Last week, at this time, the bombing of Baghdad had just started. So we didn't have a talk last week. We just sat. All we did is service. And then rang the bell and we sat for a while. And so this violence has continued. as I guess you all know, and I think last night at dinner somebody said to me something like, do you ever get tired of teaching dharma? And I don't know what I said, but I'm not really tired tonight, but Part of me feels like I should, you know, in some sense go on with regular studies, in one sense seems like overlooking something.

[01:15]

It's kind of like I feel I should, you know, on your behalf I should like just fall on the floor and roll around and cry for a while. Part of me just wants to give up this terrible situation. So I just want to say that, that I kind of feel like something like that. But then another part of me feels like, well we got to do the dishes and brush our teeth if we can. And for me, teaching and studying Dharma is like brushing my teeth, so I'm just sort of going on with the regular thing that I do with my life, which I hope is some benefit to my teeth and your teeth. I kind of think that developing wisdom would be helpful, even though we might think, well, geez, are we going to get wise enough to stop this war in the next few days?

[02:25]

Are we going to be wise enough to protect all these teenage boys who came from America and now are in a dust storm surrounded by, I don't know, other teenage boys are shooting at them, but is it going to protect the civilians that are getting killed by who knows what kind of bombs from who knows where? Anyway, I can't see any possible medicine in this world other than wisdom and compassion together. So I'm just continuing to bring up our tradition of teaching wisdom and compassion, even though in a sense I just feel like, you know, falling in the mud. Which wouldn't be that bad actually, but I just get up again. and come back almighty and be interested in these teachings again.

[03:32]

So please excuse me for going on as usual, in a sense. OK? Unless you want me to do something different. Anything you want me to do other than sort of like bring up this usual stuff? No? Any suggestions? I did go to the Peace Rally, and it was really a great event.

[04:48]

And thousands and thousands of people peacefully getting along. It was really a great, great event. And there was one area where they had music, and it said, Tango for Peace. And so I did tango out there in the street for peace. I hesitated to do it, even though my attendants were encouraging me to. Then this woman came up to me and said, shall we dance? So I did. I danced there, in my clogs. Not that bad, actually, for clogs. I also thought, you know, these talks have been going on kind of long and I had the idea that mostly it would just be a discussion tonight, but I was going to introduce a little bit of context for you which I think might be helpful.

[05:58]

Here at Green Gulch we're on a regular basis now chanting one of the chapters from the Mahayana scripture called the sort of unraveling the thought, the scripture unraveling the thought, in other words unraveling Buddha's thought, sort of disclosing his thinking when he's teaching, that's part of what's going on in the sutra and we're chanting I think chapter 7 and this chapter starts with a Bodhisattva asking the Buddha sort of what he's thinking about when he's teaching certain things. the Buddha taught in different ways at different points supposedly, but actually the Buddha taught different ways every time he met a different person, but sort of looking back on Buddha's teachings some people now see that there was this kind of an evolution of the Buddha Dharma.

[07:04]

So I thought I might mention that with the aid of my Immanuensis. So sometimes in this scripture we're studying In the chapter we're studying, we're reciting now, maybe you could put on one, maybe like evenly spaced, like first, write the word first, the first turning of the wheel of Dharma, and then there's a second turning of the wheel of the Dharma, and then there's a third turning of the wheel of the Dharma, It's okay with me. Sure. That's fine. It's not what I get, not what I imagined, but it's fine. Anyway, there's these three turnings of the wheel and in the first turning of the wheel the Buddha taught He taught in such a way as to help people understand that persons, people like us, don't have an inherent existence.

[08:41]

He taught so that people would understand the selflessness of the person. But he also taught that what we really have usually when we see a self is we actually have a combination of various psychophysical events or psychophysical phenomena which we which we experience moment by moment, like we experience body, feelings, ideas, emotions, consciousness. We have these things that are happening for us every moment. And he was saying that actually these things you can actually find and experience. But if you look at these, if you look at everything that you can experience,

[09:48]

you won't find a self in any of them. So all the things that a person can be or experience, he said, these things you can find, these have sort of like their own characteristics, these like feelings have their own characteristics, emotions have their own characteristics. For example, anger has its own characteristic, faith has its own characteristic, concentration mindfulness, faith, concentration, attention, nervousness, calm, all these psychophysical things, colors, all these things have their own characteristics and taught. So then people could find these things and then look at these things and any other kind of experience they would come up with in that, and also see if he can find a self that's outside of these things.

[10:58]

And he got people to look at this and they couldn't find a self inside or outside of these phenomena. So in this way they realized the selflessness of the person. Then he taught the second wheel he taught all those things which I told you you could find all the elements of your experience actually all of them they actually don't have an inherent existence they lack own being so even your feelings and your thoughts your concepts, your perceptions, your emotions, and your concentration and your agitation and your flexibility, your tightness, your pain and your pleasure, all these things, anything you experience, these things lack their own being, they lack inherent existence too.

[12:13]

Now he teaches So in chapter 7, the Bodhisattva starts off by saying, you taught that all these elements, all these aggregates of experience have own characteristics. And I'm telling you the reason why he taught that, that they have own characteristics, I'm telling you now, the reason why he taught that was he wanted people to become free of the suffering which arises when you believe that your personality, that your personhood has a self. if we believe that, if we think that, we suffer. He wanted us to be free of that suffering, so he taught us to look at these elements, and by seeing these elements, he could help us see that there was no self, really, other than these, and there wasn't no self that was the same as these, so we become free of it, free of that suffering, that's why he taught it. But he also told us that these things that we could experience could be found, that they did exist,

[13:23]

because he felt that at that point in the teaching, if he would tell people that even these elements of existence lacked own being, that almost everyone would slip into nihilism and would say, there's no self of me and there's no self to anything, so who cares? He didn't want the practitioners to give up practicing ethics and give up caring about the phenomena of the world. He was okay with them if people stopped caring about the selves of people, but not to stop caring about the people, who are combinations of these elements. So the second turning of the wheel told the whole story, not the whole story, but told the ultimate story, namely everything, not just people, but all phenomena lack own being. However, this teaching although it came later when people were more sophisticated, it still had the possibility of being interpreted nihilistically.

[14:29]

So then, in this teaching, the Bodhisattva asked Buddha, what did you have in mind when you taught all Dharma's lack of own being? And he said, well I had in mind three kinds of lack of own being. So in the first teaching, he taught that persons lack own being. In the second teaching, he taught that everything lacks own being. And in the third teaching, he taught three types of lack of own being. And this teaching protects the second teaching, which is the ultimate teaching. The ultimate teaching is everything lacks own being. Everything is empty of inherent existence. And the third teaching now is more sophisticated in a way and protects us from taking the second teaching, the second wheel, turning in a nihilistic way. And the main thing that, well, the key thing that protects us from nihilism is the teaching of the three characters.

[15:38]

And the character, the other dependent character, which is dependent co-arising, That actually says, something does exist. Things do exist. And they exist in other dependent way. They lack on being, but they do exist in a dependent way. Things do exist in a dependent way. So it's not like there's nothing. And it's not like there's something exactly because every something depends on things other than itself and it's nothing in addition to all the things it depends on. So there isn't really something and there isn't really not something. And these three characters which we're studying now are ways for us to understand the first two types of lack of own being. I just wanted to give you that perspective.

[16:47]

Now, in the sutra, the Bodhisattva asked the Buddha what the Buddha had in mind when the Buddha did the second wheel-turning. And when the Buddha is asked that question, the Buddha said, what the Buddha had in mind when teaching the second wheel-turning was the third wheel-turning. But actually, the Buddha also had the third wheel-turning in his mind when he taught the first wheel-turning. So when he first taught that things exist, like feelings exist and colors exist but selves of people don't. He had those three in mind then too. And when he taught the second wheel he had the three in mind too. And when he taught the third wheel he had the three in mind and he explicitly disclosed them, he revealed them. That's to give you background. Now what I wanted to do tonight was actually tell you that in the early teachings of the Buddha he taught the middle way in the early teachings he taught the middle way which was and the way he taught it originally was by teaching dependent co-arising or the other dependent character a phenomena that's how he got people to start looking and understanding the middle way he discovered in the second wheel

[18:13]

he also started by teaching dependent co-arising. And in the third teaching, he also starts by teaching dependent co-arising. In the first teaching, he teaches dependent co-arising or the other dependent character phenomena. He teaches it by telling people that depending on, for example, ignorance, there's clinging. And depending on clinging, there's suffering. This is the first and second noble truth. That suffering, there's a truth of suffering, and there's a truth that suffering has an origin, and the origin of suffering is attachment and attachment. In other words, suffering depends on something. For example, it depends on attachment. It depends on ignorance. Suffering depends on something. He's teaching dependent co-arising. And he also taught how things happen.

[19:14]

How do they happen? How does suffering happen? How does life happen? It happens by dependent co-arising. He taught that. But he didn't tell people that the elements of the dependent co-arising, the things that we depend on, that they're all empty. He didn't say that because I think he rightfully thought that people would say, well, you're telling us that empty things are the things that everything depends on? He didn't tell them that. In the second teaching, he did tell them, still the dependent co-arising was the way he introduced it, but then he told them that the elements of dependent co-arising are all empty. And that's the middle way in the second turning. The third turning, he also starts with the other dependent as a way to start the meditation. And then he tells us that our suffering arises from misunderstanding the other dependent, from overlaying our fantasies upon dependent co-arising.

[20:22]

In the first teaching, he didn't teach them that they're overlaying their fantasies on the dependent co-arising, he let them go ahead and do that. Even while overlaying their fantasies on dependent co-arising, they could still become free of belief in the self of the person. trying to become free of the self of things without becoming nihilistic, but still we start by meditating on dependent co-arising. So that's basically what I want to talk about tonight with you is how to meditate on dependent co-arising. I just want to say a little bit about it. We had this ceremony the other morning. for planted seeds as a way of initiating the growing season here at Green Gulch. And there was at the end of the ceremony, we dedicated the merit of the ceremony.

[21:26]

But I thought that the echo was a good meditation or an encouragement to meditate on dependent co-arising. I made a statement too, but my statement was more about actually the relationship between the fantasies and the dependent co-arising. The echo was a good initiation into dependent co-arising. I'm not going to read it quite the way it was said, but it says, the power of these living seeds whose real nature, like our own and like these seeds, the power of these seeds, whose real nature, like our own nature and like the nature of the seeds, is in harmony with the mysterious process of living and dying. Remember that we do not understand how seeds grow,

[22:35]

that the intelligence within these seeds, soil, water, and sun, far surpasses our ability to explain and know. It is a mystery that we share with all life. May we labor in love with awareness and deep humility opening to all beings. So it says here, whose real nature, and that part of it I would disagree with, it's not exactly that the real nature of the seeds is their mysterious nature. It's one of the natures of the seeds is their mysterious nature. One of the natures of seeds is their other dependent nature. One of the natures of the seeds is that they are dependent co-arisings, that they are other dependent phenomena. That's one of their natures. They have other natures though. They have a fantasy nature, a dream nature, and they have an ultimately true nature.

[23:45]

An ultimately true nature, their emptiness, is that our dreams are really not in the other dependent nature of the seeds. but we start by meditating on the mysterious nature of the seeds we start meditating on the mysterious nature means we start meditating by remembering that we do not know what the seeds are or how they grow however we do have fantasies about how they grow and what they are but those fantasies are not actually applicable to the seeds except in the sense of being able to find them down in the fields so that people can say the seeds are over there and then you can go over and grab the seeds and put them in the ground and they can tell you which seeds are which and where to put them because of our fantasy.

[24:51]

Without fantasy we wouldn't be able to grow vegetables. But no problem, we have plenty of fantasy. The initiatory meditation in coming to understand what a seed is, what a plant is, what a flower is, what a person is, the initiatory meditation includes being aware that whatever you're looking at, whatever you're experiencing, whoever you're meeting, start by meditating on the mysterious nature of this thing you're looking at. or this thing you're touching. Start with that. Start by saying, whatever this is, is beyond my fantasies about it. Whatever it is, is beyond my dream of it. And my dreams are what I think is happening. My dreams are what I think are happening. What I think is happening is a dream. My thinking is a dreaming process. I remember that as I begin to meditate on the Middle Way.

[25:53]

And I looked up the word mystery. Etymologically, mystery came, you know, its later etymology was a secret rite. But its early Greek meaning was initiation. And it meant initiation, but actually the deeper root is to close the eyes. So you begin meditating on the other dependent character by closing your eyes to what you're looking at. Closing your eyes to the way it appears because the way it appears is your dream of it. Your dream of it covers it. So you have to close your eyes to the dream. Look beyond the dream. And that is to honor this event, honor its mysterious other dependent character which is beyond your dream.

[27:03]

And this is kind of a... If I try to meditate this way, I think I get a taste of humility. I don't know who you are. I don't know what you are. However, I actually do know who you are, and I do know what you are however I cover up what I know you are with my dreams of you and I prefer my dreams of you over what I know you are because what I know you are I can't talk about I can't grab a hold of you and plant you in order to get a hold of you and plant you or eat you or buy you or sell you or make friends with you I've got to have dream about you and so I'm into that but I'm talking about initiating myself into the meditation on reality by remembering that I'm obscuring that the way you appear to me and what I'm thinking about you

[28:45]

As we learn how to do it, our behavior in response to things turns from wrongdoing to virtuous conduct. Because when we relate to things in terms of our dreams of them, our behavior is non-virtuous. We're turning away from the way things... Actually, we're turning away from the way we really do know things, and we're agreeing to the way they appear. We're agreeing to a false way they appear. So, maybe that's enough, because I said I wasn't going to say much. Yes? Whoever you are? It's a mystery to me too. about the first turning of the wheel, because if it's true that we relate to things as a dream, and that has something to do with non-virtuous behavior, then that made me wonder about the Buddha's teaching of the selflessness of people, but not necessarily the selflessness of phenomena, which is dreamlike.

[30:18]

But apparently he did that in order not to compromise their ability to practice the precepts, to practice, you know, in order to avoid nihilistic, non-virtuous So is it possible to practice virtuously with dream-like consciousness? It is possible to practice virtuously with dream-like consciousness because we do have green dream-like consciousness. I mean, we keep dreaming. However, if you understand that things aren't what you're dreaming, that doesn't mean you're not still dreaming. So they were still dreaming, and they dreamed that there was a self to a person, just like most people dream that there's a self of a person.

[31:23]

The early Buddhists did too, but through this education, through this training process, they looked to see if they could find the self which they dreamed of and they couldn't find it when they looked carefully. In the meantime while they were looking for this self their behavior was changing and becoming more virtuous but their virtue was to some extent undermined by their ignorance of the nature of reality. But they were trying to practice virtue, which is somewhat virtuous, even though, until you understand, you don't actually fully realize your virtue. And even understanding dependent co-arising, your virtue is not completely realized until you understand emptiness.

[32:30]

But if you don't even try to practice virtue, or you don't even want to practice virtue, because you don't think it's important because everything's empty, that would be another dream. That would be a dreaming of a misconception of selflessness. So dreaming of a misconception of selflessness is worse than dreaming of a misconception of self. You don't care, nothing matters. Whereas in the beginning people believed in selves of persons and people believed in selves of precepts and people believed in selves of elements of experience and so they suffered. And because they believed in the self of these things and because somehow the Buddha was able to talk to them in certain ways that they could listen to they started to listen to the teaching and look for the selves that they were believing in in the person but he didn't get him to look at the self of the precepts they weren't ready to look at the self of the precepts and also continue to try to practice the precepts care about the precepts care about not killing for example he didn't get them to look at

[33:54]

you know, beyond our dreams of what not-killing is. So if people are trying to practice not-killing, and you tell them that really they're dealing with a dream of not-killing, and there really is no... their idea of not-killing really isn't in the actual activity of not-killing, they might say, well, I don't care about not-killing then. Then I guess whatever I do could be not-killing, since not-killing doesn't have an inherent nature. People weren't ready for that. so he didn't tell him. Later he said that he knew that all along but it wasn't time to tell people. But they could practice, they could try to practice the precepts because even at the ultimate level where the precepts are empty the Buddha still comes and practices precepts in the world where precepts appear. where precepts exist and don't exist. He comes into the world where precepts exist and don't exist, where precepts are realized and not realized.

[35:01]

He comes into that world and practices the precepts with people, even though the people don't understand yet the precepts. But they think the precepts exist so they want to practice them, or They don't want to practice them, and if they don't want to practice them, then they think, I didn't practice them, and then they see what happens when you don't practice them according to your dream. So it goes one way when you dream of practicing the precepts, and it goes another way when you dream of not practicing the precepts. And he taught that, and people could see it. But he didn't pull the rug out from that whole thing at the beginning. Once they could understand the selflessness of the person, he thought they'd be ready for the next thing. Plus lots of other preparations occurred. I'm not trying to control how things are going here because I don't think I can, but I particularly want to recommend questions about how to meditate on the other dependent character.

[36:14]

Yes? Phenomena, by virtue of their other dependence, are constituted by everything but themselves, and our fantasy of that doesn't reach it. Yes, even what you just said doesn't reach it, even though it does accurately correspond to it. But if my fantasy of it is a condition for its existence, then isn't my fantasy of it a constituent of it? The things that something depends on, are they constituents of it? I think constituents of it starts to again make it like a substantial thing.

[37:19]

They're not as constituents. They're not really constituents, they're dependencies. It's a little bit different to depend on something than to say it's part of you. Because then there's like a you there that's got these little things sticking to it. So constituent is a little different than depending on. So it's more a condition for its existence but not a... It's a character of its existence and a condition but it's not it. Is it not part of it? If you say it's part of it, then you think there's a it. You know, that's something other than the things it depends on. You've got the it and then it's got these parts, rather than there's just the parts. But they're not really parts, they're dependencies, they're conditions.

[38:24]

The conditions aren't really parts of it. The whole is less than the sum of its parts. The whole is less than the sum of its parts? No, the whole is equivalent to the sum of its parts. And all their relationships. But it's nothing in addition to that. I thought you said that from the beginning wasn't that the original question? Let's say he did and then what would you say from that? Well I just wanted to hear your response to that, the fantasy being no more or less than one of its parts, whatever it is. That's a good question because the fantasy of something is one of its characteristics, okay?

[39:29]

However, the fantasy of the thing cannot be found in the thing. So we can do that with some other things, but this is really the big one. Of all the things that a thing depends on, the most important one to realize is not part of it, is the fantasy. The fantasy is not part of the thing, even though the fantasy helps us relate to the thing and talk about Well, the fantasy is, first of all, it's dealing with what's happening in terms of words and conceptual consciousness, it's dealing with things that way, and in terms of essences and attributes.

[40:34]

so that we can talk about something. So that's the component of a fantasy? That's the way, that's the fantasy here that comes with everything that happens. There's other kinds of fantasies, but this is the fantasy that comes with each thing. Can you repeat that please? Yeah, the imaginary nature of things is that which establishes things by names and symbols or names and conceptual consciousness in terms of essences and attributes, whereby we can make conventional designations about the thing. That's the fantasy quality of each phenomena. But now we're talking about the imputational. We're getting off into that, which is omnipresent But I just want to remind you I'd like you to learn how to meditate on the other dependent before you try to tackle this imputational because the imputational is based on the other dependent and in order to really successfully study the other dependent process it's good to be based in the mystery.

[41:50]

If you try to go off and study the mystery, the imputational or the fantasy aspect of experience before you're grounded in dependent co-arising, you will not be successful. So you can ask these questions, but I'm still trying to get people on board of how to meditate on the other dependent. But Rin's question was good because he pointed out sort of the reason for why these things aren't part of it. You do not find the imputation in the other dependent, and that's the ultimate nature of phenomena, is that our fantasies about them, by which we're able to talk about are not actually in the thing, they're not a part of it. They're actually, when you look at things, you cannot find that in there, they're not there. However, even though these fantasies we have about phenomena are not in them, they're not part of them, they're not part of the other dependent core arising aspect.

[42:51]

They are, however, part of the way we relate to things. And actually, when we overlay things with this imputational, we lose sight of the mystery. We obscure the mystery and get something that we can get a hold of, because you can get a hold of fantasies. Fantasies are easy to get a hold of. They're very vivid. But they're not part of what you're attributing them to. They're not part of it, even though they're a characteristic of them. Easy, huh? Yes. Could you talk about how one meditates on the other dependent in terms of discursively and or non-discursively? Is it possible to approach the other dependent in more of a shamatha way, or how is that different? Could you talk about the difference between the two? So she asked, of approaching meditation on the other dependent, is it discursive or is it possible to arrive at a non-discursive?

[43:57]

And she's referring to what I said over and over is that training in tranquility is training in dispensing with discursive thought, okay? If you give up discursive thought, the mind calms, okay? So then she said, can you approach meditation on the other dependent in a Samatha way? Once you've realized Samatha, once you've given up discursive thought sufficiently The fruit of that is that you're actually in a state of calm. The state of calm, however, is not itself giving up discursive thought. It's like, you know, by giving up discursive thought you sort of melt the butter, but the melted butter is not giving up discursive thought. So if you actually melted the butter, you're all kind of soft and warm and who isn't all over the place and yet ready to any moment to put in the refrigerator and turn into a nice cube or whatever shape, you know, you can be molded into, you know, a fish, a cube, a person, a man, a woman, a Zen student, whatever, you know, you're flexible and you're like buoyant and, you know, you're ready for whatever.

[45:17]

And you can use discursive thought and be a little bit calm, or you can be really quite calm and still use discursive thought. If you get too calm, you can't use discursive thought. But you can get pretty darn calm and still use it. Could you give an example of the discursive content? Discursive content would be like, this is a mystery. That's a discursive little thing you might say to yourself. dependent character of this person is a mystery. Or this is impermanent? You can say this is impermanent, that's fine too. But this teaching is not so much emphasizing other dependent phenomena, the other dependent character is also the impermanence of this thing. But you're not so much meditating on the impermanence, you're more meditating on that the thing depends on things other than itself. Now when you meditate on how things that will lead you to understand that of course they're impermanent.

[46:29]

When you learn, hear the teaching and think about the teaching, whatever you're looking at is something, it's a phenomena that lacks self-production. It lacks the nature, it doesn't have its own nature of producing itself. It doesn't produce its own nature and it doesn't have the nature of producing itself. It lacks that. You meditate on that that will lead you to understand impermanence from the inside out. Rather than impermanence just by being told it's impermanence, you would see the impermanence coming from the way things happen is why they're impermanent. So usually, you could say impermanence, but meditating both on its other dependence and its lack of self-production, these two dimensions of meditating on dependent co-arising of phenomena, will lead you to understand instability, fragility, impermanence of the phenomena too. It seems to me it's really easy to get stuck in, if you're looking at a phenomena and you're considering its mystery and its other production, to get stuck in the idea of what

[47:50]

being produced by others is. So there's like almost immediately a concept of what that would be. Right. And so that just... so it's really... you sort of get... you kick-start by saying this is a mystery, but the minute that... or the moment that that becomes a concept of mystery or not knowing or... It's not so much the moment, it all starts that way. It starts... the concept comes right along with it from the beginning. But that has to get... you can't get engaged in that because that's... Yes, you can get engaged in it because you are engaged in it. But then it gets dropped somehow? It drops away? It drops away, not by you dropping it, but by you studying it. So you're using your conceptual activity to apply the teaching about the other dependent. You're using your conceptual activity to study the other dependent.

[48:51]

Your conceptual activity is going on still. It hasn't stopped. It's still going on. However, we're not talking about turning around and looking at the conceptual activity at this time. You're just letting your conceptual activity guide you into meditating on the other dependent character. It's going on. Conceptual activity goes along with the discursive thinking. You can also have conceptual activity and you can use it in conjunction with the discursive instruction of giving up discursive thought. So if I say to you, if you give up discursive thought, the fruit of that would be tranquility. You can use that discursive thought and also the conceptual activity which makes it possible to understand that and apply it. You're using that, but actually that teaching even though it's discursive can guide you to give up discursive thought. Now here we have another teaching which is also given to you discursively and you're hearing discursively and you're using the imputational, you're using the fantasy, you're using the dream, you're using the dream to apply yourself to look at the mystery.

[50:02]

You're using the dream to apply yourself to meditate on the other dependent character. And you don't try to stop yourself from doing that because that would be a dream of not dreaming. You just say, just start, just admit it from the start, I'm dreaming. But don't emphasize that so much. Emphasize what you're dreaming of. Now you're dreaming of the other dependent character. If you dream about this, if you have this dream, you start, your behavior starts to change, and as your behavior starts to change, then you're getting ready to be able to look at the dream, not stop the dream, But look at the dream. And will there be dreaming about the dream? Yes. But you can use dreaming about the dream, you can dream about the teaching about how to study the dream. Because there's teaching coming to you discursively which you're going to dream about. And your dream about those dreams can be checked and see if you're dreaming correctly about these instructions about how to study the dreaming process. And by studying the dreaming process you can understand the dreaming process.

[51:04]

And when you understand the dreaming process, you're understanding the process of dreaming a self and then you can see what it is you're dreaming of and then you can look to see if you can find what you're dreaming of in what's happening but you're not ready for that really even though we're talking about it and you're talking about it as part of the way you get ready for it I wouldn't recommend anybody do that much right now nor try to like use your dreaming process to understand what I'm saying and understand what you're saying and try to direct yourself to meditate on dependent co-arising. There's a little bit of interest here. I don't know who's next, maybe. I think you might have been next. I don't know if I am. You don't know who's behind you. I think you said something that arises depends upon things other than itself and is nothing in addition

[52:06]

I may have said that, or I may not have, but it sounds true. Okay, so I was trying to understand that in terms of cause and effect, because it sounds like I could then say, an effect is nothing other than the causes and conditions on which it depends. Well, I'm pretty careful of the word cause, because cause has the idea that it has within it the power to make the effect. But dependency is a little bit different than cause. So, if you just take away the word cause, I think, then I can go along with this, that something depends on conditions, and then what would you say? Well, I'm thinking particularly in terms of cause and effect. That an effect arises depending upon causes. Causes and conditions. I mean, I think it's usually phrased that way, that an effect arises depending upon independence upon causes and conditions. So then it seems, if we say that something arises in dependence upon things other than itself, then a cause meets that criteria, nothing is dependence upon.

[53:25]

But then if nothing in addition to its to those things on which it arises, which is the causes and conditions, then it sounds like the effect and the causes and conditions are not different. Yes, so I'm actually not able to talk to you about cause and effect. I'm more talking to you about that things are dependent on things other than themselves. I'm not saying that any one of those things is the cause. If something is a cause of something, you can make it happen. If it's a condition, it doesn't necessarily make it happen, it's just something that's required. So I'm not ready for cause and effect myself. I can't talk about that, I don't understand that way. Conditions though, depending on other conditions, I can talk that way.

[54:30]

But then the thing isn't exactly an effect. it's a dependency, it's a relationship. Because the way you're talking it seems like I would get backed into the corner of having an effect separate from the cause. And then there would be this thing here that would stand by itself separate from the cause. I don't want to go and get backed into that corner. But if it's a condition then I don't have the problem. But there is an effect. There is an effect. Well, I'm talking about the other dependent character and I don't see the other dependent character as an effect. I don't see it that way. Could phenomena be an other dependent factor? Could phenomena be what? Could phenomena have a characteristic of other dependent nature?

[55:32]

It does, that's what I'm saying. But the way I'm thinking of it is that the other dependent nature is a thing that depends on things other than themselves, but I don't see that those things are causes. To call something a cause that can't make the thing happen by itself, I don't think is a cause. And if one thing can make something else happen, then that thing must have that thing in it. So, I think the first Karka in the Moola Madhyamaka Karkas, the first verse, doesn't allow that there would be a cause of, you know, things. But conditions, I can see conditions. Yes, Grace? Okay, to get really, so I'm trying to imagine, I walk into the Zen Dojo, I bow to my cushion, I sit down, and I start to meditate. And I'm trying to figure out... Excuse me, before I go on, I just want to say that your question, I feel, was, you know, not exactly meditating on the other dependent.

[56:38]

Kathy? I was meditating on karma. I did feel like you were really looking at the mysterious side of the thing. I felt that your question was thinking about this process rather than emphasizing that the other dependent character is beyond your thinking about it. That's what I felt. Yeah, I thought you said a minute ago that I didn't that we should try to understand what you were saying. What I'm saying is that if you are studying the other dependent character, okay, I'm trying to get you to remember that you're meditating on something that's beyond your thinking. So, use your thinking not in a way to figure out what it is, but in a way to try to tune into that it's beyond your thinking. So you're saying drop trying to see whether or not it agrees with other teachings? I'm saying that the thing you're doing is more applicable to the dreaming process. Your conversation is more for like getting over into discussing the dream.

[57:42]

It's more studying the imputation, the fantasy level. You're sort of ahead of schedule there. There will come a time to do this analysis. Right now, I think we're looking, I'm proposing that we're looking at trying to be mindful that the other dependent character is beyond our thinking, to get used to a more humble approach to phenomena. Then later we can like be a little bit more, I don't know what, scientific in a way and analytic and in some ways less humble and more like, let's try to find something here. But now we're not trying to find anything because we know from the beginning we're just going to be finding our dreams. You see what I'm saying? Grace? Okay, so I'm trying to figure out when I'm sitting on my cushion how I would actually meditate on the active dependence. So, two things that come to mind that I could start to look at, one would be my breath, the other might be my posture.

[58:50]

Okay. Okay? Yeah. So let's do posture. Okay. Because I think you talked a little bit about breath. So I'm sitting And I'm trying to make it, you know, be what I do when I'm meditating sometimes. So part of what I often do is to just notice. Let's say, okay, so I'm noticing my spine. And I'm noticing I'm actually moving it. I mean, I'm still creating my position in some way. So how can I use that? Let's say I'm noticing the space between my 6th and 7th cervical vertebrae. How can I use that noticing? What would I then do to be meditating on the other dependent character of that phenomenon? Well, one thing you might do is to realize that what you're doing is dreaming about your body.

[59:55]

this spine and cervical and all that stuff. These are dreams that you have about your body. That's the first step. Second step is, now, what is beyond these ideas, these fantasies, these concepts I have about my body? What's beyond that? What is the body that's beyond that? Or can I just keep looking at that space and saying, you know, I'm not seeing anything there, there really isn't anything there. I mean, there may be cells, there may be, you know, there are ligaments, there's blood... It's not that there's nothing there. There is something there. Your dreams are based on your body. The other dependent body is the basis for your dreams about it. It's not that there's nothing there, and actually you do know it. However, you don't know it in terms of vertebras and spines.

[61:02]

You know it in another way, which you can't see because you've got this more interesting way of thinking about it. So I would accept that I have this dream of my body as having spines and arms and legs and stuff like that. So that's mindfulness of the body. Okay? Now, that's the first foundation of mindfulness, mindfulness of the body, like a body that's five foot something and has a certain number of vertebrae and is sitting on an insafu, I'm mindful of that. There's another body, however, which can also be meditated upon, which is closer to the actual physical body, which is the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body and the skin. the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue and the skin. That's the body which is the organ which can be touched by things. That's another body which you can also be meditating on while you're sitting. Instead of your posture, you could be meditating on pressure, temperature.

[62:08]

kinesthetic things, sounds, tastes, colors, this is also your body, this is actually the more meditative body. However, we're still dreaming of that one too. The other dependent character of either this fantasy body or this more directly experienced body, both of them we're dreaming about. Meditating on the other dependent is to be aware that what's actually there is beyond these concepts. However, we do still do have these concepts. They're still bearing down, we're still laying them over what they don't, what is actually beyond them. It's really hard, I mean, I guess, in some ways it's much easier to then fall into meditating on the imputation, almost, than the other dependence. Well, excuse me, you just said in some ways it's easier to fall into meditating on the imputational than the other dependent.

[63:12]

Yeah, on the stories. In a sense, that's like a huge understatement. Because what we're usually meditating on is the imputational. Basically, what we think is happening, we're actually ... it's not exactly a meditation, it is our habit. What we're paying attention to almost all the time, what our life is, is basically our fantasies about our life. Our fantasies are about our body. Our fantasies are about other people. Our dreams is basically what we're looking at. But it's not exactly meditation unless we say, this is a dream. Then it starts to be meditation. And sometimes it is easier to do that, to just keep saying, this is a dream. This is a dream. But actually what I'm recommending is instead of saying this is a dream, actually start to allude to what is beyond the dream, because this dream is based on that. Like I dream that I'm permanent and I dream that you're permanent.

[64:20]

That's my easy habit. But for me to actually dream about now, what's beyond my dreams. This is a new thing. This is an initiation. I'm closing my eyes to what I'm familiar with and dreaming of what's beyond my ideas. And check it out. Doesn't something change then? I think so. John? Kind of just so it's more familiar. Gautama Grace says you're sitting on your cushion and say you notice your posture. And you notice any specific, like, sensation in the body. Would an example of meditating with other dependent be to look at that phenomenon and notice that you're using the imputational, like, you know, you've named it and you're thinking about it. And then also to think that it's, you know, I don't usually think of it's a mystery.

[65:24]

I think more like, there in the sense that it's other-powered and it's not actually ... it's kind of like transparent? It's kind of like there's these vertebrae but ... I'm dreaming that there's vertebrae. Yeah, okay, so I'm dreaming that there's vertebrae in ... But there's something there that's the basis of my dream about vertebrae. Which is? Which is the vertebrae. Exactly. But there's nothing about my dream of the vertebrae in the vertebrae. Okay, but the vertebrae are kind of like, you know, what are our dream of the vertebrae? Yeah, I think maybe we're saying the same thing. My dream of the vertebrae is like the way that my mind recognizes the conditions that make that vertebrae.

[66:27]

Yeah, maybe so. But that way of recognizing the conditions that make the vertebra is not the conditions that make the vertebra, that's your dream about them, but that's the way you do think that what you think about the way they happen is the way they happen. And that's wrong, that's incorrect, but that's what we think. In other words, we think a dream is true and it is easy to meditate on that dream and it is easy to take it as true. And so what I'm saying again and again, which is hard to get, because it is easy to think about the imputational, is to give that up just for a little while and just say, do what we call non-thinking, which is not to disagree with the dream, but just say, what's actually happening, which is the basis of this dream, is beyond this dream. So, one other example of something else I do is maybe like with this author,

[67:29]

thinking about that, there's actually not an essence of a Zafu there, that there is, you know, these other things, and then also these other things, there's not an essence of, you know, of cloth, you know, and that's also made up of ... You can say that, and again, that's ... at a certain time, it is not so much that you go around saying there isn't essences of Zafus and Zafus. What you do is you try to find out how you're ... try to catch yourself at projecting an essence in there, and then see if you can find it. But again, that's the next step. The first step is develop this different attitude of meditating on the other dependent character of Zafus and spines. That's the first step, which we're having some difficult getting a feeling for it and getting settled into it. Let's see, Jane and Christina and Mike and Linda I got a message from my sister that I felt sad about, and I felt myself turning away from her and thinking things about her.

[68:46]

And then I said to myself, well, she's not these things that I'm thinking about her. this mysterious bunch of forces, and I don't know, I didn't get real specific. And actually, I kept doing that for a day or so, and then I, my resistance softened to, well I hadn't wanted to talk to her, and my resistance, and I started were just these mysterious forces or something, you know, and anyway, but I then felt willing to make contact with them. Yeah, that's the idea, is that we, in this meditation, we give up wrongdoing, like, you know, cutting people out of our life, who deserve it.

[69:54]

Christina? This afternoon I had a conversation and while While the conversation was going on? While the conversation was going on, and the words that we used, the person and I had some kind of definition of course. I mean, the concept. There was a sense of, you know, that the words that were used

[70:55]

had something to do with what was going on. But what was going on was like more or beyond the words. And it had a sense of understanding more and at the same time I was much more aware, so part was like being with the words and at that level, but then around it, all around it was this other world. Well, you're being with the words, and you're being with what the words are referring to, and you're being with what the fantasy ... the words are not the fantasy, just the words are referring to something.

[72:10]

And what they're referring to is the basis of the fantasies that you have about this, which are then the basis for being able to apply the words to it. Right, but then there was also a feeling that beyond all that something was constantly ... I mean ... I understand you're saying beyond, but I would kind of like to say that Beyond is the same as something that... What we're talking about here is based on something. And what it's based on is beyond the talk. And beyond the fantasies and conceptions that make the talk work. Can one have a sense of that beyond? Yeah. Just like when you... Another way to talk about meditating on other dependent is you're meditating on beauty. So like, you know, everybody you meet, you just look at their beauty.

[73:13]

But you can't see beauty. It's invisible. But you sense it. But of course what we usually do when we see beauty is we take the beauty as our ideas of what's happening. We take the beauty as the concept that we're projecting onto the beauty. But the beauty of things is their other dependent nature. So it's very nice because the big problem is when our fantasies make us get into like, well actually it can be a problem in both cases, both that you think someone's ugly, not beautiful, or you think someone is beautiful but you think they're beautiful because they look that way. In both those cases this meditation should free you from becoming greedy for one and hating the other. So when the sensing of that is going along with the level of conversational sanctity, does it have a calming and kind of widening or opening effect?

[74:31]

Yeah. But more than calming, I think, is that you're being... Pardon? Yeah, more than calming and more than relaxing, your behavior becomes appropriate. And when your behavior becomes appropriate, that often is rather relaxing or calming. But in both Jane's example and your example, I feel the taste of the ethical transformation that occurs in this meditation. This meditation is not so intellectual. It's like he wants to go one way to reconfirm himself. And that tendency to kind of rewrite or reconfirm. It still might be lurking here and there, flying around.

[75:48]

You can grab it every now and then if you want to, but you're kind of letting go of it because you're looking beyond the thinking about this, which is trying to figure out the right way that it should go and so on. This type of meditation can be done in daily life. The Samatha type of meditation is harder to do in daily life. It's harder to give up discursive thought when you're talking to people. This meditation you can do pretty well while you're talking to people. So what some people are doing is they don't feel ready to apply this teaching in their sitting meditation yet, and I've said... So they're just going to do tranquility meditation, give up discursive thoughts. I said, fine, do that in the zendo, and you can learn to do this meditation sort of as you're walking around Green Gulch or walking around San Francisco or wherever. You can do it at a peace rally. It worked quite well in discursive land. because you're actually continually going beyond the discursive thought, not giving it up, but going beyond it, while you're still doing it.

[76:53]

And you're using discursive thought to remind yourself to go beyond, or to look beyond, but not stop, not give it up. As a matter of fact, recognize, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, fantasizing, conceiving, believing and believing my conceiving, believing my fantasies, that's going on too. I'm still like totally hooked here. But I'm also simultaneously meditating on what's beyond being hooked. And though it's beyond, it's beyond, but it's also the basis of what we're hooked on. They're connected. These are fantasies that are based on what's happening. Let's see, Glinda, I think, and I see Luminous Olive's hand. First, to ask my question, I need to know if you're using fantasy and concept interchangeably?

[77:55]

No, not quite. Concept is like words and concepts, words and symbols. Like blue, just the concept blue, or pain, the concept pain, or good, the concept good, which are also words. What I'm talking about is that you fantasize that these things apply to something. And they do. But the fantasy doesn't. There's nothing in the thing that corresponds to the blue. There's no blue in the blue. Even though the word blue does refer to the blue. There's nothing in the blue. Blue doesn't have a thing that blue refers to. You said earlier when you were talking to Susan that the concept arises with the phenomena almost. Yeah, all phenomena have this, not just concept, but have this merely conceptual nature which we confuse with cellular dependent character.

[79:06]

When there's not imputation or superimposition of essences and attributes, so that you put that into the thing, so there's something in the thing you put in there that makes you feel justified in putting the word on the thing. That's the part that we're trying, and that comes with things. But there's other kind of fantasies that aren't like that. Those we don't have to worry about. Those we don't have to care about. Those don't cause suffering. But again, you're just trying to study the imputational ahead of schedule. It's irresistible. Yes? Sort of back to what Grace brought in. if I'm sitting in zazen and my attention goes to, say, a sensation in my body, and I think, this is a mystery, this is beyond what I think about it.

[80:27]

So, this thought has arisen. Now, are you recommending that I just stay with that thought, or I could go... Stay with what thought? This is beyond what I think about it. Stay with that thought? I wouldn't say stay with it, just be mindful of it. Uh-huh. Be mindful of that teaching. Okay. What comes to mind is that's a thought which is a phenomenon and so I could think this thought is a phenomenon that's beyond what I think of it. Sure. Okay. Yeah. It's getting on the late side now. Bernd? Well, I would like to bring something up where I feel stuck. So when I, especially in sitting meditation, look at what's happening through the light of his teachings, what often seems to happen is it turning.

[81:40]

It's like a vision where I seem to inhabit this autistic universe. It's actually a very frightening experience. I'm stuck at the moment. And I wonder if you have some feedback. So what do you mean by autistic universe? Well, basically I'm looking at nothing but my concepts of what is happening. And yes, there is something out there. But for example, I could say, So what you're seeing is unutterable darkness?

[82:59]

Is that what you're seeing? No, not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing all kinds of phenomena. Hearing, feeling, thinking. They seem to be nothing but like this... Well, you asked me what I mean by autistic. Like, let's say, an extension of the belief in self. They seem to be nothing but self. The things you see? And then you're saying that the other dependent is an unutterable darkness? It's dark in the sense that it doesn't have any of this nice light on it, which are these projections of self. It's very simple. Can I say that again? It sounds like what you call unutterable darkness. is kind of like the absence of the projections of self.

[84:00]

Yes. Projections of self are light and groovy. A source of suffering, but very familiar and cozy. what is, you know, the basis of those projections doesn't have any of those nice lights on it. But we don't have to worry about that because we're seeing these nice self-projections over this unutterable darkness. And it's not really darkness, it's actually beauty. It's just that it's darkness because it doesn't have the nice light of self-projections on it. So that's good. You're not really stuck. You mean I only feel stuck? Pardon? I only feel stuck? Which is a nice bright thing, you know, rather than what you really are, which is an unutterable darkness relative to this nice bright comment that you have on yourself.

[85:05]

So what you really are is beyond your comment about yourself, you know, stuck and so on. But it's not exactly darkness, it's only darkness vis-a-vis the nice bright world of self-projections. So can you just simply open up to this area that's dark vis-a-vis the brightness? In other words, close your eyes to the nice bright world of self-projections, which are nice and bright, die to that world and open up to this other world, which isn't really dark, you've just got to go through some darkness to get there. That's fine, just say how, that can be shorthand for it's beyond my thinking. But not how, like how am I going to use my thinking to get there, but I'm just going to use my thinking just to the point of saying how, and that's going to be code for it's beyond all this light activity, which is really just extensions of the self which make possible all kinds of wonderful things like conversations.

[86:14]

So your feeling stuck is based on the way you are, but the way you are is free of being stuck. I'm sure there's many more wonderful questions coming on the tips of various beings right now, but it is getting to the bewitching hour and some people are like giving me a signal like they want to take a little nap. So if it's okay, perhaps we could take a little break now and then reconvene at ten. May our intention equally penetrate every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Things are numberless.

[87:22]

I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. So next week and so on I'll continue to try to work with you on how to meditate on a mystery, how to meditate on what is inconceivable, incomprehensible and so on as the initiation into this meditation.

[88:14]

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