In the longer version of the Heart Sutra, as we mentioned before, in the beginning we have a description of the Buddha and the Bodhisattva, Avalokiteshvara, are in meditation. And Avalokiteshvara is practicing the perfection of wisdom and in his meditation he sees that the five aggregates are empty of own being, are empty of inherent existence. And in this longer version it doesn't say that seeing this all suffering was relieved.

[01:03]

In the other version he's doing the same meditation and it says that by seeing that five aggregates are empty all suffering was relieved. And again in the longer version the monk Shariputra comes and asks the Buddha, how should men and women of the Buddha lineage cultivate this perfect wisdom? And Shariputra says they should consider that the five aggregates are empty of inherent existence. Again, the shorter version doesn't say that men and women who wish to become Buddhas and wish to practice the perfection of wisdom should contemplate all things as empty. But I suggest we understand that we are being encouraged to consider each experience, every experience as being empty of inherent existence.

[02:25]

Another difference between these two is that in the longer version, after instructing people to meditate on the aggregates, which means all compounded phenomena, as being empty, then the Bodhisattva says to Shariputra that form is emptiness and Emptiness is form. Whereas in our shorter version, it starts out by saying, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. In the longer version, it says, form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. So in this, this is from Sanskrit and this is from Chinese. So those things are reversed. in these two translations.

[03:32]

Okay, you see what's reversed? In one it says, starts out by saying form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form does not differ from emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. The other one it says the other way around. Okay? But anyway we have these four statements. That which is form is emptiness, That which is emptiness is form. Form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. These four statements. We're supposed to understand that all of our experience, everything that exists, is a dependent phenomena. All phenomena that exist are dependent and they also all lack inherent existence.

[04:33]

But to understand that, understanding that, seeing that is proposed to relieve suffering and also that is that understanding is called perfect wisdom. And based on this perfect wisdom, we also not only relieve suffering, but achieve nirvana and become supremely enlightened. We're being instructed to learn that things are empty, but then we're being given instructions which are to help us understand how things are empty, we're being instructed on the relationship between things and emptiness. The Sutra doesn't explain how things are empty directly. It doesn't actually tell us how they lack inherent existence, including it doesn't tell us how emptiness lacks inherent existence. It teaches this other way by telling us the relationship between

[05:39]

Form is the first of the five aggregates. It starts with the first one. And then if we can understand this with forms, then the other ones will follow. The feelings, the perceptions, the mental formations, and consciousness. The same could be said for them. Feelings, the feelings, Feeling is emptiness. Emptiness is feeling. Feeling is not different from emptiness. Emptiness is not different from feeling and so on. One explanation of starting with form, although it, you know, like colors and sounds and so on, is that form is the basis of the body, which the mind depends on. So once we understand form, it will be fairly straightforward to understand how the other kinds of experience are also empty and also to understand, we will also already understand the relationship between other forms of experience and emptiness.

[06:48]

Feeling, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness. Mental formation means Greed, hate, and delusion or the lack of greed, hate, and delusion means concentration. It means faith. It means diligence. It means flexibility of body and mind. It means faith. It means a sense of decorum and self-respect. It means many, many mental factors. And any mental factor that you can bring up, any mental experience you can bring up, we can put in one of these four categories. And then the last one is consciousness. All of our compounded experience can be accounted for. Not to say five aggregates, but there's some usefulness in dealing with things that way.

[07:53]

They could have started not with the form being emptiness and emptiness being forms. We could have started with feeling, but if you think about it, maybe you could see that it was good to start with form, even though form may seem kind of cold. We're starting with colors and sounds and things like that, but it actually, this is the way they decided to present it. I was just thinking about that fourth one now. It seems that the fourth one is actually supports the rest of them. Yeah, they all support each other. But the fourth one seems... In other words, you know, when we talk about the six senses. Six senses. Six senses and six sense objects. Yes. The five that... like Westerners or, you know, generally think of, they normally think of the sixth one.

[09:02]

But the sixth one seems like it could be the same as the fourth aggregate, the mind faculty or the mind, the ability for the mind. The one that corresponds to the sixth organ? Yeah, sixth organ. Sixth. Yeah, the mind faculty. The mind faculty. The one that corresponds to that would be the fifth skanda. Consciousness. Consciousness. So you have eye organ, and you have the colors that it's sensitive to or that it responds to. And then you have eye consciousness, which arises with those. And that's a consciousness. Then you have mental objects, mental organ. And you have mental, and then you have consciousness. So I think the mental faculty or mental organ, maybe that's what you're talking about, the corresponding thing that corresponds to I in the mind, or ear in the mind.

[10:08]

I mean, the mental organ is the one that actually, well, no, I guess I'm just thinking of consciousness. Well, so when we talk about the five, sense fields and the five sense organs, and there's five sense consciousness that go with those five. So that's a total of 15 different elements that make up five types of sense consciousness. And then there's mind consciousness, and mind consciousness goes with mind objects, mind objects, and there's a mind organ. And the mind organ is the capacity of the mind to split itself actually mind splits itself into awareness and the things that it's aware of, but the things that mind is aware of are mental things. So mind has the ability to split itself into two parts and make one part of itself objects and the other part of itself subject. And the capacity of mind to split itself into two is the mind organ.

[11:10]

Just like the organ for the experience of colors, the organ that makes possible the experience of colors is that which splits the consciousness apart from the color. I mean not color, but the physical field of electromagnetic radiation. And that thing that separates the consciousness from the electromagnetic radiation we call the eye, the eye organ. So the mind has the capacity to split itself, and that capacity is called mind organ. And if you look to the five aggregates about where to put it in the five aggregates, I think I would put it actually perhaps in the third skanda, which is perception. Because the third aggregate, perception, is speaking of how the mind apprehends things. It makes them into graspable units, and that makes it possible for things to be presented to consciousness.

[12:24]

And in that way also it splits consciousness from what it knows. You may not have followed that, I don't know. That was kind of a big chunk of Buddhist psychology. Yes. What's the... I've seen the fourth skanda. The fourth skanda, the fourth aggregate. Yes. Also translated as impulse or volition. It's also translated as impulse or volition, yes. So I guess I'm interested both in the relationship between those terms and then the relationship between the fourth skanda and the fifth. The fourth aggregate has sometimes been translated as as impulses or what was the other thing you said, volition? Volition. Yeah. Sometimes it's translated that way because one of the mental formations in that category is volition.

[13:34]

And volition is a very important mental formation because volition actually is describing the overall structure of consciousness at a given moment. So if you think of consciousness maybe as having a shape or a topography, the way the consciousness seems to be flowing, what it seems to be doing, if it has something it seems to be doing, that's its volition, that's its will, that's its impulse. So that fourth aggregate was originally set up probably that maybe that was the first element to go in there when they're analyzing conscious experience maybe the first thing they were concerned with was what is it about the mind that it makes it seem like it has a tendency or an impulse or a will so the in a given moment uh

[14:39]

your mind seems to be inclined some way or another. So another way that that aggregate sometimes is translated is dispositions or predispositions. But the original Sanskrit definition of that aggregate, I shouldn't say the original, but what the aggregates come to be named as, as formations or things that are made, which is a more general definition definition of that aggregate than volition. So maybe originally it was called volition because volition was so important, because volition is the definition of karma. Karma is basically what it seems like your mind is intending to do. But then they changed the name to formations to let other kinds of mental data that they wanted to include in their categorization process someplace and they thought that's the best place to put it. But still, the volition then is still the structure or the pattern of basically the whole field.

[15:55]

So, for example, if you had a mind that had greed in it, and that had also self-respect and ethical commitment, then the structure of that mind might not be inclined towards like stealing. But if you had a mind that had greed in it without those other elements, it might look like the mind wanted to take something that wasn't being given. So by looking at the different elements of the mind, you can kind of see where the mind seems to be headed or how it's inclined. And that inclination of the mind is the volition. And sometimes if the mind is inclined towards unskillfulness, sometimes it's inclined towards skillfulness and unskillfulness, and you can't really tell what the person's going to do. Like, for example, you could have a thought of, again, another example is you could have a thought of, you could find someone to be irritating and be angry with them and think another one of the elements there is the spirit of violence.

[16:59]

Another one of the elements could be the spirit of nonviolence. But let's say there's a spirit of violence. There's anger. there's irritation, there's negative sensation, the third aggregate, there's irritation or anger with this, there's anger with this irritation, and there's an interest in doing something violent towards the person. Now the inclination or will of the, that you look fine in the overall pattern, that inclination would be put in the fourth aggregate. It looks like the person's got a really kind of unskillful thing. However, if there's other mental elements coexisting with it, which contravene those negative and unskillful impulses, it might be that the overall state was more neutral. It wouldn't be very positive if you had anger and a spirit of violence going with negative sensation. But if you had some other quite positive things, the whole situation might be, well, the person's not going to strongly act on that.

[18:03]

On the other hand, if you didn't have any positive things and you just had those, then the mind would look like it's heading towards some kind of unskillful, cruel activity. And that tendency, that pattern or inclination is called will. And that's placed in the fourth aggregate. But before we get into the psychology, I just wanted to mention that we're studying the Heart Sutra. And I want to say a little bit more about that before we get into more of that. So I just want to say that first of all it says form is emptiness. Then it says emptiness is form. Form exists. However, it is empty of inherent existence. or form exists, but form is emptiness.

[19:12]

Form is emptiness tells us about the ultimate mode of form. Form as emptiness tells us about the way form ultimately is. It's empty and it actually is emptiness. Emptiness as form tells us that the ultimate way that form is, emptiness, is not other than the form. Form as emptiness doesn't so much emphasize that emptiness that form is not separate from emptiness. It more tells us the way emptiness is. Form is emptiness tells us that emptiness is not separate from form. Then it says form is not other than emptiness and emptiness is not other than form and this tells us that the character of form is the same as the character of emptiness.

[20:29]

And the character of emptiness is the same as the character of form. Just a minute. Yes? I was going to say, maybe I'm not feeling well, but I'm very sweaty. Want more windows open? Is it all right to open more windows? Everything is open. Everything is open. Maybe you can go sit by the window. It is. Well, there's another chair there. And it's kind of like in the direction of sort of the impulse of the air that might be coming your way. Is that any better over there? It's a little bit better? Something which I wanted to say to you was that form in this sutra, the word form, is conventionally designating the form that is seen by minds which don't understand emptiness.

[21:56]

In the sutra, the word form, in the sutra when it says form, form is a conventional designation or is referring to the form that is seen by minds or people. I don't say minds because it doesn't have to be people. By minds or people. are those who do not understand emptiness. Form in the sutra is referring to the forms that are seen or the forms that appear to those who don't yet understand the nature of emptiness. So I want to also say that emptiness does not exist apart from form. So emptiness does not exist apart from what is seen by those who do not understand emptiness. What if you do understand emptiness?

[23:25]

If you do understand emptiness... And you can see both the form that does not, or emptiness that does not exist apart from form. We're just conventionally saying when you understand emptiness, okay? When you understand emptiness... I forgot the question now. I'll finish it. When you understand emptiness, do you still see form? Yes. And you think maybe that you can go back and forth. No, what I'm saying is when I can see, just say, for instance, just say I understand and I can see form, but I can see form in a way that it was, in other words, it's different than it was before, and that I can see that it is composed. But even the components are composed.

[24:28]

And so on and so forth all the way down. And so actually, the component, I mean, in other words, the complete boundary system breaks down. In other words, there's no sense of other or me. But there's also... And so therefore... But I have to say that, you know what I mean? So... But then you can't talk about it. Because there's no subject, no object, and there's no boundaries, there's no... there's no structure. So what was my question? Well, I... See, I said that... First of all, I said form... The word form in the scripture we're studying refers to a form that is seen by those who do not yet understand the nature of emptiness.

[25:37]

So then you said... And I also said that emptiness is not separate from the form. Emptiness is not separate from the form which is seen by those who don't understand emptiness. Those who do not understand emptiness see this form. But emptiness is not separate from that form. And the thing that's not separate from the form is the thing which we don't yet understand when we see the form. When we do see, when we do understand emptiness, we don't see the form. We don't see the form. And I say you don't see the form, but I mean the mind that understands emptiness doesn't see the form. However, The form which you don't see is not other than the emptiness which you do see.

[26:51]

And it never was. Just like now, the emptiness which you don't see is not separate from the form you do see. And actually the form you do see is actually emptiness. But you don't see the emptiness yet. When you actually see and understand the emptiness, you will understand that this emptiness which you see and what you're seeing is the lack of inherent existence of the form. You'll understand that this emptiness is not separate from the form, which you do not see. And then when you're looking at forms, once you understand, you will see forms which you will not at that time, I shouldn't say you, but the mind that actually sees the form at that time does not understand emptiness, but does understand, can understand that emptiness is not other than this form which is seen at that moment by not understanding emptiness.

[27:59]

Not understanding in the sense of not seeing directly and understanding directly, not actually paying attention to emptiness at that time. Yes? When they look, what's seen visually? They're not seeing form, they're seeing emptiness. What is that visual? Visually? It is no colors, no forms. It's not nothing, though. It's a lack of inherent existence of things that exist depending on mental imputation, even things that exist dependent on the imputation of inherent existence. So would there be a...

[29:07]

Well, it's kind of like there can be more than one mind. You know, just like I was talking last night at Green Gulch, you can be driving down the road and you're getting direct perceptions of the road. so to speak. For example, forms. Forms are coming up in your mind. Electromagnetic rays just bouncing off the road into your eye, and you're getting colors and shapes coming in. And there's awareness of these colors and shapes, direct perception. At the same time, you could be thinking conceptually about various things, like the sutra, the sutra, for example. And in the realm of direct perception, you're driving the car, even though at the same time, in the realm where you seem to be most aware, conceptually, you're thinking about something else.

[30:23]

So when you see the lack of inherent existence, when you see the way form really is, in other words, when you see that form is emptiness, at the moment you see form is emptiness, form must be there. But form must be there means it must be impacting you. It isn't just a piece of form out there. It's form that's appearing to you. But when you look at the emptiness of the form, which is actually the way the form really is, when you're looking at the way the form really is, you don't see the way the form really isn't. In other words, you don't see the way the form appears conventionally when you look at the way it is ultimately. But the way it appears conventionally, it's still, that's the way it exists. Its existence isn't annihilated. So emptiness doesn't destroy the form even though when you're looking at the emptiness you don't see the form. It doesn't destroy it though because it's the form which appears to a different mind than the emptiness does is not other than the emptiness.

[31:36]

So I decided I wanted to say that because that's a new slant on it, right? So you can work on that now tonight. Yes. No, you can go from emptiness to form. Yeah, because in emptiness, form is not destroyed. When you're looking at emptiness, you need to understand that emptiness does not destroy form. If you look at emptiness and you think form is destroyed, you don't understand emptiness yet. And if you look at emptiness and think that form is destroyed, then you still think that form has inherent existence. If when you're looking at the lack of inherent existence, if your understanding of lack of inherent existence means that you think form is destroyed, you still have not understood emptiness or that form is empty.

[32:51]

Because form is empty, it's just like emptiness, because emptiness is empty. The character of form is the same as the character of emptiness. So when you're looking at emptiness, then you remember that emptiness is not apart from form. When you're looking at form, you don't have to so much, at the beginning, you don't have to remember that form is not different from emptiness. You just have to see the emptiness. But once you see the emptiness, you have to understand this emptiness is not apart from the form which you do not see. Because when you're looking at the emptiness of the form, you're not looking at the colors and shapes anymore. you're looking at the lack of inherent existence of these things. And you're starting to, but you must understand further that this thing is not other than the form which you're not looking at right now, or which this mind does not see.

[33:56]

Another mind sees it, though. mind which imputes and grasps and creates conventional existence if there wasn't a conventional existence there wouldn't be the ultimate way that the conventional existence is the ultimate way things are is the ultimate way conventional things are but the ultimate way that they are is that you can't find them you cannot find conventional things ultimately so when you're looking at the ultimate way that when you're looking at the ultimate way that things that you can find are, you find that the things that you can find are unfindable. But also emptiness is unfindable. But it's not nothing. It's something called unfindableness and so on. And this unfindableness is not the least bit different from what, that which you think, that which we think we can find. It's the same thing.

[34:57]

June? June? So in the example you were using, your mind between thinking of something else and the light's coming out or whatever it is. In that example, where is the emptiness? I gave that example just to show you that you can have a direct perception going on by which you can drive the car. In other words, you're actually relating to the conditions of a car and a road and gravity and stuff like that, and you're actually responding pretty well, but you're hardly aware of it. you're mostly aware of, you know, thinking about whatever. And you might be thinking about the Heart Sutra, actually. In other words, you're involved in a conceptual realm at the same time.

[36:03]

And in a way, the meditation on emptiness originally is meditating conceptually. So in that sense, I'm just saying you can be meditating on the teachings about emptiness at the same time that you're having direct perceptions. So you can have direct perceptions of colors, but even at that level you still have mental apprehension and still can feel that there's a sense of separation between subject and object about the colors. But then you can also have a conceptual version of that where you say, it's blue or it's green. And the conceptual level can be going on at the same time as the direct perception level of blue and green. But you can trade in conceptual levels and instead of having a conceptual version of it's blue, it's black, it's yellow, it's a yellow line, I'm on the right side of the yellow line, I'm not going over the cliff, you know, I'm coming around the corner.

[37:05]

Actually, in the realm of direct perception, you are experiencing all this data, right? But in the realm of conception, you might not be saying, I'm doing pretty well. I'm staying on the road. I'm driving all right. I'm not dead yet. You might not be thinking like that. You might be thinking, oh, what a lovely day. Oh, what a lousy day. Oh, I hate my boss. You know, you might be thinking that stuff. But you could also be thinking, I'm driving down the road. Meantime, whether you're thinking you're driving down the road or not, whether you're thinking you're driving down the road or thinking something else, actually you are, actually... aware that you are driving down the road and you think you're driving and you're directly perceiving driving down the road at the sense level. At the sense level, you're also making things exist by mental imputation and emptiness is there. And at the conceptual level, you're also making things exist through mental imputation and emptiness is there. But in both these cases, we have not yet seen emptiness. Seeing emptiness, you probably should pull over.

[38:11]

Because when you see emptiness, you do not see the road anymore. You probably should not be driving when you're actually directly meditating on emptiness. That's why we have chauffeurs for the meditation masters. So they can like to call, you know... I told this story before, probably, but anyway. One time, Susie Kirsch was getting a ride back from Tassajara, and someone said, Rosie, how come you don't drive? And he said, it's too dualistic. And Bernard brought up this other aspect of the situation is that Empty of inherent existence is closely related to the separation, the emptiness of separation of subject and object. It's not that there's no subject and object exactly, it's just that they're not substantially, there's an emptiness of their separation, of them existing independent of each other, which is similar to, but you could translate it into no subject and object in the sense that you can't find a subject apart from an object, of course.

[39:26]

But it seems like you can't. I mean, that's the way our mind, which doesn't understand emptiness, understands that the subject is separate from the object, which is the same as understanding the form appears to be out there on its own. And what we mean by form in the sutra is a form that appears to be out there on its own. that appears to inherently exist. And a form that appears to inherently exist is a form that appears to exist. We don't have the appearance of the existence of a non-inherently existing form. But we can have the appearance of the existence of the lack of inherent existence of the form.

[40:33]

And that's the existence of the emptiness, which would also then be mentally apprehended and created into a conventional version of emptiness. Did you ask your question, June? Does that satisfy you? Yeah. So you could be... So actually, if you are driving down the road, especially Green Gulch Road or Tassajara Road, which is so windy, it's probably better to just meditate on form while you're driving. Okay? Meditate on form. Meditate on conventional. I'm experiencing a conventional phenomenon of form, and this form depends on mental imputation. This form does not exist by itself. You can do that part of the meditation while you're driving the car. But to actually turn to the mind which sees the way the form really is, namely emptiness, you probably should not be driving at that time.

[41:40]

Once you understand that, then you can start driving because then you can understand I understand emptiness and that allows me to realize that the emptiness which I understand is not separate from the form which I'm seeing. And I am seeing this form so that I can continue to practice meditation on emptiness when I'm not driving or when I'm being driven will be all right too. Mark? One was an article in the ellipsis between ignorance and all age and death. Yes. What actually fits within there? That's one of the traditional representations of the dependent co-arising of suffering, and not just suffering, but suffering in the form of cyclic suffering, is this twelve links of ignorance, karmic formations, dualistic consciousness,

[42:48]

body-mind, you know, body-mind complex, the five aggregates, the six sense doors, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, then old age, sickness, lamentation, misery, and death, which then sets up the condition for further ignorance. That's the cycle. Then the other way is, which is also in there, extinction of ignorance, extinction of karmic formations, blah, blah, blah, and extinction of old age, sickness, and death. Okay? So this sutra is saying, in emptiness, there's none of that. Because those things are things that appear to a mind that does not yet understand emptiness. But it still is a picture of dependent core rising. And dependent co-arising exists.

[43:50]

It's a story of dependent co-arising and the story of dependent co-arising also dependently co-arises. And it does in the same way. It depends on mental imputation. So it has no inherent existence either. The whole story of the dependent co-arising of misery and the whole story of the dependent co-arising of the ceasing of misery, all those patterns of causation okay do exist do appear you were taught about them you can see their existence however they're empty and not only that but they are emptiness but in emptiness they don't appear because in emptiness you're looking at how they lack inherent existence you're not looking at how they appear however how they appear to the mind that doesn't understand emptiness, it's not separate from the way that they appear when you do understand emptiness, namely that they don't appear.

[44:55]

So the entire Buddhist, not just the entire, but the basic Buddhist teachings in that section of the sutra are looked at in the context of emptiness. In other words, when you're seeing emptiness, you don't see this stuff. And this is describing a certain phase of the process of the meditation. But we're actually working on an earlier stage in the meditation right now. We're actually working on the part of the sutra that can lead you to actually a correct understanding of emptiness. But the later part of the sutra would lead you to directly seeing emptiness. And you can understand emptiness correctly but not directly. And when you understand it correctly but not directly, you still don't quite see it. You're still not actually directly looking at it. So you still see the stuff the way it appears to the mind that is still empty.

[46:01]

thinking dualistically, but you can still have a correct understanding of emptiness and still see these things. So in the first parashutra it doesn't say no form and no emptiness. It's talking, telling you about what, how form really, how form exists as emptiness and how emptiness is not separate from form. This is the beginning of our understanding of form, not the way it really is. This is the first part. And how many more classes do we have? One more? Yeah. So I'm not sure whether to get into the later aspects of the meditation next week or whether to go all the way to the end to discuss the mantra. I don't know what to do next week, but, you know. We did a little bit in how many classes?

[47:02]

Six so far? Is it six? Yes, Sonia? In my particular lecture, I believe I know that people think that indigeneity is born. It has become a child. When the baby is born, the past becomes a child? The parents become a child? You know, do you remember what page that's on and in what book? It was on a talk. You were listening to a talk you heard on a cassette? Oh, you heard somebody else quote him that way.

[48:08]

Well, you know, I'm sorry, it's hard for me to interpret something which I don't know if he really said it. You're asking me about something you heard somebody say, which I don't know if they said it. And even if they said it, I don't know if he said it. So... Yeah, but I don't know if they quoted it right. So I hesitate to be fourth-hand interpreting my teacher. So I think... Fourth-hand. Him to that person, that person to you, and then you to me. I don't know really if we're talking about something... It does sound interesting, but if you want to ask me what it means, I think you've got to find out the source so I can look at the source and see the context of what he's talking about. It's pretty hard for me just to sort of pick this out of the universe. You could also have said, you know, George Bush said that.

[49:10]

No, but you could say that, but I still want to get the context of why George Bush would say such a thing. But I don't really understand the context. Okay? Sorry. The other Sonia, sort of? Did you have your hand raised? I wasn't sure if the analogies are useful, but I keep thinking of those. pictures that when you look at it, it's two-dimensional, and I soften my focus, or I soften my breathing, and suddenly I see it, and it becomes three-dimensional. And at that moment, I don't see a two-dimensional picture anymore. I see something different. Right. And so is there a comparison to that? Yes. Yes. And somebody else used the example of even in two dimensions, of, you know, the vases turning into faces and then back to faces.

[50:16]

And when you look at the faces, you can't see the faces. When you look at the faces, you can't see the faces. It's like that, but the faces are not separate from the faces. The difference is, is that I wouldn't really say that the faces are the true nature of the vases. So in this case, the foreground-background thing just happens to be that the foreground is how things appear to one kind of mind, and the background is how they appear to another mind. However, those two minds are inseparable. And the two, that's, you know, that's the similarity, is they're inseparable and interchangeable, and they're actually kind of an identity. except that in the examples you're using, it's not really, it's not necessarily the way that the two-dimensional picture really is, is a three-dimensional picture. It's not really the case, I think, that the two-dimensional picture, the way it really is, is that it's a three-dimensional picture.

[51:24]

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. So that's more about the way it really is. It's not so much the three-dimensional or two-dimensional, but that it's not really, you know, like somebody could say, this is a two-dimensional picture, right? But the two dimensions is due to your mind, too. When you see a two-dimensional picture, that's because you mentally apprehend it as two-dimensional. When suddenly you relax your focus and it becomes three-dimensional, That's because your mind can now apprehend it in a different way. So it's not actually that this thing out here inherently exists as two-dimensional, three-dimensional. It depends on how the way it exists two-dimensionally is due to mental apprehension. And then you can mentally apprehend the same thing sort of in a different way and you get a three-dimensional thing. That point that we just made points to the emptiness of the two-dimensional form and the emptiness of the three-dimensional form.

[52:33]

namely that those forms do not exist, two-dimensionality does not exist independent of mental apprehension, and the three-dimensional one doesn't either. So in that sense, the example is that both the two-dimensional, three-dimensional are both forms and both emptiness. And I was thinking like the fourth dimension would be adding the emptiness, but actually it's not another dimension. In a sense, a fourth dimension would be that you're understanding that because it's not really a fourth dimension, no, it's more like it's actually that in each case there's two dimensions. When you look at a two-dimensional picture, when you look at a one-dimensional picture, when you look at a three-dimensional picture, when you look at a four-dimensional picture, when you look at a five-dimensional picture, whatever you're looking at, whatever we're dealing with, however many dimensions it is, if it appears to exist, it exists through this wonderful mind thing happening, that our mind can apprehend many dimensions.

[53:48]

When they exist, however, they exist as our apprehension. But that's not the way they ultimately exist. The ultimate way they exist is that they don't exist apart from that. But we apprehend them as though they do. We apprehend things as though they weren't actually our mental apprehension. We apprehend things as though they were actually out there on their own independent of our mental apprehension. That's the way they appear. If they aren't out there independent of our mental apprehension, we don't see them. they don't exist. Which is the same as saying that they don't exist independent of their mental apprehension because they do exist with our mental apprehension. But the emptiness doesn't destroy them. The emptiness just tells us how they really exist, namely not independent of our apprehensions.

[54:56]

And that's how any kind of dimension of experience exists in the same way through mental apprehension. And it really exists not having the inherent existence which appears due to arising through mental apprehension. Yes? my breath a couple of weeks ago. I heard a noise. I felt my ear cake moving. But the thing that I usually think would be my breath is some kind of fluid rolling down. It wasn't there. And that seemed like a good thing to pursue. But I think I've stepped back into my breath, feeling my breath.

[56:03]

How does that move it? Is it something that should be pursued? And what do you recommend with the objective of understanding the condition of this breath? The application of the teaching that the phenomena of breath is a dependent phenomena, that it exists dependent on conditions and mental apprehension, applying that teaching to your breath while you're breathing, I would think it is definitely beneficial to pursue that.

[57:05]

Then, in addition to that, you can bring to bear the teaching that anything that exists dependently is of course empty of inherent existence or independent existence. You can bring that teaching to bear to the breath also. Listen, you know, actually listen to the teaching while you're breathing. Or say, you know, say the teaching to yourself. That's like, again, it says at the end of this thing, this is the great transcendent mantra. This teaching which you've just read is the great mantra. But you can also take parts of this teaching and and do parts of it as a mantra. So, for example, form is emptiness.

[58:09]

You can also say, you know, form accounts for your experience of breath. Okay, so breath is like, we have form, you know, color. Form, by the way, is a name for the whole aggregate. of material phenomena, but it's also the name, it's the first aggregate of material phenomena, it's the first aggregate of the five aggregates, but also it's the name of that aggregate is because the first element of that aggregate is form. So it's called the color of form aggregate, and the first element in that aggregate is color and form. So breath, if you're meditating in Minnesota, breath is actually a visual phenomena. Otherwise, it can be somewhat auditory. But for most people, because we actually recommend that you breathe quietly, breath is actually a tactile phenomenon. You can feel the temperature of it and the feeling of it in your abdomen and chest and nose and so on.

[59:15]

So it's actually you're meditating on touch. But instead of calling it touch, you can say breath. But really, actually, you can also say touch. You can say touch. is empty or is emptiness. Emptiness is touch. Emptiness is not different from touch. Touch is not different from emptiness. Or breath is emptiness. Emptiness is not different from breath. So I'm going to meditate on how my breath is a dependent phenomenon. I'm going to remember that it's a dependent core arising that exists independence on certain conditions like a body and lungs and air. Air is not breath. It's air that's related to us that's breath, that we live on, that's flowing through us. It's breath, it's air that we're participating with in this intimate way. So breath, as you maybe know, means spirit, or rather spirit means breath, right?

[60:22]

The word spirit means breath. The etymology of the word spirit is breath. So air that's very, the spiritual version of air is breath. So we're meditating on the spiritual thing and we're remembering that it exists in dependence on conditions, bodily conditions and mental conditions, and exists in dependence on mental apprehension. That's how it exists. That's how it appears. And because it depends on these things, it is empty. And not only that, but it is emptiness. And emptiness is it. And it's not different from emptiness. So these teachings you can apply to your breathing process. And if you're experiencing your breathing, just like driving down the road, if you're experiencing your breathing this way and you find that you're getting agitated at all, you can put aside the these wisdom teachings for a while and just experience your breath giving up all kinds of discursive thought and then calm down again.

[61:33]

When you're calm, then you can bring the wisdom teachings back in and apply them to the breath. So breath is one of the most convenient things to apply the teachings of the sutra to. Your posture when you're meditating is another thing the sensations you're having, painful or pleasant sensations and everything to apply this teaching to. So breath, posture and other kinds of sensations, physical sensations are very good. You can also apply it to mental things but the physical ones in some ways are easier to get the hang of. That's why I put a lot of emphasis on posture and breathing. so that we're tuned into this appearance this posture breathing appearance and then we're chanting the heart sutra all the time so the heart sutra is supposed to like come over and jump on top of you and suffuse your awareness of posture and breathing but to keep on the posture and breathing track keep being aware of the posture and breathing and then

[62:41]

As is convenient, as is natural, as is comfortable, you bring the teachings of the sutra to bear. And I suggest, again, you start with the first teachings. View the breath and posture and physical sensations as lacking inherent existence. And then, the next step would be see that these phenomena are emptiness, and emptiness is these phenomena. See how these things are. empty but also how their emptiness and how emptiness doesn't destroy them. And you can work that way and take care of yourself so that you can gradually become more and more comfortable doing this type of meditation in conjunction with your mindful attention to your breathing and posture. And then you can do it also when you're walking around you know, not sitting, too. The same. It may not be so easy to follow your breathing, but your posture is not so difficult to follow.

[63:47]

Merit practice is a really good thing to follow when you're walking around. Helps you not fall down and so on. But you can practice wisdom meditation while you're being quite mindful of your body as it's moving around. Did you have a, is that okay? Fran, did you have a question? Well, I was still thinking about the car driving example. Yes. And I don't get why Suzuki Rofio, you know, the master, would want, would need to have, you know, someone drive their limousine. I'm thinking that, but they're aware of emptiness. I can see emptiness. And emptiness is a form. And wouldn't it be a... a place where he'd be seen more than if he was in the most ultimate reality, so that he should be able to drive. Yeah, well, he wasn't very advanced. I think if he'd lived a little longer, he would have been able to drive.

[64:50]

He was learning. Yeah, he was learning. He was good, but he could have been better. And you can be better, too. So you'll eventually be able to drive and meditate. But for now, I suggest you get a chauffeur. You know, recognize your limits. Or just be a chauffeur yourself and concentrate on... the form side of things and remember that what you're looking at exists dependently even and also notice that you don't think that, that you think it actually exists independently. Be honest with yourself and say, this thing really looks, this road really looks like it's out there separate from me and that car coming looks like it's out there separate from me. And that's kind of convenient actually because this whole thing is set up based on this deluded view of things. It's okay, though, because this meditation, you're meditating on what is not separate from emptiness.

[65:56]

But it's good to remember that it's not separate from emptiness. But you're still seeing the form, so you can still drive the car. But that doesn't mean that you're going for the... It doesn't mean that you're, what do you call it, honoring... in aligning yourself with this dualistic appearance. You're recognizing that you're inclined towards or you have a predisposition to see things dualistically, but you understand the teaching that this is actually kind of a problem because this isn't really the way things are. But it is the way they appear to you, and you can drive a car under the auspices of that appearance. But you can also enjoy driving the car and feel quite differently about it when you are thinking of the teaching at the same time. But as you get into the deeper levels of the teaching where you're actually going to be able to see emptiness directly at that point, at the beginning anyway, you probably have to stop driving.

[67:08]

And fortunately, it doesn't happen very often that people who are on the verge of that level of meditation, they usually can tell that they shouldn't be driving at that time. Usually the process of driving takes you away from that level of concentration on the teaching. So it doesn't happen very often that somebody drives off the road because there's no eyes, ears, nose, tongue, body or mind, because they're seeing emptiness directly. But again, even before you see emptiness directly and there's no eyes, ears, nose, tongue or body or mind, you still can have a valid, authentic understanding of this teaching, but it's not yet as deep as it can get at that point. And this earlier level of understanding does change you. It makes everything different. You were driving and there was what?

[68:15]

I think it was a little squirrel. And I noticed it. deciding what to do, and unfortunately, it turned around, and we, that was very hard. And of course, I tried to see who we, and we found this emptiness. By the same token, I was also trying to negate what I was feeling, and decided to So it seems fairly obvious that if wisdom was deeper, there would be no sorrow or pain over the extinction of the living life because there is no extinction.

[69:26]

I mean, this seems fairly obvious, but is there anything deeper that you can add to this theory? Well, I'm not going to add, but just to reiterate that it isn't that we negate the squirrel or the squirrel's death, it isn't that we negate the life of the squirrel or the death of the squirrel. What we negate is the inherent existence of the life and death of the squirrel. and this actually will help us take better care of squirrels and get somebody else to drive the car in the future. So obviously if you saw that... Don't get me to drive, I'm not a very good driver. But I know some people who are really good. They love to drive good meditators. So obviously if you saw that The sutra wants you to be free of the suffering that comes with birth and death when we don't understand emptiness.

[70:32]

So when we understand emptiness, we are relieved from the suffering of these births and deaths which appear in dependence on mental imputation. That's the idea. And this process helps us become more skillful to help other beings also become free. It helps us work for the freedom of the squirrels and the non-squirrels who may be going through the appearance of birth and death. That's the point of the sutra. And the key is to understand emptiness. But again, you can't understand emptiness if you don't understand form because it's not different. You can't understand emptiness unless you understand feeling because it's not different.

[71:37]

Because emptiness is just the way form and feeling and so on are. But feeling doesn't have to be misery. And when there's not misery of this type, we don't do all kinds of stupid things based on our misunderstanding and the miseries which arise from misunderstanding. Skillfulness comes and liberation comes with correct understanding. So we want to develop correct understanding of our feelings, of our impulses, of our perceptions, of our consciousness, and of all the forms we experience. I mean we want that if we want to be free of suffering and we want to be helpful to other beings. How do you help the squirrel by doing the practice? How do you help the squirrel by doing the practice?

[72:39]

Did you answer the question? How does the squirrel become free? This is a little bit hypothetical. Are you talking about dead squirrel? No, I'm talking about squirrels. Squirrels in general? Dead squirrels. Well, if you're talking about living squirrels, living squirrels, I think, just like living dogs and cats, they, generally speaking, they feel temporarily better off when they're relating to somebody who's meditating. People who are meditating this way are, generally speaking, easier for the squirrels to be around. And people who are meditating this way convey to the squirrels some sense of fearlessness. The squirrels can't yet understand the Dharma, but when you approach a wild animal or a domesticated animal in the context of this meditation, they can sense

[73:41]

you know, your love and concern for them, and they can sense your lack of attachment and your lack of fear, they feel good about that. So while they're still alive, when you relate to them prior to them being able to actually understand the teaching, they appreciate the feeling of being with someone who is calm and wise and kind. That helps them somewhat. And based on this kind of help, it's possible that they will evolve even while still being a squirrel. They will evolve in this lifetime. But until they can actually understand the teaching, they can't evolve any further than just by contact with those who can understand the teaching. But as you know, some animals do evolve quite a long ways. And I think a lot of them do evolve by being in contact with animals and humans who are quite evolved. The animals, you know, like, what is it, in the Christian tradition, the animals around St.

[74:46]

Francis were, generally speaking, seemed to be like wolves around St. Francis, right? Were cool. Somehow he was able to calm animals that have violent tendencies. You know, animals and humans that have violent tendencies. He himself had violent tendencies. He created peace. Right? So the idea is that you actually can convey this through your skillful behavior once you have this kind of wisdom. And you convey it to non-human beings. Plants and animals can also pick this up. And then they evolve. And also humans, who are not very receptive at this point to the teachings, They don't want to hear about form as emptiness. They don't want to hear about emptiness as form. They don't want to hear about, you know, the truth of suffering, the truth of the origin of suffering, and the end of suffering. You know, get out of my face.

[75:47]

You know, they don't want to hear about it. But sometimes they meet somebody who has studied these teachings and they just feel good about the person. They say, hey, can I hang out with you? You know? They get converted by the skill of the person. And then gradually they say, What are you reading there, you know? Oh, it's called the Heart Sutra. What is it? Heart Sutra? Oh, you know. What is it? If you understand this teaching, you will love all beings. And if you love all beings, some of the beings you love will start loving you. And when they love you, they'll start loving what you're studying, what you're teaching. So little by little, beings can start to open to the teaching in this way. And this sutra is about... helping us become free of anything that hinders us to bring that kind of calm, loving presence to beings along with teachings of wisdom to help them become free.

[76:49]

So the teachings of compassion we practice along with these and they help us attract other beings to the teachings. And then if they can look at the teachings they can evolve But of course animals, like some wonderful animals, they just can't understand the teachings, so they can only get over their fear sort of in contact. If you take away the person who is calm, they may not be able to maintain the fearlessness. Some very violent humans and non-humans are really very afraid, super afraid. That's why they're so violent. Like pit bulls are super afraid when they're being violent. But sometimes pit bulls are not afraid, and then they're not violent. They can be sweet as pie, is that what you say?

[77:52]

They can be very sweet, but that's when they're not afraid. You make them afraid, and then they really get into expressing that fear as violence. And we do too. Sometimes. Not always. Some people are afraid and they don't get violent. Yes. Yes. So in that way, before, I was all afraid of, oh, my God, it was a squoosh. Yes. You know, more of the trains are going to be swapped on the road, and you probably fear that they're going to do that. I think kind of understanding the FBS helped me a little bit. Exactly.

[78:53]

Getting out of the car, going, seeing there, I was not even that young, and just being with them for those last seconds. And sometimes, once in a while, they're not dead at all. Sometimes they can, with some care, they can survive, which is really lovely. And sometimes they survive under your auspices, and it's really wonderful. And this teaching should help us not be so queasy about being near things that are sick and It helps us not be so afraid of old age, sickness, lamentation, grief, and death. That's part of what this is about. And ministering to these phenomena is also the basis for this meditation. So again, implicitly this sutra is saying meditate on, become familiar with the appearance of ignorance,

[79:57]

course other people's, karmic formations, consciousness, mental and physical formations, all this stuff, feeling, craving, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, old age, sickness, becoming familiar with these conventional phenomena is the basis for bringing the teaching of emptiness to them. So we should be taking care of all this stuff. That's the implicit side of compassion in the sutra. It doesn't say, go take care of all these twelve links. You wouldn't be able to realize the emptiness of them if you hadn't been taking care of them. To try to realize the emptiness of things you're not taking care of yet isn't appropriate. To realize the emptiness of yourself or others when you don't take care of yourself and others, you're not supposed to do that.

[81:02]

That's the implicit side of this sutra. You should be taking care of forms, feelings, formations, you know, perceptions and consciousness, which means you should be taking care of every living being. That's implicit. But then you bring the teaching of emptiness to them All right, thank you.

[81:27]

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