If I might just briefly mention that if I ask you for something, it doesn't mean that you're not fine before you give it to me. Or if you never give it to me. Okay? Okay. Now I'd like to go a little bit more into the teaching of suchness that's spoken of by a number of Zen ancestors. And also, of course, Shattini Buddha. So I'd like to... I used to spend some time looking at the teaching of the fourth ancestor in our tradition in China.

[01:04]

We call him Dai Daoxin. And Andy Ferguson, Andy Ferguson has a different name for him here. As he calls him, Soho Daoxin. Shuan Feng Daoxin. But usually when we recite the name in the morning, we say Dai Daoxin. Dai Daoxin. It's a great healer. Daoxin is... You know, Tao is the way, and Shin is faith. Way, faith. According to this, he lived from 580 to 651. You see the dragons in this chart?

[02:26]

There's Shakti Muni Buddha. Okay, the teaching of Doshna CTA, and then the teachings of coming down to... Coming down to Dai Doshin. Dai Doshin is... It makes a nice connection between .. Which you will see pretty soon, probably. Main teaching, in some sense, the main teaching of Dayi Doshin is called

[03:43]

That's kind of his main teaching, which means one practice Samad. This character, this character for one, it's kind of a, it's an Arabic one that fell over to relax. And this character, this character here, It's originally the picture of a crossroads.

[05:18]

It means to walk. It means to travel. It means to do. It means to act. means action, conduct, behavior, practice, and so on. So it's the one practice, the one activity, the one behavior, samadhi. So it's the absorption in the one behavior. That's his teaching. And so, of course, it's closely related to what we call total devotion to just sitting. Although this is the practice that he taught, emphasized, this practice is given in a Mahayana sutra.

[06:27]

The sutra that he quotes is called the one show, what is it, wansho-swa-bu-ro-jing, the Prajna scripture spoken by Manjushri. And this is a scripture that he liked very much, but it's also a scripture that's quite popular in Tendai Buddhism. And a number of other great teachers really liked this scripture, this scripture of Manjushri teaching prajna. And in that scripture, Manjushri was talking to Buddha, and Manjushri asked the Buddha the meaning of the one practice, Samadhi. And the Buddha said, ultimate reality has a unified form.

[07:36]

Fixing your awareness on ultimate reality is called Ishing Sammai. It's called one practice samadhi. So to fix your attention on ultimate reality or to fix your attention on The one form, or the unified form, to be absorbed in the unified form is the one practice samadhi. The Buddha said. So I think it might be good for you to, you might find it helpful if I rhapsodize on this I Ching San Mai a little bit.

[08:43]

Okay, so it's absorption in one practice. But also you can say it's absorption in oneness. being absorbed into oneness. Or you could say it's being absorbed into the unified quality of all life. Or to be fixed in the uniform quality of all life. Or you could say it's to be absorbed in the unified form of ultimate reality. Or you call it the absorption in oneness, or the samadhi of oneness. Or another long way to put it is the calmness in which one realizes that all dharmas are the same.

[09:49]

In Sanskrit this is called ekavyuha samadhi. So I tried to think of acronyms for these long things, so I thought of there's OPS. Whoops. How do you spell oops? Two O's usually. Anyway, if somebody could pick up some good acronyms for this samadhi, then it would be good to have an acronym. Another one would be S-O-O, the Samadhi of Oneness. So? Could be S-O, yeah.

[11:05]

So what's the unified quality of all life? Well, what's the one form of all life? Well, what is it? So, yeah. What is it? What's the unified, you know, quality of all life, of all things? Huh? Interdependence, yeah. What else? Impermanence? No. Huh? Suchness, Buddha-nature. Yeah, suchness, Buddha-nature, interdependence, what? Emptiness. Liberation, yeah. Emptiness, Buddha-nature, suchness, interdependence, what? Is-ness? No. Not is-ness and not is-not-ness. Interdependence is not is-ness and is not is-not-ness.

[12:09]

Interdependence is the way that things that seem to be, or things that seem to be ising, it's the way that they're not stuck in that. It's emptiness. They don't have some core. And even that emptiness doesn't have a core. Everything, all things have this quality. But not all things are empty. Only certain things are empty. Namely, I mean impermanent. Only certain things are impermanent. Those are things which arise from causes and conditions. But emptiness doesn't arise from causes and conditions. Emptiness is the fact that things that arise from causes and conditions lack inherent existence. But emptiness actually is not an impermanent thing. It's a kind of exception. But emptiness is empty. Everything is empty. But not everything is impermanent. All conditioned things are impermanent, the Buddha said.

[13:14]

All things that arise are impermanent. All things that are composed of causes and conditions, those are all impermanent. But emptiness is not like that. So, in some sense, what his teaching is, the one practice of Samadhi is to be absorbed in... or to be absorbed in its meditation on emptiness, you can say. But anyway, he's trying to emphasize that you have an absorption where you have some sense that you're always working, you're always absorbed in, Oneness, you're always absorbed in the same practice. There's only one practice. You don't do several practices, and you don't work with several things. And you can say, oh, well, that means I'm always meditating on dependent core arising.

[14:16]

Well, fine, because all practices are dependent core arisings, and all events are dependent core arisings. Everything you're aware of is a dependent core arising. Everything you experience is a dependent core arising, and every practice you're involved in is a dependent core arising. So he's emphasizing that you're taking care of that sense of the uniformness and the oneness of all life, the oneness of all practice. And if you think about, well, okay, so I'm going to be absorbed now, and I'm going to fix my attention, fix my awareness on ultimate reality. I'm going to fix my awareness on the uniform quality of ultimate reality. Well, what's that, do you think? But actually, you kind of know what it is. I'm not know, but you kind of have a... You kind of understand this. Because, in fact, when you try to find out what that is and you don't succeed, well, that's right.

[15:21]

That's not something that's uniform. The things that you can get, those come and go. But this thing, this thing doesn't come and go. This is the, you know, like we say, in the Dharma realm, in ultimate reality, things don't come and go there. And everything has the same quality there. So, usually when we say fix your awareness on something, you think of a thing. So then, well, what is it? Now he's asking you to fix your attention on something that's not a thing. It's the oneness of all things. So you can't get a hold of that. And yet, somehow, you might fairly quickly get a sense of, well, this is a different way to live, isn't it? To be, like, absorbed in in oneness, in uniformity of all life. I can't get a hold of it, yet somehow it changes my orientation in life to be attentive to this, which I can't get a hold of.

[16:28]

And yet, of course, I can't get away from. By definition, you can't get away from this. So what can't you get a hold of? What can't you get away from? What can't you turn towards? What can't you touch? That's what this is. So another kind of core teaching he has, you know, it's kind of like, he talks quite a bit about how to do this one practice samadhi. But I'll just go right to sort of what, in some sense, is the core. And this is, for the Chinese, this is .

[17:39]

And I looked this up, and in the modern dictionary, anyway, it's , which is kind of nice, . But some scholars, there's other readings of this character, which I can't find in the dictionary, which is . So that would be show-e-bu-shun. But I think it's maybe okay to just mention it. Show-e-bu-e. What does it mean? Show means... How do you say it in Japanese, Komei-san? How do you say it in Japanese? Shoo... Yeah. What do you think? How would you say it? The four characters in Japanese. Shoo... Shui-chi-fui? Yeah, that's nice. Shui-chi-fui. Shui-chi-fui. Anyway, Chinese, shou-i-bui. So shou means to protect, to guard.

[18:43]

To protect, to guard. to keep, to attend to, to maintain, to observe. Okay? And the next character you already know, right? You learned that already. One. Or oneness. Or unity. Or uniformity. Or unified. Observe. Care for, maintain, protect the one. Protect the one great matter of your practice. Well, I mean, not your practice. Protect the one great matter of Dai Daoshin's practice, which is the uniformity of all beings. The one practice. Maintain that. Take care of that. And then Bu means not.

[19:48]

And... That E means to deviate, or to move, or shift, or change, or alternate. OK? So protect the one without deviation. Protect the one, care for the one, without moving, with no movement, with no alternative. So this is shikantada. This is just sitting. Protect the one and don't move. care for the uniformity of all life without moving, without doing anything.

[20:51]

You just care for it. And with no alternative to caring for this oneness. Now this kind of practice, this is in some sense, I don't know, some of you might feel like, I might feel like that's enough. You already know this, you understand this. But it also relates to Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching that we've been talking about and Vasubandhu's teaching. It relates to Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching about training yourself in dustness. training yourself and ta-ta-ta, and it relates to Vasubandhu's teaching that the bodhi of the Buddha is the emptiness of the 18 dhatus.

[22:00]

Well, it's not just the emptiness of the dhatus, it's like actually, again, it's realizing the emptiness of the dhatus. So the Bodhi of the Buddha is all over the place. Wherever there's Datus, the Bodhi of the Buddha is there. So everybody's got 18 Datus. I got 18 Datus. You got 18 Datus. Everybody's got 18 Datus. But there's only one gang that's for me. Good old Buster Brown. So everybody's got the 18 Datus and everybody's 18 Datus is empty, but not everybody realizes that their 18 Datus are empty. Right? That's for sure? Yeah. Huh? Dattus are the same kind? No. Dattus are like, 18 Dattus are like six sense organs, six sense consciousnesses, and six sense objects.

[23:15]

Those are the 18 Dattus. Okay? Like it says in the heart, no realm of eyes, no realm of ears, no realm of nose, no realm of tongue. No realm of color. It actually abbreviates this. Does it start with no realm of eyes until we reach no realm of mind consciousness? That's shorthand for 18. Starting with no realm of eyes, no realm of ears, so on, no realm of color, no realm of sound, and so on, no realm of eye consciousness, ear consciousness, so on, up to mind consciousness. So the parts that just list the 18 just by the first and the last one. They're all empty, right? Heart Sutra says that. And Vasubandhu says that that's the bodhi of the Buddha, is that emptiness. Everybody already has that emptiness. All your skandhas, ayatanas, and dhatus already come empty. They never lose their emptiness.

[24:17]

So the bodhi of Buddha is in all of us all the time. And where is it? It's in the emptiness of these elements of our experience. That's where the Bodhi of the Buddha is. We never lose the emptiness of our experience. Every time you get experience, it comes with its own special emptiness that goes with it. So every experience you have has a little Bodhi of the Buddha coming with it all the time. If you want to realize the Bodhi of the Buddha, check out the emptiness of your experience. That's it. And the emptiness is also empty, which is also the bodhi of the Buddha is also empty. Which is why it's such a special nice bodhi, because it's a bodhi that doesn't get all stale and stuck and stuff. It keeps emptying itself. Again, Daoshin's meditation is to say, always be absorbed in this emptiness of the 18 Dattus.

[25:23]

But the absorption in oneness is also a way to realize Shakyamuni Buddha's teaching and Vasubandha's teaching. Not only is the fourth ancestor saying, or do I understand him anyway, as saying, absorb yourself in oneness. the emptiness of all phenomena, but by being absorbed in oneness or by being absorbed and paying attention to the one quality of ultimate reality, that attitude is the attitude which will reveal the emptiness. So he's directing you towards what is liberating, but by this unified instruction he's also showing you the attitude which will which will reveal that which you're trying to look at. So going back to Shakyamuni Buddha, train yourself thus, remember that?

[26:33]

In the scene, there will be just the scene. Okay. So do you see a relationship between that instruction and Daoshin's One Practice Samadhi? Do you? You do? Let's hear about what you see. Well, I think they're both saying not to add or, you know, add to. They're both saying not to add to, right. It doesn't say add to ultimate reality or it doesn't say add to anything or take away. It just says be absorbed in this one in the one you know and you're the one you know whatever it is you know this is happening so you take care of this and that attitude what does that attitude do for you then when you got when you got this and you take just take care of that then what do you get

[27:37]

It's a tough question, but just take a guess. What? Oh, the next thing. That is the wrong answer. What do you get? Huh? You get this. Okay, you guys take two steps back. To this. Come back here. When you get this, you get this. When you train yourself in when there's this, there's only this. That's the training. You're absorbed in oneness, so then when this happens, what do you got? You got this. Now, let's say you actually are successful at training yourself so that when you have this, you have this, rather than next or last. You have this. When you have this, you have this. When you have this, when you have this. You start training yourself to such a point that that's the way it is for you. Okay? Then what? Huh? How is it then? Huh? Yeah, well, Buddha said, what did he say? No identification.

[28:42]

When you train such that you have this, and that's all you have. In other words, when you're absorbed in the oneness, then you're absorbed in the suchness, the thusness of what's happening. You got ta, what do you have? Ta. Got ta, ta, ta. When you train yourself, and that's how it is for you, so you have ta, ta, ta, then there's no identification with the ta. They're just the top. There's no identification. When there's no identification, then you're free. So does that make sense somewhat so far? This kind of absorption in the oneness of leaving it alone it actually will help you, then the oneness will reveal itself. And when the oneness reveals itself, then there's not twoness, there's not you and it anymore.

[29:47]

So by the absorption in oneness, you finally realize oneness. And there's not twoness, therefore, there's not subject to an object, and you're free. So that's a little bit about how it goes back to Shakyamuni Buddha. how Daoxian and Shakyamuni Buddha are related. Ramon? Yes. So, the ultimate reality is the scene of the place out of time and space. Out of time and space? Yeah. Out of time and space? No, no, no, no, no. Out of time and space? I wouldn't put it out of. Maybe free of, but if you put it outside, it's inside. So, with a line, it's free of time and space. It's free of time and space, but it is the nature of time and space, too.

[30:57]

But it directs in time and space. It can come into time and space to help beings. It is actually, it's the divine, helping part of time and space. It's the helping aspect of time and space. It's the liberating aspect of time and space. So it's both free of time and space, but also it's right in time and space, liberating time and space. And all beings who are in time and space have this emptiness of their experience to liberate them from their experience of time and space and in time and space. Suchness is free of time and space. Suchness is free of time and space. Suchness is the way time and space is, and the way time and space is, suchness is the way time and space is, and the way time and space is, is that time and space is free of time and space. That's the way it is. Fortunately.

[32:01]

In other words, fortunately, according to the Buddhas, Actually, the Buddhas don't say fortunately necessarily. They just say, wow. But the Buddhas, the Buddhas fortunately have pointed out that there is such a thing as freedom. And they realized it, and they demonstrated it, and they're trying to open our eyes to the freedom in time and space. The freedom in limitation. And suchness is the way... Time and space is, and the way time and space is includes liberation from time and space. So what you do is you train yourself in the way time and space is. And when for you the way time and space is is the way it is for you, then you don't identify with time and space anymore. Because in fact, the way time and space is is that you are not outside of time and space able to identify with it. That's a delusion.

[33:05]

You train yourself out of that delusion by training yourself into the suchness of time and space. Okay? Maybe I should do a little bit more before you ask questions. Is that okay? Is that all right? So again, the Buddha Shakyamuni taught this, train yourself in thusness, in suchness, and then dot dot dot. When you finish your training, then for you there will be no here, subject, there, object, or in between. You know, no man's land between subject and object. There won't be that for you anymore. But this is, you know, after training for a while. So another way of, another commonality between Vasubandhu, Shakyamuni, and Daoxian is that, well, you maybe don't see this yet, but they're all teaching about conforming to suchness.

[34:21]

And it's all objectless meditation. And this all has to do with no object of thought. So again, the Buddha teaches, let the herd just be the herd. In other words, let the datu of sound just be the datu of sound. Let the element of sound just be the element of sound. Let the element of color just be the element of color. And Daidoshin says that when you can train, like the Buddha said there, of letting, for example, a color just be a color, then you will understand that you don't receive that color.

[35:28]

When you don't receive the color, you understand the emptiness of the color. And you understand the emptiness of the eye, and you understand the emptiness of eye consciousness. Usually we think that we're receiving the color, we're receiving the sound. But when you just let the color be color, you don't add to the color the reception of the color. Not receiving the color, you understand the emptiness of the color. Not receiving the color, you understand the emptiness of the eighteen Dattles. So, here you are in this place. with all these people and mountains and leaves and trees and sky and water.

[36:33]

This stuff is happening, apparently. Stuff is coming into form, into being. Can you live with these experiences without adding on to the experience, the receiving? If you can have experience without it being something you receive, you understand the emptiness of this phenomenon. When you receive it, you don't understand the emptiness. Someone has your hand raised, but I'm waiting. I think if we get off into questions, unless this question you think will help what I'm saying right now.

[37:37]

It might. Is receiving the same as identification? It's related because when you identify with your experience or disidentify with your experience, then you can receive your experience. Then you think there's you and your experience, so then you can receive your experience. The sixth sense organs, you could say, are born, Daya Dawshin says, the sixth sense organs are born in emptiness. You could also say the sixth sense organs are born because there's emptiness, they can be born. You could say that too. By virtue of the sixth sense organs being empty, they can be born. Things that aren't empty cannot be born. If something has an inherent existence, it couldn't be born because it would already exist.

[38:42]

Is it too hot for you to understand that? Getting too hot in here? Okay. It's already getting kind of steamy. Did you memorize what I just said? It's worth memorizing. I memorized it. Somebody says, Daya Doshin said, the six sense organs are born from emptiness or born in emptiness. And I said, You could say they're born by virtue of being empty. Say they're born under the auspices of emptiness. Your sense organs are born by virtue of their emptiness, or by virtue of their being empty. If they weren't empty, in other words, if they really had some inherent existence, they couldn't be born, because things that have inherent existence

[39:59]

If they have inherent existence, they already exist. If they have inherent existence and they don't exist, that is nonsense. But if they have inherent existence and they already exist, they can't be born. So sense organs that have inherent existence could not possibly be born. You couldn't have an I if it weren't empty. Similarly with the sense objects. If the color inherently existed, it couldn't arise. Because it doesn't inherently exist, it can arise when the conditions for color are there. When you understand what I just said about that your eyes are are brought to you by virtue of your emptiness, of I emptiness, that the colors are brought to you by color emptiness, that sounds are brought to you by sound emptiness, that mind is brought to you by mind emptiness.

[41:16]

When you understand that this stuff comes to you through emptiness, then you understand that there's no receiving of the data. And understanding there's no receiving of the data is realizing the one-practiced samadhi. It's realizing you are now realizing you are absorbed in the oneness of all your experience. Namely, the experience is not like coming to you. So again, the attitude of absorption and oneness will be the way that you'll be able to see that things don't come to you. And when you see that things don't come to you, you have realized oneness. In fact, you and your experience are not in two different worlds. Matter of fact, all there is, is the experience. And there's not you in addition to it.

[42:17]

Which is the same thing I just said. Pardon? There's nothing wrong with being receptive, no. It's just that you can't receive anything. You can be an empty receptor. Somebody said a little poem to me today. She said, I'm having the time of my life and I can't wait for it to end. But I heard that as, you know, I heard I can't wait for it to end in a new way today. I'm having the time of my life, you know, and I got to live it now. I can't wait for it to end and then have my time of my life. But that's the way it always is. We're actually having the time of our life right now. This happens to be the time of our life.

[43:21]

This is the only time of our life we ever have. And we can't stand it. We can't wait for it to end. So in one sense, we want the time of our life to end as soon as possible because it's so intense. We'd like to move on for it to end and have another thing that's not the time of our life. On the other side, part of us that knows it's the time of our life doesn't want to wait till it's over to have it. Wants to live now. So there's a little Buddha inside who's saying, don't wait for it to be over before you live it. Who says, I can't stand, I can't wait for it to end. There's something very poignant in there about I'm having a time in my life and I can't wait for it to end. That's very closely related to Maintaining, protecting the one with no deviation. It touches how difficult it is for us simply to take care of the constant, uniform quality, to take care of the interdependence of our life, the time of our life.

[44:36]

Fully live this moment. It's just too much for poor little me. Well, right, right. But it's not too much for this practice. This practice is a practice that can stand to take care of this oneness with no moving, with no alternative, with no deviation that can actually live the time of your life. And I'd like to say that I think you've done a pretty good job of, we all did a pretty good job of caring for the energy and spirit of the sashin through that work day and through yesterday. I feel you still have that sashin energy, sashin spirit, which is pretty good.

[45:43]

We partly need to thank the kitchen for that. Didn't make too many pecan pies. They ran out really fast. Did anybody get more than one piece? How many did you get? Two? Well, it's only two. Could have been six. If there had been more pecan pies, they would have been eaten. But the kitchen didn't make more than we could, more than, so not, so most people only got about one piece of pecan pie, right? You only got one, yeah. So that's good. Because, you know, because sugar is one of the main ways to bring yourself down, in case you ever get too high. If you're spiritually high, sugar brings you down. to worldly high. And then, of course, worldly crash. Don't worry.

[46:45]

If you ever get too enlightened, you can always save yourself a sugar. He has a tensile boycotting this meeting. Where is he? Huh? He has to work? Anybody else? Just a Tenzo? Just one person? Okay. So, do you see now something about how the Buddha is teaching this Samadhi, this Zazen Samadhi of the six ancestors, which is, it's not strictly speaking a Zen Samadhi. To me, it doesn't look particularly Zen. It's actually a Mahayana scripture where Manjushri is teaching this one practice samadhi. But this so-called Zen teacher picks this up.

[47:46]

And this, in some sense, is an early depiction of Zazen. But you see, it's really just a basic Mahayana meditation. It's not really particularly Zen. And this meditation is closely related to Buddha's teaching of training in satchinas and Vasubandhu's teaching about the emptiness of the 18 dhatus. So maybe that's enough. Oh, one other thing I'd like to say that Dao Shin said is that if you contemplate emptiness and develop calm and then you see... You see a color. You're practicing this one-practice samadhi, the oneness of all things, the emptiness of all things, the interdependence of all things. And then you see a color. And then you see the color.

[48:49]

But you don't feel like you receive the color. In other words, you notice there's a color, but there's no kind of like, it's my color and not my color. It's just color. There's just the color in the color. There's just the scene in the scene. That's it. You notice that. So it's not coming to you. You notice at that point you realize emptiness. This is called emptiness. Emptiness. And this is the same as the signless and the wishless. And the signless, the wishless and the empty are the traditional three doors, the three gates to liberation. But you can see, just meditate on that if you wish, that when you can look at a color and not have it be something you receive, you understand the emptiness of the color, the eye, and the visual consciousness.

[50:07]

You understand what Vatsubanda is talking about, the emptiness of those three, when you no longer are receiving the color. It's just the color. But The additional teaching that these come in a triad, in a trio, when you have the empty, you also have the wishless and the signless. In other words, there will be no sign here. There's no characteristic and also there's no wish. So what does it mean that there's no sign or no wish? When you are not receiving the data anymore, there will be no wish or ambition regarding the data. When we do receive data, on the other hand, there is a wish. When we do receive the data, when a color happens, and it's not just a color, but that's a color over there, and I'm over here, and now I or

[51:15]

or this sense organ receives, the there comes over to here. I'm into the there and the here. This is not complete training in suchness. In complete training in suchness, there's no here and there. When there's no here and there, then you don't receive data. The training's complete, and you understand the emptiness of the there, the color, the here, the organ, and the here, the consciousness. Actually, maybe the here is the in-between, now that I think of it. Maybe the in-between is the organ. So there's the herd over there, there's the in-between, the organ, and there's the here, the consciousness. So Vasubandhu's emptiness of the sense data, the sense organ, and the sense consciousness, the 18 Dattus, and the mind object, mind organ, and mind consciousness, the emptiness of those 18 Dattus could be understood as here, there, and in between, or there, in between, and here.

[52:27]

Okay? So you can check. Check it out. When that happens, if it ever does, that there's a color, but there's no receiving of it because the color isn't over there, brought through the organ in between over the ear. There's just color. Check it out. Is there any sign? And is there any desire or ambition regarding that color? Vice versa, check it out. When the color's over there, there's a there, and there's a here, and an in-between, check it out. Is there a wish? Is there an ambitious ambition? Supposedly there will be. You check it out. What's the sign? Got something happening over there? Does it have a sign?

[53:30]

Does it have a characteristic? If it's just a thing, it doesn't have a characteristic. Of course, its definition is its characteristic, but you don't add anything. You don't sign it. Like a name? Like a name. Even though it is nothing but a name, you don't name the name. You don't sign the sign. It just doesn't occur to you, but the name doesn't come up. Well, you don't confuse the sign with the thing. You don't add to it. You don't like or dislike. But the next moment, the mind object, which you don't receive, might be dislike. But the dislike isn't over there. Now, if the dislike is over there, then there will be some wish regarding that dislike. If the dislike isn't over there or over here or in between, there'll be no craving.

[54:41]

Okay, so there's a lot more here, but this is not going to be just to open up to your questions now. So were there any questions? Yes? One who I don't receive. Pardon? Pardon? You talked about entering into the Zorbshell, having an abtune of the Zorbshell. Is that different from contemplating the concept of emptiness? Is that the entry into... I can't seem to figure out how to do it without making myself along at the beginning. Contemplate the concept of emptiness? Well, part of the study of this is to contemplate the concept of emptiness. So you understand what we mean by emptiness. So you have the word emptiness clear, that you understand what it means is that the thing lacks inherent existence.

[55:46]

It's not that it's nothing. It's just that it lacks independent existence and self-nature. So you understand those words. And you may have to contemplate emptiness quite a bit to keep the concept straight so that you're ready for the revelation of emptiness. But this kind of contemplation is not the meditation on emptiness. This is just like mentally preparing yourself for it. And you're still thinking that you're doing it, yeah. Mm-hmm. into the absorption because if the concentration is adequate eventually the self will be absorbed in that study of the concept yeah but you know it's not very much of your day that you're studying the concept of emptiness so it's more that just you're studying concepts one of them is emptiness

[56:53]

I wouldn't like to highlight that particular concept, because that's not going to happen very much. Not very much. Relative to the number of concepts you're handling. negligible or something in the neighborhood of zero compared to the number of concepts you're processing. Like if you thought of a thousand times a day, do you think of a thousand times a day? That would be like zero relative to the number of concepts you're processing. But if you thought of it 20,000 times or 50,000 times, the use of that would not be that mostly you'd be thinking of that concept, but just that would remind you to handle the other concepts in the appropriate manner. And what is the appropriate manner to handle the concepts? Well, ultimately, that you're not processing them, right? So what you do is you train yourself at trying to deal with whatever concepts they are.

[57:57]

One of them is emptiness, but mostly you're dealing with concepts of color and smell and touch and taste and pain and pleasure and self and other, those kinds of things, plus one every whatever, a few thousand times a day, maybe think of emptiness. But anyway, you're always dealing with these things. Can you let the concept just be the concept? And at first, no. I'm working with the concept. I'm working with the concept. I'm working with the concept. But once in a while, maybe once a day, maybe ten times a day, maybe a hundred times a day, maybe a thousand times a day, maybe ten thousand times a day, you remember the instruction. What was it again? Let the concept just be the concept. Train yourself letting the concept be the concept. Let the yellow just be the yellow. Let the orange just be the orange. Let the pain just be the pain. Let the mushroom just be the mushroom. Let the turbulence just be the turbulence. Let the fear just be the fear. Let the concept that I'm aware of right now just be the concept.

[58:58]

Let it just be that. Let it just be that. Let it just be that. May [...] it just be that. Until finally it's just that. Then there's no me in it. So you start by a lot of confession, maybe. Maybe not. Real quick little confessions. Oh, okay, let the scene just be the scene. But actually, I'm still thinking of me letting the scene be the scene. I think I'm still separate from that. Okay, fine. Try it again. Try it again. Try it again. Even when you say, may the scene just be the scene, or let in the scene, let there just be the scene, even when you say that, you may still feel like, I'm listening to that instruction. I'm trying to do that instruction. But the more you do it, the more skillful you can get at finally being absorbed into the oneness, which means being absorbed into the non-separation of the elements, of the interdependence of the awareness, the organ, and the color. And let's see, they're all one.

[60:02]

which means the data is yellow. That's it. There's the yellow. Now, of course, there's never just the yellow. There's also the consciousness and the organ. And when you get that, then there's no sense of receiving the data. and we don't receive the data, then that means you understand that there couldn't be any data over there. Because there is no data over there, because there's never data by itself, if there's any data, that means there is awareness of the data. So there's not data over there, there's no over there. And there must be an organ which makes it possible for the data and the awareness to be communicating. So there's never one this without the other. So there is no reception of it.

[61:06]

So you understand interdependence. So you're saying that you see your projection. You see how you project yourself. At that point, you don't. At the conclusion, you don't see the projection anymore. There is no projection. Along the way, I think Susan was saying that she's noticing her projection. So she was noticing her projection back onto her consciousness, I think, that I'm aware of this concept. Okay? And now you're jumping to, oh, but I see that actually my sense that I'm studying the concept of emptiness or I'm studying the color, you're also seeing that what I do then is I project the self over here onto the object and think the object is also out there by itself. When you think the object's out by itself, you project selfhood on the object. So it's out there by itself, and I'm back here by myself.

[62:09]

So you got self out there and self back here. So then you got the thing over there that you can receive. So the projection can go back this way and out that way. The attribution of inherent existence can go, this stuff's happening. This stuff is happening, right? In a sense, it's happening. Colors, color consciousness, and color receptor. But in the midst of all that happening, there's attribution of self all over the place. There's attribution of self to the parts. Even though it doesn't make any sense because they're parts of a process. So one way to do it is to meditate on how the parts are related and that brings you into awareness of interdependence. But that's also the same as being absorbed in the one thing that's always going on, namely interdependence. So trying to see the relationship between how things are going, between the faces you see and your own face, studying that, in fact, you're practicing the one practice samadhi.

[63:23]

You're taking care of the one. The one means how everything's interrelated. And also the one is interrelatedness. Interrelatedness, interdependence, and how things are interdependent. You're always paying attention to that. That's one way to approach it. The other way is just pay attention to the oneness and you'll see no more independent things. So if you're still seeing independent things, study how they're not independent. Or, which is the same as look at the non-independence of the independent things, look at the non-independence of the interdependent things, that's one way to do it, the other way is just let the thing, which you maybe think is independent, be just itself, and then you stop seeing that it's being received, and when you stop seeing it's being received, you realize interdependence.

[64:26]

because you're no longer doing this projection backwards and forwards. Okay, so then there's Gabe and Anzan and Rebecca, who else was there? Hey? And Tracy? Okay, Gabe. Just trying to get a better sense of what you mean by the signless not naming something that is a name. Yeah, right. It's kind of like that. Not naming something that's just a name. Not naming the story. That's just a story. So in a sense, it's to call it signless. It's a dismissal. The way they're calling it wishless. It seems like In one case, there really is no wish going on.

[65:31]

In the other case, there is still... It's not like you're abolishing science. No, it's not like you're abolishing science, no. It's also not like you're abolishing wishes. It's just that the wishes don't adhere to phenomena anymore. Got a phenomena? I have phenomena here. There's no wish around it. Got a phenomena here... No sign on it. Got a phenomena here, got no end and existence of it. So, I can see maybe there's some advantage in having a phenomena and then being reminded that I'm not supposed to sign it or wish it. Or, I have something I don't have a wish about, but you may say, well, I don't have a wish about it, but it is, I do say, it's that. I'm going to sign it. Why can't you just leave it alone?

[66:31]

Say, okay, I don't have any wish, I leave it alone, but I still think it has an independent existence. You could do that, right? But maybe not. Maybe if you do think it's an independent existence, maybe your wish and sign can't be resisted. Because how could you resist? How could you resist an independent thing? Huh? Who could resist finally find something in this universe that totally upturns Buddhism? You'd have a new religion called the religion of things that inherently exist. You got things that got self-nature. Hey, you wouldn't be able to resist this. And in fact, nobody ever has resisted this. Once you see self-nature, you're done for it. You fell for it. That's it. And not only that, but once you see self-nature, you can't not have a wish for it.

[67:36]

And you can't stop putting signs on it. For example, one of the main signs that you put on it is this one. I don't mean to be, what do you call it? America-centric. You put signs on these things. You check it out. You do some homework on this and you tell me if you could find a better way to do that. Now, remember, I said before that there aren't any things that exist without mental imputation. Things cannot exist without the mind saying, okay, it exists. You've got to put a story on it. To make something actually come together for us and exist for us, the mind has to sort of put the little stamp on it. You've got to say, it's a this. Okay, so now you got this, and the mind has done that. Otherwise, there's no experience. So that's already happened. You got the concept, yellow.

[68:38]

What does it mean for that yellow to be signless? Well, first of all, usually, the first thing you realize is that it's empty. And then check, the signless and the wish list are checks on the emptiness. But you see if that's... if that's of any use. And if you want, just have two gates, the liberation, the empty and the wishless. Okay? So if I try to see just the yellow or another example... You try to see the yellow, did you say? Yes. You try to train yourself in the yellow, just being the yellow? Mm-hmm. You're trying to train yourself that way? Have you been trying to train yourself that way? Yeah. And I say, no, no, no, it's not, try to see just the blue, but I mean, it's very loaded.

[69:50]

And there are other objects. It's loaded? How is it loaded? And just, if I compare it to a blue truck, so the blue of the truck is what, it's more neutral. Just a second. When you look at the sky, you're starting to compare it to a blue truck? Does that happen to you? No, practically speaking, I'm trying to ask you, when you look at the sky and see blue, then do you try to train yourself at letting that blue just be blue? Are you doing that kind of practice? Yes. Okay. So what's the problem? The sky is so, I mean, it's still so surprising. The sky is mostly blue here, to me. Surprising? What's the surprise? You see the blue and you're trying to let the blue just be the blue. What's the surprise? You say, I guess we're not in Berlin. Because in Berlin, the sky doesn't look like this color. Not quite this color blue.

[70:52]

This is a very blue blue. Okay? This is not, this is something else from the blue just being the blue. Okay, so you know. So anyway, blue is just blue. You try and train yourself there. And then the mind comes up with, geez, this is not like a city blue. Okay? Then you got to let that concept of this little story, this is not a city blue. There's such a concept called not city blue. It's a kind of, what a very campy color. Hmm? Hmm? truck blue this is not truck blue so you have that so you let that just be not truck blue you train yourself with that so I'm just telling you how to do it I'm not saying it's easy the mind the mind is letting the blue sky be a blue sky and then the mind is having giving rise to the concept of not truck blue and maybe it's hard to like just let the not truck blue just be not truck blue It is hard. There seems to be... Well, I only can say there seems to be things that seem to be not so loaded or not so much where I have to say no, no, not this.

[72:05]

Where do you put the dispositions? Where do you put the dispositions? It's dispositions. There's a different way to do this process, you know. The dispositions are actually, the dispositions are what make it hard to do this practice. The dispositions are what kind of make it like, okay, blue, not truck blue, and mix them together. And let's have some jazz out of that. Okay, like blue and not blue, and let's get upset about that, you know. The dispositions are like, don't just let it up. Don't just leave this alone. You could get upset about this. And if you don't get upset about this, you won't have an identity anymore because your identity is tied into being upset in this particular way. When you train yourself this way, the dispositions gradually calm down. That's called And this will be the end of suffering. When you actually train yourself into letting blue be blue, and let not truck blue be not truck blue, and let surprise not truck blue be just surprise, you do that, the dispositions aren't having much effect.

[73:22]

They're not getting in there and compounding stuff, which is actually individual ta-ta-tas. But it's hard because the dispositions are kind of like hooked into a public relations department which says, you know, you won't be much of a person if you don't have a bunch of dispositions to go with yourself. You'll just be kind of like a blah, who knows what, not very sexy. You know, you might not even be able to wear red anymore. Well, I can handle that because I'll just wear it black. I'll just be chic. I'll wear black and grays and blue dark blues. I'll be all right. I can adjust. This is called, you know, he forgot to practice for a little bit. So, once that's going on, the self-cleaning is going on very nicely. But are you keeping track of this and doing the one practice samadhi every step of the way?

[74:26]

That's the question. The answer is, it's hard to ride this horse. It's a very active, you know, and this horse is not presenting itself, you know, like, here, this is how to ride me. It's just constantly trying to figure out how to maintain the sense of self through all this stuff that's going on. And usually it's pretty successful, but part of the reason why it's so successful is because it's so energetic and so skillful and so fast-moving and so adaptive because it's highly developed to stay on the self-ball. It's not developed to make it easy for us to meditate on it. It's real hard, but it's also not trying to be hard to meditate on. It's trying to maintain this grip. of self through all this. It's trying to maintain this sense of separation in such a way as to promote the sense of self. So this is very hard to watch this thing because this thing is just like a total rat race. And occasionally, because it's not primarily trying to hide itself from the meditator, sometimes it shows itself and sometimes it's easy.

[75:32]

So sometimes your practice might be easier for days. It can happen. It doesn't mean you're crazy. But usually it's really hard to just let this practice go on. Usually it's hard to maintain mindfulness of the one practice, of the oneness. Namely, that things are such, things are such, things are such. How are they such? They're empty, they're signless, they're wishless. That's how they actually are coming to be. How they're actually coming to be is nothing extra to how they're coming to be. The way things are actually happening, there's no wish in addition to that. The way you are right now, there's no wish that you would be that way over and above the way you are. You are an accomplished fact. I mean, you are a successful event. There's no unsuccessful events. Everything that happens is complete. But the dispositions don't believe that. They want to mess with it because then they lose their job. And then the self loses its job.

[76:34]

And the self doesn't think this is such a good idea. And in fact, ladies and gentlemen, from the point of view of the self and power, it would not be good if the self lost its job because then this would not be a powerful person anymore. This would be a loss of power. So in terms of like taking over, for example, Tassajara, or taking over Monterey County, or whatever kind of power trip you're on, this would not be a good idea, this meditation. This meditation is giving up power And it's hard to give up power. So that's why you're having a hard time to do your meditation of just letting the sky be blue because there's no power in that for you. And the powerful person says, give me a break. This is not going to work out to do this kind of meditation. Don't do this. You can do much more interesting things than this. And if you do more interesting things than this, you can also keep up various power trips going, too. But if you drop this other interesting stuff that you can add to subsensory experience, some other stuff might fall away, too.

[77:42]

And we do not want that to happen because, you know, you are built to do better work. You are built to triumph over other humans. Humans are built to triumph over other human beings. That's what they're built for. That's our wiring. That's our genetic programming. Buddhism's about overcoming our animal selfishness. And the animal selfishness is going to stand up and fight this process of selflessness which is set up by the samadhi. but also we shouldn't like trash or fight, we shouldn't fight back this selfishness, we should understand this selfishness. When you understand how it works, it'll make space for us to do this samadhi. If you can't recognize the selfishness which is interfering, and all the dispositions which are set up around selfishness which interfere with this samadhi,

[78:44]

If you don't notice that stuff and take care of that stuff, then you won't be able to do the samadhi. So if you're noticing the difficulty in doing this practice of let the scene just be the scene, and in the herd, there's just the herd. If you don't notice the self-interest that comes up and fights that, and the dispositions around that, then they'll just basically succeed, and you won't do this practice. If you do notice them, that's good. That's part of what's happening. That's part of what's presenting itself, is this resistance. But then if you fight that, then it's got you too. If you fight the devil, the devil is successful. If you just say, oh, devil, hi, devil. And the devil is just the devil. The devil gets really nervous when you do that. But if you kind of like snarl at the devil, or try to put the devil down, you're not talking. Any kind of signing you do on the devil, The devil's got you. Any wishes you have about the devil, the devil's got you. But just, the devil is the devil. The devil really freaks out on that and has all kinds of tricks to get you interested again.

[79:50]

Where'd you go? The devil got you? Yeah, I can see those little... Your ears are getting like mine. So was there anybody else who had their hand raised? Was there anybody else who had their hand raised? Yeah. Was there somebody else? Somebody in addition? Yes. Oh, my God. I think it was just a comment I wanted to make. What I felt was personally very valuable was when you said, I've got it. I understand that there's no receiving of the non-winner. Wasn't that helpful? What was helpful to me is then that if you are receiving, then there's nothing to resist. If there's no receiving, there's nothing to resist, right? That's very helpful to me because I tend to resist a lot of phenomena because I think I'm receiving it.

[80:58]

Right. So when you notice that you're resisting a phenomena, in other words, there's some wish there about the phenomena, right? Resisting would be like a wish it would go away. Yeah. Resisting is like a wish it would go away. Right. So now we have the thing over there. It's over there. Right. We're receiving it, and we have a wish about it. Right. Okay, so we don't have the wishless and the signless and the empty now. Right. Okay, that's where we are. Now what do we do under circumstances? We don't have the three gates of liberation here. We don't have the wishless, the signless, and the empty. We've got the non-empty. Over there, see, when something's over there, it's not empty. When it's over here, it's not empty. When it's neither over there or here, it's empty. When it's no place, including not nowhere, it's empty. And also when we have no wish, probably there's emptiness around in the neighborhood. We don't have any wishes about the empty. We have wishes about nothingness, see?

[82:02]

We like it or we don't like it. Anyway, when there is the non-empty, there is the wishing, and there is the sign, then how do we practice? And we see those things. So I see that, I think that, I see the resistance. So what's the one practice samadhi with the resistance? Just to totally be with the resistance. To totally be with the resistance? Or totally... There's the resistance. Once you use a verb, it sort of establishes a separation. Yeah, maybe take the verb away. There's resistance. Okay. So what's the practice? There, you know, in our language, separation. Okay. In the resistance, there's just the resistance. In other words, in the known, in the cognized, there's just the cognized.

[83:06]

That's it. Okay? So phenomena, resistance, and the resistance are just the resistance. And when you're successful at that, okay, there won't be any over there, so there won't be any receiving, so there won't be any resistance. But resistance isn't the problem. The problem of it being over there is a problem, or the problem of the resistance, not just being resistance, but, you know. Or thinking that I'm receiving it is the problem. That's what I was trying to get. Thinking that there's actually something that's going to happen to me that's happening to me because of what I'm perceiving. You know, that something is being done to me somehow. Objects. That's the problem. That's what's creating resistance. That's the feeling of being independent. Well, that's the experience. That's not exactly creating the problem. The feeling of creating the problem is the belief that they exist independently over there. Right.

[84:09]

And that they're doing something, that there's some process. That's a later development. Yeah, the receiving. So the not receiving is a sign that you're successful and you're letting things just be themselves as they're coming to be. And as long as you're receiving, you know you haven't quite got there yet. So, be patient and just keep working at letting things Trying to let things just be as they are. I do feel like I can't. I've never been told, Luke, why I don't do that. No, I think that's a little... I think you're making it too bulky.

[85:20]

You want to trim this practice down to real simple, because it is a simple practice, because it's always the same. What could possibly be always the same? It must be pretty simple. It must be not much in addition to anything that's going on, right? And not giving up human agency. In fact, if for you, what's happening in this moment is just what's happening in this moment. In fact, human agency hasn't given up. It has happened. But if you try to add that onto all the other stuff you're busy doing, it's just going to be harder. So why don't we simplify it, just so I'm back. Work with the moment. What do you call it? What's it called? You're having the time of your life. Yeah, here it is. And the time of my life is just the time of my life. That's it. In fact, when it is so, that's how you train, that language train, you train yourself with that language.

[86:24]

When it is that way for you, then you have given up human agency. And you've given up everything else, too. When in the scene, there's just a scene, you have given up the scene. And the scene's given up you. And therefore there's no scene over there, you over here, or organ in between. You've given up everything. And you're having the time in your life. And you can't wait for it to end. It just does. Something I say to myself when to remind myself or to help appreciate that this is the time of my life, which is saying, these are the good old days. Yeah. I don't say that to myself on purpose, but I think I sometimes tune in your station.

[87:26]

I was wondering where that came from. Sometimes when I'm walking around Top Sahara, I just hear this thing, these are the good old days. These are the good old days. Or sometimes I hear, do you sometimes broadcast, it's just like the good old days? I hear that one too. Do you mean the Tang Dynasty when you say that? I hear you saying that. These are the good old days. These are the good old days of the old-time Buddhas. Right now. This is the golden age of Zen. Or Chanth. Or if you let any sect you want to put in there, put it in there. These are the golden, this is the golden days. These are the good old days, yeah. I hear that. Thanks for generating that. Picked it up? And you're keeping it going? You're keeping cranking it for the rest of us? That's great. It had to be you. Yes?

[88:28]

You have a question? Yeah. Mm-hmm. one practice, if a practice of watching our karma, just watching our karma is what kind of what we want to get at something. Just watching that. With that, the practice, that time, just that kind of thing, So there's this squirming away from something going on? Yeah. So there's awareness of a squirming away? Yeah. So that's an example of a cognized event. So the practice is, let the cognized, which in this case is squirming, let the cognized just be the cognized. In other words, the contents of the cognizing is the squirming. Let the squirming just be the squirming. Letting the squirming be the squirming is protecting the one without deviating, without moving.

[89:34]

Sitting, you're just sitting, and there's some squirming there. What's the sitting? The sitting is not that you're trying to stop squirming. The sitting is that you don't move from the squirming. In the world of illusion, where there's squirming or not squirming, where there's movement, you know, where the blood's circulating or something, or your heart's beating, or, you know, mitochondria are running around in your cells.

[90:04]

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