and unsurpassed, penetrating in perfect dharma. He is rarely met with, even in a hundred thousand million kalpas. Having it to see and listen to, to remember and accept, we vow to taste the truth of the targeter's words. Let us recite this sutra. Thus I have heard the Blessed One was once living at Savatthi in a monastery of Anantapindika in Jeta Grove. At that time the Venerable Aichadana saw him and saluted him, sat down on one side. So seated, he questioned the Exalted One. Sir, people speak of right view. To what extent is there right view? In this world, Kātayana is generally inclined towards two views, existence and nonexistence.

[01:06]

To him who perceives right knowledge of the upright world, the notion of nonexistence in the world does not occur. Kacchiyana, to him who perceives with right wisdom the ceasing of the world as it comes to be, the notion of existence in the world does not occur. The world, for the most part, Kacchayana, is bound by approach, grasping, and inclination. And he who does not follow that approach and grasping, that determination of mind, that inclination and disposition, who does not cling to or adhere to a view, this is myself, who thinks The rising has arisen, the suffering that is subject to ceasing ceases. Such a person does not doubt, is not perplexed. Herein is knowledge, is not dependent.

[02:10]

As Kacchiyana, there is right view. Everything exists. This Kacchiyana is one extreme. Everything does not exist. This Kacchiyana is a second extreme. without approaching either extreme, the Tathagata teaches you the doctrine of the middle. In ignorance arise dispositions. Dependent upon dispositions arise consciousness. Dependent upon consciousness arise psychophysical personality. Dependent upon psychophysical personality arise the senses. Dependent upon the six senses arises contact. Dependent upon contact arises feeling. Dependent upon feeling arises craving. Dependent upon craving arises grasping. Dependent upon grasping arises becoming. Dependent upon coming arises birth.

[03:14]

Depending upon birth arises old age, death, leak, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair. After rises the entire mass of ill-suffering. way and ceasing of ignorance, there is the ceasing of dispositions. From the ceasing of dispositions, there is the ceasing of consciousness. From the ceasing of consciousness, there is the ceasing of psychophysical personality. From the ceasing of the psychopersonality, there is the ceasing of the six senses. From the ceasing of the six senses, there is the ceasing of contact. From the ceasing of contact, there is the ceasing of feeling. From the ceasing of feeling, there is the ceasing of craving. From the ceasing of craving, there is the ceasing of grasping. From the ceasing of grasping, there is the ceasing of becoming. From the ceasing of becoming there is the ceasing of birth. From the ceasing of birth there is the ceasing of old age and death, grief, lamentation, suffering, dejection, and despair.

[04:24]

And thus there is the ceasing of the entire mass of suffering. So the first sutra we studied about the middle way, one of the things we brought out was that what the Buddha was teaching there was that there's two extremes that we use to distract ourselves from the middle. And these two extremes are devotion to self-mortification, and the other is devotion to addiction to sense pleasure. And looking at these, we talked about how these are ways that we turn away from our basic situation in the world where there is

[05:43]

ignorance involved. Or in the world that's based on ignorance, one of the truths there is suffering. That's the first truth that the Buddha taught. That truth is like alive and well in the world. But we have a hard time looking at it in a steady, balanced way. It's not fun to look at suffering until we get really good at it. At first it's really difficult to, like, in a relaxed, gentle, energetic, enthusiastic, patient, generous, careful, concentrated way to look at suffering. But we're encouraged to learn how to meditate on the first truth which lives in the world.

[06:51]

We're encouraged to meditate on it. And we're also warned that we have a tendency to veer away from it in these two ways. So that approach to the teaching of the middle is like noticing the ways in which we flinch from and react to pain. One of the ways we flinch from pain and react to it is by sticking our head into it and banging our head against it. twisting and turning and wallowing in the pain. That's one way. That actually moves us away from meditation on pain. The other way is to try to use pleasure to distract us from pain, from awareness of the pain. In this present sutra, the emphasis isn't so much on the ways we distract ourselves from pain,

[07:58]

It's more on the way we distract ourselves from seeing clearly by certain philosophical views we hold. So this one is more about view than about the way we flinch from pain. And the first sutra in some sense sets up the second sutra because if you can practice the middle path on the basis of the first sutra, then you're going to be better able to settle into the, in a sense, subtle work of not just looking at the first truth, but discovering certain extreme views you hold and seeing what they imply and dropping them, and then getting right view. Right view is also involved in the first approach, But this one really is focusing on view. So in that sense, this one's more philosophical.

[09:03]

Because it's particularly settling in on the view of how things happen. So it's epistemological. Whereas the other one was more ethical, I would say, maybe. Which is also moral philosophy, but a little bit different feeling. And I would also like to say, before we move on into this sutra, that someone said to me, you know, I was asking, I've been asking the last few days, can you identify your devotion to self-mortification as a form of diverting yourself from awareness of the first truth and the other truths? Can you identify your devotion to that Or can you identify your devotion to various forms of sensory pleasure as a mode to try to distract yourself from this pain?"

[10:11]

And some people said, yeah, I think I can identify, I can notice that I'm devoted to ways of escaping from this pain. But someone said to me that, well, that he was very devoted to distracting himself from this pain. But he said that he was extremely devoted to it. And he said some people, he wants me to know, you know, some people would do anything, they'll do anything, anything, including kill themselves, to avoid facing this pain, this suffering. This person thought I was a little, maybe made it sound like a little too easy just to set aside these devotions to these addictions. So I don't want to say, I don't want to imply that I think it's easy to set aside these devotions to these addictions, these devotions to these reactivities, because I think it is true that facing the truth of suffering is very hard

[11:27]

for us sometimes, and some of us would rather do anything other than face that truth. I do think it's good, though, that if a person can be aware of how much they don't want to look at it, still that's very good if you can be aware that you really do not want to look at Buddha's truth of the First Order. That still, you're kind of like waking up then. And of course there is the sense pleasure of feeling good about yourself for not being involved in those distractions, right? So some people think, you know, I'm not doing that. So then you feel good about yourself because you're not off track and so on.

[12:29]

That's one of the good ones. You don't have to kill yourself. Just pretend like you're, you know, not doing that. And that feels pretty good. That's a subtle one, though. So therefore it works really well. Okay, so the second one, the second sutra. So first he talks about right view. So right view would be for somebody who perceives something Some phenomena occurs for this person, this meditator, and they perceive it with right wisdom. In other words, they see the arising of something in the world. It says the arising of the world, but that means the arising of some phenomena. They see the arising of some phenomena as it has come to be. So it says, you perceive with right wisdom some phenomena as it has come to be.

[13:34]

Right wisdom and perceiving with right wisdom is perceiving as something has come to be. You can actually leave out right wisdom and just say perceiving the world, the arising of the world as it comes to be. And that is right wisdom. It's somewhat redundant to say that. But it's okay because By repeating it, you understand that right wisdom is to perceive something as it comes to be. Perceive how it happens. If you perceive the arising of something and you perceive it as it comes to be, how it comes to be, comes up and you see how it happens, you will not hold this position of annihilation. You will not hold that position if you can see this. The position of annihilation will drop away. If the position of annihilation drops away, then also clinging will drop away.

[14:40]

Ignorance will drop away. The whole mass of ill will drop away. Right view will be realized, and that is the way to turn this whole process around. As I mentioned this morning, in the world there is birth and death. There is birth and death. This is painful for us, birth and death. And as a way of coping with birth and death, different people come up with different philosophies to try to cope. And one of the main types of philosophy that people come up with to cope with birth and death is annihilationism. In other words, it's going to be over pretty soon. But not that it's going to change pretty soon because it can get worse, but it's going to be annihilated pretty soon.

[15:54]

That's one of the ways people cope with suffering. Buddha says, fine, but it isn't going to work. He tried it. Or he had one of his students try it for him. It doesn't work, he said. He said it doesn't work. In birth and death, there is really, you know, this view of annihilation is not a good way to cope with the situation. Other people... So that doesn't work. Now, if you watch something perish with right wisdom, you see it perish as it comes to be perished, as it comes to, you know, cease. You see how it comes to cease. And when you see how something comes to cease, you will no longer hold the philosophy, the view,

[16:59]

of eternalism, which is another coping technique, which Buddha said doesn't work. And in the Brahmajala Sutra there's sixty-two views that people use to cope with birth and death, and Buddha didn't think any of them would work. But they're all basically combinations, subtle combinations of these two views. And in this sutra, he doesn't go through and refute these views. He doesn't go through and refute them. He just says that avoiding these is the middle path. And the middle path is like the way to cope. It's the effective way to cope with suffering and be free of it. Not by annihilating it. not by being some kind like eternal God, but by seeing it as it comes to be.

[18:06]

To see suffering as it comes to be. To see any phenomena as it comes to be. Okay? So, to see yourself as it comes to be. The example in this sutra, as you'll see, is to see suffering as it comes to be. But anyway, If you, if one, can watch something happen as it comes to be, that's what you see. You see how it happens, then you will not hold on to the view of annihilation. And if you watch something cease, and you watch how it comes to cease, you will not hold on to the view of eternalism. And then, You're all set. You avoid these two streams, you're on the middle way. That's right view. But then he says, in the world, for the most part, kajayana is bound by approach, grasping and inclination.

[19:13]

So, generally speaking, When something happens, a phenomena arises or ceases, that's the world where these things are arising and ceasing. And the world is characterized by approach, grasping, and inclination, or leaning, off-balancedness. So not only do these things, their birth and death, arising and ceasing in the world, but in the world there's these approaches, we tend to approach what's happening. We tend to cling to what's happening. We tend to have inclinations and dispositions. Then it's hard for us to see things arise as they come to arise and cease as they come to cease. So what's being indicated here is that this is not the way to meditate on the arising and ceasing. That won't work.

[20:17]

It'll just keep the world going if you approach phenomena, cling to phenomena, and so on. He says, if she does not follow that approach, in other words, when something arises, you do not follow that tendency to approach it, that grasping, that determination of mind, that inclination, that disposition, If you don't cling or adhere to a view like, this is my permanent self, you don't grasp it. This is suffering. This is my self. No. What do you do? You say, this is myself which is liable to arising. This is myself which is liable to ceasing, ceasing. This is suffering which is susceptible to arising, arising.

[21:20]

This is suffering which is susceptible to ceasing, ceasing. Or anyway, this is suffering arising, this is suffering ceasing. This is suffering arising, this is suffering ceasing. This is my sense of self arising, this is my sense of ceasing. No approach, no clinging, no inclination, no dispositions. Just uprightly face it. And be close. Don't turn away. Don't grasp. If you practice this way, you will see how it comes to be. Such a person does not doubt, is not perplexed. And it says, herein, for knowledge is not other dependent. That means that your teacher doesn't come and show you what's happening.

[22:21]

Even though your teacher comes and shows you what's happening, if you approach it, if you're inclined towards it, if you grasp it, you can't see it. So what the teacher does, the teacher teaches you how to see. The teacher doesn't show it to you. This knowledge is not other-dependent. It's your job to see it. Nobody can give you this knowledge. Otherwise the Buddha would have just gone around and gave it to everybody. Boom, boom, boom, boom. But he didn't. She showed people how to look, how to study, so they could see. The truth is right under your nose all the time. The question is how to not grasp, not grasp at it, approach it, incline towards it, incline away from it, all that stuff. So then he says, what?

[23:37]

He says, everything exists. This is one extreme. Everything does not exist. This is the second extreme. The right view, the Buddhist right view, is contrasted to what's called wrong view. And right view and wrong view in Buddhism, early Buddhism, were different from the right view and wrong view, or what they called the true and the false of Indian culture at the time. What was often considered to be true in India at the time of the Buddha was something was true that existed. If something existed, it was true. And existed means truly existed.

[24:38]

But as we studied last week, nothing truly exists. Nothing really exists. Nothing. Everything just exists dependently, or everything just exists conditionally, or everything exists just conventionally. Even ultimate truth, ultimate truth does not exist really. So existing conventionally or dependently is not the same as being a conventional truth, because conventional truths exist conventionally, but also ultimate truths exist conventionally. But the pre-Buddhist teachers said that the truth exists really, not conventionally or dependently, but really.

[25:59]

In other words, it's always existed, and it always will exist, and it can't ever change. Right view is not the kind of right view which is not something that exists. And wrong view is not something that doesn't exist. If either one of them exists, they exist conditionally, not truly. So I would tentatively suggest that, you know, this everything exists is a wrong view, and nothing, everything does not exist is a wrong view. But they're not wrong because they don't exist. They might exist.

[27:01]

Those views might exist. They might be the existence of the view where everything exists. But it would be a conditional existence, not a true existence. But the middle way, the right view, which avoids its extremes, it might exist too. But it doesn't exist any more than the wrong view exists. So it's not true because it exists and the wrong view doesn't. It's true because it's coherent with our life and sets us free from suffering. That's what we mean by true. It's true because when you look at what's happening and you see how things are happening you won't hold either one of those views. Or perhaps I should say when you look at what's happening and you see how it's happening you won't hold the view of annihilation. You won't hold the view everything does not exist.

[28:03]

And when you see how things stop happening, how things cease, you see how when that's true, you will not hold the other extreme. So you won't hold these views, not because they don't exist, but because they're incoherent and your body and mind drop them. If you don't look at them, however, you're pretty much a sitting duck for grasping them. Because you're not just going to suffer barehanded. You're going to try to cope. What did I just say? Anybody remember what I just said? What did I say? Yeah. And what's before that? What? A sitting duck for what? For grasping what? Huh? To grasping one of those extremes, right?

[29:08]

These extreme views are out there and there's two basic styles but then there's all these different combinations, logical combinations. Okay? Those are ways, those are things you can grasp as coping mechanisms to this suffering. But if you grasp and you watch what's going on, you won't be able to grasp anymore. So then you'll be left with nothing to cope with. You won't be able to grasp anything to cope with. All you have left is the middle way to cope with, to use to cope. Turns out that that works. It's just that you can't grasp it. It's the way you are when you give up grasping the extremes. But it is a view, it's just you don't grasp it, because it doesn't come in the form that you can grasp. But it does come in a form that can be realized.

[30:09]

Grasping is characteristic of the world, and grasping makes it so that you can't see what's happening. And when you can't see what's happening, then you're suffering all the more, and then you grasp these extremes. See how it works? Blind yourself to what's happening. Suffer. In that blind suffering, reach for some coping mechanism. And, you know, realize it doesn't work, but keep trying and arguing about it. Keep trying. But hearing the Buddha's teachings and turning around and starting to look at what's happening, even though it's hard, using that first understanding of the middle way, starting to look at what's happening without grasping, without inclining, without dispositions. You start to see what's happening. You see what's happening. You drop these views. Dropping these views, you enter the way that actually works, called the middle way.

[31:12]

But it's so subtle, it's virtually ungraspable. But it's our true nature, so don't worry. All you've got to do is stop running away from it, and it manifests right into your nose, right in your nose. So that's enough for today, I think. It's now 4.10. You have some questions? Yes, yes? Why don't you go, Bert, since you spilled his water? It's also nihilism. Okay, so impermanence is not annihilationism.

[32:17]

The Buddha says, in the world of birth and death, things are impermanent. Okay? But impermanence does not mean absolutely destroyed. Oh, doesn't impermanence mean it'll be over pretty soon? Yeah. So why don't you use impermanence as for how it's going to be over pretty soon rather than annihilationism? Why don't you just use impermanence? Huh? Huh? It's not quite as final, right? It's not quite as nice a club to bat back suffering. But impermanence is a way to get you to meditate. It's not something to hold on to. Impermanence is something to snap you out of your sleep. Kind of like, oh yeah. Whereas annihilationism is kind of like you're trying to make that be the truth. That's your philosophy. Impermanence isn't really true it's just a characteristic of the conventional world but impermanence if you see impermanence it wakes you up when you see how impermanent you are it's very encouraging to your practice it isn't like you say well I'm done now this is going to like this doesn't take impermanence doesn't take away suffering impermanence is painful it's not a coping mechanism it's a painful thing

[33:51]

It stimulates you to commune with Buddha. Whereas annihilationism says, you know, I got my own philosophy. I don't need Buddha. I hear Buddha doesn't agree with me anyway. Get a feeling for the difference? But annihilation also means it's going to be over period soon. And so So no matter what I'm going to do from now until it's over, if I can get by with it between now and when it's over, it doesn't make any difference what I did. Because it's going to be over. But the world of birth and death doesn't go like... It goes round and round and round. It's called samsara, which means it goes around. Birth and death is a synonym for samsara.

[34:53]

Samsara just doesn't go... It goes... That's the nature of samsara, is that it's like this... It's a closed system. But it's not eternal. It's a closed dream. It doesn't, like, you know... It has no way to stop. and it's not eternal. By its own logic, it just keeps running around in itself. But eternal suffering isn't the coping mechanism. There's some other kind of eternal. Eternal bliss. Eternal self. Eternal purity. Eternal... What's the other one? Well, eternity, permanence, self, purity, and pleasure.

[35:57]

Those things are eternal. This is the way you're going to cope with the situation. But it actually just keeps it going. Is that making sense? Maybe tomorrow. Yes? ... [...] What do you call it? It's counterintuitive. Yeah.

[37:09]

Is it counterintuitive for anybody else? Yeah. Why not? I have a little counterintuitive Buddha here. So, you know, you want me to explain this to you? Why don't you just see it? And why don't you just see things arising as it is and then tell us how that cured you of annihilationism. You have two days. Anyway, he did say that. It's not a typo. It is counterintuitive to some of us. Some of it's not even counterintuitive. It's just like, well, okay, he said that. I'll think about it. It isn't counter or pro-intuitive. It's just like, well... And to some people it makes sense. But I kind of, today I'm not in the mood to explain it to you. But maybe tomorrow, if you haven't already realized it yourself.

[38:12]

Okay? Sarah? Sarah. My wife says Sam and Sarah. My wife says Sam and Sarah. Samsara. Yeah, right. And Sarah also means plate in German, right? Yes, Sarah? It means one who laughs. That's good. You laughed, I heard you. There it is again. Another one. Only nine more to go and you'll fulfill your daily quota as an adult homo sapien. Now you only have eight to go. If you were willing to suffer barehanded, would that bring you wisdom or right you profit for that?

[39:27]

Okay. She said something about being willing to suffer barehanded. You know, I don't expect anybody, including myself, to suffer barehanded. Okay? It's too much. It's too much. How come I would be able to suffer barehanded and other people would do anything to not face suffering barehanded? Am I that much better than them? No. I need help. We have to have help to suffer. We need great patience. We need generosity. We need the precepts. We need enthusiasm. We need concentration. We need all the Buddhas. We need the Sangha. We need the Dharma. We cannot suffer barehanded. We need a lot of support. The question is, what are you using to help you? Are you using these extremes or are you using the middle way? If we use the extremes, we don't use what really we should be using to help us suffer, to face suffering. We can't face it barehanded. We're not going to. The question is, what is our refuge?

[40:27]

Is our refuge extreme views or, you know, indulgence in... Philosophers, you know, they don't take drugs, right? They have used extreme views. You know? These philosopher yogis used extreme views. That worked for them. That's the kind of people they were. Other people who aren't philosophers so much, they use drugs. And, you know, self-flagellation and stuff like that. You've seen those people? Whack, whack, whack. We need to use something else. We can't do it barehanded. It's too much. It's not like some of us are super tough and the other ones aren't. We're all you know, really having a hard time. So don't expect to do it single-handed, bare-handed. Use the middle way to help you do it. The best way to use it is in a non-grasping way. Like, don't approach these practices. That's the best way to practice them. Practice them without grasping, without approaching, you know.

[41:30]

And then also practice meditation or vision and watching that same attitude too. But even to sort of get in the ballpark of our experience, we have to take pretty good care of ourselves so we can like face this, you know, very dynamic music, this overwhelming music. You know, the, what is it? I was looking up one of those words. I was looking up diligence, you know, yesterday. And diligence is somewhere near in the dictionary to Dionysus, you know. And Dionysus is god of wine. And also he's a god in one of the cults, Greek cults of Bacchus, you know, Bacchus. And Bacchus is a god, I guess. And he has all these assistants, these female assistants called Baccha. And these ladies were super wild. And they'd rip you to shreds if you weren't on your toes.

[42:34]

And they represent the overwhelming power of fertility and life. So to face life as life bumps into ignorance and all the mess and blood and guts that comes flying in that situation, we have to gird our loins, so to speak. and be ready for this. And we have to practice these Eightfold Path and practice them with these two overall attitudes of not inclining, not attaching, not approaching, not according to our dispositions. And of course, we do bring these things into play, but then they don't work. So we confess it and gradually stop these off-balance ways of doing these practices, which are the middle way practices. In other words, not grasping the practice, which reminds me about wine.

[43:36]

We have this precept about not getting intoxicated, and not getting intoxicated often goes with losing our diligence and so on and so forth. But even that precept, you shouldn't grasp that precept too tightly. Otherwise, Dionysus might come and get you. Oh, you think you're not going to drink, huh? Okay. Well, you may not drink, but we're going to have this happen to you. Twelve. Average twelve. Children, two hundred. Babies, two hundred. Little babies laugh. Yeah. You're already almost up to 12, see? I know. I know. So, I mean, if you can do 12 during this class, you know, you're going to get above the average. But it should be, the amount that you've been laughing in the last few minutes, like, that should go on kind of like all day. You'd do more than a child if you did that.

[44:38]

I think you got, I think you're almost up to 12 already. And some other people are getting a few in here, I see. So I'm just saying that sometimes you should drink. You know? Sometimes you should drink. Not when you want to, but when I want you to. So like, you know, when somebody else wants you to, basically. Want a drink? No. You have a drink. Dionysus had a brother. His name was Hephaestus. And his brother was, you know, the master craftsman of the gods. He was like a great inventor. So he invented, he got mad at his mom. His mom, right? The queen of the gods. So he got mad at his mom, so he made this really nice trap for his mom. And he trapped his mom in this cage, you know, and then he lifted the cage up in the air, and so there's the queen of the gods

[45:44]

hanging suspended in his cage in the air, right? And only Ephesus knows how to undo it. So his brother, Dionysus, gets him drunk. And in his drunkenness, he loosens up a little bit and lets his mom out of the prison. So, you know, wine sometimes is good. One time I went, some of you people heard this story before I went to birthday party for a Zen master in Japan and I was there with much they could get us to drink and so how many people have heard this story before so If you had a cup, if you had a socket cup and a beer cup in front of you, and if they were both full and sitting in front of you, they'd come over to you and poke you to drink it.

[46:52]

Drink, drink. So as soon as you finished drinking, whether you put it down or not, they'd pour more into it and force you to drink more. They just kept that up. And then Richard Baker leaned to me and said, you know, if you accept, they'll leave me alone. Did you follow that? We were both kind of resisting, you know? And they're pushing both of us. They're pushing the other people too. But he said, if I would accept, if I would just stop resisting, then they would leave him alone and just keep pouring it on me. So they did. So I stopped resisting and they left everybody alone and just kept it coming on me. And so, you know, they'd fill it. I'd drink it, put it down, they'd fill it. I'd drink it, put it down, they'd fill it. Just like that. They just kept doing it. Kept them busy, you know, through the rest of the meal.

[47:55]

And then when the meal was finished, they'd finish off the meal by bringing a damburi bowl. You know, damburi bowls are big like this. Usually you serve, like, noodles and stuff on top. So he brought two damburi bowls, one for soup and one for rice, at the end of this 20-course meal. And then when I finished those two bowls of rice and soup, then they filled them, filled one entirely with sake and one with beer. So I drank both of those. LAUGHTER So then, and I was looking, some thought was running through my mind, well, here I am studying Zen in Japan. Here I am in the great temple of Bankei Zenji, right? This is Bankei Zenji's temple. I was looking out at the beautiful Japanese garden, and I think, well, here I am doing this. And then the Zen master we were visiting was going to do some calligraphy, so he was going to do calligraphy where I was sitting.

[49:01]

So I had to get up and walk to the other side of the room. And I did. And I sat down and watched him do calligraphy. And when he was done, we left. We went down and we got in our car and drove away. I never got drunk. At first, I was a little bit resisting it. I never wanted to. I a little bit didn't want to. But then I just drank the alcohol. I didn't get drunk. I did not want to get drunk. I didn't want to get drunk. And I didn't get drunk. And I also didn't get not drunk. I just drank. Sometimes it's okay to drink. It depends on your motivation. And my motivation, I did not have any motivation to drink or not to drink. I was being asked to drink. That's like, you know, that doesn't happen very often that people really want you to drink. unless they're also alcoholics but these people were not alcoholics I don't know what they were but they wanted me to drink they wanted me to drink they wanted to see what would happen if that person drank all that and they got to see and one of the things they saw was that the person did not turn red like they do that's part of what they like to see is how we don't turn red because we have an enzyme Norwegians have an enzyme

[50:33]

Yeah. So they don't turn red. They turn kind of like purple. And then you sell them in the fish market. So anyway, you should not attach to what the practice means. You should not have inclination. You should not approach it. You should practice. You should study, but without inclination. Then you can see how things happen. They're happening, but you can't see how they're happening if you're manipulating, if you're wishing, if you're not wishing, if you're fighting, if you're dealing and wheeling. Then that attitude obscures the vision of how things happen. If you see how things happen, your extreme views will drop. You won't hold them anymore when you see how things happen. When you see how things arise as they are, you'll lose one extreme view.

[51:46]

When you see how they cease as they are, you'll lose the other view. It turns out everything arises, all things arise and cease. So, you know, there it is. You can watch all these things arise and cease. That's what happens in birth and death. Things come up and go down. And until we understand this, as long as we're approaching this and clinging we don't understand it, and as long as we're approaching and clinging and don't understand, these things are suffering. Then they afflict us. They're afflictions. They seem like afflictions. They're not really afflictions. It's our approach makes them afflictions. We slap them with our approach, we get hurt. And sometimes they get hurt too. And we respect them by not clinging, by not approaching, by not inclining. They tell us their secret. They show us their causal nature. When we see their causal nature, we realize that things that have a causal nature cannot be eternal and cannot be annihilated.

[52:50]

Things that don't have causal nature, well, they can be eternal and annihilated. But guess what? What am I going to tell you now? What? What? There aren't any or everything is causal nature. There aren't any things that aren't that way. It's just people who don't see straight, like most of us, think there's things that don't have causal nature and therefore they could be eternal. I guess they would be, wouldn't they, if they didn't have causal nature? And that's what... Before Buddha, some people thought something that was true didn't have a causal nature, therefore it did exist, therefore it always existed and always will because it has no causal nature. But there aren't really any things like that. That's confusion. So, in Buddhism we call that confusion. We don't call that false. That's confusion. That's not seeing straight when you see things that don't have causal nature. You're confused. You don't see. And when you have wisdom, you just see that's the way they are. And it's not that that's true, that they have causal nature.

[53:58]

That's still not their true nature. That's just their causal nature. That's their dependent nature. But you have right view when you see that. When you see their causal nature thoroughly, then you see their true nature. And their true nature is... They're empty. They have no actual nature. Yes? Could you match up the ethical and philosophical middle way by saying devotion to self-mortification would be like, I'm really real, so I can leave myself up. And devotion to self-indulgence would be like, nothing's really real, so it doesn't matter. I can do anything. Yeah, I think you could. And that's usually the direction that people do it. Usually nihilists go for, you know, why not indulge in whatever I want to do, whatever would be fun, because, you know, it's going to be totally over soon.

[55:04]

So ordinary Buddhists know it's going to be over soon, but they don't think it's going to be totally over, because nothing's totally over. And also, nothing's going to go on either. So nothing goes on and nothing's totally over, but there's going to be birth and death indefinitely. And it's not going to end until you get the right attitude. It's like, it's not true, but we're in this prison that we make with our mind until we understand it. And so that'll just keep going on, but that's not a time thing. It's not going to last a long time. Time is also an illusion, but there's going to be that illusion that it's going on a long time. So, let's practice the middle way. It's really a good deal. So, Liz, I mean, Louise. I'm trying to come up with an idea about how we got to this complicated way that And why so hard to hold these ideas, you know, as truth, to do this?

[56:22]

You know, like, is it really our, that the human mind is sort of, you know, fascinating to perceive the good picture, or non-reality, or, you know, why is it that we get into this way of perceiving it, like, causes us all to get into this way? I think it's because we got something for it in the first place. We got power for it. Yeah. Like, I think, you know, one of the stories about the origins of this dualistic consciousness is the story of Amor and Psyche. Do you know that story? You know Amor? Love? Eros? Eros, Eros and Psyche, you know that story? That's a story about how there was love, there was life, you know, between, the mind knew love, I mean, the mind experienced love, but the mind didn't know what it was loving, because it wasn't separate from what it was loving.

[57:29]

So it couldn't know, it didn't have objective knowledge. Which, you know, that was happiness. That was love. No problem, right? But then, you know, something happened. Somebody started poking at the mind and said, wouldn't it be good if you knew what you were in love with? And first the mind said, first she said, well, I don't care. Besides, he told me that I'd lose him if I tried to find out who he was. They said, well, he might be a monster, you know. Who knows what you're in love with if you don't know what it is? Could be in big trouble. Anyway, finally she put the light on. She got to see him. It was nice to see him, actually. It was fun. But she lost him. But she got something she didn't have before. She got knowledge. And knowledge is very powerful if your neighbors don't have it.

[58:36]

So the first people who had objective knowledge, who could see something out there, separate from themselves, and even make it exist separate from themselves, these people had an advantage over the people who couldn't do it. They could do everything the other people could do, but now they had this power. And so everybody wanted to mate with those people. or that guy or that woman, whoever it was, that made this breakthrough. Just like the first guy who invented the heddle for the loom. He was probably very popular for a while around his village. You know what a heddle is? People, women, women probably, were working looms for 6,000 years before somebody, probably a man, who was not doing any weaving, just watching them slave away there and thought, Gee, they're working really hard. They have to put that thing through up and down, up and down, skip that one, go through that one.

[59:45]

It takes so long. Probably some guy just thought, hmm, I got an idea. And he went off and made a heddle and came back. And all the ladies probably said, that was great. So when you make a technological breakthrough of the level of the psyche, it usually, it gives, you know, not all technological breakthroughs, but that one anyway, was very powerful, and so it spread fairly rapidly. I mean, in terms of... The time from when it seems to first appear until, like, everybody was into it, wasn't very long, apparently. So it's a power thing, you know, animal power. And then the sense of self, you know, comes with that, of there's me and what I know. There's the knower and the known. There's the imaginer and the imagined. This is a very powerful psychic breakthrough. You can do things with that equipment that you can't do if you don't have that equipment.

[60:47]

And maybe our hands are part of the reason why we were the ones who had the breakthrough. Our hands are so great for grasping things out there. And maybe this objective thing, whales are have great brains, but they can't grab anything much, you know. So maybe it all comes from our hands and our mind then become a grasping thing. So that's my theory. It's a big trap because you're separated from what you used to be in love with. So then, like I said yesterday, you know, originally the unborn... was a river. But then the river got covered over with a road. So the road was hungry because originally it was a river. So we were originally, you know, just, we weren't all these little packages. We weren't these things. We were this inconceivable life.

[61:52]

But then we thought of how to make life conceivable and objective. And that was a breakthrough that was very powerful for the one who made the breakthrough, for the mind that thought of it. But then we're separated, and then we're anxious. So then after that, then people got scared of dying. Before that, you know, watch a dog die. They suffer, but they aren't scared of dying. But now we could make death outside. So then you have religion of how to cope with death and birth. Then people became scared of birth and death. So then they started taking drugs. Because, you know, they were so afraid of birth and death. They started to indulge in sensual pleasure. And they also started to, you know, mutilate themselves. I guess. Isn't that the history of the world? People weren't taking drugs and mutilating themselves before they had a sense of something out there and were afraid of birth and death.

[62:58]

So everybody dies. And among all the animals, we're the most fragile, you know. Just stay out one night without your clothes on with the rest of the animals at Tassajara in the winter. You know? Your word really wimps compared to the other animals. They die, we die, but we're the only ones who know it. We're the only ones who are afraid of it because we have this thing. So we suffer in ways that they can't suffer. So now we are in this long path to reunite with what we separated from. We have this dualistic consciousness which is very powerful, which makes spaceships and can colonize the universe because it's out there, it's not us. Other animals colonize each other too, but they're not as good as us because they can't separate and store up slaves and keep track of them as well as we can.

[64:03]

So it's very powerful But fortunately, it hurts. So that pain stimulates us to reunite with what we separated from. In other words, to create, to find non-dual consciousness too, which we never really lost. It was always there. It's more basic than dualistic. Dualistic is the later, it's a newcomer on the block. It's psyche after she saw it. Before that, she had a consciousness of non-separation. We have to rediscover that, this non-attaching, non-seeking mind. So a lot of our practice is to go back to this simple, non-dual, unbusy, primitive mind. Is it possible? Well, look at the story of Amoran Psyche again. She got these incredibly difficult tasks to get reunion, right?

[65:05]

She tried her best and she couldn't do any of them by herself. So we can only do this. None of us are strong enough to do it alone. We can only do it together. The ants helped her separate the sesame seeds from the sand or whatever it was. the reeds helped her collect the golden fleece from the rams and somebody else helped her with something else she tried her by her own power to barehanded to single-handedly face this task of reunion she couldn't do any of them but she tried and we tried but Now we've tried enough, so just give up and do it together with everybody and then it's possible. That's what that story is saying and I think that's what Buddhism is saying too. It's only together. That's why we need Sangha. We need support and we need to give support and we need to give support in order to receive support. We're already getting support but we have to give it to see that we're getting it.

[66:09]

When we realize we've got support we can do this hard work. This very challenging work of reunion. The non-dual awareness which sees emptiness. Okay, is that enough for today? Huh? I see a couple of hands, but it's getting kind of late.

[66:37]

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