Understanding this teaching is really for Bodhisattvas to help them be able to go into any situation of daily life, to enable them to be able to be present in any experience It enables them to deal with all different kinds of living beings Putting it the other way, if you don't understand this teaching, then there are some people,

[01:14]

some beings, you cannot, forget about help, you cannot even stand to be near, because you don't understand this teaching, and the way you wouldn't understand it would be that you think they really were the way they are. So understanding the two truths, understanding that the two truths are the same, and also

[02:22]

understanding the difference, is what you need to understand this teaching. Many people think they are the same, but they are not completely the same, but also they are different from what they can be, they are different from what they can be. What allows you to plunge into any situation, enter any situation, without modifying it

[03:30]

at all, and the very thing that allows you to enter situations without modifying them at all, brings your understanding which allows you to enter into the situation and saves the beings in that situation, if they will choose to receive the teaching which allows you to meet them. And once you arrive, it also protects you from, this teaching protects you from draining yourself by trying to manipulate situations, and draining yourself by trying to improve beings, and this way is the way that beings are helped, not by improving them, but by

[04:32]

releasing them from the situation, not by the booster rockets to get them a little bit better and then liberate them, but liberate them on the spot, whatever that spot is. And if they refuse to let you hang out with them, because they are embarrassed, and they want to go take a bath first, well you can let them, just like the son of a rich man, he wouldn't even allow his father to come near him, but his father didn't hesitate to go be with him, just because he was in that emaciated and filthy condition, but his father also could see that it wasn't appropriate to approach him at that time.

[05:34]

So embracing and sustaining all beings or entering every situation also means that you know when it's time to keep your distance, in other words, you know exactly the right distance to be, because you're open to the way things are rather than the way they appear, or I should say you're open to the ultimate truth at the same time as the relative truth or the conventional truth. And therefore, beings can teach you what to do. If there's a little bit of misunderstanding of this teaching, then there's a little bit of misunderstanding of how to help people. It doesn't mean you can't help people before you understand this teaching perfectly.

[06:40]

You can help them right now in whatever state of understanding you have. Also, understanding this teaching makes it possible for you to study this teaching, because if you understand the lack of and inherent existence of this teaching, you'll be able to relieve yourself of the frustrations you have working with it. At the same time, even though it's empty, this teaching is empty, because it dependently co-arises also. In the conventional Buddhist world, this teaching is considered to be the central philosophy of Mahayana Buddhism. It's a key point for Bodhisattvas to understand the Middle Way. So in those terms also, it's attractive.

[07:47]

In order to understand these two chapters, we've chosen two chapters to study, in order to understand why Chapter 1 actually has a very close relationship to Chapter 24. It lays the groundwork for it, and is central to the whole argument here. And it actually anticipates and brings this Chapter 24 to a conclusion. So the key point that I want to draw your attention to at the beginning is the emptiness of the pinna-ko arising itself. When I first started studying the pinna-ko arising in general Buddhist texts and in Abhidharma, the point that that process was empty, of inherent existence, was not brought forth.

[08:58]

I didn't see it explicitly, but Nagarjuna brings it forth in Chapter 1, because he's saying in Chapter 1 that causation, the causal process, does not have inherent existence. The process doesn't have inherent existence, and all the conditions lack inherent existence. So the happenstance that he put this information at the beginning of the book is because this in fact anticipates the entire text, this point that conditions do not have actual causal power, and that causation in the sense of real powerful connections between two things, one of which is called the cause and the other one which is called the effect, or one of

[09:59]

which is called something that's happening and the other one something that's explaining it, that the connection between those two lacks inherent existence. The connection between what you just call cause and effect is empty. There's nothing substantial to it. That's the keystone of Chapter 1. And that makes the whole process also lack inherent existence. So the lack of inherent existence of dependent co-arising is very important for the establishment of ... that was set up in Chapter 1, that's very important for what's established in Chapter 24. But let's just, for the sake of argument, imagine that you had a dependent co-arising, a causal process of dependent co-arising that wasn't empty. In other words, imagine that Chapter 1 hadn't been taught, in a way.

[11:03]

And again, there's certain Buddhist teachings which, if you don't examine thoroughly, you might not notice that this was incompatible with Buddhist teaching, namely that dependent co-arising was not empty, or that causal processes had inherent existence. You might be able to think that if you read certain Buddhist teachings and didn't examine them thoroughly. So, if you have that in mind, that dependent co-arising itself is non-empty, or has inherent existence maybe, or at least non-empty, then if you look at Chapter 24, where emptiness and dependent co-arising are identified, then emptiness is non-empty. However, still, even though now you've made dependent co-arising non-empty, and there's

[12:11]

therefore emptiness non-empty, still, you can see that the conventional phenomena were empty, because they dependently co-arised. So, then you get dependent co-arising and emptiness are not empty, and then you have conventional things are empty, so then you have the two truths are not only different in the usual way of one truth is conventional existence and the other truth is ultimate non-existence, not only that difference, but now you also have that they're different in terms of one actually does have inherent existence and the other one doesn't. So now the two truths are actually separated. Now, in that case, you have a dualism, a strong dualism, and you have a strong dualism in

[13:40]

terms of the way ultimate and conventional world exists. They have two different kinds of being. And now you don't just have two different ways of looking at phenomena, you have two different kinds of ways of being. Instead of you have phenomena, and one way to look at them is that they conventionally exist, and the other way to look at them is that they're empty, and this is one world of being, now you have two worlds of being. But if dependant co-arising itself, the causal process itself, has lacks inherent existence, and it is equivalent to emptiness, then both of them are empty, and therefore they have

[14:56]

the same status as conventional reality, and therefore the two truths are identical. Or the same. And they're also, of course, different. But they're not completely different, and they're not completely the same. So, in some ways, the key point to all this teaching is, first of all, to study chapter one. That chapter contains it all, because it's about cause. And changing from cause, that has causal power, to conditions, which just explain things, is the key point of the whole thing. And again, when you switch from cause to conditions for things, you switch from something that

[16:18]

has inherent power to cause something, to something that just explains the regularity of something. And again, when you explain the regularity of something, the explanation is verbal. And verbal, of course, again, is just conventional. Are there distinctions between verbal and symbolic? I didn't hear the word symbolic yet, so... I know, but... I don't know what to say about it. Maybe one difference between verbal and symbolic would be that verbal, in this case, means

[17:24]

conventional verbal. So, when symbolic gets to be conventional, maybe it can be a word. Some symbols are not conventional. We haven't had a convention to see what they mean, so they're not used to explain in a conventional sense that way. And these explanations of how things happen, these verbal explanations of how things happen, again, to say that they're conventional means that they're relative to human purposes.

[18:26]

They're not just any old explanation. They're anthropocentric. So again, they're not real in any sense other than for us, for our practical use. And also, not just for our use, but also in order to be practical, they have to fit with all of our currently established theories and patterns of thinking. Otherwise, they won't be practical. Or they have to revolutionize our point of thinking. But they have to deal, they have to be in terms of our currently established stuff. Again, which is to make them very particular to us for our use. Which is also part of why they're dependent on our issues and our structures and our development.

[19:32]

And it's this material that we use to see something exist, to experience something as existing. And with these devices, with these words and these conventions, we have the experience of something having an existence. Without this material, we will not have a sense of something existing. We can have experience, but not of an existently and arising thing, or something that's existed to go away. In order for that experience to happen, it has to co-dependently happen. In order for it to co-dependently happen, we have to have words for it. Otherwise, the thing that comes up has no identity, therefore we have no way of knowing if it went into rows, and no way of knowing if it went all the way. So with words, which we use conventionally and co-dependently, we create things happening.

[20:50]

They do not, however, actually ultimately happen. Ultimately, nothing, nothing happens. Nothing happens. That's it, ultimately. The universe is not a place where things are happening. However, it is a place where living beings imagine that something is happening, and they don't just do it at random, they do it in a conventional way. And we use words, and with words, used in conventional ways, we have now things happening. And this is a truth. The truth is that there is the appearance, in conventional existence, of things arising and going away. And this is the basis, this view of the world as a place where things are happening, and then where they go away.

[22:02]

That's the world of birth and death, that's the world of suffering. But it won't do any good to sort of take away the conventional truth and say, no, they don't happen. Because they do, conventionally. They do. How do they? Co-dependently. How do they co-dependently? With these words. You take these words, and then things do happen. They really do, when you have those words, but they really don't because you need the words for them to happen without the words. There's no such thing. Take away the words, and you don't have these things out in the universe, all these new immunities, all these new identities. They do not hold up. But with words, they do. Not only do we take these slices out of things, not only do living beings take slices out of what's happening, that's not enough. You then have to pull a word out and slap it on the slice. And not only that, but you have to do it in a way that's conventional. If you just do it for yourself, it won't hold. It will be a sloppy thing.

[23:06]

It won't have conventional existence. It's more meaningful and useful than just sort of a random croak towards something that you perceive. You've got a group behind you. You've got history behind you. So there is something to that. And what is it to you? It's just this dependent co-arising that I've got for you. Dependent co-arising is words. It's empty. So, ultimately, nothing happens. Conventionally, something does happen. Ultimately, nothing goes away. Conventionally, things do go away. Okay, now, if we've spoken up for questions now, it might be hard for us to get to the text today, but that's okay with me. So, do you want to have questions now, or do you want to go into the text and go through some characters?

[24:08]

About this stuff. If people want to have some questions at this time. Okay. Let's try the text for a little while here. Okay. So, 18, the central character. Let's start with that. 18. We state that whatever is dependent co-arising, that is emptiness. That is dependent upon convention. That itself is middle way.

[25:10]

A thing that is not dependently arisen is not evident. That's what I just said. You have no evidence for something that doesn't dependently co-arise. There are no things arising in this world that you can experience, except by dependent co-arising. Which means, except by using words. And again, the last character said, that is dependent on convention, and that is dependent co-arising, and that is emptiness. A thing that is not dependently arisen is not evident. For that reason, a thing that is non-empty is indeed not evident. Everything is placed now in the basket of dependent co-arising. All that is non-empty, no, excuse me, if all this is non-empty, there exists no arising and ceasing.

[26:31]

These imply the non-existence of the Four Noble Truths. I just said, from the ultimate point of view, nothing arises and nothing ceases. Ultimately, nothing arises and nothing ceases. This just said, if things are non-empty, there is no arising or ceasing. But I'm saying, of course, that if things are empty, they ultimately don't arise and cease. Ultimately, because they're empty, they don't arise and cease. However, we have two truths, and they are identical. So although we say that because of emptiness, ultimately there's no such thing, there's no inherently arising thing, and there's no inherently departing thing. So no thing actually arises and ceases. However, if you take away emptiness, if things are non-empty, then also they don't arise and cease.

[27:42]

Because things that are non-empty don't dependently arise, and there's nothing that doesn't dependently arise. So something that's non-empty can't arise or cease. But that's different from saying that ultimately things don't arise or cease. This is saying, completely, even conventionally, things won't arise or cease if they're non-empty. There's no such thing. These imply the non-existence of the four noble truths. If things don't arise or cease, the four noble truths do not exist, because the four noble truths depend on things arising and ceasing. How can there be suffering that has not dependently arisen? Suffering has, indeed, been described as impermanent. As such, it is not evident in terms of self-nature. Where could suffering in the nature of non-relational origination arise?

[28:51]

For, indeed, what is impermanent is said to be in the nature of suffering. And the impermanent cannot exist in something with self-nature. So, I kind of feel like you understand this paragraph. Is that right? So, I feel like I could keep going for a little while here. It seems like you're following. How could that which has self-nature arise again? Therefore, there is no arising in that which disaffirms emptiness. How can that which is evident in terms of self-nature arise again?

[30:02]

Therefore, for one who contradicts emptiness, there exists no arising. The extinction of suffering in terms of self-nature does not happen. For, you deny the existence itself, or you deny extinction itself by adhering to the notion of self-nature. The cessation of suffering that exists in terms of self-nature is not evident. You contradict cessation by adhering to the notion of self-nature. If suffering had essence, cessation would not exist. So, if an essence is positive, one denies extinction.

[31:05]

If an essence of suffering is positive, one denies nirvana. If the way to enlightenment possesses self-nature, then its practice will not be possible. If the way is practiced, your assertion of the way involving self-nature is inadmissible. If the way is practiced, your assertion of a way involving self-nature is inadmissible. If the path had an essence, cultivation would not be appropriate. If this path is indeed cultivated, it cannot have essence.

[32:08]

When self-nature exists, the cultivation of the path is not appropriate. And if the path were to be cultivated, then self-nature associated with it would not be appropriate. When self-nature exists, the cultivation of the path is not appropriate. And if the path were to be cultivated, then self-nature associated with it would not be evident. And when suffering, arising and extinction cannot be admitted to exist,

[33:15]

what path is achieved in virtue of the extinction of suffering? When suffering, arising and extinction cannot be admitted to exist, What path is achieved in virtue of the extinction of suffering? When suffering as well as the rising and ceasing are not evident through the cessation of suffering, where will the path lead to? If suffering cannot be known in virtue of self-nature, how does it become an object of knowledge again? Self-nature indeed never remains fixed. Hmm? Did I read that wrong?

[34:32]

No. If non-understanding is due to self-nature, how can one come to possess understanding subsequently? Is it not the case that self-nature is fixed? So I don't know what to say here about the translation. This is difficult to understand to say that self-nature indeed never remains fixed, because it seems like it does remain fixed, right? So I don't want to talk about that right now. Just as in the case of knowledge of suffering, therefore your knowledge of abandoning, perceptual confirmation, practice and the four fruits cannot be established, as in the case of understanding

[35:43]

this, it is not proper in relation to activities of delinquishing, realizing as well as cultivating, and so would the four fruits be improper? I feel like we're getting as far enough maybe for now. Okay? All right? I just want to go back to 24, just for a minute here, and just look at those different translations, and if the path had essence, cultivation would not be appropriate. If this path is indeed cultivated, it cannot have essence. If the path of release is self-existent, then there would be no way of bringing it into existence.

[37:03]

If the path is brought into existence, then self-nature, which you claim, does not exist. When self-nature exists, cultivation of the path is not appropriate. And if the path were to be cultivated, then no self-nature associated with it would be evident. I don't know, in some ways I feel like I want to say something, but now I feel like it's been said, but if there's a thing called the Buddhist path or Buddhist practice, then in some ways, we should leave it alone, not even bow to it, because bowing to it might be disrespectful,

[38:13]

and we should probably just freeze in relationship to it. Because this is a wonderful thing, this Buddhist path to enlightenment is a wonderful thing, just leave it alone. This is the path to enlightenment, right? So shouldn't we just leave it alone, if that's the path of enlightenment? But if you engage it, that's sort of disrespectful, if that's it. So if it really is, if this is the path of enlightenment here someplace, wherever, we should, if we are disciples of that path of enlightenment, we should not move, we should let it be. Then we can't get on it. We can't get on it, no, but again, if that's it, then if that's the way it is, the fact that we can't get on it is not important. But, now if we do get on it, you know, just riding it around and living it and bowing to it

[39:17]

and make it happen and stuff like that, and get in this dynamic relationship with it, it starts to be cultivated. Cultivation has to do with the word till, you know? And till has to do with working hard, in other words, you till the land, you massage it and you work it. If there was such a thing as the practice or the path, then we shouldn't mess with it. But, if we don't mess with it, then what's our relationship to it, and so on. So, in fact, as soon as we are working with it, then of course there can't be any self-nature anymore, there's not a thing there anymore, it's in process. But the funny thing is, I feel in myself something like, you know, kind of like, well, there is this practice, I kind of feel like, well, there is the practice, and, you know, we should respect it and we shouldn't mess with it. I do feel that a little bit, like there is Zen practice, right? You know, koans, and sticks, and zappos, and Buddha halls, and bald heads, and cross-legs,

[40:21]

there is Zen practice, and we should respect it and not mess with it. There is something in that, in me about sort of like a tradition, you know, a tradition. But, in fact, this tradition, strangely enough, it isn't tradition, but, and it has conventional existence, but there is no self-nature to this conventional existence, and that's the tradition. But the tradition keeps manifesting a conventional existence of the tradition. And when that conventional existence appears, we should honor that this has happened. Words and phrases have made Soto Zen appear in the world. And we should honor that that's the way it exists, conventionally. But then, we have to interact with it, and when we interact with it, then that now becomes the conventional reality of our practicing. And then you can't see the essence anymore, you can't see any essence of the practice.

[41:23]

You can't see it, it's not evident. But, if there was self-nature, in some ways cultivation would not only not make any sense, it would be impossible, because you'd be like chipping away at an indestructible diamond. There'd be no way to relate to it. But you should leave it alone if it had itself, if it really did have essence, we shouldn't mess with the essence of practice, should we? And haven't you heard of expressions like essence of practice, essence of truth, essence of dharma, and essence of enlightenment, essential enlightenment? There's something like that floating around in the conventional world. But the conventional world, if the conventional world is self-existent, we should leave it alone. It's not, though, so we can interact with it. When we interact with it, there's no essence left. But then if there's no essence, what's the practice? How are we going to check to see if it's actually the practice, rather than just people fooling around? We don't have an essence to check with. This is a problem, checking with the essence.

[42:25]

How are you going to know if it's really the thing, really the true thing? How are we going to check? What are you going to use to check? Okay, now we can have a discussion. Including extraneous, what do you call it, selflessly postponed ones. Do you understand the situation, the problem I've raised, or the dynamic? John? Well, I'd like to back up a little. I'm always having a little problem when statements are made, as you made, in an ultimate sense, nothing happens. I always hear that as a kind of assertion or affirmation about the way stuff is in an ultimate way. And I wonder whether my understanding of it is the same as yours, or similar to your understanding of it,

[43:26]

which is that it's just a disaffirmation of anything existing in any kind of non... Being able to say in any coherent fashion that there's some kind of non-relativistic stance to take. To say that there are, for example, entities, or something like entities out there, from some larger than human perspective. To say that nothing happens, to me, suggests some kind of supra-human kind of knowledge, or some assertion of the way things are, rather than saying that it's clear that you can't say anything about it. When you say, in an ultimate sense, nothing exists, do you mean something different from saying it's incoherent to say that something exists?

[44:26]

No, I do not mean that. You don't mean that? Because the ultimate position has a partner, which says you can coherently say that things exist. And the way you say that coherently is to say that they conventionally exist. Right. But because the coherent way of saying how they exist depends on convention, and verbal designation, it ultimately doesn't. The very validity of the valid way of stating how things exist goes with another perspective, simultaneously, that they don't. Any way of stating how they do happen, as valid,

[45:31]

implies that they don't exist. That's what I'm saying. To me, one thing is that we have these concepts, we have these words, we're talking about what we see from a human perspective. And it would be odd if they applied in some kind of sense that we can't know, in some way that incorporated or took a much larger kind of perspective that was outside a human perspective. And then another kind of, it seems to me, a little stronger kind of assertion, or non-assertion, is that even from a human perspective, we can see through the attribution of the status of existence, of calling something an entity, saying that it is a chair. Even from the conventional perspective. In other words, from common sense, we can see that that doesn't make sense. That being the attribution of independent existence, from the point of view of common sense,

[46:39]

we can see that that's incoherent. Right, we can see that without the idea of a chair, without a human perceptual system, without carpenters, and without a kind of sense of duration that's relevant and all these things. So then to talk about the universe made up of all these things that we see in that same fashion, of stars and sun and sky and all that, it seems incoherent. Except in a merely conventional sense. But it is coherent in a conventional sense. But we're not saying that's the way it really is. No, we're saying that's the way it conventionally exists, and we're also saying that we can also say that for us, that's the only kind of existence that we have available for us, that's relevant to our suffering. So when we say, it doesn't say

[47:40]

therefore nothing is happening. Ultimately. But ultimately means ultimately based on. Ultimately, ultimately, ultimately is based on, ultimately is based on. I can't say, I said that ultimately, and today I said it, you know, after all this time, ultimately is based on conventionally. Ultimately is not mid-air. I don't just walk in and say nothing exists. You have to understand the conventional truth, because it is the conventional truth that's the basis of me making this statement. Is that anything other than a conventional statement? No. The ultimate statement, the ultimate point of view is also empty. Because it also, in order to be expressed and experienced, has to dependently co-arise, and it means convention, it's a verbal expression too. But, we do need to say it, because if we don't say it, all we have is conventional reality, which never liberates us. Are you saying you have knowledge of anything other than conventional reality?

[48:44]

Am I saying that? Yes. No. That's the ultimate point of view. Ultimate point of view is you have no knowledge of anything existing aside conventionally. And that's the reason why nothing is actually happening. Because all you have experience of, everything you think is happening, only has conventional existence. Do you mind if it were kind of restated in a kind of negative form, like ultimately it is not true that something is happening? Yes. You wouldn't mind that? I wouldn't mind it. I don't think so. Not today. Because it seems to me different. I mean, it seems that one is an assertion about the way things seem to be from a kind of perspective, outside the human perspective. No, this is an absolute statement, though. Maybe to say it the way you said it sounds less absolutistic. Ultimately it means, from the point of view of conventional reality

[49:48]

being thoroughly played out, from the point of view of how you want to put it now to set people free, say it this way. So from the point of view of how I want to set people free, I want to say, nothing is happening. Nothing comes up, nothing goes away. That's the way I want to say it from the point of view of the goal I'm concerned with. I'm not making an absolute statement. Is that more challenging to everyday assumptions about the way things are? Well, more challenging to everyday assumptions is another way of saying it is perhaps more releasing. The ultimate concern is that I say it in a way that's releasing, that's relaxing, that's, you know, that's relieving of the ordinary. I want to relieve the conventional world, but not destroy it. Because just to make the relieving statement without basis in the conventional world is just, you know, what do you call it? It's like a badly, unskillfully dressed snake.

[50:51]

So we don't want to do that. See, I mean, in terms of snake, I mean, I always, I mean, I myself always hear that statement as a kind of nihilist statement about the kind of ultimate non-existence of any... If you make this into nihilism, then you're going to get bitten by the nihilists. Gabe? I think I might be too confused now, but I'll ask this question, my question forward. So is there, it seems to me, by the way you were talking earlier today, it might clear things up to make a distinction between ultimate view and ultimate truth. Whereas ultimate truth is sort of just one half of ultimate view, which is counterbalanced with the conventional view.

[51:52]

Ultimate view, the view of wisdom, sees both two simultaneously. It sees them as radically different and as the same. That's ultimate view. And from ultimate view, you can state conventional truth, you can use a word and pop out conventional truth, which you used words to conventionally experience, and you can use words to express the ultimate truth, which you're also using words to express, so both of them are equally empty and equally dependent on the coercion. However, the second one is releasing, the first one is just necessary in order to say the second one. And you have to say it according to conventional, and not violate conventional, otherwise it doesn't exist. Conventional.

[52:54]

And we need conventional existence, otherwise we don't have anything to work with. But once we have something to work with, when you meditate on the dependent co-arising, it empties, and then we express our understanding of it, but simultaneously we empty our expression, because we use words to say what we experience. In order for us to have an experience, to bring it back into the world, we have to put it back into conventional existence again, so we bring ultimate back into the conventional. We use the conventional to go forward, and we use the conventional to resurrect, and bring the liberation back into the world. You said we use the conventional, I think you meant to say... Pardon? Well, I know what you meant, but you used the wrong word. What did I say? You said we use the conventional to re-resurrect and bring something back into the world. I think you meant to say we use the ultimate. Well, I meant to bring the ultimate back into the world, and use the conventional.

[53:59]

Oh, you did. Thank you. So, I know the hands are flying all over the place, so I don't need to do that. Tom? The night before last, you said that, before meditation, that the Bhikkhus are fairly familiar, or knew about the Pinnacle of Arising, but didn't know about something that everyone knew about. I hope I didn't say that. I think that some Buddhists had lost track, and made the Pinnacle of Arising into something that itself is self-existent. I don't want to say the Bhikkhus did. Abhidharmas talked like they made it into something which inherently existed, more than just that conventional reality among Buddhist philosophers.

[55:00]

Anyway, Naraduna felt that he needed to resurface this teaching of Buddha, so that the teaching of the Pinnacle of Arising could be used to bring the two truths together. So he brought up the teaching of the two truths, which was already there before, he brought them out again, and used the Pinnacle of Arising, and empty the Pinnacle of Arising. He very clearly emptied it. I don't see much sign of it before Naraduna and Abhidharma. Did you just check me now? Well, I was wondering... I had a process with them, but I wasn't sure, because I heard you say that they knew about the Pinnacle, but they didn't know about emptiness. I was wondering how you could really pursue the Pinnacle of Arising without pursuing emptiness. ...of the Pinnacle of Arising was given.

[56:15]

So they could see that, because in fact, every element, everything, the conditions are in both directions, so that the process does end up emptying itself. And they could see that, but there's nothing in the text about that. So when you study Abhidharma with students of Mahayana, they sometimes present students, in other words, they tend to empty the discussion as they go along, which is fine, as long as... again, as long as you don't use emptying the discussion as a way to not face and understand conventional reality, which in the case of Abhidharma, a lot of people would like not to face. Even in this class, people like to say, it's all emptied and walk out, rather than face it. We conventionally create the reality of this text. We are creating a conventional reality about what this class is, or what this text is. And we have to have these conventions, many, many conventions to establish this apparent existence

[57:19]

of our understanding of this text, which again, because of the way we created it, that's why all of our understandings of this are dependently co-arisen. And because they're dependently co-arisen, and because they have conventional existence, we have conventional access to them, we can enjoy them and discuss them. Because of that, they're empty, they have no inherent existence. Because we can have this discussion, there's no inherent existence of discussion. Because we can study this text, there's no inherent existence of text. Okay, and then, let's see, I think... I think... I think... I don't understand. Kenneth? Kenneth? Or Hannah? Okay, to me it sounds as if nothing has happened for the first time, because all that is possibly to be said,

[58:22]

to have a convention, makes it possible to say something, and on the other hand, in this history, the Buddha is the first one who could be more enlightened. So how is this quite something happening for the first time? Well, that's an interesting question. I don't know which would be the most fun to answer. Whatever we... Any experience we have, only things that happen are things that happen that could dependently co-arise according to this. There's nothing that's evidence. We have no evidence for anything happening unless it dependently co-arises. Okay? That's been the case for quite a while, and will continue to be the case, maybe.

[59:24]

Me saying that, again, has dependently co-arisen. And I've used words to do it, so what I've just said is empty, and what I'm going to say now is empty, of inherent existence. Okay? So, if something happens, dependently co-arises, therefore you use convention to make it happen, you use human convention to make it happen, so you're saying this can't be new because I used human convention to make it happen. Okay? So we could, we could just decide to have a convention and have a discussion and establish conventionally that nothing new happens. We can do that, that would be possible. However, that statement and the reasoning we used to arrive at it, we need to use certain reasoning to arrive at that so everybody will agree that it's so, that by that reasoning, nothing new happens. Okay? This is just one level of dealing with your question. But then the statement that nothing new happens would be empty. Because of our discussion. The reasoning you just went through to establish the idea that you can have the experience of the thought that nothing new happens, that dependently co-arose in you because of this class,

[60:27]

and I end up using words to come to it, and words to express it. Okay? So you can say that, and I'm not going to argue with you about that right now, but I would just say that what you just said has no inherent existence. Okay? So, there's no inherent existence to the idea that something fresh can happen. Does that mean something fresh does happen? Or we can make a case for that something fresh happens. Like Siddhartha Krishna talked about how by realizing emptiness, everything is refreshed all the time. But there's no inherent existence. That's empty, what he said there. This business about being fresh. But all these Zen teachers are concerned about refreshing everything. Refreshing the Dharma. In other words, cultivating and making it new, fresh. We do need to do that. But the way to do that is not so much that you come up with something new. Because something new is just something new by convention. And therefore it's not really new. It's not by coming up with something new. It's also of course not by coming up with something old and stuffy.

[61:30]

That's dependent co-arising. It's not that dependent co-arising will make you new things. It's that dependent co-arising will make you something which you could call new or old. Whatever it makes you is empty. And the fact that it's empty is what makes it fresh. If you say it's new, you just made it old. If you say it's fresh, you just made it stale. Whatever you say. The point is, by the process, the reasoning will tell you that everything you come up with in the process will be fresh. And part of the reason why it'll be fresh is because you used this standard, well-established method to make things. Which, because it's standard, because it's human, because it's human-centric, because it's relative to our concerns, it's really fresh. If we actually had control of everything, and we were non-biased, then we'd make things,

[62:32]

and they wouldn't be fresh. Because we'd have all the elements of the universe at our disposal, we'd make it really happen. We wouldn't be just on our own personal trip. Anything we made would not just be empty things, they'd be real things, and then there wouldn't be no freshness. No refreshment either. Does that make sense? The freshness comes not by our attempt to make things fresh, the staleness doesn't come by the fact that we have to use old tools all the time, because we've evolved in a certain way. The staleness doesn't come from the fact that we have to come from where we've been, and where we are. That's not what makes a staleness. No. The staleness method comes from not appreciating what's happening. What's happening is the very fact that we come from where we're coming from, and that we've used what we're using, is what makes what we're doing lack inherent existence. And that makes what we're doing always fresh, always like totally, flat out, liberated. And liberation is not concerned with whether it's new or not.

[63:33]

Conventional reality, however, is concerned with new and old, past and future, right and wrong. And because that's all things we make, they're fresh. So there is newness, there is freshness, but when I say that, this isn't just another conventional story, it's not really freshness, it's totally stuck in human tradition, Zen tradition, English tradition, male tradition, female tradition, blah, blah, blah, right? That's why, but I actually call it freshness. Pardon? No, no. Our attention to things is what gives us a chance to see the freshness. The freshness is there all the time. Freshness comes not by our... Our attention isn't what makes emptiness happen. Our attention to emptiness and to dependent co-arising gives us access to the process of emptying ourselves and refreshing ourselves.

[64:39]

So if we pay attention to dependent co-arising and we notice how it's conventional and blah, blah, blah, and we can appreciate how things are refreshed, and we can enjoy our freedom. But our attention... Things get refreshed even without our attention. We can all, you know, totally close down and things are still going to flash ahead in total radiant color. Yeah, I just... Yeah, I'm also interested in the way you create meaning. It's the same way I'll create... Oh, I'm conventional now. So I'll create meaning. Yes. So, I'm just interested in that way you construct meaning. Yeah, if we watch how we construct conventional meaning, and we study it very carefully, then we'll be ready to receive the next revelation. Which is that the very fact that the way we made this shows that this is empty, and therefore the very fact that what we made here can free itself and become refreshed. If we watch our dirty work, our ordinary work,

[65:42]

it will become refreshed and free. But even if we don't watch it, it will still be fresh. Because dependent co-arising, or being dependent co-arising, is empty. Okay, now, do you still want to say something, Tim? Yeah, I'd like to back up just a little bit. Sure. To where you put the question whether we should vow to practice the vow of creation, or is that the way of the vow of creation? Yeah. Kind of. As far as the meaning of the 23rd and 24th ancestors, the 24th ancestors,

[66:44]

should that be concerned with something in order to cultivate the very fact of the way. To cultivate the very fact of the way, we should be concerned with nothing. Is that the meaning of the vow of creation? No. Okay. To me that doesn't sound like not vowing to practice. Not vowing to practice would sound like that you wouldn't have opened that book in the first place and read that story. Well, maybe he's not making practice essential. It's not attributing that sense to the practice. When you talk about vowing to practice, you talk about vowing to practice in the context of if the path had essence or not. Yeah, if I was making essence here.

[67:47]

Right. So maybe he's saying that that's a way of not of not attributing the essence to the practice. I was just trying to make sense of what he was saying. Who are we speaking for? Are we speaking for Kenneth or Bhagavad-Gita? There you go. And I was trying to trying to help with communication. You didn't think it went so well between us? One of the possibilities is that there wasn't transparent understanding. That seems possible. Okay. Well, it's 10 o'clock and, you know.

[68:28]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ