I said it's only one dharma because it's only one function, the function of conception, but the conception can... The infinite images, virtually infinite images can be made through that process of conception. And the process of conception, just put this in a big parenthesis, is ignorance. The process of conception is ignorance. So anyway, you don't have to get into this five skandhas step. You can just say, perception, [...] which means perception of pain, perception of pleasure, perception of neutral sensation, perception of this kind of emotion, that kind of emotion, that kind of emotion, that kind of emotion, this physical event, this physical event, this physical event. You can just do that. And that's sufficient, actually. Unless you get distracted from your experience and think you're not looking at your experience, and then sometimes the five skandhas can corral you back into an experiential way.

[01:11]

So I don't know if that... if you really need to sort of like bring your intellectual understanding to your experience at this time, it may be something that you will develop over time, and now you may be just be able to just deal directly with your experience in whatever vocabulary is you're skillful at. The skandhas don't operate for you that way yet. You don't think in terms of them. Or, you know, just keep listening and gradually you might. Yes? You're saying that you thought perception was what?

[02:20]

Yes? No, it's I see a table, and you don't necessarily get into, and if you experience this and this, but it might be that The way you can tell it's a table is because of what it's used for. That might be part of how the concept comes together. In other words, if what a table is used for would not be satisfied by the thing you're looking at, you might not feel justified to use the concept of table for this thing. You might say, okay, because what a table is used for is part of what a table has to satisfy in order to be a table. So, for example, if you saw a table but didn't have any legs, it's just what you call a plank on the floor, you'd say, well, that's not a table. But the reason why it's not a table is because it's not satisfying how a table is used.

[03:31]

But anyway, to look at a table and just say the concept of table and just see the concept of table, that's a perception. Either way. No. Perception and conception are not the same thing. But when you see a conception, when the mind is aware of a conception, that's what's perceived. So the perception, what is perceived, the object that's perceived, is a conception, is a concept. But the way the mind makes concepts... The process of conception is different than the process of being aware of that conception. In other words, conception could be going on without being aware of a conception. You could have multiple conceptions going on in your mind, but one of them you're paying attention to, one of them you're aware of, and that's the perception of the moment.

[04:39]

Okay? No? Okay, so we're talking about experience now, supposedly. Yeah? I do a different example, and one question is, does it matter? For me, I don't think there's any moose out there before they get named. I don't think there's, like, moose out there in the Minnesota backyards. So, one of the key ingredients here, this is just, you know, a key ingredient.

[05:56]

Don't worry about it, okay? One of the key ingredients is that one middle-way school teaches that all phenomena are merely conceptual imputation, that there's no phenomena out there on their own without conceptual imputation. There's no moose out there without conceptual imputation. What the moose is before this conceptual imputation is a non-phenomenon. It's not a phenomenon. But that's not to say there's nothing out there. It's just not a phenomenon. Phenomenon means something that you can sense. You can't sense anything. We don't sense anything without mental imputation. But that doesn't mean there's nothing, that there's no moose or no reality to the moose other than your mental imputation.

[06:59]

It's just that a phenomenon is something you're sensing. You're not saying what the thing out there is. You're saying what you're experiencing. You have an experience. A phenomenon is something you sense. And we don't sense anything. We don't go around, you know, just kind of like innocent and let things happen to us without putting our two bits in on it. We always impute... some thought upon the world. Then it can become a phenomenon. Now, one of the key factors here is that we think that there can be a moose without mental imputation. This is another way to talk about what inherent existence is, that there's a moose out there that doesn't depend on, well, some would say any conceptual imputation, and some would say doesn't depend on complete conceptual imputation.

[08:16]

But anyway, to say that to see a moose before there's any conceptual imputation, You can think about that, but that's a conceptual imputation right there. But you can put that forward as an idea, but I'm suggesting to you to consider that we do think that there is something out there that's not dependent on conceptual imputation. We do think that. And we think there's a self out there like that too. But a self that doesn't depend on conceptual imputation is not a phenomenon. It's just a false view. It's just a false view. And we think there is such a self. Yes? On these lines, I just want to say and make it very clear that I think for myself to intellectually accept this teaching is kind of easy.

[09:20]

There's nothing but conception. It's not to say there's nothing but conception. Some Buddhists say that there's nothing but conception, but you don't have to say there's nothing but conception when you say that everything, all phenomena depend on conceptual imputation. It's not to say that there's absolutely nothing out there. Okay. Okay. Just say depends, that everything depends on that. Then I think... To accept what on the level of experience? What on the level of experience is hard to accept? that whenever I'm conscious of experience, or whenever I articulate experience, this is based on my perception of existence.

[10:38]

What I articulate right now is in the room, or in character. It's hard for you to accept that whenever you have an experience, it's dependent on concepts? Yes, because I do, I do search for a fundamental to rely on. Uh-huh. Yes. Okay. One word, I mean, one concept to talk about a fundamental to rely on, I feel for myself and many friends, is this, what I would call, live. You have a myth or a dream that maybe there could be experience before mental imputation.

[11:39]

Okay? And as a matter of fact, you think you're, most people think that they are an example of something That's something that can be experienced before mental imputation. That's what most people think of themselves. We think we're something, and then there's mental imputation after that. We're something in imputation. That's what we think about ourselves. And that we think. So I'm not saying that it would be easy for you to start thinking or even understanding or even seeing that close with that in that you have to remember when you're doing this kind of meditation that this meditation is not just based on compassion which it must be based on compassion in order to be effective I think but it's also based on these the wish to attain unsurpassed enlightenment for the welfare of all beings because you might have compassion and just um

[12:51]

And you might say, I have compassion and I would like to help people as much as I can. And I think the way to do that is to take good care of my children and my spouse and work in a soup kitchen. I think that would be the realistic way for me to express my compassion and to work for the welfare of beings. Okay? Okay? But someone else might, in doing that work, might say, you know, I think actually it would be also helpful if I became a Buddha. I'm still going to keep taking care of my family until they grow up anyway. I'm going to keep taking care of them and I'm going to keep working in the soup kitchen, but I'm going to start working on becoming a Buddha because I think that would make me even more helpful. That would even make my life more to the point. And then... if you should remember that this type of meditation is based on wishing to become buddha because if you don't want to become a buddha you don't need to understand emptiness if you have a different scale of of aspiration so if you feel like you're studying emptiness when you're losing track of your compassionate foundation go back

[14:21]

and meditate on compassion. Well, like, open up to your own suffering right now. Feel it. Practice patience with it. Be generous in the sense of really letting your suffering be just like it is. Give that to yourself. And when you feel when you feel like you're open to it, then you could start actually, you know, thinking about whether you would like to be free of it, or maybe even wait until you feel, you know, I really would like to be free of this.

[15:29]

And then you could start practicing loving kindness, too, towards yourself. And you could practice loving kindness and compassion towards yourself. And then start thinking about other people and how much they're suffering. and keep working on that indefinitely. Always work on that. Always remember about your own suffering. Always remember about your own short life and the great opportunity that you have here to practice compassion for this one person. And then maybe the opportunity to practice compassion towards one other person. Just practicing compassion towards one person in one moment is really wonderful. So think about that. Think about that. Think about that. And think about that. And always think about that.

[16:33]

And that's, you know, a little bit on practicing compassion. But then if you think about that and you feel your compassion get really big and you really would like to help many, many people and you notice that you have some problems that interfere with your compassion practice, it might, you know... Then, you know, Buddha maybe come to visit you. And then maybe you want... And Buddha comes to visit you and you... And Buddha puts this idea in you to become Buddha. And then you hear, oh, if you want to be a Buddha, you have to practice Samatha and Vipassana. So you start practicing Samatha and Vipassana, but in the process, you sometimes forget the point of Samatha and Vipassana, namely to purify your compassion.

[17:34]

Then you have to go back and practice compassion. and maybe put Samatha and Vipassana on the shelf for a while. Giving and patience and being very conscientious about everything you do, those are practices which you practice simultaneously with Samatha and Vipassana. You practice them simultaneously with trying to become familiar with conventional reality and trying to become familiar with your false view of self. There should be joy and kindness and compassion in this work of looking for this false view. This looking for this false view is not to be mean to yourself.

[18:37]

This is a great heroic gesture you're making for the welfare of all beings to try to understand yourself so well that you'll be really helpful to people. And you're going to, because you want to help people, you're going to study something that's kind of hard because you've heard that some, you know, some difficult things have to be faced on the path. to learning how to help people. Because if other people who are being really cruel to themselves need help, you kind of need to understand the processes and source of cruelty. But if you start looking at these things, sometimes you forget about the compassionate source, and then your attitude gets off. So Buddhas do this work very lovingly and gently. It's very subtle work.

[19:41]

And if it's not joyful, you won't do it. So it has to be some kindness and joy and a lot of positive energy surrounding this type of work. That's part of the reason why I'm checking to make sure that, not make sure, but sort of make sure that your spirit's good in this study. So if our spirit's dipping and we're getting kind of rough and tough about this, then that's the wrong attitude to be studying this material. Would you please write it down and post it? Okay, thank you. So compassion is the source and compassion is the fruit.

[20:48]

It's just that the compassion at the beginning is all mixed up with this belief in inherent existence. And the compassion at the end is free of this belief in inherent existence. So it's a purified compassion. Like, Galen gave me this tape and Bhikkhu Amaro went to see the Chinese abbot before he died, and he made the point, you know, that the bodhisattvas vow to do everything possible to help all sentient beings, to save all sentient beings. But you can't save all sentient beings thoroughly unless you realize that all sentient beings lack inherent existence. In order to save all sentient beings, you have to understand that all sentient beings lack inherent existence.

[21:56]

In other words, in the context of emptiness, there aren't any sentient beings, and you are devoted to save them. But you save them with your understanding that they lack inherent existence. So in order to really help people, we need to understand this. We can help them somewhat. We can help them a lot without understanding that we and they lack inherent existence. But to really save people and set them free, we have to purify our compassion from any idea that they exist out there on their own and we exist over here on our own. We have to become free of that view. We have that view. So we need to study it, but we need to remember our study is based on compassion. And not just compassion, but also the aspiration to save all beings. But what saves them is the understanding of emptiness.

[22:59]

Not me, I don't save them. Like the Heart Sutra, the new translation is not... Avalokiteshvara didn't exactly... Understanding emptiness didn't save Avalokiteshvara, and Avalokiteshvara didn't save the people. It's understanding that the five skandhas are empty that saves people. That wisdom saves people. But that wisdom is based on compassion. So if we lose our compassionate footing, our wisdom won't work fully. So you have to keep going back all the time to compassion. So we need to keep balanced here in our discussions. And so we have this meeting here this morning, have a meeting tomorrow, but then we have the rest of the day to not only keep thinking about this false view of the self, which we innately have, but we also need to be practicing compassion towards ourselves and others throughout the day.

[24:01]

So we have the schedule and the serving and the work meal preparations, and all these activities are activities for us to give and practice patience and devotion to each other. We follow the schedule not just to be good Zen students, but as a gift to the other Zen students. We follow the schedule to support the others. We do this to help people because we know it helps them, and we want it to help them. And in that spirit we go to the Zendo as a kindness to all beings. So if we get off balance, please, if you feel like we're off balance, please raise your hand and say, hey, we've got to talk about compassion for a while again. We're getting out of touch with our roots. Anytime is it time to take a compassion break. And if we practice compassion enough, we'll naturally want to study emptiness.

[25:09]

bodhisattvas, you know, eventually always come to study emptiness. That's their realization. But they're always working on compassion. They're always thinking about Buddha's compassion. So shall we go up to the zendo and sit? Try to get there by 20-minute break? You want a 20-minute break? Do some people want a 20-minute break? How many people want a 20-minute break? Don't be afraid. 10 minutes? Okay. If you get there in 10 minutes, that'll be fine. If you get there sooner, that'll be fine, too. Thank you. Good night.

[26:05]

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