19]

nature of things not producing themselves and that's the other dependent character. And then the Buddha says when you hear this teaching it doesn't even say when you hear it well it says when you hear this. Or maybe it says when Bodhisattvas hear this. When Bodhisattvas hear it they really hear it. When you really hear it. It doesn't say really but I would say when you really hear it. When it starts to really have an impact on you. You change quite a bit. You're actually the wisdom, keep the wisdom studied. The mindfulness of this teaching is transforming you when you really hear it. When you really hear it. Or I should say when you're transformed you really hear it. This is the basic work. And even that may be difficult to do. I mean, most people would have difficulty remembering this every single moment, right? But even if you...

[53:23]

and if you... well, I don't know. If you could remember every single moment right now you might be somewhat shocked what the world would be like if you remembered this all the time. I mean, you would... you would... if you've been thinking about this a couple times a day during satsang you can imagine what it would be like if you thought about every single moment. It would be a big change in your life. Does that make sense? So, if you were really calm and relaxed you probably could stand to think of this all the time. Now, of course, people say, but if I thought of this all the time how would I eat lunch? Right. So you need to be really calm so you're not worried about how you're going to eat lunch if you were actually remembering this teaching all the time. You might or might not be able to eat lunch. I don't know. We'd have to see. But in fact, people usually don't go from thinking about

[54:24]

this teaching six times a day or twice a day or fifty times a day to billions of times a day. Usually you don't go suddenly from six to a billion. But even if you went from six a day to three thousand a day you still might... you know, there might be a little bit of shock. So that's why we need to take good care of ourselves so we can stand the shock in a big change in a big increase of mindfulness about this teaching. But I would guess, just to be silly in a way, if you thought of this teaching three thousand times a day you might be able to stand that and you would notice a big change in the way you behaved you might... you'd feel very different about the world because you would be three thousand times a day

[55:24]

being aware of impermanence in a very immediate instantaneous way well, almost instantaneous three thousand times a day kind of way. So that would make a big difference and you would... your behavior would change in relationship to seeing the world that way or seeing the world in that way. Your behavior would change a lot and it would change in a very good way and you would be much more wise about the way you're related to the world because you'd be remembering wisdom teachings a lot. And this is the basic thing that I... that I am encouraging you to do to set the stage for the more profound work of studying and in some ways more profound work of studying the imputational character and the thoroughly established character. And just remember always... always remember

[56:25]

this basic character phenomena. The great work is based on this basic work which is... it's great too but the greatest the most profound is based on this basic profound work. Yes. Well, it says in Chapter 7 when Bodhisattvas hear this teaching when you feel the impact of this teaching that things don't produce themselves they don't have that nature then you will realize it will dawn on you you'll get another what do you call it an aftershock will hit you you'll realize

[57:29]

that things are impermanent you'll realize that things are impermanent you've heard for years that things are impermanent but that's something you heard now you would like get it you'd see why they're impermanent in some sense the dependent co-arising is more fundamental than the impermanence because the dependent co-arising is how impermanent things happen to be able to be impermanent they wouldn't even be there in the first place to be impermanent if they hadn't dependently co-arisen so dependent co-arising is the fundamental nature and an implication of that is of course impermanence because since things do not keep themselves going they don't keep themselves going so they're constantly vulnerable to change so you get it now this meditation you understand impermanence more radically so you understand that things are impermanent unstable subject to change and

[58:29]

the phrase that people have trouble with is things are not worthy of confidence and there's no exceptions to this so Buddhist teachers are not worthy of confidence because they're dependent co-arisings they don't keep themselves going Buddhist teacher Buddhist teacher Buddhist teacher they don't keep themselves going as Buddhist teachers and if conditions don't support them if the conditions don't come together to dependently co-arise to co-produce a Buddhist teacher guess what you don't have a Buddhist teacher anymore they're not worthy of confidence now you can have confidence in them if you want to but remember they're not worthy of it so is that enough? and then the sutra goes on when you see that things are this way you have some kind of like emotional reaction that's what I was talking about and the people don't

[59:30]

like the way it's what the words that they use so I sometimes use another word which people don't mind so much to make it easier so it's not so shocking I say when you start to see that these compounded phenomena which do not produce themselves are impermanent and so on not worthy of confidence and so on you become disenchanted about them in other words you're not enchanted by monsters and goddesses anymore the enchantment lifts you don't think that things are going to make you happy anymore and so disenchantment is people sort of find that easier to take but what sutra says is more like aversion you develop aversion towards these things or fear or dread antipathy

[60:30]

antipathy doesn't mean you hate it means you're kind of like but the means I hope I don't slip back into thinking that this thing is going to make me happy again it's more like you realize that it's dangerous to look to things for your salvation and you know that you recently did you used to think that things were producing themselves so when you start to see that they aren't when you start to let that teaching in you're afraid you're going to slip back into thinking things are permanent again and also you know that wrong actions based on this misconception you're afraid of slipping back into wrong action so this is a big impact big change that I was talking about big transformation that will occur to you as you let this teaching sink in

[61:31]

and there were a bunch of hands, yes? a sense of gratitude might arise? sure gratitude is not prohibited in this process I'm so grateful that I'm that I'm afraid of these things I used to like be willing to kill to get I don't know who's next yes? I have a question based on chapter 5 it talks about not perceiving it actually uses the word I don't know if it's in the translation not perceiving sound events light events and so on and it says one does not perceive I'm just wondering if you could

[62:31]

talk a little about how that actually happens or plays out I'm trying to reconcile that with teachings just about continual mindfulness intimacy awareness and just teachings about responding to phenomena well there's mindfulness there's I'll just I'll force I'll jump ahead and I'll move backwards your first part was talking about a sutra where they don't perceive blah blah right? but that's the same as in the heart sutra where it says in emptiness no form no feeling no perception no impulses no consciousness no eyes no ears no nose no appropriate no internal appropriators no external appropriations all that stuff you don't perceive in suchness that's what that's talking about so these bodhisattvas learn about all these mental workings but then the Buddha says it's not just because they are wise about all this mental dynamics

[63:33]

that I call them wise with respect to the character of mind consciousness and intellect it's not just because of that it's also because they don't perceive this stuff that's why they have to both study this stuff and come to not perceive them in other words they study the other dependent and imputational and they also study the thoroughly established character of these phenomena of these mental processes when you're looking at the thoroughly established what you see is the absence of the imputational about these things when you see the absence of the imputational you don't see the things anymore you see the absence of of misconceptions about them which is said which is phrased as you don't see you don't perceive these things anymore and how does that relate to mindfulness well first of all mindfulness is applied to the way things appear and the way they appear

[64:35]

is falsely they appear in a packaged way they appear and you know the appearance of things or they appear to you as the imposition or the super imposition of the imputational upon them that's the way they appear so you start by being mindful of the way things are appearing and you're mindful of the way things are appearing mindful of the way things are appearing mindful of the way things appearing, and then, if you're training yourself in tranquility, you try to relax with the way they're appearing, what you're mindful of, and then when you relax, then you hear teachings that the way they're appearing is not the way they are, but you're still mindful of things, but then you apply the teachings to what you're mindful of.

[65:44]

So first of all, you're mindful of the appearances, then the next phase of mindfulness is to apply teachings to the things you're mindful of, to the appearances, and the teachings are that these appearances are basically other-dependent phenomena, but the way they're appearing to you is a result of imposing something upon them which is false, and then, based on that imposition, you get the hairs and the ants and the mat, all that stuff. So by seeing them wrongly, they appear this way that you can see them. By projecting a false image upon them, you get this appearance, and you're mindful of that appearance, but now you apply the teaching, so you're starting to loosen your belief that the way they're appearing is the way they are, until you get to the point where you see the absence of this false appearance in things, and then you don't see them anymore. First of all, what you're mindful of is, in a sense, you're mindful of mind, because

[66:56]

you're mindful of your imagination, which is a mental phenomena. First of all, you're mindful, generally speaking, you're mindful of your imagination about things, that's usually what you're looking at. You're looking at your imagination most of the day. What appears to you, all day long, mostly, is imaginary. That's what you're seeing. But the imaginary is based on something which isn't imaginary. So you start out, actually, in your daily life, you're looking at your mind, but you think it's not your mind, like you're looking at me, but you think it's not your mind, you think it's me. Well, what you're looking at is based on me, but you're not seeing me, you're seeing what you think about me. Now, when you actually train yourself to look at the mind, or to meditate on the mind, if you're looking at the mind, not your imaginations of things, but if you're looking at mind itself, that's more the kind of gesture you do when

[67:59]

you train in tranquility. You look at the mind which knows these objects, rather than, you look at the mind which knows these imaginations. If you look at the mind which knows the imaginations, you tend to calm down. When you can see, when you're in the midst of your experience and you don't see any of the stuff anymore, you are seeing the ultimate meaning of mind. You're looking at mind, but what you're seeing is the ultimate meaning of mind. When you see the ultimate meaning of mind, you're not packaging it in a graspable form so you don't grasp it, you don't grasp the mind. Is the first stage this very mind is Buddha? No, that's actually kind of advanced. But the more advanced is no mind, no Buddha. The early stage is probably this mind is total,

[69:03]

the ordinary thing is this mind, for ordinary people, this mind is delusion. That's the first stage, this mind is delusion. No, mind in the mind, well, mind in the mind in the sense of developing tranquility is not this mind is Buddha. No. It's this way of looking at mind, I've been told, comes to fruit as tranquility. That's what that is. Well, one way it works, let's say you've been practicing it all along, because at those moments, if you haven't been practicing it all along, it might not kick in, but it might

[70:05]

come in. But anyway, one way it might kick in is in a moment of fear, and those are things you said, the way compassion might kick in is a sense of being present with that stuff. Just being there without trying to do anything about it. That would be... And if you were with somebody who was telling you about that, and you somehow just felt that a kind of willingness to be present with their difficulties somehow had arisen in the room, that would be kind of like Buddha's compassion would have come, and you would have received it. The person also might, you know, resonate with that and share that. So that's one way you could talk about compassion, just with all this, as you're doing wisdom work and you run into difficulties and challenges and fears and uneasinesses and shocks and stuff like that, just being

[71:07]

able to be there with it without manipulating is compassion. Now you can break it down into generosity. So like, hey, this is quite challenging, and you let it be that way, that's kind of generous and magnanimous of you. You let yourself have those difficulties. Or in terms of the precepts, you accept what's given, you don't try to get something else. You don't disparage it and say, this is a crappy practice. You don't get angry at it, or you don't say, you know, well, this is pretty bad, but I think I'll hold on to this because it might get worse. You don't try to kill it. You don't try to get intoxicated to protect yourself from it. You don't engage in inappropriate sexual activity in order to, like, deal with it, and so on. In other words, you practice the precepts. That's another way of being compassionate with the challenges of wisdom practice. So if you practice precepts, that gives rise to the ability to practice wisdom, and as you

[72:11]

get deeper into wisdom, you need to continue to practice precepts, number one, just to be able to continue to tolerate the process, and number two, so that you don't actually do inappropriate things. And also, as you go into the wisdom practice, sometimes you think, well, do I still have to practice the precepts? And the answer is, you should stop practicing wisdom now for a while until you realize that you do need to. And then patience is a big one, right? You try to experience the pain or the shock or the difficulty or the awesomeness or the sense of, like, puniness or inability to accept this process, all that difficulty that might arise in the process of wisdom, you try to experience it in very small doses, and then you can stay in your seat. So patience is

[73:13]

important. And then, of course, be diligent. It's difficult, and I'm going to keep practicing this. This is really hard. Well, let's do it. This is, like, impossible. Oh, really? Let's practice it. That sounds like a job for me! That kind of stuff. Diligence, that's compassion, like, we've got a problem here? Yes, what is it? What is your job anyway? What do you need? This kind of thing, you know, you're right there, ready to go and be good. And then, of course, tranquility. So, like, you're relaxing with it. Yep, okay, relax, relax. The slings and arrows, like, just passing through this nice soft body. Tranquility. So all those are dimensions of basically just being able to be there. None of those things messed with what was happening, did you notice? There was nothing in the compassion thing which was trying to adjust the difficulty. You're just with it, like Buddha is with it.

[74:26]

Right? You all know Buddha is with it, right? Buddha is not meddling with things, like, oh, let's have this person be a little bit more like that, and that person be a little bit less like that. No, Buddha is with us, Buddha is not messing with us, Buddha is not meddling with us, Buddha is with us. Want to practice wisdom? Yes, sir. Okay, here's the teaching. Yes, it is dangerous. I think being aware that it's dangerous is good, and also if you're

[75:28]

doing this meditation with people, it's good to, like, you might be relating to them somewhat differently because you're looking at people but you're also noticing, you know, that you think they're being this way or that way, like you might think they're being nice to you or rude to you, and usually when you think they're being nice or rude you have certain ways of relating, which those are dangerous too, right? But you might think, well, since I'm meditating, usually I know if I think people are being rude to me or nice to me, there's danger there. I might start getting attached to them if they're nice to me and I might start getting angry at them or mean to them if they're not being nice to me. That's dangerous, right? But if you're meditating you might think, well, this is not dangerous because now I'm even taking into account that it's really the way I see these people that's what I'm dealing with. So that doesn't seem so dangerous, but it's dangerous too because

[76:31]

there's a kind of, potentially a kind of coolness there, because you're not jumping to the conclusion, like you look at somebody and you think they're being rude and if you say, you know, I think you're being rude, in some sense they like that better because it's kind of engaging, but you might be at a phase where you're thinking, oh, I'm thinking they're rude, I wonder if that's really true that they are, and they might feel a little coolness there, and that's dangerous too because you might hurt their feelings, because you're kind of like somewhat distant, so that's dangerous too. Not to mention, if you tell them about this, you might slip from, you might slip from, I think I have this idea that you're rude or that you're negative, I have this idea, and actually you are, you might just slip right in there and really get into it, and that's the reason for it, but if you hadn't revealed your meditation

[77:32]

you probably would have known, I shouldn't talk to them about this, because they might be insulted, so it is dangerous, it's a dangerous situation, so you've got to be careful, that's why you've got to be really gentle with yourself and other people around all this stuff, because it's dangerous. But again, life is dangerous anyway, so it's good to be gentle, whether you're doing the wisdom work or not, kind and gentle, and patient and generous, and practice the precepts which includes not praising self at the expense of others, like, you know, I'm doing this nice meditation and, well, you aren't, are you? Yes?

[78:33]

I heard you say, there's listening and mentally applying the teaching, and then what did you say? There's mental attention, and then you say, actually bodily? Well, you mentally apply the teaching to your body, so you have, if you say you have body and mind experiences, then you're mindful of them, and you apply the teaching, for example, whatever physical experience you're having, you listen to the teaching, this physical experience is a dependent co-arising, this physical experience does not produce itself, [...] therefore, and the therefore comes, therefore it's not reliable, it's impermanent, and then you start taking better care of your body. If you remember that your body is impermanent, you won't become intoxicated

[79:57]

by your body. If you have a healthy body, and you remember that you're vulnerable to impermanence, you're vulnerable to losing your health, then you don't become intoxicated by your health, so then you take better care of your health. If you're healthy, you take better care of your health, and if you're sick, you take better care of your health, when you listen to this teaching. So apply it to bodily experiences and mental experiences, if you can. Yes? I can see that all day long you realize that you're imagining everything. But again, I recommend you don't start with that. That's the second step. That's more advanced. The first step is you look at what you're imagining and you listen to the teaching. This thing that's appearing here, don't get into the deeper consideration that what you're

[81:02]

looking at is imaginary, because that's pretty dangerous. It's like, oh, you're angry. That's imaginary. No. It's more like, you're angry. You seem to be angry. You're appearing to be angry. You appear to be happy. You appear to be unhappy. And this thing I'm looking at does not produce itself. This thing I'm looking at is a dependent co-arising. Apply that teaching first. And when you're well grounded in applying the teaching of dependent co-arising to who you're looking at or what you're looking at, then you move on to the deeper consideration that what you're looking at is imaginary, is the imputation placed upon the other dependent. So start with the other dependent. Don't start with the imaginary. Don't start trying to be mindful that everything's imaginary first. Start first with everything is a dependent co-arising. Everything is a dependent co-arising. But also, this is a dependent co-arising. This is a dependent co-arising. This is a dependent co-arising.

[82:03]

This is an other dependent phenomena. This experience I'm having of you does not produce itself. That's the first step. When you're grounded in that, you evolve in this positive and virtuous way. And based on that, when you get me to sign a waiver saying you can now go on to start meditating on everything being an illusion or everything imaginary, but first you have to prove that you're well grounded in that one before you go on to the next one, at least with a license administered by your meditation instructor. What could be liberating? Which practice? You can see that it would be liberating. Right, it is. It says so in the sutra. It's liberating. But not completely liberating.

[83:07]

But it is liberating. It says in Chapter 7, it says, if you do this practice, it is liberating, but it's not completely liberating. So therefore we teach the next two types of character, characterlessness. But it is liberating and it's good that you can see it. Yes, it weakens your strong attachments. What it does is it starts to make your attachments more and more appropriate. So the people you have real strong attachments to, they get weaker. And the people you are too attached to, you start to be attached just the right amount. And the people you're not attached to at all, you start to get more attached to. Because there's nobody you should be not too attached to at all. But attached to means when you have over-attached in the sense of you're connected, you're related.

[84:16]

And if you're related to somebody and you don't feel at all concerned about them, that's too little. So generally speaking, when you do this practice, one of the impacts of it is you tend to care the right amount about people. You tend to not care too much or too little about people or about things. You tend to care not too much or too little about your house, not too much or too little about your lawn, and therefore you don't kill the gophers. So, you know, I have a problem because these gophers make holes and mounds in my lawn. People give me these gopher beepers to encourage me. They'd say, we do not want you to kill those gophers. Please, please, teacher, don't kill the gophers. That would be very discouraging. Here is a beeper. Use the beeper. Somebody say, even the beeper is kind of mean. You shouldn't even use the beeper. You should be out there feeding them milk and honey. That's what we want you to do.

[85:17]

But anyway, if I don't remember that these gophers do not produce themselves, I might care too much about them changing their behavior. This thing is not producing itself. I still care a little bit, but, you know, you care the right amount. Daniel? What? What? This isn't going to be as funny. Okay. So I have a question coming up. I've got 20 minutes to go. I'm still having a little trouble with the character of phenomena. It sounds like at one point you were thinking of it as signless phenomena. Yeah, I think one of the translations says signlessness.

[86:23]

I'm wondering. That's kind of a subtle point where there's characterless or signless. But anyway, what's your question? Well, in German, there's a sentence that says, you know, It seems like that sentence is more sensitive to the idea that it's signless phenomena, whereas characterless phenomena maybe still have good dependency. So the establishment has to do with the fact that, say, you don't have an upper dependency phenomenon except for the dependency. Well, this is a really subtle question, and unfortunately Daniel is going to a baseball game tomorrow, so he's going to miss the talk. So I can't just say, well, let's talk about this tomorrow,

[87:26]

because he's going to be at the baseball game. So I have to handle it now? Anyway, this is a really subtle point, but let me just say a little bit and see if this helps at all. Once, you know, when we're experiencing something, which means we're experiencing other dependent character, for sure, the other dependent offers us a sign. And when we're offered a sign, it's difficult for us to resist making the sign meaningful. Although the sign has no meaning by itself, like blue not in relationship to the main event of this clear crystal, it doesn't have much meaning. But if we say, oh, interpret blue as, well, really that means sapphire. So, but if you study the invitational character,

[88:28]

I think what it means is that you're able to not slip so quickly from the sign to the interpretation. The more you study the way you do, grab the way, I should say, the more the way you are aware of how independent on signs and names you create this imputation, the more you study that, the more you're willing to leave things, leave the signs alone, and in a sense, not relate to the signs, but without, in other words, not trying to make meaning out of them. Just meet them, but sort of realize that they don't have to be used as a basis for creating meaning through imputation. Now, that's what I would say kind of at this point in time, without getting into a really big discussion, but does that help at all? Yeah, yeah. I don't want to sound like a phenomenalist character.

[89:33]

A phenomenalist character? Well, he said a phenomenalist character, which is kind of interesting. Is that what you mean, a phenomenalist character? No phenomena character? Yeah, actually, you know, I think you're right, Daniel. You sort of would have a sign without a phenomena, because you wouldn't be able to see the phenomena. Which, you know, in other words, a sign without a meaning is like a sign without a... There's this phrase my mother taught me, it's called, a kiss without a squeeze is like apple pie without cheese. In Minnesota, which is kind of called a dairy country, Minnesota and Wisconsin, where we grow really good gymnasts and cheese,

[90:38]

and gophers, yeah, golden gophers, as a matter of fact, when you have apple pie, you have like dairy with it, like ice cream. Pie a la mode is like discovered in Paris, Minnesota. But anyway, apple pie with cheese is really good. My mom loves it, and she had that phrase. So this is like a phenomena without a character is like a character without a phenomena. So you've got the phenomena, but you really don't have the phenomena, because the way you're relating to the character, as characterless, you lose the phenomena too. It is kind of like that, and it's not funny. Right? It's not funny. And you're hiding behind a protective bodhisattva there. Well,

[91:44]

the wonderful thing that I was going to tell you about, I'm going to still tell you about, and I'll tell you again tomorrow morning. Maybe I'll tell you about it tonight too, but anyway, yeah, Dogen Zenji says, the mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas. Abiding together in their normative state, they culminate the qualities of thorough exhaustiveness. Because they are events prior to the aeon of emptiness, they are the livelihood of the immediate present. Because they are the self before the emergence of subtle signs,

[92:53]

they are the penetrating liberation of immediate actuality. This is the same teaching as the sutra. The mountains and rivers of the immediate present are the other dependent character, as it immediately impacts us. Before we interpret the signs, this is mind itself as Buddha. When something immediately touches you, before you interpret it, before you make meaning out of it, the mountains and rivers of the immediate present, before you interpret them with any signs, before you make them into anything meaningful, that way of being with the mountains is the path, is the manifestation, that way of being with the mountains and the rivers

[93:56]

is the manifestation of the path of the ancient Buddhas. That's the way the ancient Buddhas are in the mountains and the rivers. They meet the mountains and rivers before the arising of the subtlest sign.

[94:12]

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