Well, now we have another opportunity to consider the middle way, the middle path, which the Tathagata teaches. The middle way, as I understand it, is not an experience It is the intimacy of experience.

[01:27]

And you notice I said, the intimacy of experience. When I thought about this, at first I said, in my mind, or first there was the words, intimacy with experience, but it's really intimacy of experience. Every experience comes with an intimacy. Every experience that's delivered into this world comes with a little intimacy. That intimacy is the middle way. Another way to say it is every experience is marked by emptiness. The middle way is emptiness. The middle way is insubstantiality of every experience.

[02:39]

That's the middle way that every experience is. the central balanced way that everything is, is that it's insubstantial. The way everything is, the way all experiences are, is that they arise dependently. All experiences are dependent co-arisings. Therefore they're empty of inherent existence. Their core is not to be found. If anything, their core is the whole universe. That's the way all experiences are the middle way. So the intimacy of an experience is not an experience.

[03:49]

It's a phenomenon. It's the insubstantiality and ungraspability of each experience. Thus the middle way is already with us in every experience. There's another way that the word middle way is used, and that is as the Buddha's teaching about the middle way. or the Buddha's instruction about the middle way. And that is, in a sense, not the middle way, but is, you know, language, is conventional designation in order to guide us to realize the emptiness the insubstantiality of each experience.

[05:03]

So the middle way is emptiness, but the middle way is also a conventional designation. So Nagarjuna said, supposedly wrote, dependent co-arising is emptiness. That being a conventional designation is the middle way. And that can refer to dependent co-arising or emptiness. The middle way is emptiness, but the middle way is also the emptiness of every experience. The middle way is intimacy, but is also the intimacy of every experience.

[06:14]

So any experience, including the fundamental affliction of ignorance, has an intimacy. And the intimacy of the fundamental affliction of ignorance is the immutable knowledge of all Buddhas. It is the emptiness of ignorance, it is the dependent co-arising of ignorance, and it is the middle way. Through the eyes of Nagarjuna, reality is well packaged. Like cigarette ads that they used to have, something like, how do you say?

[07:33]

Firm, firmly packed. Well packaged. How does it go? Was it Lucky Strikes? Huh? What? Firm and fully packed. Was that Lucky Strikes or Chesterfields? That was Lucky Strikes? Lucky Strikes. Firm and well packed. And then And they are mild. The emptiness of every experience is that every experience has this liberating middle way of being. If we can realize the middle way of every experience, we realize liberation from every experience, from each experience, and every experience through that each experience.

[08:35]

So, the middle way is not an abstraction. basically, or ultimately, it's not an abstraction. And abstract, the word abstract, means, first it's an adjective, which means, what does it mean? It means, you know, not, it means apart from concrete experience, theoretical. As a noun, it means like a summary of main points about something. And as a verb, it has the same meaning as its etymology. It means to pull apart or remove.

[09:45]

The middle way is to not pull ourself apart from or remove ourself from our experience, but it's being intimate with experience. It is the intimacy of the experience so that there's not even intimacy with, like you and the experience. There is just intimacy, and there's no you in addition to it. The middle way is not abstract. When it's taught, it becomes an abstraction. Well, when it's taught verbally, it becomes an abstraction. Any way you see it out there, it becomes an abstraction about not being abstract. It's a teaching about how not to be removed from experience. But in our looking for the middle way, one of our first discoveries, which many of you have had in the last few days, and sometimes for many years of practice, we keep having one of the first experiences over and over.

[11:10]

It's the experience of how disconnected how distracted and how abstracted we feel from our experience. That's a discovery. Most of the time, people are walking around in an abstract mode. Right in the middle of their commentary, most people are walking around philosophizing all day, making commentaries on their experience. And here's a big parenthesis. That space, that abstract space that we walk around in, that ongoing commentary on our experience, rather than being plunged into it, is the realm which our society encourages as science and philosophy.

[12:24]

This is the mode in which a lot of scientific work is done. Somebody's floating around on top of the experience, commenting on it, discussing it, theorizing about it, abstracted from it, and making summaries about the salient points and publishing them and getting money for it, they think. Little do they realize that they get money because their mother loves them. This is a realization to find out that that's the buffered zone that you're operating in. That's a realization that people come to through sitting meditation, walking meditation, and so on. Suddenly, you feel the difference between riding in a car, thinking about riding in a car,

[13:35]

AND THE ACTUAL EXPERIENCE OF RIDING IN A CAR. SOMETIMES YOU'RE RIDING A CAR, SUDDENLY THE BOTTOM OF YOUR THEORIZING DROPS OUT AND THERE YOU ARE, OR THERE IT IS, THE RIDING IN THE CAR. MY GOD, IT'S LIKE YOU GET GOOSEBUMPS FROM LIKE, YOU KNOW, YOU BREAK INTO TEARS. YOU REALIZED EMPTINESS BECAUSE YOU'RE INTIMATE WITH RIDING IN THE CAR AND YOU HAPPEN TO BE RIDING IN THE CAR. You're not thinking about riding in the car while, you know, in the zendo, thinking about riding in the car. You're not in the car thinking about riding in the car. You're actually riding in the car. Maybe the activity of driving the car is happening in this world, is dependently co-arising, and there's intimacy with it. And there's a shift from thinking about driving the car to being intimate with the experience of driving the car, and there's a big difference. And and your home in the middle way, which was there the whole time, but there was a distraction from it.

[14:51]

Somehow the person was removed from the experience. which was the basis of the commentary on the experience. Similarly, following the breathing. You can think about your breath or you can be in the experience of the breath. And some people have noticed that they can count the breath from that commentarial space, count it while they're philosophizing about the breath, and be totally disconnected from the breath while able to stay with it. Sort of like somebody's checking occasionally to see what breath this is. Is this seven? Yes, it's seven. Don't worry. If you haven't lost count, you're able to just include this little project along with your other ones.

[15:58]

So you must be meditating, right? Because this definitely is seven. We checked and we got confirmation. The middle way is the intimacy of this breath. And again, one of the first things you find out when you start to practice, approach the middle way, is how disconnected you are from your breath, from your body, from your experience, how not intimate you are. And this is a sad thing to cease, in a way, all this time, all I missed out on being with my life. But it's nice to be here now, and now I can go on again. The middle way is not an experience, it is the non-duality of our experience.

[17:03]

The middle way is the dropping off, the shedding of our experience. When an experience arises, it's actually, that's a shedding. Without emptiness, nothing can arise. Without dropping off, nothing can happen. Without dropping off, nothing that has happened can cease from happening. So all phenomenal arisings and ceasings are intimacy. All dependent core arisings are the middle way. When we are intimate with dependent core arisings, this is realization of the middle way. The middle way is not being distracted from or abstracted from our experience. And the middle way is then not distracting ourselves or abstracting ourselves by grasping extreme commentaries on our experience.

[18:22]

So these two kinds of middle way that are taught in these two sutras, the first one is more the middle way, teaching the middle way of not distracting and not abstracting yourself from your experience by indulgence in self-gratification, self-indulgence in sensual pleasure, or self-denial, self-mortification. Those are two ways to abstract and distract yourself from your experience. Can you see it? That you can distract and abstract yourself from your experience by those methods? And then, if you give those up, if you give up indulging in sense pleasure and indulging in pain as ways of distracting yourself from intimacy with your experience, then even if you're not doing those, there's a more subtle way of abstracting and distracting yourself, and that is by this philosophical abstraction.

[19:38]

Namely, this thing exists. This thing is lasting. Or this thing does not exist. This thing is annihilated. So these are two ways, I think the second way more subtle than the first, of distracting ourselves, of removing ourselves from intimacy. from the intimacy of our life. I don't answer why questions, but people sometimes might ask, well, geez, how come we would try to remove ourselves from intimacy? Well, some people accidentally fell into intimacy already in this session, and they got scared

[20:50]

They've experienced fear. What's to be afraid of? Well, in intimacy, since you don't project existence or non-existence on things, your grasping habits can't operate. So there you are without anything to grasp, without any ground to grasp. You're in a groundless space. There's not an inch of ground in the whole universe. And this seems dangerous, like you're going to fall. That fear is actually not the intimacy, it's a flinching away from it.

[22:01]

You taste it and then you flinch away. Or you think about what it would be like not to grasp and you feel frightened at the thought. You abstract not grasping and become afraid. Actually, in not grasping, you don't have a way to be afraid either. In intimacy, you can't be afraid. But if you think about intimacy as not grasping, which it is, then you can become afraid. So as people get close and then they flinch out of it, they look back in fear at what they got into or at fear of going back. Patience is, you know, again, we don't set this session up to be painful, but some people have some pain because of the schedule, you know, and we don't have... The periods aren't short enough for most people to have no pain

[23:03]

So most people have some discomfort in the session. And if you practice patience with the discomfort in your knees and your butt and your back and your neck, and also patience with the pain of your memories and your shame and stuff like that, if you can practice patience with these things, this is good. I say it's good. Practice patience. Then you won't get angry at the people who made the schedule and stuff like that. You won't get angry at Zen ancestors who have allowed this kind of Sashin to occur. In the early days of Zen Center, you know, which was closer to the end of the Second World War, some of the students thought that Sashin was a Japanese revenge. These little tiny guys coming over here and beating us huge Americans up.

[24:09]

One of them had this idea. He wasn't that big, but he was, I think, the captain of the Stanford football team. He just thought these little tiny Japanese people were torturing him. Another fear you might have about practicing the middle way is that you might, if you feel like you've, if you feel, or not you feel, but you sense or you kind of intuit or whatever, somehow you feel like you're becoming intimate with your experience, you might be afraid that you'll fall off the middle way. that you'll slip away from it and get back into abstraction and distraction from your life, that you'll start turning away again from this precious life, that you'll start missing and wasting your time again.

[25:16]

That's a reasonable thing to be afraid of. You actually won't fall forever into nothing, but you might get distracted again. But if you get afraid, I'm getting distracted. That promotes the distraction. So even though if there was anything to be good, if there was anything that was good to be afraid of, it would probably be good to be afraid of falling out of the middle way. But it turns out that even that fear is not promoting the middle way. Middle way means not to think about falling off the middle way. One time I left Tassajara in the middle of a practice period to fulfill an obligation of a speaking engagement. And it snowed quite a bit, so even the four-wheel drive vehicles couldn't get out of Tassajara.

[26:19]

We spent all afternoon digging like little ruts in the snow so that the four-wheel drive could get out, but it wasn't going to work. So we gave up and went back. But then somebody... thought of the fact that he had skis in his house. So I skied out of Tassajara, and I'm not an experienced cross-country skier. So for me, it was like, you know, a beginner in the middle of the way. So I was riding, I was riding, I was in the middle of this activity of skiing on top of the snow and top of the mountain. in the late afternoon and early evening. And first of all, it was so, so beautiful. Can you imagine? You know, it snowed, but the sky cleared, and so you had the sunset on top of the mountain in the snow at Tassajara. So you're skiing there, and then you go to this golden light, and then you get this blue light.

[27:23]

So there would be a tendency to enjoy the view. To indulge and sense pleasure. But a beginner in the middle way cannot afford that. And a beginning skier cannot do that. One has to, like, keep one's mind on the road. Step, step, step, step, step. No looking around, otherwise we fall off the mountain. over the edge, into the... off the cliff. And then there's not even really... If you're really advanced, you can sort of like ski and worry about falling because you're so good at skiing. You can like say, geez, wow, I could have a big accident. You could think about that. But when you're a beginner, you can't really afford... I mean, you can't afford it to think about falling, but then you'll fall.

[28:27]

Because you're not skillful enough to ski and think about falling. You have to choose one or the other. So there's looking at the scenery, there's being afraid, and there's skiing. And you can only do one of those at a time, usually. Well, I suppose you could fall and also enjoy the scenery at the same time. For me, I could only ski. So I had to give up worrying about falling and... enjoying the scenery. So when you first start practicing walking the middle way, you really can't afford to be afraid of falling off, and you really can't afford the scenery. And it's really nice scenery, very nice scenery around the middle way. It's like intimacy with the pentacle arising. That's beauty. So every moment there's beauty, beauty, beauty, beauty. Oh, yikes. Don't look at it. I mean, it flashes by, okay, bye.

[29:27]

But you can't stop and look, otherwise you're indulging in sense pleasure and you're off it. And the more you stay on it, the more beautiful it gets, the more tempting it is to look around. Anyway, I got out. I skied out. I missed out on a lot of good sights, but I could see them out of the corner of my eyes. They were flying by. And I missed a lot of moments of fear I didn't have time for. I just had to ski. So the middle way is, when you're a beginner, it's like that. You kind of got to stay on the... Once you're with what's happening, you have to just keep being there. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Arising and ceasing. The suffering subject to arising arises.

[30:29]

The suffering that is subject to ceasing ceases. For such a person, There's no doubt, no perplexity, no anxiety. You don't have time. You're keeping your eye on the ball, the bouncing ball of experience. You're just with intimacy. But again, if you do get into looking at the scenery, which is so lovely, around the beautiful dropping off of body and mind, Then what you do is you practice confession and repentance. You're lying in the gutter, the gutter which you fall into by trying to grasp beauty. And you say, well, shall we get back up on the path? And you get back up on the path.

[31:29]

And try again. until the habits of grasping kick in again and the magnet turns on and zap, you're stuck to some other wonderful experience. And then released for another round of anxiety, doubt, and perplexity or a round of the middle way, intimacy with what's happening. So a number of you are experiencing HOW RARE IT IS TO BE INTIMATE AND THAT'S NORMAL. AND THEN HOW EASY IT IS TO FALL OFF THAT. ANOTHER PERSON TOLD ME THAT IT'S LIKE A RIVER, THAT THE MIDDLE WAY IS LIKE A RIVER. AND IN THE LAST SESSION HERE, IN THE AUGUST SESSION, I BROUGHT UP THE QUOTE FROM THE BEGINNING OF A NOVEL

[32:36]

called the famished road which is in the beginning there was a river or it was a river but then the river became a road and then the road covered everything covered the whole world but because the road was originally a river the road was always hungry So the middle way isn't like a solid road. But when you first start practicing it, it might seem kind of solid. And as you get more and more intimate with it and more and more present with it, it loses its solidity. It wasn't really solid in the first place, and it turns into a river. But then when it's a river, you think, will I be able to swim? What will happen to me? And then that question turns into a river.

[33:39]

Life presents the opportunity of experience, and there are strong habits to distract ourselves from the experience. And when distracted from our experience, we live in this abstract space. This is quite common. One is quite used to this. In this space one is perplexed, confused, and anxious. As one meditates, as one starts to become more intimate with what's happening, One approaches intimacy of experience, but one also starts to notice these habits.

[35:18]

So part of the practice is to become aware of the habits of distracting ourself from practice. So we have to negotiate the space of distraction and presence, distraction and presence, intimacy and turning away. giving up, turning away, back to intimacy, back and forth until intimacy becomes more the state of affairs. And then at that time, we're more settled in the practice. And then it's a question of becoming more and more thoroughly realized in this way. So as things arise, apparently outside, learn to let them just arise without activating the mind around them by distractions or by philosophizing about them.

[36:34]

When they're inside, same. Without distracting, turning away, or turning away by philosophizing, just watch the arisings and ceasings just be intimate with them. Just enter the river, the river of experience. Once we are entered and intimate, there's some additional meditation work to do. some additional vast horizons of understanding of the nature of phenomena, of deepening, ever deepening understanding of intimacy.

[37:49]

So first of all, there is paying attention to distraction, accepting and being patient with distraction. and the pain's there. Then there's becoming patient with intimacy, which is even more difficult to be patient with. Then there is understanding what intimacy is, which is to understand the relationship between the world and the self. the actual intimate relationship between world, self, and world, between self and other. That is our actual experience.

[38:52]

But I'm not getting into that quite yet. I'm just talking about how to enter the middle way so far. How to enter the way. Outwardly, not activating the mind around objects. Inwardly, no coughing and sighing. Thus you enter the middle way. Thus you enter the intimacy of your experience. We're not trying to enter a particular experience. We're entering the intimacy of any experience. Entering the emptiness of any experience. Once we realize that, we then will study

[39:59]

How is the Middle Way experience? How is emptiness experience? Once we realize the emptiness of experience, what is the experience of emptiness? What are the offspring of the Middle Way? This is an advertisement for tomorrow's talk. But I'd like you to notice the difference between entering the middle way and then working with things in the middle way. And understand that we can't work with things in the middle way from outside the middle way. We have to enter and study in the river. But let's get in the river first.

[41:05]

And I guess, you know, it temporarily be not hungry anymore. And then after we have a good meal, we'll be ready to go to work. Is this becoming a little bit more clear, the middle way? Yes. Did it used to be less clear? Progress is not our most important product.

[42:10]

Intimacy is. And there's no progress in intimacy. There's no increase or decrease. Have you heard about that? But there is intimacy with progress, and there is intimacy with decrease. That's the middle way. So some of you have had an experience of progress in this life, in this week, today. Some of you have had an experience of regress, degress. That's an opportunity. That's called a Dharma door. So you've all had many Dharma doors offered to you every moment. Now the question is how to enter the intimate river of the experience.

[43:18]

To meet the experience letting go of abstractions like it exists, it does not exist. Giving up, distracting ourselves by self-denial and self-indulgence. So I haven't I asked you if you wanted to talk about anything so far in this session. I can't tell if you have any questions or not, but if you do, here's a window of opportunity. If you don't, we can just go jump in the river.

[44:36]

On your mark, get set, dive. Yes, sir.

[45:02]

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