I'd like to try to, again, create a context or container. Can you hear me all right? No? I'd like to create or recreate or reconnect with the basic context. Am I speaking loudly enough now? Yes? And the basic context being, you know, what is your basic context, whatever that is. And given the variety of this group, that may not be easy to do, but from what I've heard, I think, as I said, I hear people's, you know, basic concern or basic context for their practice has to do with compassion or what's happening or being free or being free of suffering, these kinds of things.

[01:16]

So, again, I don't want to box you in, but just to say that If your ultimate concern was or is the Buddha way, then your ultimate concern, according to Dogen's energy, would be to study the self. If you're concerned for, if you can feel some rapport between having unconditional compassion or unconditional love, and if you understand or see that as the same as being ultimately concerned with the study of the Buddha way, then it's one step to say that your ultimate concern would be...

[02:32]

the study of the self. This text, this 30 verses, is a text about studying the self or helping to study the self. This text describes how the self is born, how the self is created. So part of studying the self is to study how does the self come into being, or how does the self appear to a living being. And the basic way that this text proposes of how the self appears or is born to a living being is that it's born with the sense of something being external.

[03:57]

It's born, the self is born with the sense of the other. And the self born in relationship to the other means the self is born as separate from the other, or the other as external to the self. Without something external, there can be no sense of self. And as soon as the sense of self is born, immediately affliction is born. Misery is born. And at its birth, it's somewhat, it's a little bit subtle. It's so subtle that if you're, I don't know what, like I said, if you're looking at your baby playing in the surf, you're so overwhelmed with the, you know, joy of this living being that you may not notice that actually you're miserable at the same time.

[05:06]

Just because this person you love so much, is separate from you. The parts you're having fun about, the reason why you're having so much joy, is because they're not separate from you. But simultaneously, there's a subtle, all-pervasive nausea and affliction going on, just because of a sense of self. and other separation. So if it is the case that you have deep faith, in other words, that deeply you're settled into the study of the Buddha way, then it would follow that you'd be

[06:06]

deeply settled into the study of the self and other separation. That's the first thing, okay? What is your faith and does your faith entail studying the self? And this is something, I guess, for each of you to consider for yourself. Then the next proposal, if the study agenda is accepted, the next proposal or next question is, well, then how do you study this cell?

[07:06]

And the basic way of studying the self, you know, we call being upright. So first is faith, next is uprightness. Sitting upright. And as it says in the, what is it, the chant, the self-enjoyment samadhi, G.G.U. Zammai. It says, I think, something like, sitting upright in self-fulfilling samadhi is the correct gate to enlightenment. Did that say something like that? The authentic gate... to enlightenment, the authentic gate to Buddha's way is to sit upright in the midst of self-fulfilling or self-enjoyment awareness, self-enjoyment samadhi.

[08:17]

So you're sitting upright in the middle of self-enjoyment samadhi means you're sitting upright in the midst of studying self. You're studying self and other. The self-fulfilling samadhi is not only studying the self but studying how the self is born, in other words, studying the relationship between self and other. And how do you study the relationship between self and other? You study it through being upright. And entailed in studying the relationship between self and other is studying misery and pain because In the relationship between self and other, if there's the slightest discrepancy between self and other, there is affliction and misery. So we also have to... So part of the self-fulfilling samadhi is studying the causes, the farthest causes and conditions of pain, particularly the pain born of self-existence.

[09:37]

And again, how do you study this pain? By sitting upright in the midst of the pain. So your faith, your ultimate concern, is then to study the causes and conditions of the pain, the causes and conditions of the self-other separation. And Dogen uses the term deep faith in cause and effect. which means deep faith in the study of cause and effect, which involved deep faith in the study of the... Deep faith means studying also the laws of cause and effect. This text, again, is about these causes and conditions of the creation of self and other, or self and elements. And uprightness is our main skill.

[10:47]

Faith isn't really our skill. We can deepen our faith by practice, but faith isn't really a skill. I mean, either you really are ultimately concerned with the path of enlightenment, the path of freedom, or you're not. You can't force yourself into feeling that way. So again, I bring up this ultimate concern because, of course, I don't want you to lose track of your ultimate concern while you study the text, even though studying this text is one of the things that might follow from being ultimately concerned with freedom. It's also possible that in studying the text you forget your ultimate concern. So I always want you and me to keep remembering the context of the study while doing the study.

[11:52]

And part of uprightness is, another way to talk about uprightness is like they do in the I Ching. Uprightness is to balance heaven and earth. Heaven is an expression or a symbol for, you know, what they call that in the West, they call the heavens a firmament, right? The heavens don't move. Stars move, but the heavens don't. Heaven doesn't move. Heaven is immovable. So that's part of what it means to be upright. So in your study of self, in your study of self and other, in your study of the misery of confusion around that, one of your basic components of your study is

[13:07]

immovability, unshakable study. But the other element, the other main element to balance that with is Earth. And Earth is infinitely flexible and malleable and adaptable. So The other way you are with your study of the self and with your study of pain is you're infinitely flexible and adaptable and soft. You balance those two. That's uprightness. And all the other hexagrams in the I Ching, besides those two, are just about how to balance those two under various circumstances. I think you know already that if you have just all earth and all heaven in your study of yourself, you'll be too hard.

[14:12]

Like I told you last time about when I first started studying here at Tazahara, I finally got about 99 to 100 percent heaven in my practice. And I totally crushed myself into submission. But then I realized that although I finally was under control, that wasn't what I wanted. But if you want to get yourself under control, that's the way to do it. All heaven. I've been reading about the history of the Roman Empire. They used to have this thing called patre potestes. Potestes. The power of the father.

[15:17]

Fathers in the early Roman times, they could kill their children. They could, you know, beat them, of course, but they could kill them. They could sell them. They could kill their wives for adultery. They couldn't kill their wives just for ordinary disciplinary reasons, but for adultery they could kill their wives. But they could kill their children just as a matter of discipline. They could sell their children and they could sell their wives. This is called control. And coming from that kind of a thing, you know, the wives of these men were, you know, pretty cooperative. and worked real hard. And the early Romans were tough cookies. And so, you know, who could stand up to such creatures? And nobody could. So they just marched over the whole world. However, once they conquered the world, they found out that wasn't what they wanted.

[16:20]

Then the whole father thing broke down and all kinds of strange things happened. And the family fell apart. Anyway, I don't think we want that. I don't think we want to bring ourselves under control. But if you want to, just completely be hard and you'll get yourself under control. But that won't be uprightness. That won't be the upright way to study pain. And a lot of Zen students, as you know, the way they study pain when they first start sitting is they just crush themselves into the posture. And some of them have done amazing feats of bone-crushing, heavenly work on themselves. And some people have to do that in order to realize that's not what they want. The other side is, of course, if you emphasize all the flexibility side, you get too mushy and indulgent.

[17:22]

And that's not the way to work with pain either. That's not the way to work with the study of this self either. So you have to balance the two. That's the uprightness. And in your study of these texts, in your study of Zen stories or all kinds of other Buddhist texts and teaching, the approach that is being recommended is uprightness. Or just sitting. And so on. However, I do recommend, for example, if you're studying a text like Vasubanda's 30 Verses, I recommend that you memorize it. And if you're studying a Zen story, I recommend you memorize it. But then when you memorize it, it means you learn it by heart. And if you learn it by heart, then whenever you need it,

[18:26]

your heart can bleed it. Whenever you need it, your heart can exude it to you. So some people hear about studying koans and they hear about a Zen monk and they said he was always thinking of that koan for many years. And I think that does happen. But part of the way that happens is this overbearing, kind of forcing yourself to work on the koan kind of way of doing it, okay? That's one phase you might go through. You get a colon assigned to you or some other meditation thing assigned to you, and you've just bludgeoned yourself into practicing it. And you tell yourself that if you won't practice it, you'll be a bad person or whatever, or you'll, you know, or you'll punish yourself, or you won't give yourself any dairy on days off or something. Or you'll make yourself eat dairy. Some people say, if you veer from this, you'll have to eat dairy. some threat like that people will do in order to get themselves to do the meditation that they think they're supposed to do, that they want to do.

[19:32]

But if you really want to do it, you don't have to bludgeon yourself into it. But some people have to go through that phase. If you really want to do a meditation practice, if you really want to be one with something, if you really want to be, you don't have to force yourself. As a matter of fact, when you are one, it is effortless. You're one with it just because you are one with it. The reason for being one with these things, the recommendation to be one with these things, is because you already are one with them. That's why you're told to be one with these things. Because you already are. And if we really relax, but not go to sleep, relax and be upright, then you realize you're one with the story. And the story comes to visit you as it wishes. The real story comes to you.

[20:34]

The real teaching comes to you when you're upright. If you're leaning one way or the other too heavy or too light, then what comes to you is not the story, not the teaching. What comes to you is just an aspect of your bias. So the way to study is to be quiet and peaceful and relaxed and alert and immovable. And if you're like that, what you are to study will just come right in your face. If you've never studied the 30 verses in the form of this text, if you don't memorize it, then probably the 30 verses in this form will not appear to you. If you've never heard any of these Zen stories, then probably none of those Zen stories will come up to your consciousness, which is okay.

[21:38]

Something else will. But if you do memorize these stories and do memorize these texts, then the text will come up to you and reveal itself to you, literally. But it'll also reveal itself to you literally if you don't study it. It's just that if you don't study it, when it reveals itself literally to you, you just won't know that it's the 30 verses. and you won't know that you have the same mind as Vasubandhu. But that's okay, too. You can find out later. Because after you understand the text, you'll be assigned to read the 30 verses, and you'll realize, oh, Vasubandhu's like me. It's okay. In the old days in Zen, they often used to first connect the people to Vasubandhu, and then later tell them to read the text. And then they would say, oh, my God, this is really wonderful. This guy is my... uncle or whatever. I mean like he has exactly the same mind as me and I never met him. Yeah.

[22:42]

Who was Vasubandhu? I don't know. Besides that he wrote this? He also wrote the Abhidharma Kosha and the Abhidharma Kosha Basha. You know Abhidharma? Yeah. So he was, and he had a brother. His brother's name was Asanga. And he and his brother created this system of Buddhist philosophy called Yogacara. It's kind of the founders of Yogacara. He grew up in, I believe, I believe he grew up in Gandhara. But if he didn't grow up in Gandhara, he grew up in Kashmir. And where he grew up was kind of a big headquarters of Abhidharma, which is a scholastic school of early Buddhism.

[23:44]

And he was a hotshot scholar and meditator. And the main text, the big text of the Sanskrit Abhidharma was called the Mahavibhasa. And he mastered that text And what did he do? I don't remember exactly. But anyway, he left either Gandhara and went to Kashmir or left Kashmir and went to Gandhara. And he started teaching the Avidharma. And the way he taught the Avidharma was he taught it in the form of 600 verses. 600, you know, verses to condense this huge, you know, encyclopedic scholastic presentation of the Buddhist teaching. He condensed it down to 600 verses, which is called the kosha of the Abhydharma. Kosha means the treasury. So he made this treasure house of huge text in 600 verses, and he delivered the 600 verses over a period of 600 days.

[24:54]

He gave 600 verses with 600 lectures. And the fame of this teaching spread back to the Abhidharma headquarters in... Which is... Is Kashmir east of Gandhara or Gandhara east of Kashmir? Kashmir is east of Gandhara. Kashmir is east of Gandhara. So, where's the... Where's the chalk? Thank you. So, here's India, right? And so here's Gandhara, okay? And here's Kashmir, right? Is that right? Gandhara, Kashmir. So he grew up in Gandhara, went to Kashmir and did the teaching. Part of the reason why he left, you disagree? Yeah, it's not impossible that the east of Kashmir would be seen in God.

[25:59]

East of Kashmir would be somewhere in the dock. Maybe the dock's over here. Where's the dock? The dock's up here. So here's the dock. Okay? So he grew up here, and part of the reason why he split was because he disagreed with the avidharma. He thought it was too uptight. You know, that they were getting too rigid. They're getting too much heaven in the dharma. Not enough... feminine. So he went over here and taught his understanding of the Abhidharma and the teachings were very enlightening and the enlightenment spread back to Gandhara and they said, wow, you've managed to condense and synthesize, distill all this teaching into 600 verses. That's great. Now would you write a commentary on the 600 verses to explain to us, you know, So I wrote the commentary, which is called the Abhidharma Kosha Bhasha, which is, you know, then back to being an encyclopedia again.

[27:12]

So then the people back in Gandhara read the commentary, and they realized that Vasubandhu disagreed with them, and there was this big thing that happened. Anyway, Vasubandhu... what do you say, his teaching became the most influential by far, you know, over the centuries. Like in Tibet, they don't study the early Abhidharma, they study Vasubanthi's understanding. And his Vasubanthi's understanding was transmitted to China. So he kind of revolutionized or revitalized the scholastic tradition of Buddhism. And then as he developed more and more and got more and more flexible, he developed this Yogacara teaching. And the crown jewel of the Yogacara teaching of Vasubandhu, I think, is his 30 verses. He wrote many other things, too.

[28:15]

There's a book in our library, I think it's probably in the library, it's called, I think, Seven Works of Vasubandhu. It's called A Doctor of Psychology. seven of his works. He had hundreds of works, but his seven main works are in a book that's published in English. The seven main works besides the Abhidharma Kosha, which is much bigger than that book. And another thing I like about Vasubandhu, which I hope to do myself someday, is every seven years he took a sabbatical. And what he did on a sabbatical is he sat and he reclined in a... in a sesame seed bath and recited texts. And his brother is a Sangha who, you know, maybe I'll talk about him later, but another great, great Buddha. These, both of them, Vasubandhu was considered a second Buddha.

[29:18]

I mean, Nagarjuna is also considered a second Buddha, but Vasubandhu is considered one of the great Buddhas of the Buddhist tradition in India. And his brother is also, just happened to be his brother. His mother was quite an unusual person. She wanted her sons to be great Buddhist scholars, and they were. So she made a big effort and gave a great deal of her light energy so that her sons could be these two amazing creatures. Yes? Wasubandhu lived from about 350 to 420, 340 to 420. I've been on my kosher, and so it's probably written in around 380. Yes? No, the latest proposal is the one. But this, you know, it's kind of like, it goes like this.

[30:19]

It's going back and forth. Part of the reason why, whenever an ancient figure presents and has a big evolution, and we don't have, India is, he wasn't famous enough to have stone pillars made about him, and otherwise everything about people is pretty unhistorical in India. So when you have early teachings that are so, what do you call, in later teachings that are so Mahayana, they think it's two different people. But some other, you know, some other people, two people with the same name. And that the later one was Asanga's brother, and the earlier one was somebody else. But there's a debate about this. Somebody else? What is Vasibandhu?

[31:25]

I forgot. Something, you know, enlightening. Well, I could go on about Vasibandhu, but I guess I would say one thing is that when I first came to Tassajara, I started studying the Abhidharma, because for some reason or other, I heard it was really good stuff, and I couldn't get into it. I tried, but it just rebuffed me. And then a couple years later, about three years later, when Suzuki Roshi was sick, Edward Kanza was teaching at Berkeley, so he recommended we go over and study with Edward Kanza, and Edward Kanza in the process of studying and teaching Zen students. He said that we seem to have a poetic appreciation of the Heart Sutra and other Mahayana texts.

[32:29]

But the Heart Sutra in particular is basically a refutation of a limited understanding of the Abhidharma teachings. So he recommended that we study Abhidharma. And also Suzuki Viraji, the only book in the early days, you know, before Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind, people would say, well, what should we read? And he wouldn't recommend too much reading because most people that came to study Zen in those days had already read quite a bit. He wanted me just to sit, mostly. But the only book he would recommend, supposedly, was The Central Conception of Buddha, Buddhism, which is an Abhidharma book, one of the first Abhidharma books in English. But the idea of Dharma, by Stravatskyi, where he teaches about the Skandas, the Yat, and the Mesnathatus. And he's getting all his stuff from Vasubandhu also. So with all that, I went back to the Abhidharma again. in the early 70s and started studying. And then somehow, I don't know, I broke through and started to work in teaching Abhidharma classes, Abhidharma Kosha, many, many classes on that.

[33:34]

But when I started studying these 30 verses, I found that this is more direct, more, I feel, more directly and literally connected to Zen practice. The Abhidharma Kosha is like working its way out of this early Buddhism up towards Mahayana and up towards Zen. And you can feel the spirit of a Zen person in the text trying to work his way out of this scholastic rigidity. But the spirit of liberation is in there. But he's working against a huge landslide of mud. And so you feel this incredible spirit, but the practical aspect application of it, other than the spirit of enlightenment, is pretty hard to see. Whereas in the 30 verses, I feel it's very close to the Zen, to Zen teachings of Karajnatara and Bodhidharma and so on. So that's why I feel 30 verses is more, a better entrance in some ways for Zen students into Abhidharma.

[34:41]

Once you study this, you might want to study, you know, more about Abhidharma. and then see actually that this is contained in that earlier material. So it's like coming right all the way through Buddhism. Even during the heavy scholastic periods, this teaching was there, but it was, you know, it was a thin thread and a huge encyclopedia. So, again, basically what I suggest as to how to study this material is you just practice, you just, all day long, You work on balancing heaven and earth, on being upright and flexible and peaceful and quiet, and then just see what comes up. As a way to be one with your studies, practice that way.

[35:46]

So I don't have an ideal an ideal story of how your study should go, I can tell you some classical presentations. And again, the classical presentation is that somehow in the midst of being aware, you would notice at some point that you're miserable or that you're disturbed

[36:58]

or uneasy, that you would discover in being present, you would discover that you're anxious. And I suggest that you discover that you're anxious in a very pervasive way, in other words, always. basically. And the calmer you are, the more peaceful you are, the more likely you'll be able to see the pervasiveness of this anxiety. If you're really excited, you may think, well, it seems to be gone. A little break in the anxiety. Well, that's nice. I have nothing against a break in anxiety. I just don't think there really is one for all practical purposes for almost everybody. There's not really a break. we can talk about some kind of Buddhological discussion where maybe the situation changes so there's a break in the anxiety.

[38:10]

But basically, I suggest that the more calm you are, the more you can feel this pervasive anxiety. Of course, this anxiety you're feeling as you become more and more calm is not necessarily super disturbing because you're quite calm. So it's not that bad, actually. And I like the word anxiety I think it's a good word because of its root, which means to be tormented or choked, choked or strangled. So the basic human condition which is described in this text, the origination of the basic human condition is to be choked, and you're choked around the self, you're choked around it. And you're choked by this limitation.

[39:11]

Or another way is you're tormented by the limitation which is born along with your knowledge of eternal objects. I recommend, and I'm sometimes... I'm not really cavalier, but it may sound like a little cavalier about fear. I think actually that fear is not that difficult to drop, at least for the moment. And that's how you do drop it, actually, just for a moment. And the way you drop it basically is to come to the present. However, when you get to the present, it's not like everything's swell. It's just that you're touching earth. You're back in the mud. You're not spaced out in the future. And you're dealing with basic anxiety. And people have trouble dealing with anxiety, of course, because it's a suffocating, choking situation.

[40:13]

You're tormented. And you're tormented by something pretty subtle, namely your own self-limitations by the other. who, you know, is oftentimes your lover. And so sometimes people want to have a more objective relationship to the anxiety, and one way to make it objective is to put it in the future, and then you get fear. So there's a restlessness that drives us away from this basic torment into the future, and then we're afraid. But you can't do much work out there in fear. That's why I think it's better to come back to the present and just have basic anxiety. You can work on that, though. You can work on it. It's right under your nose. It's not an abstraction. It's born of dualistic thinking, but you actually can feel it right now.

[41:14]

And if you can, again, settle with this pain of your discriminating consciousness, if you can settle with it be patient with it you'll see the cause I'm telling you the cause beforehand this text is telling you the cause beforehand but you'll actually see it yourself and then you remember the text told you that you'd see what you're seeing but you see it yourself on the spot with feeling feeling will be pain However, you will immediately also start feeling better because you'll know what the cause is. And you'll be encouraged by that. You'll have more courage. Your heart will get an infusion of enthusiasm by verifying that there's a cause and you can see it. Now, if you study the cause, again, deep faith in...

[42:22]

The Buddha way means deep faith that by studying the causes and conditions of suffering, by studying the nature of suffering, you will understand suffering. When you understand suffering, there is liberation from suffering. The cause being the self-clinging. If you study the causes, how the self-clinging works, you will understand the self-clinging and be relieved from the self-clinging. That's the basic entry into the actuality of Buddhist practice. There's more to Buddhism than that, but then you actually, by being upright with these causes and conditions of self-torment, that is what's called sitting upright in this awareness, this self-fulfilling samadhi. That is the gate into the Buddha way. Then you have other work to do, the work of compassion, the work of developing and deepening this faith. and this understanding endlessly.

[43:23]

But this is the gate. And this text is about that. This text is, you know, has really good news for you, you know, that basically when you see how things are actually operating, you're going to feel great, that you're going to be released. And that the release is actually... sitting there right under your nose right now if you would just give yourself completely to the study of it and settle down completely you would see that there is a story under your nose of misery but there's also a story of blissful release and this story of blissful release is that nothing needs to change in order for there to be release you just need to see Not exactly, I was going to say, you just need to see the way things are, but it's not just that you see the way things are, because the way things are is also the way you're seeing now.

[44:28]

Part of the way things are is that you see things in a way that cause misery. But the complement is that there's another way to see what's going on, which is bliss or freedom. It's not that that actually is the truth. It's just that if you see things that way, you get liberated from the other one. the other way of seeing things. It isn't like that's really what's happening because it's also really happening that people are suffering, that people are actually seeing things that way and in misery. That's really happening. So it's not that we eliminate that truth, that conventional truth, but based on facing the conventional truth that we see things this way, based on that, we can see things this other way. If we thoroughly accept and study seeing things in the way that causes suffering, we will see things in a way that is the release from suffering. Both of those worlds are true.

[45:29]

One is called the ultimate truth, the other one's the conventional truth. But we have to, you know, become familiar with the conventional truth before we can study the later karakas, the later verses. So from the first half, the first 17 characters, the first 16 characters, karkas, karka means verse. The first ones are about the deluded, miserable way of looking at things, and then the next ones are unfolding. It's other view, which is releasing. However, all the way through the study, we have to practice like a Buddha. You don't wait to wake up before you start practicing like you will after you wake up. Right now you practice like you will when you wake up.

[46:31]

Now you practice uprightness. You can practice uprightness even before you have completely seen this scene, the nature of reality. You can start doing Buddhist practice right now just by sitting with no gaining idea. That's the way Buddhas sit. They just sit like that. They don't sit like, well, I'm going to sit here and I'll get enlightened. They just sit. They are enlightened, right? So then they just sit and they sit. When they get up, they just get up. And when they walk, they just walk. So you practice like that, then you're practicing the same way as a Buddha. And then as your misery comes up because you still have some self-view, they wake up on that stuff and we will wake up on that stuff too as A.H. Koso Hotsugamon says you will wake up on this stuff too just like they did people who are not awake will be awakened and they'll be awakened on the same stuff that the other Buddhists were awakened they were awakened on delusion they were awakened on this self-other mess which they sat up right in the midst of

[47:49]

And also they sat not upright in the midst of two. They leaned this way and leaned that way. They shrinked away and they tried to overpower it. They made all kinds of mistakes too. And then they reviewed their lack of faith and practice all the time and they kept practicing. And finally they realized who they were and they were free. So people who aren't free will in this life become free. But we have to, just like they did, we have to totally devote ourselves to the study project. Right? So... I don't know if that's enough to sort of give you... I'm trying to give you a sense of how to study, you know? When we chanted the Genjo Koan this morning, I felt like the Genjo Koan is really telling you how to study.

[48:53]

It's not telling you a little bit about what's happening, a little bit, but mostly it's telling you about how to study. To study the Buddha way is to study the self. And if you study to study the self, to study the self-other distinction is to forget the self-other distinction. If you study how you're separate from others, and the misery there, you will forget how you're separated from others. And when you forget how you're separated from others, then everybody will enlighten you. If you remember how you're separated from others, then everybody hurts you. Sometimes the way they hurt you feels really good, but it still hurts. You're still upset. And you're upset, you know, if they stop, your step if they switch from, you know, hurting you this way to hurting you that way. Anyway, I won't get into that again. But anyway, if you remember the self and remember that the other is not you, then you're not enlightened by the other.

[50:05]

When you forget the self, then the other enlightens you. That's what he's saying. He also said, you know, about how to study, He said, when you, when you, when you, I'm going to stutter a little bit, when you, [...] when you study a little bit, when the Dharma doesn't fill your body and mind, you think it's already sufficient. So if you study, you know, a little bit of Buddhism, you think, well, pretty good. I know something about Buddhism. Or I know something about the 30 verses. Or I know something about something, so I don't have to study that. Or whatever, you know. Anyway, you think you know something. Matter of fact, you even think it's sufficient. Can you believe that? However, when the Dharma really fills your body and mind, you realize something's missing. And then he says, for example, if you go out in the ocean and look around, the ocean looks like a circle of water.

[51:16]

but the ocean is not a circle of water. When people hear that thing about, well, there's something missing, they say, well, nothing's missing, so, you know, so what does he mean something's missing? Well, it's true, nothing's missing. I mean, when you're on the ocean, there's nothing missing in the ocean, right? But what's missing is that you can't see the ocean, that's what's missing. And not only that, but you think that what you see is the ocean, which is a kind of missing, missing the point of the ocean. So another part of study is that we're studying this ocean, but actually, when the Dharma fills your body and mind, you realize that really you're studying a circle of water. In other words, you have to wholeheartedly study just this little circle of water. And also, but not forget that it's just a little circle of water. If you study the circle of water and forget that it's not, then you'll study the circle of water with too much heaven.

[52:23]

If you remember that it's a circle of water and say, well, it's just a circle of water, so why should I pay attention to this turkey, then there's too much earth. Somehow you have to wholeheartedly study a partial version of what's going on and realize that you're not really studying what's happening even. You're studying illusion. So anyway, that's all we've got to work with. And so we need to wholeheartedly study our poor little deluded world, you, and all the pain involved. So that's kind of like, again, this is still orientation to this text. And that's 8.30. We're going to be chanting this. If you forgive us, we're going to be chanting this at noon service every day.

[53:31]

The kitchen is going to miss it, so maybe the kitchen should chant it for their noon service too or something. I don't know. It's not terribly long. If you chant it every day, that will help you memorize it. If you memorize this text, you will definitely be a happy person. I've had discussions with people who have memorized this text. And they ask me questions about this text. And they say, well, blah, blah, blah. This verse says this. What does that mean? I say, well, what is that other verse? Verse 7 says blah, blah. I don't understand. And I say, well, what does verse 23 say? And they say, oh. In other words, the If you have the text in your own heart, you can use the text to tell you what the text means. It's wonderful what memorization does. So, you know, chanting it and memorizing is really good.

[54:35]

And one way to memorize it is just take, like, each day, just take, like, two, one or two verses. Write them on a little piece of scrap paper. And... Just memorize those two. And when you walk around, if you forget, just pull it out of your rose leaf and read it and put it back and say it some more. I kind of recommend that you don't do this in Zazen. But if you do, I think that's sweet too. But do it when you're walking around. Do it when you're talking to people. Do it when you're working. It's very good to do it when you're working. Just like two verses, you know, is enough. If you do that, by the end of the practice period, you will have memorized this, like, you know, one of the most important texts in Buddhism. And it's like the fountainhead of a tremendous amount of practice.

[55:37]

It would be very useful to you. And so with the combination of that, chanting it and studying it in class and reading the commentary, I hope that you can get this material into your conscious flow and that if you practice uprightness, you will be able to reap the benefits of Vasubandhu's compassion. The more I study this, I just keep being amazed at how careful and kind he was in the way he presented this. It's amazing. It kind of feels like, oh, God. I feel the same way when I read Dogen or Buddha. The more you study the teaching, the more you realize, geez, they really made an effort here. This is really fantastic. It's wonderful to receive this teaching. It doesn't go the other way.

[56:39]

The more I study them, the more I think, oh, gee, this is kind of ordinary. I do sometimes, the more I study them, sometimes I'm more likely to disagree with them. But it doesn't mean that I disagree with them like respecting them less. It's more like I feel closer to them. And I just kind of feel like, wow, there's something to, there's a dynamic there. So, any questions before we adjourn this evening? Can you do it or not? Yes? You can get a copy from Mayef. She has a copy of the text with a commentary by David Koo Pahana. Do we have that huge book, The Doctrine of Mere Consciousness, in this library? Well, there's this big text.

[57:43]

It's called Vijnapti Matrata Siddhi. And it has, like... It's based on 30 verses, and it's, like, this big, and it has all these commentaries by all these other... by all these teachers over the centuries on this text. I don't recommend you read it, though. You just get... I think it's just too much words and stuff like that. I don't recommend it. I have a couple copies of this book on the Inchendo-Sill. Yeah. Study of the Lord. There's more in the library. We can put them out to... Kulipahana's whole book, I think, gives you a context, a wider context for this text and other forms of, you know, earlier forms of Buddhist psychology and so on and so forth, which I think are also helpful. The commentary is in the back of that text. But there's this other book, which I don't recommend, that you get into at this time. I think if you just concentrate on this text class, What Happens in Your Own Heart, and the commentary here, there will be plenty for you to work on. And, okay, anything else today?

[58:48]

Michelle? Can you say it again, please? Yes. Yes. to the other extent that I can move it or it threatens me because I'm not. Those things that you mentioned are derivatives or extrapolations. They evolve from this basic thing. I mean, the basic thing is, like I say, even when you're sitting there talking to your dearest friend, as a matter of fact, even with your dearest friend, it's the most intense. You're talking to somebody you really like, And you really are in pain that they're separate from you.

[60:18]

And you really want to reach over the separation and get a hold of them. Because it hurts to be separate from somebody you like. Somebody you don't like, you don't so much mind being separated from them, but you do mind that they exist. Matter of fact, you hate them. Yes? They feel like they're And somehow I think that then that would join the death of our identity. It's like a period of time. We're getting a dent by it. Well, basically, yes. Basically, yes. The wound, this is actually, our mind creates a wound in love. Basically, we love each other. I mean, evolutionarily, The earlier stage of development, we loved everybody because we didn't separate them.

[61:23]

Then our love became wounded when we were able to know what we loved. But when we knew what we loved, we were separated from what we loved, and that hurt. Healing that wound in our love, you have to go to the wound. You have to sit in the wound. And as you sit in the wound, you'll see what the wound's caused from. And you realize that the wound is, that separation, you say you restore the union, but the union never really, it never really did get split. Because you can only split something that's one. You don't use the word for splitting things that are two. If they're two, you don't talk about splitting. The split or the separation happens with something that's one. And the place that you're split, the place you're separated, is the same place you're joined. But you sit in the separation, you realize the place where you're joined. So you can say you re-establish, or you re-experience the union.

[62:29]

And don't you... Yeah. Yeah, many things are added, but one of the things that's added is you add in objective knowledge, which you didn't have before, which is the human situation. What you do is you add in humanness to oneness, but then you repair the humanness by facing the processes of dualistic thinking and the pain of dualistic thinking. Then you heal the wounded human and let the human continue to be a human. I say you do it, but, you know, it happens. The practice actually accomplishes it. The practice is what does it. So we allow you to sleep and dream of Dharma sweetly.

[63:36]

May our rotation

[63:42]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_90.37