We could study K62 more, but I thought maybe just move on to K63. But I'll just mention K62 just briefly. The question in K62 is, do people nowadays need enlightenment or not? That's the way it says it in Tom Cleary's translation. But another translation you could do is does a person of the present moment need enlightenment or not? And And also, we're in case 63. And so it looks like, pretty clearly, we're not going to finish the book in this millennia.

[01:08]

Good. Isn't that something? We tried, but we need the next millennia to finish this book. What year did you start? I think, well, you know, I started giving koan classes a long time, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, but what I did is I would start going through this book of serenity, you know, one, two, three, four, and then there'd be nobody left in the class. And I start over, one, two, three, four, and then I'll be in the class. So I just kept going up, you know, to about 15 and going back to the beginning. Yeah. So then I finally said, I'm just going to keep going even if nobody takes, even if everybody drops out. And is Martha here?

[02:20]

Martha DeBarros? Yes. There she is. I think she's the only one left. Are you there at the beginning? And you must have come shortly thereafter. So about three of the original whatever number there were left. They all said they're going to keep going, but only three have been continued. But I said, so we're just going to keep going. class keeps getting bigger but people keep dropping out too there's a few people that apparently aren't going to yes how's your health how's my health you're gonna make it all the way it's a it's a basic buddhist teaching that we do not know when the end will come so i really don't know Basically, to start, I want to say that there's a story, a Zen story. It's written on a piece of paper, and you can read it out loud and look at it and so on.

[03:23]

Basically, what it's about is to become intimate with this koan somehow. And it's like becoming intimate with the person. And when you become intimate with a person, you become free of the person. You may not want to be free of the person, but that's what'll happen if you become intimate with the person. And so, in some ways, becoming intimate with koan, you become free of this koan and all the other ones. So the class is about intimacy with this material. which means intimacy with everything. You can't be intimate with one thing and not with another. I say that. You can't do it. You can't say, okay, I'm going to be intimate over in this direction and not over in that direction.

[04:28]

So that's why koans are nice to become intimate with because then you become intimate with everything and also it's nice to be intimate with everything because then you can be intimate with the koans. Could I talk to Michael and Mark after class? Just for a minute. Amanda, how's your relationship with your teacher? Who's my teacher? I don't know. Do you have one? I'm not sure. Right now I'm pretty happy to be in the presence of my teacher. How's it going? Very well, thank you. Once upon a time there was a Zen master named Jiaojiao

[05:35]

Zhaozhou is kind of the area he lived in. His monk's name was Zeng Shen, something like that. Is that right? And this guy lived to be 120, apparently. I mean, you can believe it. And he was traveling around after his master died. He stayed with his master until his master died. His master was Nanchuan, the person who had this problematic relationship with the cat. So Jaojo stayed with his teacher until his teacher died and then he left and started traveling. And he like visited everybody.

[06:38]

he visited, I think he tried to visit all of Matsu's students that were alive. So his teacher was a disciple of Matsu, one of the main disciples of Matsu. Matsu had three main disciples, in a way, you could say. Shitang, Nanchuan, and Baizhang. What's the other one? Now we look back and we think those are the three beings, but there was actually another one that at the time we thought was really important. So Nan Chuan is Zhao Zhou's teacher. And after his teacher died, Nan Chuan went and tried to visit all the other disciples that were alive and all the other enlightened disciples of Matsu. Matsu had 139 disciples. So while he was traveling around, He was walking along one day in the neighborhood where this other Zen master named Tozu lived.

[07:55]

Tozu. Tozu. And, or is it Datung. Datung Tozu. And they walked by each other, just strolling along in China. Buddhist monks, some would run into each other. So they walked by each other. And after they passed, Jaja thought, you know, could that be the master of this area? Could that be the master of the monastery nearby here? And Jiaojiao was 40 years older than this master. So he asked somebody, is that Tozu? And the person said, yeah. So he went back after him and he said, are you by any chance the master of Tozu?

[09:02]

And Tozu said, could you spare some money so I could buy some tea and salt? And then Jaja climbed towards it, towards the mountain, climbed up towards it and went into a little hut there. And then Todza comes back from shopping, and he's carrying some oil. And when Jaojo finds out that the master's come back to the monastery, he goes to see him in his hut. And he says, well, what is Todza anyway? and holds up his oil container and says, Oily oil.

[10:16]

And Jawa Joe says, After somebody, after the great death, what's it like if you come back to life? And Tojo says, you can't go by night. You have to come in the daytime. And Jojo says, I thought I was a thief, but you're stealing from me. That's the whole story, sort of. Did I get it right? Check it out. So this case just picks up this one little section of the whole interaction, which took a while. It took out just sort of like the eye, the core of the interaction.

[11:28]

What's it like if someone has gone through the great death And they come back. How is that? And Jose says, you can't go by night. You have to come daytime. OK, so that's the story. And by the way, Andy, are you pretty sure these dates for 8-19 to 9-14, you're pretty sure of those dates? are the dates on the chart. But the date on the chart, and I think that's probably right. It makes sense to me that because 819 would make him about 40 years younger than Jojo. The dates on the chart are actually from the Zimbabwe dachitan. Oh, okay.

[12:30]

All right. Cleary made a mistake then in his biographies of the booklet record. He said 845, but that doesn't make any sense because he would have been... Giorgio would have been probably dead by the time he met. I think you're probably driving the right dates. So anyway, you have two old men here probably. One's definitely old. So Giorgio might be like 80 to 100 and the other person's like So in a way, this story is about an incredibly deep issue, right? After you go through the great death, what's it like when you come back to life?

[13:35]

So when I think about this, I think this is a really deep question about the nature of mind, the nature of reality, the nature of enlightenment, and the nature of what happens after enlightenment. All that's going on in this little question here. This also was going on before in their interaction, supposedly. But they're kind of focused in. Getting a little technical here at this one particular point. There's a great death is kind of a technical term. And there's different understandings of what the great death is. There's something that you talked about in your lecture on Sunday. What's related here? I read this, it reminded me, it had a sort of flashback to what you talked about on Sunday, about ultimate reality and conventional truth.

[14:36]

Yeah. So, what do you think great death is? Hmm? Death of the ego? Fine. What happens when the ego is dead? What does a dead ego mean? What? Another one comes up. You realize the illusory nature of the ego. So the ego might be dead when there's an understanding of the illusory nature of the ego. No more fear. Hmm? No more fear. No more fear? That probably would come along with this. That would make sense, wouldn't it? For a human anyway, if the ego was understood for what it is, it wouldn't be... What was the second here now?

[15:38]

You know, in the Heart Sutra it says, When there's no hindrance, no fears exist? That part? What does the new translation say? There is no fear. The same thing about hindrance? Yeah. What does it say? Without hindrance, there is no fear. Yeah. So there's two kinds of hindrance. Well, there's actually four kinds of hindrance, but in the Heart Sutra they talk about two. two kinds of hindrances that are removed and when they're gone there's no fear. One kind of hindrance is the hindrance that comes from not understanding it's a hindrance of afflictions of passionate afflictions which arise with a misunderstanding of your personality of your personhood of your ego. The other kind of hindrance is the one that comes from misunderstanding the nature of the of the conditions which support the appearance of the ego.

[16:47]

So when those two are removed, there's no fear. Now, would there be no fear if you remove the first one? Well, I would say that would certainly take away a lot of fear. It would take away a fear about worrying about yourself. because you would have understood the selflessness of the person or the selflessness of the personality. But there still might be some other kind of fear if you thought that the elements of experience, which are misconstrued as an independent self, if you still thought that they had inherent existence, you might still be a little bit afraid. What might you be afraid of then? Your fear about yourself is taken away, so what possible fear would there be left? Could you imagine?

[17:51]

Can you define that second element again? Or the second one? In Sanskrit, the first one is called... The first kind of hindrance is called klesha avarana, which means the obscuration of the hindrance due to the covering, due to passions. But these passions arise in relationship to imagining that yourself, your personhood, your personality, the person, is independent, independently existent, in which you attribute a self to the person. Buddhism doesn't say there's not a person. There's a person that just doesn't have a self, doesn't have a unitary entity-like existence. It's something that depends on other things.

[18:54]

A personality depends on other things, and there's nothing in addition to the things it depends on. It's just a bunch of stuff, a bunch of experiences. But we overlay an independent existence on a bunch of elements of experience, like perceptions, concepts, feelings, emotions, intentions, and forms. The second kind of hindrance is the hindrance due to what is called Nyaya-Agarana, which is a hindrance It's a hindrance of knowledge, but it means a hindrance of improper or incomplete knowledge. You still don't understand that even the experiences or the elements of experience, which are the conditions for the composition of our existence, and all of our experiences can be accounted for by these five aggregates, these five skandhas. Any experience you have, if you describe it, you could perfectly well account for it by these elements, and you'd feel your experience happily described by a skillful analyst who could account for your experience, and everything you said could go in these five categories and nothing would be left out.

[20:16]

But you still might think that those elements themselves had some independent existence. And that would cause some covering. So what we need to do is we need to remove both of those coverings and then there's no fear. But since you brought up fear, Matthew, if you take away concern for yourself as a person, that takes away a lot of fear. A lot of fear would be taken away by that. You can imagine that, right? So I'm asking you, what other kind of fear could there be once you're not worried about yourself anymore? Or even yourself or your possessions or anything like that? What other kind of fear could there be? Fear for others? Fear for others? Fear for others. Yeah, maybe fear for others.

[21:18]

Or, yes? Yes? What comes to mind is the fear of nihilism, or the fear of there being nothing. Fear of there being nothing? Yeah, it could be that. Fear of death, actually. It could be, but it wouldn't be a fear of death for yourself. No, that's true. Yes. Isn't fear just one way of not being intimate with what's really going on? Yes, that's right. So it seems like if he didn't have true vision of the being of those dharmas, of their own being, that would be non-intimacy. Yes, right. So you can call it fear, yeah. And how would that fear, how would that non-intimacy with, like, a feeling or a perception or a concept or color or something, how would that be, what kind of fear would that be like?

[22:29]

How would that manifest for someone who's not concerned about the person anymore? How would that fear be? Yes? I want to go back to the whole Arhat, but the Arhats saw it to make the selfless nature of their ego, but they still thought they were elements that they could... Right. Exactly. So then they kind of wanted to stay away from maybe unpleasant elements or something. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah. Well, it might mean that they might not... They wouldn't be afraid of... Well, they wouldn't be wanting to stay away from unpleasant elements. Exactly. Because they're patient, right? These are really patient people. Okay? Really patient. I mean, if they were in an unpleasant situation, they would be patient with it. So it isn't exactly unpleasant, it's what?

[23:32]

What about lack of control or power? Lack of control or power? I think, let's mention now, I think it's right that there's some lack of intimacy with the elements of your experience. I think that's right. And Rain said that this relates to the bodhisattvas who, the bodhisattva arhats split. but are liberated from self-concern, and yet there's some kind of understanding they don't have yet. They're not completely intimate with their experience, we will say. And so Alex is saying maybe that's still kind of a fear if you're not intimate with the elements of your experience which compose your experience. And so... Yes? Fear of the conditional world.

[24:33]

Fear of the conditional world. Yeah. Fear of the world. Helen? Do you like clinging to selflessness? It would be like clinging to self... Fear of the conditioned world is like clinging to selflessness. They retain selflessness of the person. So they're free of all the kind of fear that we normally associate worrying about ourself and how we're going to be supported. We now see that, you now see that you are supported by all the elements of your experience and that's all the support you need, moment by moment. So you realize selflessness. But they could still be clinging to selflessness or a kind of repulsion from what? From where you used to be, for example. A repulsion towards maybe the world where people hold on to the self. A repulsion to the world where people are clinging to the self means an attachment to your newfound or even long-standing freedom from that world.

[25:40]

You start to dislike the world you just become free from. Okay? And the dislike is almost like a fear. Fear. And that's closely related to you think there really is a world that you become free of. And that your freedom really is something too. So there's still a kind of fear, even for someone who's liberated. But when those both are gone, that's the great death. I was going to say, when... Maybe also when there's no fear for self, it can be fear for ecological disaster or natural, like fear for the natural world, like fearful fear. Kind of what Jane said. That's kind of what Jane said, fear for the other. Yeah.

[26:44]

So there could be that fear. Okay. Now, notice the difference between being afraid for the world, or being afraid for others, and loving them. There's a difference. In other words, bodhisattvas can love the world, which they do not think has a self. This is kind of about the pain of, like, the bodhisattva or how to think about it. It has this feeling for me of, like, a fear of dependent co-origination because, like, well, I want to get there, but I don't want to take all these slimy people with me. That kind of... Yeah, it's kind of like that. Slimy people with me means... Well, yeah, you probably wouldn't call them slimy people, but you might feel some repugnance towards the world which you have just become free of. I see. Fear for yourself.

[27:46]

Why would that world be... I mean, to me, it would imply that you're afraid you might go back there. Yeah, you might be afraid that you'd go back there. Then that's fear for yourself. Well, maybe you don't think about fear for yourself, but just fear for a life in that world. A dislike for that world of bondage. A dislike for that world of delusions. Or even maybe not even in dislike, just being neutral about it. A preference for your liberation, a clinging to your liberation, some aversion to the world, not just the world as things happening, but the world misunderstood, which is the world. The world understood is not there's no world there anymore. The world is created by delusions. So, once you become free of the delusion about yourself, you might then want to stay away from the world that is created by the delusion you just become afraid of.

[28:50]

But if you're not even trying to stay away from that world, matter of fact, you love that world, in other words, you're devoted to that world, that devotion to that world brings you into intimacy with that world, and intimacy with that world makes you see that that world also all the elements of that world which constitute your personal experience and everybody else's personal experience, which some people are free of thinking it's the person, they're independent of the experience. They're free. But even all the experiences that comprise sentient life, they themselves are all interdependent. And intimacy with that helps you realize that. And loving all being and all beings, and all elements of being, brings you to that intimacy. That's the great death. Okay? Yes, Carol? Is it in the realm of the well looking at the ass? Is it? The 20%, you know, the ass looking in the well, is 80% from the other part, which is the well looking?

[29:56]

Yes, I think it is, but I don't know which one is the 80%, which one is the 20%, but... This refers to Case 52, where we're talking about, you know, what's his name? Saushan says that the true body of the Buddha manifests, oh, he says it's like the moon reflected in water. Let me try to remember. It's like the moon reflected in the water. It responds in response to beings. It manifests in response to beings. And he says, what is the principle of response, of responding? Is that right? And so he says that to, who does he say it to? A monk? Huh? To Duh? Oh yeah, to Elder Duh. Da means virtue.

[30:57]

So he says, he asks Elder Da, and Elder Da says, it's like the ass, the donkey, looking into the well. The principle of response is like the donkey looking into a well. And Salchon says, you got eighty percent. And Dez says, well what about you, teacher? And he says, like the well, looking at the donkey. So, that completes the picture. You got both sides. A complete picture of how Buddha is sentient beings, how Buddha manifests in response to the world. But, actually, I think, now that we've gone through this, that that story is not about the great death, but it's more about after the great death. It's about how to come back from the great death. So I think that story is about the coming back rather than the death.

[31:59]

I think the death, the great death, allows this kind of responding. The great death allows these two ways of manifesting in response, both as the donkey looking in the well and the well looking at the donkey. That's the whole story of the manifesting in response, the response of manifesting. I think that story is about what happens after the great death, and now we're talking about the great death. That's what I think. Do you agree, sort of? The sign of the ratio, when you talk about the self, is there being one required and then the other part, the ratio is kind of in that, in this, that pattern. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Okay. It's a hot corner over there, and I cannot cannot some other people go ahead of you for a while anybody else want to go ahead Jonathan right now No other questions Windows windows doors mines

[33:23]

I was going to say, I was going to ask a question. Can... What I was going to say is that the last of the ox herding pictures coming back into the world, is that after also? Yeah. But I'm still in the death part myself. I didn't know about that. So we're talking about what this death is.

[34:36]

So we've got probably no fear. What else is going on? Or not going on? Yes? I suppose you're having a realization of the interdependence of everything. Yeah. Now, He said, you know, using language, right? He said, I suppose you're having a realization of the interdependence of everything, right? So, that language is a little, that might be misleading to think that you're having an experience of the interdependence of everything. Right? Because you don't get to have experiences anymore. because there's not like a you there, a little you unit that's having experiences of anything. There's just experience, which used to be misconstrued as me, but that isn't the way it is anymore.

[35:44]

So the me is not having any experiences anymore. There's just experiences. including an experience of me. There can be an experience of me. But that's not... Me doesn't have the experience of me anymore. Okay? Is that clear? Does that make sense to everybody? Are there any dumb people that don't get that, that would like to raise their hands? Yes? All right. What do you want to say? Sometimes you say, you went to an eye, and sometimes you say, you go to the window and you look out. And when someone reads it, It's the I am, you are the same. And he could mean everything to me. I kind of didn't follow that. In a poem, you could say, I go to the store every week and it's a lot of fun. In a poem, you could say, I go to the store. In a poem, instead of saying, I go to the store every week and it's fun, a poem could say, you go to the store every week and it's fun.

[36:45]

And the person who's reading it, reading it as you are, themselves, or the person who wrote it is going to sort of talk about their own experience. Yes. So, he said, you need everything like that. He said it? Uh-huh. I don't know. Emmanuel said, you're experiencing this with me. I'm experiencing it. And he said, you're having the experience of... I was just thinking, if you could mean everything like that, you're having the experience of It would be like a U without a U. Okay. And that kind of dynamic way of working with language so it doesn't cause any limits is how things happen. And understanding that would not be something that a person possessed.

[37:49]

But there could be understanding, and the understanding could happen to a person. It's just that it's not the person's understanding. And the person's not having that understanding. But there would be an understanding, I would say. There would be such an understanding of how experience arises and how you arise. There would be understanding of that too. But you wouldn't be separate from the understanding of how you arise. Yes? So experience the great death. Is this the moment where you feel ultimate compassion? Well, again, you're saying you feel ultimate compassion. When I say you, I mean I. When I say you, I mean I. Well, again, can it be said, is this a moment, is this where great compassion comes from? Is great compassion coming from the great debt?

[38:53]

I would say, yeah. That's definitely for great compassion. Great compassion is based on the wisdom of this great debt, which is the wisdom of I understand that. But I have great difficulty feeling it in my body. Most of the time. You have difficulty feeling what in your body? The great depth. Yeah, I think it's not possible to feel great death in your body. Your body doesn't stand up in the great death. Your body drops away in the great death. But it's possible to contemplate the great death with your body or contemplate ultimate reality with the body.

[40:00]

And then it falls away. Hmm? And then it falls away. That one, let's see. I think that contemplating, a thorough contemplation of interdependence is the fallen away body. That is the body falling away. It's not like contemplating and then the body falls away because it's not like the contemplation is like back there. Contemplation is simultaneous with the falling away of the body. No separation. No separation. There's no separation. But it's like, like I said, like Dogen says, in the Gendrakon, he says, when all dharmas come forth and realize the self, okay, In other words, the self is nothing but interdependent co-arising, and dependent co-arising is the self, the inseparable.

[41:12]

You don't have dependent co-arising of nothing, and you don't have a self that's not dependent co-arising. That's the self dropping away. That's the body and mind dropping away. That's great depth. Okay? That's great depth. How are you using contemplation? Because my first reaction is one of subject and object. Let's see. So how do you contemplate dependent core arising? Okay. You start to contemplate with thought. Really? Mm-hmm. contemplation with them, isn't it, like within the temple? Mm-hmm.

[42:14]

So, but Michael's saying, but isn't there some, mightn't you slip into some subject-object split there in the contemplation? So how can we do, how can we contemplate interdependence in the body or as the body without having a subject-object split? Well, how about not trying to get rid of the subject-object split, but just see how that's a dependent core arising too. And also, not necessarily even seeing that it's a dependent core arising, but also just like checking out whether you have doubt about it or whether you're fairly convinced about it. So, here you are, a dependent co-arising, which you can call a subject if you want to, but it's a subject that dependent co-arises with objects.

[43:17]

And you can say you think about how this subject dependently co-arises with objects, you can think about it. You can also just kind of see in your heart, in your body, are you pretty much convinced that this body is something that dependently co-arises with what isn't it? Are you convinced of that? It seems like a place of forethought to me. What? It seems like a place before thought. What is that? I want to say contemplation. I want to say contemplation. Before thought? No, I don't think so. I think the contemplation is for your thought. The contemplation is so that your thought is convinced of what you can't think about.

[44:21]

You can't really think about... I can't think about actual ultimate reality. But I can contemplate it until my thinking, which can have objects, until my thinking is kind of convinced that is a dependent core arising. There is a world that doesn't have things in it prior to dependent core arising. And that there's a world that untouched by human minds doesn't come in thing packages. And in that world we're all interconnected and we are not there either as ourselves being separate. And yet that is actually the way things are prior to our mental, to our thought.

[45:28]

We need to convince our thought that the world that we see where these things are separate is thought-produced, and that before the thoughts interact with reality, there aren't things, there aren't separate entities. That everything is interconnected, but there are no separate we's who are interconnected. But we can't see, we can never witness that. That's why the great death is not that we actually can see reality. But we understand it and we are convinced of it. And that is something which means that we change in the world where we still feel separate. where we're still individual entities who don't believe that we're individual anymore, but we still can see objects.

[46:37]

But we are convinced that they're objects of perception, that they're mind-created, and we're convinced that there is a world more fundamental than that. Yes? I mean, maybe you're not convinced at all. Maybe you just thought. Pardon? Maybe you're not convinced about anything, but you go into something, you die a great death. You don't even know that you are. It just, that it happens. Somehow you made that decision, and there you go. I think then it dawned on you somehow that there's been a change. Yeah, maybe, maybe. I think it could happen that way. So anyway, somehow you get there. You get to the Great Death. And the Great Death, again, what's it like?

[47:41]

Well, yes. What's it like? I'd like to say that sometimes I'm convinced by a word, by a lie, and more and more I find this like a miracle because actually words split up. In a way words are actually opposite. Still, reality I mean, I would say reality can run through words. Like, in the introduction, it says, the bottomless boat, they cross in one place. The bottomless boat, they cross in one place. I don't know what it means, but it feels great. It needs to be an example. Well, I think that words can initiate us into the great depth.

[48:42]

So that's what I think. How does that relate to what you said? Really? He's American? What happened to Jonathan? He couldn't remember? Actually, you don't desire that. What? You don't desire that? Yes. The way you talk about the... Depending on colorizing, maybe, and convincing the mind.

[49:43]

Maybe, not maybe, it's the best teaching, and I love the world, and there's no doubt about that. But it's convincing the mind, isn't it, the other creation of the mind? I didn't quite get what you said. Convincing the mind. Yes. Isn't it another, the way you talk about it, Isn't convincing the mind another creation of the mind? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Well, what I mean by being convinced is not another thing. Like, for example, the fact that you think something is true, like there's a thing, right? The thing that you think is true, the thing is a dependent core arising. But in a way, the understanding that it's true or the sense that it's true, I don't think that is another creation of the mind.

[50:45]

I think the mind can do that, but somehow it's not really a thing. Because thinking something is true, I think, is the same for all people about all things for all time. It's intelligence. I would just call it intelligence. Well, before you just call it intelligence, I want to just kind of just leave it at that there's no difference in some... I don't see much difference in between the way you think all different various things are true. Isn't the way you call something true the same for all the things you call true? Probably not. Probably not. Well, what's the difference? Well, you get... I think you could have a kind of truth that's just kind of veridical truth. That's something, when you say something's true, you say it represents something accurately.

[51:47]

Not that that's different theories of truth you could have, right? You said when you call something true, you mean it's true. Well, you could have different theories about what truth is. That's not exactly what I'm saying either, but go ahead. Your assertion was that whenever we call something true, we call things true in the same way. Is that what you said? Yeah, if you call this thing true, right? If you mean that something's true. You feel it's true. Okay? What do you mean by feel it is true? Well, I don't know. You feel that it's real. Because we also talk about having true feelings, or a piece of art can have a quality. There's truth in the art. But when you say there's truth in the art, that's different than saying there's truth in this scientific theory, or there's truth in this mathematical proof. I'm talking about your feeling, your sense, that something's true or false. So you're talking about true just in the context of true or false? Yes. True in the sense of true or false. Yeah, real or unreal.

[52:48]

Right. Sometimes we even talk about real not in the sense of true or false, but sometimes we use the word real as meaning it has a kind of depth. There's certain kinds of artistic experiences which we'd say are real, like they were real for us. But it's different than the way we would say the photograph is a real representation of life or something. How is it different? Just feeling something true in your heart without getting the intellect involved. I think what you're trying to say, the way I understand it is if you feel something is true, you feel it right here, and it has nothing to do with the way... Jeremy is approaching the analytical study of relative truth. I don't know. Okay, so, again, I'll tell you if you turn convinced, okay? So, like, if you're convinced of something or not convinced of something,

[53:52]

I still don't think we're convinced by things in the same way, though. Right? Like, something can be emotionally convincing, but you can't actually give the reasons for why you're convinced. Something else can be convinced because you can give a really strong argument for it, but maybe emotionally you're not convinced. So I think that we are actually convinced in different kinds of ways. And the things that we'll actually say are true, we say for different kinds of reasons. And different, you know, Okay, what I mean by convinced or true, let's see. I think I'm saying it's not a conscious experience.

[55:23]

And so, I mean, you can't be the same because we change every moment. We change every moment, so everything that you say is in a different moment, so it can't be kind of identical. I don't understand the point. Why should it be identical? Let's see. What led to this? My name is Krishna. How about rather than getting more complicated, you take it to a more simple level? Like, positive, negative, or neutral. Like, those kinds of operations go on consistently.

[56:29]

And that kind of negation and acceptance is, in a way, how we delegate truth and non-truth. Maybe that's helpful. Maybe it's more ways. Isn't being convinced... The dropping away of body and mind, that's when conviction is complete. So there isn't an assessment of true or not true, it's just the conviction is complete and there's a dropping away, so there's no assessment. When you're saying the way something is true, we think it's the same. Is that the same as the way Maya is Maya is the same as the way Linda is Linda?

[57:33]

That's what I think. Yes? Wes? I think. We got here by trying to explain what it means to contemplate and not understand to be convinced. In some sense it means to be able to abide with something or not even if you're abiding with the air in some sense. Is there a difference between you and it? Yeah. And while it might not be And I'm afraid that for the whole, I mean, it could be in some sense that they take that with respect to what they do. Can you say it louder, please? Anything from there. Well, work from wherever you want. But back a little ways.

[58:34]

Thank you. I guess that we try to use the experience of being convinced as a way of understanding what it means to contemplate. And for me, the ordinary experience of being convinced, whether it's being convinced of an analytical truth or beauty, is a kind of being able to abide with whatever it is that is said to be an object of my being convinced. So there's no really difference between my abiding with it, it's a neutral way of putting it, to say that I hold by it is another way of putting it, to say that I'm right with it, to say that it's, in some sense, constituting me as far as all I'm doing is abiding is a different aspect of it.

[59:35]

Okay. So in that sense, being convinced of something is with respect to that one thing, might be thought of as a great death. With respect to that one thing, not with respect to yourself. I didn't quite understand the part you said about the great death. So what I say the great death is, is when the contemplation is complete, when the contemplation of ultimate reality is complete. In other words, you're so intimate with the, what do you call it, with the idea of ultimate reality, not ultimate reality, but the idea of it. You're so convinced of the idea, you're so intimate with the idea, that you're convinced of ultimate reality.

[60:45]

But you can't make ultimate reality... I mean, ultimate reality is not a concept. So you're actually contemplating a concept. But when you're completely intimate with the concept, you understand ultimate reality. You're convinced of it. Well, you're in it. I mean, you're just in it. You're just in it. Right. Objectless thing. Objectless thing. It's objectless. Now, the part about being convinced is that If you're not convinced, you're not completing your contemplation. And that's what I mean by your sense of truth or being convinced is the same because it's like you resist being intimate with something that you don't, that you're not convinced of.

[61:57]

You resist being intimate with something that you're not convinced of. When you're really convinced, you're intimate. So how do you get intimate with this concept of ultimate reality where you know what it means? It means that there's no separate stuff anymore, that everything is just relationship. and you're so intimate with that presentation that your willingness to give yourself to it shows that, you know, you prove it, you verify it with your contemplation. Your contemplation shows that you're really convinced of nonduality. Is there no concept of divine intervention of any type in this? Is there a concept of divine intervention or like, or like, like grace, you mean?

[63:09]

Hmm? God, whatever. Well, I think that the divine thing here would be that ultimate reality, in effect, is, is the divine. And does that assist you? I mean, we can beat this to death with words, but maybe it's just as simple as opening and accepting, merging, or whatever. Yeah, opening, accepting, merging. You could say, what are you going to open and accept and merge with? Whatever the divine is. Right, ultimate reality. So that's what the contemplation is, is to contemplate the divine, which is ultimate reality. So, but there's a question about how does one contemplate, and this case is about what happens after you're successful in contemplation.

[64:20]

But I'm saying maybe you don't have to do it alone. Does the ultimate reality help you with this? The ultimate reality is helping you with it, yes, because it's sponsoring the whole program. But also, ultimate reality allows, the way ultimate reality works is that it includes this thing called dependent co-horizon. It works together with a process of causation which gives rise to the appearance of things and the appearance of separate beings. Ultimate reality lets that happen. It lets a world be created. It lets people misunderstand it and create problems. And part of the way to get back in touch with and be convinced of ultimate reality

[65:23]

is to contemplate how appearances dependently co-arise. Understanding that is part of the work of accepting ultimate reality. But you actually can immediately go and try to accept or contemplate ultimate reality without trying to analyze and think about dependent core arising, you can immediately try to embrace a world which is prior to the world of creation. But you can't do that by avoiding anything. Avoiding anything? Avoiding appearances. And if you don't avoid appearances, then intimate with appearances shows you how appearances happen, shows you how they arise.

[66:28]

But understanding appearances isn't the whole story. It turns out that there is a world that is prior to the world of appearances. And that world allows a process of causation which gives rise to the world of appearances where we live. Some people haven't spoken yet. Who are they? Linda? Andy? Linda? Doesn't it help to admit that you aren't convinced and ask the Buddhas and ancestors to help you there? I think that part of contemplation is to be honest about where you're at. And if you want to ask the Buddha's ancestors to help, no problem. There are stories that Buddha's ancestors have asked for help. So it might be a good idea.

[67:31]

That might be part of how you become intimate with ultimate reality. It seems to me that one of the problems we run into when we start talking about ultimate reality and contemplating it is that people start thinking in terms of the paradox or the dichotomy, well, there's an ultimate reality, and if I can just maybe forget about myself, I'll merge with that ultimate reality. So they keep taking their self and they shove it off somewhere. Or actually the fact is that if your self wasn't itself ultimate reality, the Buddha's salvation wouldn't extend to everyone. So why are you running away from yourself all the time? So usually when people turn around and look at themselves and suddenly realize they are themselves that reality, it seems to help the process a little bit. So, when, I think it was Baijian was talking to Guishan, he said, it's like, it's like remembering something you already knew.

[68:56]

So, Alex and Emmanuel. Okay. I have a question about the difference between delusion and realization, how to do well. I guess, basically, How do I study that in my experience? I mean, I don't know if I've ever been realized or if I'm unrealized. I don't know if I've ever seen this that way or not. And I have some faith that things are the way they are, according to what I've learned from the teachers here from what I've read. But all I can do is to keep turning toward exactly what's going on. And sometimes it isn't clear if I'm already there or if I'm completely off the mark.

[71:17]

I mean, I have trouble recognizing whether I'm being particularly. Because sometimes it just seems like things are arising, sensations are flowing, and it doesn't seem like there's any problem. I don't think there is. Are you saying that sometimes you don't see any delusion and you're wondering if you're missing something? Yeah, like if I still am deluded and I'm just not catching it. But I don't feel like I have any great doubt. But I know that I feel really present. You feel present sometimes. So anyway, are you saying you're wondering if you have some delusion that you're not aware of?

[72:26]

Yeah. Are you sometimes aware of some delusions? Yeah. What are those delusions? Well, I mean, for me, I tend to get lost in thought or drift off and not pay attention. I catch myself and that's it. Or I could be caught up in fears or desires or petty hatred. Well, to me those are things that sort of manifest, they're kind of like they're like phenomena which sort of blossom out of delusion. Those aren't, in a sense, I don't call petty hatred as a delusion. It seems like petty hatred is based on some delusion. So what might that delusion be that's at the root of petty hatred or even non-petty hatred?

[73:35]

Thinking that I'm separate from other people. Mm-hmm. So is that delusion there sometimes, that you think you're separate from other people? Is it there all the time? I don't think so. When isn't it there? When it's not there. It doesn't feel like it's there. Well, when you feel like it's not there, then probably it would be good to come and tell somebody that you actually don't see the belief in your separation from other beings See if you can, like, notice it and see if it lasts for, like, all the way to the doksan. So you come and you could, for example, tell me, you could say, okay, I don't, I actually don't believe in separation to myself and other anymore. I don't, I don't fall for that. I'm free of that delusion. If you actually think you are. Okay. Hmm?

[74:38]

Hmm? What? You are right now? Interesting. Hmm? No? Anyway, most people, it's fairly non-stop, that delusion, whether they notice it or not. Most people don't notice it necessarily, but if you watch what they do, they obviously do believe in it. And if you question them, they will often wind up saying, yes, I guess I do. But if there was, if you just didn't think about it or notice it, well, it doesn't mean it's gone away. It's like, you know, if you do something, if you think you do something, you might not remember you did it all the time until you find out that it was really considered to be good or bad by people, and then you You start getting sweaty because you realize you're going to get rewarded or punished for it.

[75:42]

All the while you knew you did it, but you hadn't been thinking about it. All the while you thought you did it, but you hadn't been thinking about it. There's a delusion, and you can tell the difference between that and enlightenment, can't you? Yeah, so... So is it clear now? Realization would be that you actually, you know, would see that that wasn't really so anymore. That didn't really hold up. You would be disabused of that belief. And in fact, all the time, all day long, everybody is totally intimate with being in the actuality of not being involved in that.

[76:50]

That non-stop reality is going on. Well, we're not, you know, cut off and separate. But we can't, you know, get that reality, pull it up into the world where we're separate and possess it. We need to convince ourselves that that's so. So how can we contemplate the reality that we're not separate from each other? How can we contemplate that in the realm where we're still seeing ourselves as separate? How do we apply ourselves in the ordinary world to the contemplation of ultimate truth? Maybe we can practice the precepts. That helps. That helps. we could also try, while practicing the precepts, to now, like today, like tonight, while practicing the precepts, we could contemplate the reality from which the precepts grow, or blossom.

[78:12]

The precepts are really the way the world is, Really, the way the world is, is that there isn't killing and isn't stealing. In ultimate reality, there isn't any killing. There isn't any stealing. There's no way for stealing to occur in a realm where there's not people separate from each other, where they can take things from each other. There isn't that. That isn't going on. But in the realm of people, if you want to know how ultimate reality would manifest among separate people, it would manifest if they wouldn't steal from each other. In other words, they would be in accord with ultimate reality where you can't steal. So in this world of where there's all these different people, they act, when they don't kill each other and steal from each other, they act as though they weren't separate. Their behavior is in accord with the reality which predates their separation. So practicing precepts is a way to contemplate ultimate reality.

[79:23]

But make sure that you're not just practicing the precepts, but also taking the opportunity of practicing the precepts to also be a contemplation of ultimate reality. So to sit upright and contemplate ultimate reality actually is a precept practice. Before you do anything, you're practicing... Yes, can't see who that is. Nora. Nora, yes, Nora. Yeah, I can stop. That's fine. Go ahead. Going to the great death from another angle? Well, it seems like ultimate reality is But the realization of ultimate reality would happen as a result of the Great Death.

[80:40]

So... Or the Great Death is a name for the realization of ultimate truth. So it seems like an approach to moving before death... What? Or just, I don't know, some kind of consciousness, like a sort of directional moving of... if you... Like, how could contemplating ultimate reality be any different from being where you are and... some kind of death may eventually come to be in it? Well, it's not different from being where you are. It's not at all different from where you're being now. The question is, Is there anything more you need to do other than be where you are? No. So, that's enough, right?

[81:43]

Just be where you are. But where are you? You know? And is where you are ultimate reality? Is where you are a place where everything's working together and there aren't any things? Or are you in a place where there are things that are separate from each other and there's anxiety and fear? So if that's where you are, then that's... Ultimate reality is not some other place from where you are, and yet it's not that way. It's not that you're there separate from everybody else. But it's also that if you feel you're there separate from everybody else, that's where you have to work. You've got to be there. You, as a separate person, have to be feeling that you're a separate person. If you feel like you're a separate person, you have to do that. You can't get away from that. You have to be, as I was saying to somebody this morning, you have to be a model prisoner. If you're in jail, separate little compartment, limited and so on, that's where you have to be.

[82:53]

Funny thing is that if you're convinced of ultimate reality, you could very much settle with that. And that's part of the dynamic of the great death. And would great death manifest itself as somebody who is in prison of a limited self? It could, because it does. It does manifest as, it does take on the form of people feeling separate and feeling anxious and afraid about all that. So you shouldn't run away from feeling that way because ultimate reality has sponsored this person who has delusion. It has allowed this to appear. So just being where you are and being a limited person, fine. But also there's a possibility of opening to meditation and ultimate reality also based on being right where you are as a limited person. conventionally existing, cut-off person.

[83:55]

So you accept that first, and based on that, based on being where you are as anxious, confused, frightened, deluded event, based on understanding that, you're ready to also open up to the reality, which is, that's just an illusion. And really what's going on is something where there aren't, where it isn't that way. And right at the same place. So there's a lot of hands here, but it's 9 o'clock. You don't care. Pardon? Oh, she was confusing becoming deceased? Were you thinking it was... No. No. No, you don't. You don't lose your physical body.

[85:01]

You just let go of it. So it's a great... It's greater than regular death in some ways. because you can come right back and manifest in the way that they do in the story. So I feel, anyway, that the crucial question is, how do you contemplate in such a way as to realize the point they're talking about in the story? That's the... That seems like the real challenge, and everybody is, you know, alive here and got all this stuff happening, right? Everybody's got a full fountain of stuff happening.

[86:05]

How do you contemplate ultimate reality? given that you've got this conventional world happening so vividly and so energetically and so painfully, how do you contemplate ultimate reality under these circumstances? Because this story seems to be about ultimate reality. And then, once realizing ultimate reality, then what? So we have to get to the contemplation and get the ultimate reality before we can answer the next question, which is kind of a tall order. So this case is going to be really challenging us to enter into a profound meditation which starts with really becoming intimate with the conventional world that we live in, where we're all separated, confused, frightened, anxious, et cetera, together.

[87:17]

OK, so that's sort of like the price of admission to this case, very high price. Does that make sense to everybody? A-R-O-D-E-S-H-T-O

[87:39]

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