Again, I'd like to respond to the request of relating our study to the world of suffering, the world where there's a war going on now. And by saying that this class and all of Buddha's way and practices and teachings are basically and ultimately for the realization of peace. The realization of peace includes the realization of people being fed and people being healthy.

[01:10]

But it's more than that. Even when people are fed, they don't necessarily practice kindness. Sometimes people need to... receive additional assistance in order to realize peace beyond just the requisites of life, although working for peace does include making sure that everybody's in good physical condition and good mental condition. That's not enough. So this is a class on peace, and this is a class about light. a light of wisdom, a light of awakening to make possible the work of peace.

[02:17]

Working for peace is compassion and light is wisdom. She is light. She removes all darkness. So the essential thing is to realize this light to manifest actual compassion. If we want to realize the light of Buddha's wisdom so that we can practice compassion, first thing we need to do is intend to do so, to make vows and aspirations to express ourselves, both internally and externally, that that's what we wish to do.

[03:35]

So I put those vows up on the board. Those are a good example of the kinds of expressions of aspiration that peace workers need to make. So that's beginning to connect And I'd like to give you an outline tonight of this class. It might be that there will only be time for the outline. But I think if I go over the outline again and again every class, you'll understand the whole project of Buddhism. And then each time we can draw in a little bit more detail. But I feel if I just drive right to the center all of a sudden, Well, I'll put it this way. The point of the class is to give you an overall understanding of Buddhism. Because our practice of zazen is actually driving right to the center.

[04:41]

And we already do that practice, the central practice. But we don't understand that relationship between our sitting practice and the whole project very well. We don't understand how sitting zazen is complete perfect enlightenment. So this class is to help you understand more and more every week how this very basic practice of just sitting is working for peace. So the outline will give you a feeling for how that works and then each time maybe we'll go a little deeper into the the basic understanding of how that is true. So I already started the outline by saying you need light. You need to absorb yourself in the light of Buddha's wisdom in order to be effective in working for peace.

[05:49]

Next, in order to do that, you need to make aspirations, vows. And then you need to start However, as soon as you start, whether you notice it or not, you will be afflicted and obstructed in your path to realize peace. Have you noticed? You will be obstructed by confusion. You will be obstructed by anger, your own. You will be obstructed by other people's anger when it comes toward you, and then you get upset and get angry back at them. And pretty soon, you'll just be in a war, and you won't be able to remember that you're working for peace. Have you noticed this happen? Even in a monastery, sometimes people get angry. Have you noticed? People who are working for peace in a monastery get angry. So this is an example of an affliction to someone who's working for peace.

[06:54]

Even in a monastery, people get greedy and eat too much and forget what they're doing. Forget they're working for peace and they think they're working for food. As a matter of fact, for more food and for that food. Right? These are afflictions. Not to mention confusion. Not to mention depression. not to mention sickness, not to mention pain which you don't know how to cope with, and so on and so forth. Many afflictions come, right? Various afflictions. Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune come at you, even in a monastery. So, while you're learning how to practice and develop this light of wisdom, you need to protect yourself from the afflictions which are going to keep coming at you all along the way.

[08:07]

From the first inception of the intention to realize perfect wisdom until you finally realize complete perfect wisdom all along the way you're going to be afflicted and you have to protect yourself from these afflictions so that you don't blow the whole project if you blow the whole project then you start over again remembering what you want to do making your vows and then starting along but then again you're going to get hit So what do you do to protect yourself from these things in lieu of uprooting all these afflictions? You practice patience. You practice friendliness. You practice ethics. You practice enthusiasm. You practice concentration. You practice generosity. all these things you practice to protect you in your unenlightened state so that you can keep studying what is Buddhist teaching.

[09:14]

Buddhist teaching will remove the root of the afflictions. Once the root of the afflictions are removed, the light can start to develop. The afflictions are basically two kinds, basically two kinds. One kind, the basic affliction, is the affliction of ignorance. Ignorance is a consciousness which believes in inherent existence. The basic affliction is to believe in inherent existence. We all are afflicted by this type of consciousness. We need to uproot this consciousness.

[10:18]

Until we uproot this consciousness, we will always be vulnerable to it as an affliction and it will interrupt our work of compassion and peace. The other kind of affliction is the world itself. The world itself, which is due to what? Remember last class, what's the world due to? Action. The world itself, which is due to the actions of people and animals who believe in inherent existence. Those are the afflictions. If we protect ourselves from our reaction to these afflictions by practicing kindness, friendliness, generosity, ethics, enthusiasm, and concentration, we have a chance to understand the teaching which Buddha gave to uproot the basic belief.

[11:24]

The basic teaching that Buddha gave to uproot the belief in the inherent existence of things is called DCA, dependent co-arising. That's the basic teaching that Buddha gave, to uproot, to loosen our belief in inherent existence of things. And by loosening that belief, you take away the root of affliction. You take away the obstacles to the path of compassion. DCA, attendant co-arising, runs through all schools of Buddhism. It is Buddha's, as the Dalai Lama said, dependent co-arising is Buddha's slogan.

[12:28]

And slogan is an interesting word. I looked it up today. Slogan originally means battle cry. Dependent co-origination is Buddha's battle cry. It's the cry of battle against the belief in the inherent existence of objects and subjects. You can apply your fierceness and your aggressiveness to that belief. You can be a warrior in relationship to that belief. Slogan also means sort of some teaching or some expression which is associated with some group. It's a slogan that way too.

[13:33]

This teaching of dependent co-arising is the teaching which is most associated with all Buddhists. And it's also a slogan, also means a catch word. It's a catch word. It's a word Buddha used to catch people into the practice. So this is the slogan of the central teaching of Buddhism, dependent co-origination. So first, the first step after the aspiration and realizing the project, the project is to renounce belief in inherent insistence.

[14:44]

The first, you have to express an interest in this renunciation of this belief, of this ignorance. Then, the next thing I would suggest is confession. Start with confession. Confession, confessing that there is a consciousness... which is seeing inherent existence. And that there have been actions which have been done based on this belief. So usually we say, all my ancient twisted karma, we confess the karma which comes from this belief. I'm suggesting you not only confess the karma, you also confess the belief.

[15:51]

You express the karma first, maybe, and then you understand that after you do that, then you have to confess the more subtle aspect of the karma, which is the root of the karma, which is the belief that things inherently exist in and of themselves. So I want to recite the poem again that I recited before. And this poem is a poem about karma. It's about gross action in relationship to other beings. It's also about the way we have been treated. It is about the way we have been treated, and it is about the way we have treated people. Especially if we are actually parents, we have done this to our children. and we have all been parents at some time in the past we've all done these things and we've had these things done to us and because we've had them done to us we learned how to do them and we did them so this is a story this poem is about things we have done and have done to us karmically but it is also a poem about

[17:01]

what we have done in terms of our own beliefs, so that the object of this karma, of these actions in this poem, could be seen also as reality. The son named Peter could also be seen as the inherent beauty of all life, which we have done harm to by this belief, because Mahayana Buddhism and particularly Madhyamaka is primarily concerned with beauty. It's primarily concerned with retrieving and resurrecting the natural beauty of life, the inconceivable beauty of life. It may sound abstract and philosophical, but It's actually sounding that way because even the abstract intellectual aspects of our mind will be involved in realizing this beauty.

[18:14]

It won't be just a visual beauty. It will be visual, it will be auditory, it will be olfactory, it will be tactile, it will be gustatory, it will be intellectual, it will be emotional, it will be conceptual. All realms of beauty will be opened by this teaching. That's why I like this poem, because it opens all this up. So this is a poem to my son, Peter, who I have hurt in a thousand ways, whose large and vulnerable eyes have gazed in pain at my ragings. Thin wrists and fingers hung in boneless despair.

[19:20]

Pale and freckled back bent in defeat. Pillows soaked by my failure to understand. I have scarred through weakness and impatience your frail competence forever, because I thought you knew you were beautiful and fair, your bright eyes and hair. But now I see that no one knows this about himself, but must be told and retold until it takes hold.

[20:24]

So I write this poem. I make this confession for life, for love, and for my son Peter. 10 years old, going on 11. When I think about that poem, it's the truth can be killed. Truth looks at us, at our ragings, in pain. Truth can be bent in defeat. And truth needs to be told and retold until it takes hold. So this is my confession. And I confess this, these actions.

[21:29]

And I also confess that I have the kind of consciousness which attributes, which imputes an inherent existence to think all the time. Next comes the now putting to work the act of renunciation, now that I've confessed the situation. Now that I've identified the enemy, now that I've seen what I'm doing, now I should look to see what I've done. Now that I've attributed inherent existence to things, I should look to see what are these things which I believe inherently exist. And in order to look at them, I now start to study the teaching of dependent co-arising and the teaching of emptiness, of all these things

[22:51]

that dependently co-arise. And the next thing I do after I have studied and understood this teaching of dependent co-origination, the teaching of the Madhyamaka school, is I then engage I yogically engage with this teaching. I yogically engage in the teaching of dependent co-origination. I absorb myself in this teaching. That's kind of a Mahayana philosophical way of putting it. A Zen way to put it is, First you clean, then you sit. In early Theravada Buddhist way of putting it is, first you establish right view.

[23:58]

That's the first eightfold path, right view. Right view is pendant call origination. That's right view. And then you have six stages. You have then right intention, namely, I'm going to realize this right view. And all the other ones leading up finally to the last one, which is right concentration. Right concentration means all these ones in between, there's right view. Right view is ongoing. Right view is things do not inherently exist. Right intention is, I'm going to realize this. Then all the other practices, up to the last one of concentration, are to protect you from affliction and distraction and confusion. And then you take the last one, the eighth of the eightfold concentration, and you put the concentration back on the right view, completing the circle.

[25:03]

And then you just stay absorbed in right view. until it takes hold, until right view is completely the way you view, until it actually pervades your senses. In Zen, we call this process just sitting. In other words, you just put a body there and just sit it. That means you absorb yourself in the dependently co-arisen phenomena of that moment. You absorb yourself in a body. And you understand that that's all you have to do because this body is empty. And this body is dependently co-produced. So no matter what happens, you're always concentrating on the same thing.

[26:06]

You're always concentrating on a dependently co-arisen being. And that's all you ever, ever need to do. And that's all you ever, ever are. And if you just do that until, again, it totally pervades until Dependent co-origination totally pervades your body and mind. In other words, you drop body and mind, which you think is an inherently existing thing. Then the afflictions drop away and your compassionate intention rolls forth unobstructed. Zazen is sometimes called absorption in the oneness of all life. Absorption in the oneness of all life means absorption in dependent co-arising. It is also sometimes called one practice samadhi means you only practice one thing, namely absorption in dependent co-origination.

[27:13]

So, Basic Mahayana, all Mahayana schools, this is what they're doing. Tibetan, Indian, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, American, all are doing the same practice. Zen does it, early Buddhism does it. The same pattern pervades all throughout. The special teaching which I'm going to go into now, I think, is the special teaching of this school, the Madhyamaka school, which uses emptiness to help us understand what the real import of this teaching is, this teaching of dependent co-origination. And now comes the hard part. Now comes the part where you're going to... It's going to strain. Now you're going to see... That's the other one anyway.

[28:22]

It took quite a while. Just will this world of belief end up... Or even take away belief. I'll take away belief and say conception. Just the conception, just the... not even belief, just conceiving, just put to see inherent existence. The conception of inherent existence is also another way to put it. The conception of inherent existence is the basic affliction of ignorance. You could also say misconception, if you want to. But you don't have to say misconception. Conception of inherent existence is enough. It is a misconception. In trying to be conscious of seeing and hearing the inherent thing, after a while, I asked myself, what the hell does that mean, inherent? Does it mean something... Are we talking about something more than a belief that things are, A, continuously existing, and, B, existing on their own?

[29:34]

Is there more to a belief or an existence than those two things together? Is there more to the... Notion of inherent existence, then thinking that things are permanent. Well, permanent is the short end for that. And existing independent. Independent. There's something more to it than that? Yeah. Well, when you usually look at things, actually, those are the elements that are contributing to them. You may not notice that you think they're permanent and think that they exist by themselves. You do, but your sense of them may not... You may not say, oh, I think they're permanent and I think they're more existing by themselves. You do, if you think about it, about what contributes to your coming to the conclusion that actually you think they're solid. It's like you don't just think this is independent. You think you can't get through it. You know, you think, actually, this is actually going to stop my hand.

[30:42]

That's what you think. And in a conventional world, it does. So it has a more, it's more than just thinking, well, this is permanent and isolated. It actually, you think it's solid and massive and inhalable and real. It has those qualities, too. In other words, it has all the qualities of the way you usually think about things. So those analytical elements are there in the background if you think about what the person's saying in their beliefs. But there's something much more solid and tenacious about our reality than those words convey, even though they're always there. And also I want to say something you brought up last time, and Akeem was saying to me too, is that when you hear about this practice, some people think, well, should I go around and say, this lacks inherent existence, and that's empty, and this is co-produced, and so on.

[31:47]

That's actually okay to say that, but to say things are empty and to say that they don't exist, that, you see, is not, that's not confession. You should confess that you don't see things that way rather than go around and try to talk yourself into them being that way because if you talk yourself into being that way, you will just attribute substance to that process and to what you're doing there. And you won't notice that you're doing the same thing. So why don't you just admit that even if you did that, you would still continue this habit. and then turn your attention towards this teaching of conditioned co-production. Yeah? Do you use emptiness and dependent code arising interchangeably? Could you speak up? You couldn't hear it, could you? I asked if you can use the term emptiness and dependent code arising interchangeably. No. And the fundamental teaching of Madhyamaka philosophy, the fundamental teaching is that you cannot use them interchangeably.

[33:01]

And they are identical. That is the fundamental teaching of the Madhyamaka school, is they are identical. And you cannot use them. And they are absolutely contradictory And identical. In Chinese, they have this word, and it's also in the Heart Sutra. I'm going to erase all these schools of Buddhism now. But you know, see the line? See how it goes through all of them? Remember that. BCA goes through all these schools. You know what DCA means now? Also, this pronoun, there's IE. OK? You know what that is, right? The inherent existence.

[34:03]

And then there's CIE. Conception of inherent existence, or conceiving of inherent existence. And you know about Buddha and Dharma and Sangha too, right? OK, so here's a Chinese character, something like this. Shikizoku zei. Shikizoku. This is the character that they put between form and emptiness. Between emptiness and form. This character means identical. But it doesn't mean Two things are one. It's a character that they use, which is kind of like is, but you don't use it for regular is. You use it for an is between things that are absolutely in contradiction. That's the type of is it is.

[35:08]

When you say form is emptiness, you should understand that that is this character, which is put between things that are absolutely contradictory It's separate and identical. The fundamental teaching of Madhyamaka is that is emptiness. And the word emptiness is kind of like a body. You can see the head here. The shoulders, ribs, pelvis, legs. Because it's emptiness of something. Emptiness, for example, of a body. Bodies are dependently co-produced.

[36:10]

You never have a dependently co-produced body without it being empty. You never have emptiness of nothing. You always have emptiness of a dependently co-produced something. Therefore, if you ever have dependent co-arising, this sometimes can be read, immediately you have emptiness. If you ever have emptiness, you immediately have dependent co-arising. If you ever have emptiness, you immediately have existence. If you ever have emptiness, you immediately have form. you immediately have feeling, you have one of those things. And if you ever have one of those things, you immediately have emptiness. That's what that is means. So it's not quite right to say form is emptiness, like form equals emptiness, form is the same as emptiness. They're not the same. They're absolutely different. And I want to say something about the word absolutely, because it's a frightening word, and Buddhism does not have any absolutes.

[37:17]

But it should be able to use the word absolutely, because absolutely does not need to mean a thing that's an absolute. Absolute means basically the meaning or the denotation of what it means to be complete or round or perfect. But the root of it means to cut, to separate. But these are absolutely separate and contradictory and identical. That's the basic, the fundamental teaching of this school of Buddhism. It's a fundamental teaching of Mahayana Buddhism. And there's one more thing I'll tell you about, is that the other aspect of the fundamental teaching of Mahayana Buddhism is that conventional reality... and ultimate reality are also identical and also absolutely separate and in contradiction.

[38:28]

Conventional reality and what? Conventional and absolute. So we have the Heart Sutra, right? Heart Sutra says, in emptiness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. That's ultimate truth. Ultimate truth is no eyes, also no suffering, no cause of suffering, no end of suffering, no path. That's ultimate reality. And when little Dungsan, Tosan Ryokai, heard the Heart Sutra, he said, but I have eyes, I have ears, nose, and so on. That's conventional reality. Conventional reality and absolute reality are absolutely separate and identical. You can never have absolute reality without conventional reality.

[39:34]

And the Madhyamaka teaching establishes conventional reality and absolute reality. Can we say the same about this inherent existence and non-inherent existence? They are contradictory but identical. Having this approach of life are phenomena of existence. Having inherent existence, one approach. And next approach is having dependent to a reason. depending on coexistence. These two approaches may be, as you're saying, conventional reality that could be inherent existence and absolute reality that could be... It's so subtle. You know, that's not true. Okay, now watch why that isn't true.

[40:35]

Conventional truth is not that things inherently exist. That is not a conventional truth. Conventional truth is there is suffering. There is misery. There is war. There is confusion. That's conventional truth. Conventional truth is not things inherently exist. That's not conventional truth. That is some truth of some, I guess, some philosopher. Like, I don't know who. I don't care to know, right? It's not conventional reality. You cannot get all reality conventions to agree. You cannot. Call a convention and see if you can get everybody there to agree things inherently exist. They will not agree. But they will all agree there is suffering in this world. And if anybody doesn't agree, they will be kicked out of the conference because that's not true. There is suffering. You must realize there conventionally is suffering.

[41:38]

It's very important. And any philosophy that denies suffering will cause suffering. Suffering is a reality. Misery is a reality. Confusion is a reality. Hatred is a reality, but a conventional reality. But inherent existence is not a conventional reality. But everybody does it. Everybody does it. It's a conventional reality. Not even a conventional reality that everybody does it. Most people won't even admit that. Most philosophers don't necessarily know about that. So, conventional reality, I mean, inherent belief in inherent existence or the fact of inherent existence is not identical with lack of inherent existence. They're not identical. They don't... That's not... a teaching of Buddhism. That's not the teaching of this school. Okay? Maybe you just sit with it for a while.

[42:38]

But it's not. I never heard about that. And it doesn't make sense to me. So I don't know. You're next, I think. Yeah, I just want to ask you to repeat. You said that that character could be translated in another... Immediately? Immediately you have. Immediately you have? But it's often translated as is. A form is emptiness. Who is next? Oh, yes. Isn't suffering caused by inherent existing? He's suffering. Did you hear what he said? What? Belief. Ah, yes. Is suffering caused by the belief in inherent existence? Yes. But even it's also caused, I think, you take away the word belief just by the conception of inherent existence. Like you don't have to say, I believe. You don't have to say, I believe. I believe that pole there inherently exists.

[43:41]

You don't have to say that. You just have to think it. Just sort of entertain the thought of it. You know, maybe it inherently exists. That's enough. Because actually, even maybe inherently exists is not as strong as actually what you feel with your senses. I think this is solid. There's that. That's not exactly a belief. But it's a belief. It's a belief of my hands and my arms. It's built into my senses. My senses say, I can't get through this. But actually, that's not ultimate truth. Ultimate truth, walk right through it. Just any more about that right now? So, maybe that's enough for questions. For a little while, I'll go deeper into it. Are you ready to go into Mahajanamaka now, or do you want to ask more questions? More questions? Okay, yes. Isn't the more crucial, actually, the more destructive?

[44:44]

Well, I don't know about ranking, but I can say this, that if you do not think that the other is an inherent thing, it's not a problem. There is actually an absolute other, and that absolute other is not inherently existing, and the absolute other transcends the usual self and other. An other which is the other of self and other, it is an other which transcends both of them. The other which is separate from the self, if you don't believe that that inherently exists, it's not a problem.

[45:56]

And if you don't believe it inherently exists, the absolute other dawns on you, and that absolute other pervades the illusory non-inherently existing other and the illusory non-inherently existing self. But self and other is, in some sense, the most important drama that this belief plays itself out in. And I want very much to get into this self-other relationship thing. as a way, in terms of looking at us as we grow up as children, in our relationship with our mother, for example, how, because we can't stand the reality, the tension of dependent core rising. Because we don't have the capacity to stand that tension and that ambiguity, we collapse into one side or the other and we get into all kinds of dominance and submission patterns based on this inability to stand that tension where we are the same as our mother and also we're different.

[47:16]

Where we have to assert ourselves and where we absolutely need to respect our mother. Not just for food either, but we need her recognition. In order to really be a human being, you need the recognition of another. In order to be self-reliant and self-assertive in the full sense, you need another to recognize you. And there is an intense paradox which we must somehow, as adults now, develop the strength to face. But as children, none of us could face it. Therefore, we eliminated the paradox and said, the other has the strength and I don't. They recognize me. Therefore, I can't assert myself completely because they've got all the power. But if I don't give them the power, then I can't assert myself either. So it's the self-loathing that's very much important in this thing.

[48:25]

But if you didn't believe in inherent existence, the other would not be a problem. Inherent existence actually has been isolated as the identified patients. It is the bad guy. I say something in this question. What is the relationship between inherent existence, or what we call inherent existence, if confusion, we have life, thing, and dependent coalescing? There must be a relationship. Yes, there is. And what I think is that my first approach of life is with ignorance. That's what the five khandhas gave me. Gave me that senses, taste.

[49:30]

And the five khandhas gave you awakening. So, the relationship between this inherent existence coming from ignorance and the other one, coming from enlightenment. Don't say inherent existence. Say the conception of inherent existence. There actually is no inherent existence, okay? Well, okay, but let's call it like this, because we are talking, we are using, yeah. What is the relationship? Because when you are, now you are saying they are not the same, it doesn't exist, or things like that. Seems like life were wrong. hype scandals were wrong. They are not wrong. They are giving us this conception things in order to live, in order to manage, in order to have the possibility even to have this connection and to give you confidence and you are my mirror and I am your mirror.

[50:33]

So how can we establish this connection between these two things? Because now the only thing I got to now is that it's wrong. It doesn't exist. It's not this. This is not this. But what is the connection? I'm not saying it doesn't exist. All I'm saying is that I didn't set up the identity between those two. That's all. I'm not saying... This is not saying that five skandhas... It's not saying that the five skandhas do not exist. It's not saying that. We're not saying they don't exist. This is not to refute the five skandhas. It's not to negate the five skandhas. It's just to negate that they have inherent existence. It's not to say they're wrong. I'd like to say, they say, it's not to say that there is no house.

[51:36]

We're just saying there's no golden house. There is a house. It's just not a golden house. There are five skandhas, but just not an inherently existing five skandhas. There's not a wrong five skandhas. There's just a five skandhas. It's just that there's not an inherently existing five skandhas. How do you define inherent existence? Maybe this is where I am. It's the way you see things. That's inherent existence. What you think of the world, you think everything inherently exists. That's how you see things. That's what you mean by it. It's the way you ordinarily see the world. That's the idea of inherent existence. my approach, my five-standard approach. The way you see the five skandhas. For example, you see the five skandhas, you see the objects of your awareness as separate from you.

[52:40]

That's an example of how you see things. That's how you see things. That's an example of inherent existence. Do you think there's something really out there? So do I. This is why enlightened people would confess all the time. Every time they had a perception, they would confess, I just saw something out there. That's what they would say. Endless confession. Endless confession. It's built into the nervous system to do that. Now it is possible to get to such a point that you actually cleanse your nervous system, you cleanse your senses from that. But bodhisattvas do not finish the process before everybody else does it. So that's why I can say as a bodhisattva, I'm not being too self-effacing to say I have not stopped. And I'm sort of rude to say that you're probably still doing that, but it has to be the indication that you are. I understand, sorry.

[53:42]

I think by what you're saying that you're still doing this. What? You're still attributing inherent existence to things, I think. Certainly, yes. Are you done? Right. And you? I do. Okay, so now I'd like to launch... Now the outline's over. Now I'm going to go into the part of the outline which was called Right View. The Right View of Buddhism called The Teaching of Nagarjuna. The great, wonderful, savior, sage, yogi, Nagarjuna, who taught us about Chakyamuni Buddha's slogan and an origination. And he used emptiness as a way to show, teaching of emptiness as a way to show the real meaning of this.

[54:50]

This is Nagarjuna's invocation to one of his main works, which is called Mula-majamaka-karmas, which means root, verses on the majamaka. Majamaka means the middle. So sometimes it's translated as middle stanzas or verses on the middle or root or verses on the root, the root verses on the middle. The invocation is not arising, not passing away, not, we have lots of translations of this which you can read. Would you sing a song, Dan? Just a short one. You can stand up if you like. Or you can sit down if you like.

[55:54]

Thank you, that's good. Not arising, not passing away, not eternal, not terminable, not one, not many. Not arising, not passing away, not eternal, not terminable, not terminable, can't end it, not one, not many. These are, he's talking about dependent co-arising. Nagarjuna says this is dependent co-arising, dependent co-arising, doesn't arise, doesn't pass away, is not eternal, you can't end it, doesn't have an end, it's not one and it's not many.

[56:58]

Okay? Dependent co-arising is not one and it's not many. It doesn't come, doesn't arise, it doesn't go away, it doesn't go on forever, you can't end it. I pay homage to the Buddha, the foremost among teachers who has taught dependent co-arising in order to graciously uproot all fabrications. Not arising, not passing away, not eternal, without an end, Not one, not many. I pay homage to the Buddha, the foremost among teachers, who taught this dependent co-arising in order to graciously uproot all fabrication."

[57:58]

The full impact of the word graciously I hope to unfold with you. But notice it's a gracious uprooting of inherent existence. Another translation would be he taught this dependent co-arising the blissful cessation of all phenomenal thought constructions. Or he taught this dependent co-arising that is the quiescent of all fictions that it is blissful. This is his invocation, the beginning of his major work. And the first verse is a very nice one. And it's, nothing arises from itself, nothing arises from another.

[59:06]

Nothing arises from both, and nothing arises by no cause. And that's, you know, right there, that's just sitting. That's a nice compact way of the meaning of just sitting, of why we just sit, and how we just sit. The verse? The first verse of the thing or the invocation? Nothing whatsoever anywhere in the universe arises from itself. Nothing arises from another. Nothing arises from both self and other.

[60:13]

And nothing arises by no cause. And again, he's not saying that things don't arise. He's not trying to refute arising. He's refuting essences arising. Does he get into how things then do arise? Or you rephrase that.

[61:17]

Does he get into the how-ness of arising? Yes. But the way he does it is mostly through reputation and negation and through dialectics where he puts things in identity with absolutely contradictory things. And He talks about, he recognizes that there are sequential ordered relations which give rise to the appearance of things. He recognizes that, but he doesn't actually say how that goes.

[62:22]

He recognizes that those people who say who put up sequences of events and ordered patterns that give rise to things, he recognizes that he is such a thing. But then he, first of all, first of all, refused any essence in that process. And then, doesn't just leave it at that, but then by juxtaposing that with other factors of existence and so on, brings out the positive side of the process. Without explicitly... Without explicitly going into the details any more than he has to to establish that they don't have essence. He will go into the details to establish they don't have essence. And then he also will recognize that the whole process... does work to produce things. And once you stop attributing inherent existence to the process, then you can say, then you can move into the being of this co-produced event.

[63:37]

And also you can move from the being of this co-produced event right over into non-being. And therefore, you can move back and forth between non-being and sequentially ordered production of illusion very easily because they're both empty without favoring one over the other. Madhyamaka philosophy is, although the intention of it, as I said earlier, you can see from the first verse there, the intention is to clarify the Buddhist teaching of dependent co-horizon. Still, the way, if you look at it, the primary philosophical tendency is one of reputation, and it is primarily a philosophy of emptiness, a teaching that all things are without essence.

[64:47]

That's primarily what it, that's its face. Even that's not its intention. Its intention is not to establish emptiness. Its intention is to establish understanding of Buddha's teaching of conditioned co-arising. The idea of emptiness and nothingness are found in other parts of Asian teaching. You also find it in Taoism, Confucianism, and in various Indian schools have teachings of emptiness and nothingness. That's not what's unique about Madhyamaka thought. Did Jim have some comment? Yes. Yes.

[65:49]

How about self-nature? Yeah, self-nature is okay for essence. In the sense that we're at svabhava. Yeah. Is that self-nature? Svabhava is self-nature. Yes. You might have addressed this question when you spoke of the absolute other. But when the Buddhists use the term Dharmakaya and someone like Eckhart uses the term Godhead, where do those terms fit in in the equation on board? Where does Dharmakaya fit in in the equation on board? I think it's the... I think it's the, well, I'll just say that it's the identity of dependent co-origination and emptiness.

[66:54]

That's the Dharmakaya. Is it emptiness with a large E, or is that a contrived statement? Pardon? Is emptiness on the board? I have a thought that Dharmakaya is somehow emptiness with a large E. Is that false? What's the difference between emptiness? What's emptiness with a large E and emptiness with a small E? That's my question. If there is such a distinction, and somebody like M. Nishikawa talks about nothingness, is there a distinction between nothingness and emptiness? Well, if you say nothingness is the means, if you're using the word nothingness or like nothing exists, just like merely doesn't exist, That's not emptiness. Emptiness isn't that things don't appear. Emptiness is that they lack essence. So if you mean by nothingness that there's nothing there, that's what you mean, then that's not emptiness. No, I'm talking more like a matrix of existence or a matrix of... You're talking about a thing... The womb of the tathagata or the womb of existence.

[68:07]

The womb of the tathagata is all dependently co-arisen being. That's the womb of the tathagata. All sentient beings is the womb of the tathagata. And that's dharmakaya? No. Dharmakaya, I don't think, is the womb of the tathagata. I think the wounds that you target to is all sentient beings. I just wondered, sometimes I have questions like when I read Eckhart, and I don't know if it can be transferred to Buddhist or non-Buddhist, but Godhead. Is that still familiar to us? I don't know what he means by Godhead. I don't know him well enough to say. But some things he says, I think, are real good. So this way of thinking which Nagarjuna is teaching, this teaching of emptiness, this teaching that things lack inherent existence, he actually didn't make this up.

[69:33]

He got it from the Prajnaparamita Sutras, Perfect Wisdom Sutras. That's where in Buddhist history, or in Buddhist literature, you can first see the appearance of this teaching of emptiness in its full bloom is in these Perfect Wisdom Sutras, Heart Sutra, and so on. It's a little one. Then there's 18,000 lines, 8,000 lines, 2,000 lines, 2,500 lines, 25,000 lines, 100,000 lines, 125,000 lines, all these different collections of these Perfect Wisdom Sutras. And then also, there's some other sutras which kind of belong to the Perfect Wisdom Sutras, too, which are called Prajnaparamita Sutras. Anyway, it's a big collection of scriptures that he read, and that's where the teaching comes from. I would also say that I'm of the opinion that Nagarjuna was both a revolutionary and also a return to Buddha's original teaching.

[71:20]

And some people are saying now that he just returned to Buddha's original teaching, that he wasn't really a revolutionary. I think he was both. I think he presented a teaching which disturbed and frightened the establishment of Buddhism. And current establishment. Yeah. And I think he did something which had never been done before. In his presentation of D.C.A. Yeah. But still, he was attempting to return to the original spirit. And I think he was successful. But I don't think what he did was you can find in Buddhist teaching. Prior to him.

[72:20]

Did you two have questions? Well, I just had a little note. I thought I'd list it, but... the ancestors of the Duryodhana. And they had their names in the Sanskrit. And sort of the title that they all had, virtually all of them, was Arya. Arya . But for Nagarjuna, it said Bodhisattva. And this listing of them, he was I don't know if that's exactly, but it just, does it matter in terms of, I guess, understanding his teaching, whether he was a revolutionary or not?

[73:32]

Sorry, I had some notes there. It's a current controversy that's going on. I'm just making a reference for those who are studying the book. It doesn't really matter. What matters is that it's almost 9 o'clock. It's conventional reality around here, which I don't deny. But I would like to come, and I would like to come back to conventional reality. I would like to end by saying that what I want to do next time is to go, I might review this outline more quickly each time to make sure you've got the overview, and then next time go deeper into Nagarjuna's teachings and Madhyamaka's school, go deeper into it. And just do that each time to make sure you understand the relationship between this teaching, that this teaching is the backbone of the understanding of Zen practice.

[74:35]

And just each time do that and go deeper and deeper into this teaching each time, which again shows the identity between the ultimate reality of the Heart Sutra and the conventional reality of our daily life, and validates both. And I just want to end by reading something that Daniel gave me, which I think a lot of you probably want to read. It's a short series of stories about conventional reality. In particular, it's about about people that were involved, Russian people, who were involved either as the parents or wives or fellow soldiers or correspondents with Russian soldiers in the Afghanistan War. The Afghanistan War was sort of like the Vietnam of Russia.

[75:43]

It was their longest war. They didn't lose as many people as in the Second World War. They lost 50,000 about. But it was similar to Vietnam in the sense that most people didn't even know it was happening for a long time. And most people, most of the soldiers thought it was a mistake. When they got over there, they realized they weren't fighting, but they were told that they were going over there to protect the people of Afghanistan from bandits And when they got there, they found out that these people weren't the bandits, that they were the people of Afghanistan. So the soldiers didn't want to fight anymore. And they would often commit suicide before they left for their assignments, when they found out where they were going. Anyway, it's reading these stories, which are told in a very skillful way.

[76:45]

I got the feeling like, you know, there's just never any reason in this world to kill even one person for any reason whatsoever. It's not worth it. So, this is a story of a mother. She says, I skip along to this cemetery as if I'm on my way to meet someone. I feel I'm going to visit my son. Those first days, I stayed there all night. It wasn't frightening. I'm waiting for spring, for a little flower to burst through to me out of the ground. I planted snowdrops so I would have a greeting from my son as early as possible. They come to me from down there, from him.

[77:50]

I'll sit with him until evening as far on into the night, and far on into the night. Sometimes I don't realize that I've been wailing until I scare the birds, a whole squall of crows circling and flapping above me until I come to my senses and stop. I've gone there every day for four years, in the evening, if not in the morning. I missed 11 days when I was in the hospital. And then I ran away from the hospital in my gown to see my son. Now, he called me Mother Mine and Angel Mother Mine. Well, Angel Mother Mine, your son has been accepted into the Smolnick Military Academy. I trust you're pleased. The mother is saying, my father was a regular officer who died in defense of Leningrad.

[79:01]

My grandfather was an officer too. My son was made to be a military man. He had the bearing, so tall and strong. He should have been a hussar, wearing white gloves, playing cards. Everybody liked to see him. Even I, his own mother, would imitate him. I would sit down at the piano the way he did and sometimes start walking the way he did, especially after he was killed. I so much want him always to be present within me. I'm not going to read the whole thing because it's getting late. I'll just read the end part. When I go to see him, I bow. And when I leave, I bow again. I never get cold in the freezing temperatures.

[80:05]

I write my letters there. I'm only ever at home when I have visitors. When I walk back to my house at night, the street lamps are lit and the cars have their headlamps on. I feel so strong. that I'm not afraid of anything. Only now I'm waking from the sorrow which is like waking from sleep. I want to know whose fault this was. Why doesn't anybody say anything? Why aren't we being told who did it? Why aren't they being put on trial? I greet every flower on his grave, every little root and stem Have you come from there? Do you come from him? Have you come from my son?

[81:00]

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