We're going to talk that there are no existences whatsoever that are evident anywhere that are risen from themselves, from another, from both, or from a non-cause. And then he says there are only four conditions. And so as you've heard before, four conditions means that after saying that there's nothing that has arisen from themselves, from another, from both, or from a non-cause, He's saying that there's no things that are caused by something else that has the power to cause it.

[01:13]

But he didn't say that there are some things that dependently co-arise. based on some other things which dependently colorize based on some other things which dependently colorize he didn't say that but when he says that there's conditions we're now shifting into the into the consideration that something might exist depending on conditions. I don't know if any of you experience something related to disappointment or disillusionment when you hear that

[02:33]

Nagarjuna is rejecting this kind of power of causation. Do you experience any disillusionment around that? I experience a sense of freedom. No disillusionment? We do experience some disillusionment. So disillusionment is a slightly different word from disappointment. Some people may feel immediately some sense of freedom upon hearing this message. But if hearing this message you experience no sense of disillusionment, what situations do you experience a sense of disillusionment?

[03:44]

Or disappointment? When are you disappointed? Yes? I'm disappointed when I believe in something that doesn't turn out. He feels disappointed when he believes in something that doesn't turn out. Did you believe that there were causes before? No. You didn't? Yes. Oh, before, no. You didn't believe in causes? I mean, I didn't think about it. It just, like, it happened. Did anybody here believe in causes before? Did you experience any disappointment hearing about this teaching of Nagarjuna? I'm wondering about the second normal truth. I feel like I don't understand cause of leadership. I think when I first hear it, the first thing that my experience is confusion.

[05:02]

So I feel like maybe the next step, you can get to disillusionment or disappointment. It's like when you had some system you believed in it, it just kind of makes it pull pot up and it's insane. It's not that way. Then you feel confusion? So there's some confusion. Like, well, what is it? You get disillusioned with being advanced. Yes? Maybe a sense of overwhelming responsibility for myself because of not being caused or causing this sort of everything right here. Uh-huh. Yes?

[06:08]

I feel disappointed that when I'm here to teach you, I feel like I can no longer practice. You feel disappointed that you can no longer practice yourself? You feel disappointed that you can't cause certain things to happen through practice? Yes? Your teaching and effort makes me think my disappointment is wrong. My teaching makes you feel your disappointment is wrong? Yes, because when I'm disappointed, I just... I wanted... children to... and after... And taking responsibility, it just makes me more disappointed.

[07:15]

I shouldn't be disappointed. You shouldn't what? Be disappointed. You think maybe you shouldn't be disappointed? You're confused about whether you should or should not be disappointed? No. No, I am disappointed. And I'm just wondering, what is my teaching? What is the Teaching for Disappointment? Would you write, what is the Teaching for Disappointment? Yes. I felt exhilarated. Felt exhilarated. No disappointment, nope. No disappointment at all. Okay. Yes. I felt, I'm stuck. You can mention reality. I had great hopes getting lighter. Before you've heard this, you felt stuck? No, after. After you felt stuck. And then what happened? No, I had great hopes of getting out.

[08:15]

And now I feel like there is no breath. Before you heard this character, you had hopes of getting out of conventional reality. You felt stuck and you had hopes of getting out. So now you're disappointed about that? Yeah, there's no way to. And what is the reason you feel there's no way out now? Because that's actually what we have to deal with. Uh-huh. All we have to deal with is the adventure reality. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I'm quite hard to make up to bleed from this Arica to the idea of our interdependence and the land of India in order to keep myself from feeling disappointed. And I feel good. And I think, oh, this means that everything is still connected in ways that I can't possibly point to or exactly understand.

[09:17]

But it means we're all connected together and we feel good. Yeah, but there was a little bit of disappointment there for a while, but then... Well, at first, when I think about pinkiness, and I think nothing can make anything else happen, then I get worried, and then I remember, oh, but it's okay, because even when something can't make something else happen, something is connected to everything else in some way. Something is connected to everything? Anything is connected to everything. Somehow or other. Maybe it's... Well, but then when you did that, Nagarjuna would come in and say, there isn't a thing there connected to the other things. Oh, that's a disappointment. Yes, yes. Several people talk about, you know, responsibility. Who or what is specifically responsible for what? Because everything we've learned is polarizing.

[10:19]

Doesn't that also include our sense of thought? Yes. So, yes, definitely. And who or what... taking responsibility. I guess I would say that the who is not really a who, that the who is, well, you. And the you is something that dependently co-arises and is therefore empty, because it depends on other things. But this empty self is the thing that's responsible. It's the self that's responsible. The who isn't responsible. But what is it responsible for here, people? What is it responsible for? What is it responsible for? What is it self-responsible for? What is it self-responsible for? Believing its own lies. No, not believing. You don't have to believe your own lies. The self is responsible for... Close.

[11:27]

The self is responsible for... Gee, Liz. The self is responsible for the self. The self is responsible. Do you agree? Yes. Well, what else is self responsible for besides the self? What? Pardon? Karma. Karma, yeah. Well, that's... When you have a self, then you have karma. Because self thinks it can do something. So self is responsible for self and everything that's... No, it's not responsible for what's not self. It's just not. I mean, how can a self be responsible for what's not? What is the self? The other is not the self in conventional reality, right? You're not responsible for the other. Is the other responsible for you? No. Do you dependently co-arise with the other?

[12:31]

Yes. Are you responsible for what you dependently co-arise with? No. No. Why aren't you responsible? Because you have no ability to respond as the other. That's why it's other. If you could respond, then you could create yourself. Do you understand? You could sit here and be responsible, and you could use the other to make yourself, and so on. But the other is not what you can. You can't do anything about the other. That's why it's called other. It's beyond your... You don't think you can control it. You try to control it. You don't... Raph, the way you're talking about self in a conventional sense is that the self-dependently polarized self, let's say... Excuse me, but just let me say that the conventional reality, the self doesn't depend on the core eyes. The self has conventional existence.

[13:37]

All right? Conventionally we say there is a self. Conventionally we say there is a self. Conventionally we say there is an independently existing self. We say that conventionally. It is not conventional to mention that it dependently co-arises. That's not conventional. So go ahead then. For a minute. What you're saying. I just wanted to check and make that one change in what you said. You can go forward. Oh, okay. Can you do anything? If we talk about self, if we mention the word and we're talking at the level of conventional reality, then I agree that we're not responsible for the other. But if we're talking at this other level about the kind of horizon, and we happen to use the word self, we really can't use if we talk at that level. Well, let's even talk about the self that's not the independently existing self, okay? Let's talk about the dependent core of the self. Is that self responsible for the other?

[14:40]

There's no other. There's no other. You can still talk about responsibility, though. You can talk about responsibility for the individual self, which did not get evaporated. by understanding that it dependently coerose. It just emptied of its inherent existence, but you're still responsible for it when it depend... because it still dependently coerises and has conventional existence. So you're still... Okay, but if you're then responsible for that self... Yes. ...it's dependently coerising... Yes. ...and if you are understanding it all about depend... I guess we're... why aren't you that... then that very active responsibility is somehow also the responsibility of the whole. Because as the little self is dependently polarizing, so too is the other dependently. You know, if you're a bodhisattva, if you're a bodhisattva, pardon, say it again.

[15:48]

Energetically, the energy of that little self is somehow influencing the Yes, but if it is somehow influencing it, how is it influencing it? It's influencing it because everything else dependently co-arises in dependence on that self. All right? Okay? That's what it means. You dependently co-arise with the other things, the other things dependently co-arise with you. But the fact that he's dependently co-arised with you, that's not your responsibility. Because you're not a causal agent. You can't make something happen to the other person. As a bodhisattva, if you're a bodhisattva, you vow to save all other beings. That's different than being responsible for them. That was a difference between being responsible. For example, what do you mean by be responsible for somebody?

[16:51]

And what's to do to that and saving the person? What's the difference? Yes? I was just going to ask something like that, which was, can you differentiate between being responsible or just behaving responsibly or acting responsibly or something like that? Isn't there a difference? Well, for me to behave responsibly means that my individual self-existent self would take responsibility for being an individual self. And I would take responsibility for thinking that way. And I would take responsibility for any action based on that. I would be responsible for myself. That's my responsibility. Now, what does it mean to be responsible for someone else? Yeah, but that's still my responsibility for myself in relationship to whatever. It's still not responsible for them, is it?

[17:52]

But if you're inseparable from them... If I'm inseparable from them, then I'm not talking about... That thing that's inseparable from them is not an independent self. And that thing, I'm not responsible for that self. That's a forgotten self. As a bodhisattva, I'm responsible to realize that forgotten self by studying this remembered self. Yes. So if everything is co-dependently arisen, there's no other? We don't say that everything is co-dependently co-arisen. We say, probably the other way around, there's no evidence for anything that doesn't dependently co-arise. We don't know about everything. All we know about is things. And there's no things that we have any evidence for that don't dependently co-arise. All right. Still given that premise? When I walked out the door and kicked the cast, why wouldn't the cast and everyone else just be simultaneously responsible for that act?

[19:03]

You mean, why am I not responsible for your actions, is that what you mean? In that scenario. Because I don't cause you. That's why. If I have causal power, then I'm responsible for everything you people do. Then I'm causing you to do the way you are. In other words, I'm God. So then, if you think of God that way, then God's responsible for everything we do all day long. We're automatons. Automatons are not autonomous beings. They're beings who have an autonomy. If I was in control and you were autonomous on me, everything that you did cruel, then I would be responsible for that cruelty. You would be my agent. I would be the primary agent. You would be my lieutenant. So then I would be responsible. But if I don't cause things to happen, if I'm not a cause, then I'm not responsible for what you do. In fact,

[20:08]

However, I am responsible for you to wake up, and I've worked really hard on that. Yes, Grace? I can't make you. I can't make you. If we go back to the face of the cat, instead of Lee and the cat, there's a person outside, and we watch Lee approach that person, and it's really clear, Lee has a knife in his mirror, and he's going to kill that. Yeah, the knife in his hand is going to kick that person. And he's going to kick that person. And Lee just sort of watched this happen. At an eventual level of usage, understanding, and reality, I think at some level I would hold myself somewhat responsible for his action if everything in my became told me that he was about to do something. It's true I'm not causing it, but at the level of invention... If you let him do that, if you sit here and don't walk across the room and take a knife away from him, then you're being irresponsible if you have a vow.

[21:15]

to, you know, not kill. As a bodhisattva, you're responsible to not prevent him from killing. Right. So I am responsible. No, you're not responsible for him, though. You're responsible. The same responsibility we had before. You're responsible for yourself. We're using what? That's the level at which I mean responsibility for the other. Yeah, but that's responsibility for yourself. For example, what if you go over there and he changes his mind just before he decides not to do it? Are you responsible that he decided not to? What if you walked over there and were approaching him? Okay. You didn't even quite get to them, but you just about got to them. You just about took the knife away from them. He changed his mind. He dropped the knife and walked away. Would you be responsible for what he did? Would you use that language? No.

[22:16]

If he told you you were responsible, would he? Listen. If he tells you that you're responsible for life, do you think you are? No. What will make you think you're responsible for his life? What would make you think you're responsible for his life? Yes. That's what makes you think that. And that's what most people do think, basically. They have that deeply inside themselves that they have causal power in the domain of their self. That they can actually take responsibility for people. And it is conventional reality to do that with babies. We treat them for a while as though they weren't karmic beings. It's a conventional thing we do. And it's very easy for us to do that, because we think that more widely than that, but we get by with it for a certain period of time.

[23:19]

Yes? If you could, in fact, take responsibility for someone else, it would be an unkind act, or if it should be usurping their responsibility. It would be unkind to take someone else's responsibility away from them. That's unkind. Even though they beg you to do it. A lot of children will ask you to do for them what is their job to do. They have this job to do and they'll ask you sometimes to do it for them. And it would be unkind to do for them what they are, you know, unable to do and what they need to do to grow up. But you really wouldn't be doing for them what they would be doing for themselves. You would just be doing your thing, and they would be doing their thing, getting you to do that thing. But if you think that way, it's misleading to the child. It's better to let the child take responsibility for thinking at their self, which can do things, and live that out and see how that works.

[24:29]

Because by studying that mode of thinking in terms of this has the power to cause that, by studying that, you will realize the contradiction in it eventually. And that's what we need to wind up seeing. Yes, please. Well, we've been talking about that we're not, we don't cause things. But I think about the rest of the sentence. It says it's not, but there's, that it's not without cause also. There's not a cause, it's not without a cause. No, no, it doesn't say, it doesn't say not without cause. It says it is not a rise, it is not caused by a non-cause. It doesn't say there's not without cause. It is saying it's without cause. It just says it doesn't arise from not a cause. Do you have a difference? It's not caused by a non-cause. In other words, not caused by this, not caused by that, not caused by that, and also not caused by this fancy thing called non-cause.

[25:32]

Not caused by that either. It's not caused by anything. There is no causation in the sense of something which has the power to make an effect. There is no such thing. There's no evidence for anything like that. Can you... There's no evidence. You can't see anything like that. Everything you see is dependent on other things, but not caused by it. And again, if we can talk about that, how it depends on them, but isn't caused by them, and how they mutually are dependent on this, but not caused by it. Yes? I feel actually scared about that, because I feel like then, if my anxiety has no cause, it's almost like then there's nothing I can hook... Your anxiety has no cause, but it has conditions. Right. So there's nothing I can cook my mind on as the cause. If you see things that way, you can't cook your mind onto a cause. That's right. So then how does one approach one's own anxiety? If you see there's no cause, then how can you use, knowing the conditions, not you don't know the conditions, but how can you look at your and study your anxiety and use what we're talking about to understand that?

[26:44]

Anxiety dependably coerizes with the belief in the self. If you have an independent self here, a finite self, you have that, that is a condition, a primary condition for the arising of anxiety. When you understand that that self doesn't dependently, doesn't exist by itself, it doesn't have the power to cause things, it isn't caused by something else, it has the power to cause it. When you see through that story, You are liberated from anxiety. However, as long as the self still conventionally exists through co-dependent arising, the anxiety is still there. And the self might still be dependent on the co-arising. The independent self might still be dependent on the co-arising. And it might still be anxiety. But you would be free of it.

[27:47]

Because you would also understand that this This self, which dependently co-arises, has conventional existence. It's not like it's not there. You can't have enlightenment without this thing, something appearing. It's not like you're enlightened, and there isn't this thing there that's dependently co-arising and has conventional existence. It's still there, conventionally speaking, and dependently co-arising. existed. It's still there. And so therefore, because of that temporary thing, there's still anxiety. Because of that conditional dependent arising of it, there's still anxiety. However, you also are completely liberated from that. You don't believe in it on another level. And the other level is non-dual with the level which you do believe in. Therefore, you don't have to stop being like you-know-who in order to be enlightened.

[28:52]

As a matter of fact, being you-know-who is a delusion which is the content of enlightenment and inseparable from it. Enlightenment isn't floating out there in mid-air somewhere. It's always hooked into a deluded being. And the main thing we're deluded about is our self-existence. And since we're deluded about our self-existence, we feel threatened. And because we feel threatened, we're useful to suffering beings, because they feel threatened too. Now, if we can be enlightened also and see the emptiness of this anxiety, then we also are right there, so we feel compassion. We feel compassion. We're right there. We've got a little self there that's threatened, just like everybody else's. The difference between us at that point and other people is we're right there.

[29:55]

We see, oh, there's a self and there's anxiety. This thing's under threat. Poor baby. My own little self is being threatened because of its limitedness, its conventionally existing self. It's in danger. I feel sorry for it. And also, I'm not checking out. I'm right here with it. Right there with it. It's also empty. And right in the middle of that emptiness, I feel compassion. But you can't feel compassion if the Self has been sent to unaware. It's not like empty the Self and they are standing there in vast emptiness. And then there's this big enlightenment there. It's not like that. It's like there's vast emptiness and you're hooked right into that pain. And you feel compassion while at the same time realizing emptiness.

[31:00]

So bodhisattvas vowed to embrace and sustain suffering beings and realize emptiness. You have to join those two together. And in a sense, the compassion is like at the center of the emptiness. And the emptiness, you know, protects and makes sure the compassion is able to fully function because the being is set free. Deep. Now, the question is basically about what we're talking about when we use a word like responsibility. To use Lee's example, Lee goes out and kicks a cat. Grace is not responsible because she doesn't cause Lee. But then Lee, that's in the same verbal formula here, doesn't also cause Lee.

[32:02]

So what is responsibility if he's responsible for kicking a cat? What does that mean? It means he's responsible for thinking that he's a lead, first of all. That's the person he's responsible. And that lead stands for something that actually exists. He's responsible for that. That's the main thing he's responsible for. Now, his ability to think that he's Lee and think that Lee's an independent actor, that dependently co-erodes. And that couldn't happen without the support of everything. The whole world makes it possible for him to be that way. But he doesn't think about that or care about that. He only cares about Lee. And then that person goes around and does stuff. Now, he's responsible for that whether he knows it or not. People, you know... feel certain ways about him because he kicked cats, and also, he feels certain ways for kicking cats. He goes to various places after, you know, because of kicking cats, called hell, right? This is the way he, because of his responsibility, these things happen to him.

[33:04]

These things co-arise with that kind of responsibility. Now, he could also take on the responsibility of being aware of what he was doing and saying and thinking, I am responsible, and being attentive to his responsibility, and that would be starting to pay attention to cause and effect and take very careful, attentive actions. That could be the way... responsibilities start getting translated and then responsibility could keep translating further into studying more deeply how it is that we believe that we could cause things and that other things could cause things. This is part of the responsibility of one who wants to benefit others. No, no. I didn't say to put aside cause and effect.

[34:06]

I didn't say that. I said, if you think you have a self, then take responsibility for the cause, for your causal power that you think you have. But you know what? we're teaching you that you don't really have it. However, I also said, at the same time of teaching you this, I asked you if you were disappointed because actually, I think that actually there's some disappointment somewhere around here to the self, that there's a language of creating a self gets disappointed around what it believes exists, doesn't exist. So if you start taking on this teaching and you start letting it sink in, it starts to disappoint something. And that shows you about the language, how you use language to create things. But still, I did say, what are you responsible for? I said self, and therefore you're responsible for what the self does, because selves think that they can do things. Because selves think that they exist, they think they have causal power. So take responsibility for thinking that way.

[35:06]

That's what you should be responsible for. And if you study that thoroughly, this goes very nicely along with the responsibility of saving all beings. But saving all beings does not mean that you are responsible for them. The Buddha does not reach down and pull people out of delusion. Because this is not possible. You could zap somebody, you know. for a second, but then they just sink back in later, back into delusion. What the Buddha does is the Buddha teaches what's called Dharma. And the Dharma is basically seeing when you see the things dependently co-arising, so the Buddha basically tries to get people to see how they dependently co-arise. He tries to get these things we call people, which think that they're independently existing, to try to get them to see that they're not independently existing. So the Buddha keeps trying to get them to see But Buddha is not responsible for them. Buddha just has compassion for them.

[36:08]

Because Buddha doesn't think in those terms of him or her being responsible for others. Buddha thinks actually that she arises in dependence on others rather than that she is responsible for them. But if Buddha still sees herself as an independent person, she should take responsibility for that delusion and for the karma that's facing a delusion. That's the first step in coming to see how you dependently co-arrives. Not necessarily the first step, but that is a requirement. In order to develop right view, you first of all have to take credit for your wrong view. You have to confess that you're deluded. And you have to not just confess it, so like, okay, I'll sign, where do I sign? But you have to know what that means. It's like in this particular thing, it isn't just your sign, you say, okay, your sign, but what does that mean? Now prove that you're deluded. Tell us some delusions. Explain how you're deluded.

[37:09]

Prove that you're deluded. Prove that you understand that you're deluded. And you can still be deluded and understand you're deluded, but when you really understand that you're deluded, then it's not that you're not deluded anymore. It's not that you're not deluded because it's not like you're deluded and then you understand that you're deluded. It's not like you're deluded and then you're deluded, deluded, deluded, and then the delusion stops and the enlightenment starts. It's deluded, deluded, deluded, deluded. A little bit of understanding, deluded, a little bit more understanding, [...] deluded, a little bit more understanding, deluded, like that. And pretty soon there's a big understanding and a big delusion at the same time. And the big understanding is called enlightenment. It isn't that the delusion comes along, and then suddenly, the delusion stops, and then you're enlightened. It's not like that. So, right now, everybody here is deluded a little bit, a tiny bit, a lot, or whatever.

[38:13]

Anyway, everybody here is deluded. If you're sent to being deluded, if you have individual existence, you're deluded. In other words, okay, you're deluded. See, you got that part. Now, if you have some understanding of your delusion, or you don't. If you don't have an understanding of your delusion, then you have delusion and no understanding of your delusion. You're just deluded. And there are, I guess, some people that are just plain deluded and have no... Well, I guess some people are deluded and think, actually, very strongly that they're not deluded. They're, like, heavy into, like, I'm not deluded. This is called delusion on top of delusion. This is called delusion, covered delusion. Then there's people who are deluded and a little bit understand they're deluded. Then there's some people who are deluded and understand really deeply that they're deluded. Then there's some people who completely, greatly understand how deluded they are.

[39:13]

But they are understanding that they're deluded. It's not like they understand they're not deluded anymore. People who think they're not deluded anymore are super deluded. People who think that they're deluded and have a deep understanding of that are Buddhas. But Buddhas have the delusion right there, right there, they're sitting in it. And in that delusion that they understand, it's the same place where they understand how they're connected to everybody. Their delusion is actually the place where their connection is realized. So, for example, we think we can cause things to happen at the delusion. We study that delusion, we have a big enlightenment about that, and we have a big understanding of that delusion, and then we're a Buddha. But that delusion is still there. We still sort of say, well, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. And, you know, we drive cars or something like that. Or perhaps we have a chauffeur and then we don't have to drive cars. Like Suzuki Rashi has chauffeurs.

[40:15]

He never drives his license, so he didn't have to be deluded when he was in cars. it is possible to take a break. However, ladies and gentlemen, when you take a break from delusion, you ain't a Buddha anymore. Which, who cares, you know, fine, I'll just be an undiluted person. Well, fine, that's not a person. You're just, what you call, you're just like, I don't know what that is anymore. Deluded people who are enlightened are Buddhas, or beings who are enlightened about their delusion are the Buddhas, okay? So being responsible means be responsible for your delusion. And the main one is be responsible for delusion that you're an independent person. You can't really feel all that is involved there. And it's not somebody else's responsibility to get you to be responsible. It's not, for example... my responsibility to get you to be responsible for your own delusion.

[41:21]

It's my responsibility to be aware of mine. And by being aware of mine and talking about how great that is, I might encourage you to be aware of yours, and then you'll be free, and then I'll get some kind of an award, right? I will. And I'll take responsibility for thinking, and I got it. Yes. I would like to suggest that even the realm of the dual thinking, of thinking that I am a self that can act, the term responsibility doesn't work. It does? Well, I suggest, okay. Okay. Let's say I'm Lee, I kick the cat. Lee is a good example. And I am stuck, of course, in responsibility. So for me, the first thing that would arise would be a feeling of guilt.

[42:23]

I feel guilty for this action. Yes. Probably. Yes. Not necessarily. You do. You keep guilty before you do anything. and i do believe that the notion of responsibility rises out of a feeling of guilt. Then I might even go as far as asking myself about the causes and conditions of this special action in this realm, thinking that I am this independent self. Again, I would like to suggest that these causes and conditions are You would like to suggest it, but I will not accept your suggestion. The reason is because To take responsibility does not mean that you take responsibility and know all the causes and conditions for what you did.

[43:32]

It means you take responsibility for the story you told about how you came to be. And you do know that story. Everybody here knows the story by which you created yourself. That's not how you got created. That's not the actual total list of the conditions by which you independently coerose. That's just your story. If everybody knew the list of all the things that gave them the self-existence, then nobody would exist because the list would be virtually identical for everybody. scale stories about who we are. You can tell them in a few seconds. You can create a person. You can create almost everybody else in the world. You can create very quickly with a very short list. That's not actually the whole story. That isn't how you know for sure that that's what the person is. You can't prove it. That's just how you come to think that they're not you. And you have a story about yourself. That's what you take responsibility for. You take responsibility for that story.

[44:34]

And... You take responsibility for believing that story. It isn't that you take responsibility for knowing. You take responsibility for what you think is a good enough story to exist. That you can do. Because that is what you're working with. You've got that moment by moment to work with. So you can take responsibility for that. You can take responsibility for this other thing you said, but that's not what I'm asking you to take responsibility for, because that's not what defines yourself. Yourself is defined by a not-novel-length story. So to make it clear, because I really want to understand, means not responsible for the kick, but responsible for the story of which the kick evolved. Yes. Responsible for the story about how they kick people. That's it. That's all you have to be responsible for. There's the language. And then you have to be responsible for you to believe the story.

[45:35]

It depends. And again, you don't have to be responsible for the language because you don't have the power to make the language. So basically what you're responsible for is believing the story as yourself. That's really what you're responsible. But seeing that story, calling me a self, and then we'll be able to do it. That's what you're responsible for. The other stuff you don't do by yourself because the language is something we create together. It's a conventional thing. And that's how we get other people to agree with us about it. It's because it's going to produce a measured language. So what is the teaching for disappointment? Mm-hmm. What is the teaching for disappointment? Yes? It's probably the same teaching for responsibility. Yeah, same teaching for responsibility. So what's the teaching for disappointment? Disillusionment. What? Disillusionment.

[46:35]

No, it's the same thing. What's the teaching for disillusionment? Emptiness. Emptiness? Yes, but what's the teaching for emptiness? Responsibility. What's the teaching for disappointment? What? She said story that led to disappointment. What? Believing the story which led to disappointment. So what's the teaching for work? Don't believe stories. No, no. The teaching is admit the story that you believe in that led to you to having disappointment. That's the first part of the teaching. If you say the teaching is to don't believe in stories, then that is this new story you're supposed to believe in.

[47:36]

The teaching says that the story is not something which has the power to call disillusionment. However, you can't have disillusionment without a story. But the story doesn't cause a decision. You have to have whole bunch of other things. Neither one of those by themselves will cause a decision. You have to have a story. You have to have some content in the story. You have to have conventional language. You have to have belief in the story. You have to have somebody who believes the story and hears the story. All many, many things, but not infinite number of things. It's another story about how you believe in the story and how this punishment arises. If you study that story, you will be free of belief in the story. We don't say, don't believe in the story. We say, admit that you do believe in the story. And when you feel disappointment, it gives you a clue about where to look for the story. And then also, when you find the disappointment in the story, it gives you a chance to look for where you believe.

[48:41]

So your responsibility as a bodhisattva, as a meditator, is to find that story. Notice the attachment and the disappointment. Of course, there won't be disappointment if there's a story, attachment, and the story seems to be happening. Then there won't be disappointment. And if you're dull enough, you can actually think that the story is working out. Yes? So get dull. That's another point to deal with this. What's happening without a story? What is happening? What is happening without a story? I don't know what's happening without a story. Nobody knows as far as I know. The Buddha may have known what was happening without a story, but the Buddha would not talk about it because the Buddha did not want to distract people from their work.

[49:46]

People wanted to talk to the Buddha. It must be omniscient, right? But his omniscience was particularly omniscience about how to be free and how to set other people free. That's what his auditions was about. He didn't care about knowing, sometimes people say, what the Buddha didn't know about wasn't worth knowing. The Buddha knew about, understood suffering, understood the cause, understood how it ended and understood the path. So therefore, by understanding the suffering, by being willing to relinquish the cause, he realized the fruit and realized the path to the fruit and how to teach it. What actually exists without the story? He didn't say, I know nothing on record of the Buddha talking about actually what exists without stories. what the world would be like without self-clinging. It's called nirvana, you know, but there's no descriptions of nirvana, you know, like, well, it's really like this.

[50:51]

There's like, people don't really look like that anymore. They've got like, you know, no word, nothing like that. There's words about, he did talk about what people look like in various heavens, but those heavens are not nirvana. Nirvana is when the story of heaven is no longer, the rest has self-existed, And then what do things look like? Well, it turns out they probably don't look the least bit different in a way because the content of the nirvana is samsara. The content of liberation is delusion. So things probably look exactly the same. That's why the Buddha is compassionate, because the Buddha still knows where you are. Just like, you know, suddenly you're gone, Buddha wouldn't know where to find you to help you. Buddha's still here, and you're still there. It's all, everything's set, just like it was before, just that there's, just need to see liberation. So, we're in the teaching for disappointment.

[51:54]

What about just being disappointed? It sounds like you need to be studying a story in Spain, something extra. Well, so you could say, what is the teaching for disappointment? Just sit. Which means, if you're disappointed, you could say, when someone is disappointed, what is the teaching for disappointment? When the Buddha finds, when the Buddha is walking along, you know, in the mud, and finds somebody gurgling in their mouth, what is the Buddha's teaching? What is the Buddha's teaching? How are you feeling? Well, I'm in the mud. Oh. That's the kind of thing that Buddha wants to hear from somebody in the mud. In other words, they're just sitting in the mud. What's happening? I'm in the mud. So you're right. The teaching for disillusionment is, what's happening? Disillusion. What are you disillusioned about? Now you could say, what's happening? Disillusion. What's happening? Disillusion.

[52:55]

You could go like that. But you could also say, if you want, you don't have to. What are you disillusioned about? He doesn't exactly know, study the story. What do you just listen to the pot? And then the person will tell you the story. Well, I was walking on the street and Renee started talking when I was expecting her and I got upset. What do you do if they say, well, it's not about anything. What do I do if they say that? I say, oh. Yes. Yes. There's not an independent you that can get you away from the story or that can relinquish the story. There's not an independent you that can get you away from the story? That's right. There is an independent you that can keep you in the story, though. So, the independent you is disappointed. The Buddha walks up and says, how are you? The person says, I, independent I, I, independent I, I'm disappointed about, I'm disappointed.

[53:58]

That's enough. But you might also say, what are you disappointed about, just to see, you know, what do they know about this disappointment? Or tell me about the disappointment. Well, it's just plain old disappointment. Is that really all it is to it? And that's it? And if you felt like that was all it was for the person, that'd be fine. But if you felt like they kind of just didn't notice that it was about something, you might say, oh, really? I said, well, actually, yeah, I just got fired from my job. That's what I was fired. Or I just found out that I was really a cruel person. And I had some other story. Or I just found out, you know, that I'm a die tomorrow. Or I just found out that there's nothing existing in the way that rides itself. Right. I just found out there's no eyes, no ears, no nods, no talking. I'm really disappointed. Because I had this other story.

[54:59]

I guess. Or, you know, now you say... Now, if you thought you had an independent existence yourself and you got disappointed in thought that wasn't true, would that be liberation? Yeah? Yeah, but the liberation, how... all the people... not because that person would acknowledge that they're in their store. Why? The deliberation would occur because the condition that's happening to have that person be aware that they're buying into their store. Yeah. I mean, why not release their disease? It admits that this is actually what's going on with the way which one regards himself.

[56:00]

Yes. That in itself is obviously not enough for this reader to occur. It's getting close. What more do you say is necessary? Well, let's say I... Like, this makes... Something says to me that yet I'm not sitting here in the Unpromised Land. You're not in the Unpromised Land? You mean you're in the Unpromised Land? But that's what you just said. You said just admit that you're in the Unpromised Land, don't you? And maybe that's obviously not enough. But maybe it is enough. Maybe that's all it takes. But you've got to do it all the way. It isn't like you just service it. The idea comes forward to the room. You go like this and say, that looks like a good idea, but that's obviously enough. It's more like, that looks like a good idea, and then do that all the way. I mean, do that completely, and do it again and again, until kind of that's your life.

[57:03]

That's the promised land. But you didn't go anyplace, and you're still in the same place. You're basically just admitting, I'm not in the promised land, I'm not in the promised land. I'm in samsara, I'm in samsara, I'm in samsara. Okay? If you admit you're in samsara fully, you realize nirvana. However, nirvana, samsara will still be there, so you'll still be connected to suffering beings. Samsara will be right there at the core. The pain will still be there. But now you can really have compassion because you have really, like, totally drowned yourself into samsara. Like, you're totally, like, totally, uh, totally suffer. Is it because at that point there's nothing else? You don't have any thought of anything else? You don't have any thought of anything else, that's right. All you have is a thought of that you're an independent self and you're hot stuff and you're suffering. That's all you have. And there's other people who are suffering.

[58:06]

That's all you have. That's enough of a thought, isn't it? You can only have one thought a minute, so one another thought of self. In fact, you do. And you project it out on other things. So you have a father's self, and you make a self by a certain story. And then you have this story-making thing, which uses that ball to make all the other people. All these stories. All these little stories. So fast. We're so fast. Story after story after story. Every face is a story. You have stories even for people you don't know who they are. I don't know that story, or I don't know who that person is. Sometimes you have a story, I don't know who that person is because I put my glasses on. Various kinds of stories, they're very fast, our mind is super quick stories. And each story makes an independent thing. There are no things without stories. And not that, but even if you could have a thing without a story, there would be meanings. So a meaningless thing is not a thing. Things have meaning. The meaning is that there's that thing, not another thing.

[59:06]

That's not meaningful thing for now. The deep meaning is to see how the independent core arises. In other words, to notice the story. And to notice if you believe the story. To notice how that works. Yes. We've been talking this evening about disillusion and disillusionment and disappointment. Well, different thing. Yes, a little bit different. Disillusionment we've been talking about is a pretty negative sounding thing when in fact it simply means losing your illusions and therefore it's extremely positive. It's not necessarily extremely positive things. To lose your illusions is not necessarily a strictly positive thing. Again, if you say that losing your illusions is a strictly positive thing, you just told a story about losing your illusions, and if you think that's real, then you still have one big illusion about that.

[60:16]

what you think is true. So you just made up a story about what you think is true, about losing illusions. You just made up an illusion. Well, I can always hedge and say it might be a real positive thing. That doesn't need to be a hedge. That can be just that you kind of think that that's the case. In fact, losing, becoming disillusioned or giving up an illusion could be a positive thing if it's a condition for what? enlightenment or even something less than enlightenment. For example, just like, because maybe I have this illusion that this person is a monster, and I get disillusioned about that, and instead of being cruel to him, I give him a dollar and say, I hope you don't spend this all in one place. In other words, sometimes disillusion leads to, is the basis, is a condition for something very beneficial, something a little bit beneficial or extremely beneficial.

[61:21]

Then is the disillusionment extremely bad? Extremely negative? No. You see, disillusionment isn't necessarily good or bad. Nothing is necessarily good or bad because everything lacks inherent existence. So nothing has inherent good qualities. Except, you could say, enlightenment has inherently good qualities, but it still isn't. So disillusionment is sometimes the basis of the greatest things that have ever been accomplished have been based on disillusionment. But the cruelest things have been, some of the cruelest things are also based on disillusionment. Some people, you come in and you snap their stories, and they become, you know, what we call monsters, right? Somebody said, you want to know how to make a monster?

[62:21]

Here's how you do it. You do it with rats, okay? Take a rat and then take a normal everyday rat, right? Like a middleweight rat. Put him with really little tiny rats and then beat him up all the time. Then move him into a really big rat who beats him up all the time. That makes a monster rat. He becomes very vicious after that. Before that, he was just a bully, picked on little rats. But after that, he's like super cruel to everything because his story got disillusioned. And he took big time vengeance on the world for disillusion. So then you can say, well, the disillusion is a condition for making a monster rat. Now, I can also stick to love with people like Buddha. They raise him real nice. They show him something terrible. And they say, hey, wait a minute. This is not good. I'm going to try to find some way to... This is really a bad situation. I'm going to try to find some way to be free from this really hopeless situation of what it's like to be an independent self and then grow old and dying and be born again and again, go through this repeated misery over and over with not much space between in certain ways.

[63:37]

That was his reaction to disillusionment. But, you know, so if the disillusionment is not necessarily good or bad, It can be a condition for this or that. The question is, how do you respond to disillusionment? Say, what's the teaching? In other words, what the Buddhist teaching for disillusionment is, rather than taking revenge on people for disillusionment, try to understand what are the causes of it. Find out there are no causes. What are the conditions of it? I want to have these conditions. Actually, one of the conditions is I thought they were causeless. Matter of fact, that's one of the main conditions of thinking of their causes is what it's like for people who have self when they come to a cause and effect. And I kind of feel like some people are getting tired, so maybe we should stop. Yes, Pat. Either way, on the pod.

[64:41]

Yeah. Would you say that action affects the forgotten self? I would say that all action is dependent on co-arism, but when action emerges from the forgotten self, the field of the forgotten self understands that dependent co-arism. I would say the action that comes from the forgotten self is wisdom and compassion and skill and weakness. It is the actualization of compassion in the world, of wisdom and compassion in the world. But all action depend on the core arises. It's just that if you don't understand it depend on the core arises, then what seems to be happening is karma. which is basically not compassion, not pure compassion in a way, and not wisdom at all.

[65:48]

It's delusion and, you know, not so good up to, you know, it starts from not being, well, let's say, acting from delusion starts at not being too good, maybe starts from being a little bit good up to super bad. It's possible to do kind of good things while diluted. You can still do some kind of good things. For example, you could fall on your face because you diluted, and that's a little bit good because you sort of, you know, and other people kind of, oh yeah, it makes sense that that would happen to this person. You're still doing some good, even when you're, you can still do some good when you dilute it. You can yawn, for example, when you dilute it. It might be quite a good thing to do. It might say, oh, that's really encouraging. I love the way that person yawns. So it isn't that you can do no good when you dilute it. It's just that you can do a little bit or whatever amount you can do is anyway that much, okay? But also you can do terrible things when you dilute it. I mean, you can do the worst things.

[66:50]

You can just be dialed in to super bad stuff because you manipulate all your beliefs in inherent existence. So if we like make you think, you know, that this is really a terrible person, then you can kind of like just totally smash him because you really think he's horrible. And you think that's, you know, you believe that. Now, if you've forgotten the self, then you also forget, you know, that other people are inherently existing. So when a person manifests as a monster, you don't, you understand that this is a raspy deity, you know, giving you some kind of meditation instruction. And you put your hands together and you say, thank you. The deity says, you are welcome, sir. I'm very happy you appreciate our work. And everything turns into bliss. That's how the... So the actions that come from the forgotten self start in big good and go to bigger good.

[67:57]

All of the big good and then go to extremely big good. And actions based on delusions start from could be a little bit good to the most horrible things. That's why we, as soon as possible, take responsibility if we've got a little self that we believe in. If we remember the self, then we should take responsibility for it because this is a dangerous thing. We are dangerous little selves. The little good things we do based on the little self is okay. Don't worry about them. They're fine. They're actually pretty good. Keep those up. That's fine. Be careful because it's a matter of time until something really bad is going to happen. If we don't start turning it around and making it go in the other direction, it's just a matter of time until we do something seriously harmful. On the other hand, if we put a lot of energy now into taking credit for the fact that we're dangerous creatures, we can start turning this thing around and start going in the other direction towards understanding itself and forgetting it.

[69:05]

And so in the middle of this forgotten self, It is compassion. But now there's no kind of self-claiming to interfere with it, so it just comes flowing right out, just however it works for people. So it's really helpful. It isn't just they appreciate the compassion, though. They not only feel the compassion, but it also kind of guides them to their own work. Does that make some sense? So, Nagarjuna taught about emptiness, right? But, you know, the reason why he taught the way he taught was not so much to establish emptiness, because in a way, you know, the people before him already knew about emptiness.

[70:09]

The problem was that they put emptiness over here and ordinary world over here Nagarjuna wanted to bring the two worlds together so that you keep track of the ordinary world the conventional world you don't lose it you don't separate the two worlds so after a while you don't like ordinary world and hate the ordinary world because it's you know it's empty and it's delusion His work is to try to make us appreciate and value the conventional existing world. Because that's what we have to study fully. Take responsibility for the conventional world that we dream of together.

[71:03]

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