One of the things I really appreciate and I am grateful about is that when I come here and sit, I often feel like this is a momentous moment. And I thought, yeah, I want to always appreciate that this is a momentous moment. And we have been contemplating and reading and reciting and discussing this great Mahayana sutra called the Flower Adornment Scripture. The Flower Adornment Scripture says, every moment is a momentous moment.

[01:07]

And then it goes on to see if you can remember that in the cornucopia of teachings that come flowing out of this one moment. And it's challenging to remember that this is a momentous moment when you're faced with a great wave of dharma. Last, the last two meetings we have here, we looked at, we discussed Book Seven of the great scripture. And Book Seven is called Names of Buddha.

[02:15]

And we looked at how the Zen school used Names of Buddha to help people understand that every moment is a momentous moment. And in particular, we brought up the wonderful story of the momentous moment of the great ancestor Ma, Master Ma. As he was about to die, he was asked by the director of the monastery, how is your health these days, teacher? And he used that moment to teach sun-faced Buddha, moon-faced Buddha. He used Names of Buddha to teach the dharma.

[03:25]

Now, this is an example again of our tradition using the sutra to help people see and understand. And as you might not be surprised to hear, in this scripture, the book that follows the Seventh Book is called the Eighth Book. And it's in some ways quite similar to the Seventh Book. The title is not Names of Truths, but it could be. The title is, there's two translations. One translation is, Four Holy Truths.

[04:27]

But another translation is, Four Truths of the Holy. I'm not saying, and I don't think the sutra says, that truths are not holy. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying that another translation is truths of the holy, truths of the sages. It's their truth. It's the truth that they've realized. Now, you could say, well, that makes the truth holy too, fine, but Four Holy Truths, Four Noble Truths is one way that people speak about these four truths. But, some translators say, it's really not a proper, it's a mistranslation. The correct translation is, the four truths for the holy, or of the holy, it's the truths

[05:36]

that the wise people understand. Now, as you may know, these four truths were brought forth by the historical Buddha in India about 2,500 years ago. The four truths were offered by the Buddha to his first little group of five yogis, five close friends actually. He gave them the teaching. He told them, in the beginning of the teaching, he said, I found a middle way.

[06:40]

This middle way is realized by the Tathagata, the one who has gone to suchness and returned, namely, the Buddha. This middle path is realized by the Tathagata, one who goes to the Dharma of thus and comes back from the Dharma of thus. When they come back, they have realized the middle way, which is not just to go, but to come back and go again. This middle way gives vision, which gives knowledge, and which leads to calm, insight, awakening, and Nibbana. And then he just, according to this translation, then he says, the noble truth of suffering.

[07:51]

So he's talking about the middle way, and then he starts talking about the noble truth of suffering. Is this, the noble truth of suffering, is this. I found the middle way, and the noble truth of suffering is this. Birth is suffering. Aging is suffering. Sickness is suffering. Death is suffering. Sorrow and lamentation, pain, grief, and despair are suffering. Association with unpleasant is suffering. Dissociation from pleasant is suffering. Not getting what one wants is suffering.

[08:54]

In brief, the five aggregates of attachment are suffering. So, once again, here's the Buddha giving the first teaching to his friends, and he tells them he's found this middle way, this wonderful middle way, and then he brings up these four truths. The first one is the truth of suffering, and in brief, the truth of suffering is grasping any of our experience. It's basically any grasping of our life is suffering. I was reading another text recently, which is about contemplating the Buddha body, given by one of our Soto Zen ancestors, and the part I stopped at was, old age, which is also

[10:02]

called aging, old age is the Buddha body. And I thought, yes! And I stopped reading at that point, because that's where I want to start reading again. Old age is the Buddha body. Also birth is the Buddha body, but I stopped at old age, because I already did the birth a while ago. Okay, so that's the first truth, and then there's three more truths, and these are truths which are realized by the sages in the earliest teaching, supposedly. And then, in this great Mahayana scripture, they also talk about those four noble truths, those four truths for the noble.

[11:04]

And the basic pattern here now is, we're starting with this early teaching of Buddha, and then we're going to work it. I mean, Buddha's going to work it. In this case, actually, it's a Bodhisattva's going to work it. Work it means, work it into realization. Now, we heard about these four—suffering, origination of suffering, cessation of suffering, and path to the cessation of suffering. We've heard about the four. Now we're going to become—what's the word?—liberated from any ideas we have about what these four are. When we become liberated from our ideas of these four, we realize the truth of them. So, I did quote the Buddha saying the first truth in brief is attachment to any element,

[12:17]

any particle of experience. And when I said that, we have ideas of what that was. Even if you can't remember what I said, you still have ideas about what was said. So, this sutra is trying to liberate us from whatever we think we understood about the truth of suffering. This sutra honors those four noble truths, honors those four truths of the sages. It gives a chapter to them. Which, as I said, one translation is the truth, the four truths. Now, we could make the life simpler and just—we could have said the Buddha taught the four truths. There's no controversy there, right?

[13:21]

But he didn't. He added in the word Arya. But Arya means the people who have understood, who have trained in the teaching have understood. And the people he was talking to were advanced meditators. And by the end of this first short scripture, one of them became an Aryan. One of them became a sage. One of them understood the four noble truths. And the world shook. And light radiated from this meeting all over the universe. That's in the early scripture. And after a few weeks, all five of them became sages. All five of them understood what the truth of suffering is. With their whole body, not just their ideas. And again, part of what understanding the truth of suffering requires

[14:27]

is that we become free of our ideas about the truth of suffering. Did you get that? It is necessary, I say, and this sutra is saying, really, that in order to understand the Buddha's fundamental early teaching of the Middle Way, which is the four noble truths, the four noble truths are the Middle Way. In order to understand it, we have to work with these teachings and become free of our ideas of what they mean. Including free of your idea that you don't understand what they mean. So the structure of this book is that it begins by talking about what these four truths are in this world of suffering, of this world of endurance,

[15:30]

of this world where there are challenges, where there are painful stories all the time. That's where we live, and that world is called the world of endurance. In Sanskrit, Saha world. In this world, and then it describes the truth of suffering in such and such a way. And then it goes on to describe how, to actually name, how this truth of suffering is in other worlds, and other worlds, and other worlds, and other worlds. And each time, after it describes that teaching of suffering, the teaching of origin of suffering, and the teaching of the cessation of suffering, and the teaching of the path of realizing freedom from suffering, then it says, all these names, it gives like 10, 20 names,

[16:31]

then it says, but there are four quadrillion more names that could be given to these four. And they are given, in clearest translation it says, in order to harmonize and pacify beings. And I'll read you a little bit about it, but all these names, basically names for the truths, the names are given in order to harmonize and pacify living beings. The other translation is a nice complement to this. The other translation says, these teachings, these innumerable teachings about, these innumerable names about the four truths, they are given so that beings may be trained fully. So one just summarizes harmonizing and tranquilizing,

[17:34]

or harmonizing and pacifying. It's a training, that's the training. To help beings harmonize with these teachings, and calm down with them. To help beings train with these four wonderful truths. And again, these teachings are given here in this fairly short chapter, in order to free people from their ideas of what these four noble truths mean. Want to hear a little bit? All right. Then the great enlightening being Manjushri said to the Bodhisattvas, children of Buddha, the holy truth of suffering in this world of endurance

[18:36]

is sometimes called, and the other translation is, the holy truth of suffering. I should say, the other translation says, the truth of suffering for the holy in this world of endurance is synonymous with, so clearly translates to this, the truth of suffering is sometimes called. The other translation says, the truth of suffering is synonymous with wrongdoing, oppression, change, or clinging to objects, or accumulation, or thorns piercing and stabbing, or dependence on the senses, or deceit, or the place of cancer,

[19:40]

or ignorant action. So in this world, the truth of suffering is synonymous with those things. And then it also tells what the truth of accumulation is in this world. It is also called, or it is synonymous with, what's this again? The origins of suffering. It's synonymous with bondage, disintegration, or attachment to goods, or false consciousness, or pursuit and involvement in conviction. Oh, excuse me, in pursuit and involvement, or conviction, or the web, or the fanciful conceptualizing, following, or... following, or... Oh, I see. Or awry, awry faculties.

[20:41]

Awry faculties are the origin of the suffering. And then it goes on to describe some synonyms for cessation of suffering. Do you want to hear them? Yes. Synonyms for the cessation of suffering, they are sometimes called non-contention, freedom from defilement, tranquility and dispassion, or signlessness, or deathlessness, or absence of inherent nature, or absence of hindrance, or extinction, or essential reality, or abiding in one's own essence. These are synonyms for cessation of suffering in this world.

[21:42]

And then last, the holy truth of the path to extinction of suffering in this world may also be called, is synonymous with one vehicle, or progress towards serenity, or guidance, or ultimate freedom from discrimination, or equanimity, or pursuit, and putting down of the burdens, or having no object of pursuit, or following the intent of the sages, or practicing of signs, or ten treasuries. The path leading to the end of suffering is also synonymous with the ten treasuries,

[22:44]

the practice of the sages, leaving no object of pursuit. And then it says, in this world here, this world of endurance, there are four quadrillion such names, such synonyms for the four noble truths, in accord with the mentalities of sentient beings to cause them all to be harmonized and tranquilized. And then it goes on to say, in this other world, the next world, and it says, what in this world is called the truth of suffering, in the world called secret teachings, is called, and so on. So all of these synonyms for the truth of suffering, the truth of origin of suffering, the truth of cessation of suffering, and the truth of the path

[23:48]

are described with many other names in all these different worlds. And after giving a few paragraphs of other names, it again says, and in this world there are four quadrillion other names, other synonyms for these four noble truths. So in my experience of reading this chapter is just wonderfully massaged beyond any idea of what these four noble truths are. And feeling like all these names are really good synonyms for suffering, origination of suffering, end of suffering, and the path of the end of suffering. I could just feel the consciousness being focused on them and liberated from what is appearing. Looking at them and then liberated from what's seen. Looking at something else and being liberated. Constant liberation while meditating on these four things. Being massaged to let go

[24:53]

of what I think they are. So the sutra is like taking the basic teaching and with this language helping us let go of all the language of the four noble truths. For what reason? So we'll be trained into those four noble truths. We'll be trained into Buddhahood by focusing on these four truths and letting go of how they're appearing to us. And then getting a new appearance of them and focusing on embracing them and letting go of them over and over. Four noble truths, four noble truths, four noble truths. Pay attention. Look and let go. So this chapter is a wonderful chapter

[25:53]

to just meditate on the four noble truths and become free of the four noble truths, thereby realizing them. Or meditate on the four noble truths, realize them, and let go of any ideas you have about them. But first of all, paying attention to the ideas. Each idea, pay attention to each one and enter into what it is and thereby become free of the door you entered. We will soon be able to listen to this chapter being read to us

[26:58]

by our dear friend, Reverend Maya Winder. She has read and recorded this chapter and also she's now at Chapter 25. So you'll be able to listen to this chapter and let it work on you and let you work on it. You will be able to listen to this and become harmonized and pacified by this teaching. Are you ready, Ted? Would you hold this, please? Now you have it, so please take care of it. Now the next step is, what do the Zen people do about these four noble truths? Well, I would basically say that the Zen people work on these four noble truths the way the sutra does.

[27:59]

They heard about them. They're not trying to avoid them. They're omnipresent in the Buddhist tradition. But how do they work with them? Well, they work with them and become free of their ideas of them and realize them. That's what I think, Ted. So Bodhidharma, our founder, supposedly in China, I never heard him talk about the four noble truths. Did any of you ever hear Bodhidharma talk about the four holy truths? He said nothing holy. Exactly, that's what he said, right. But he didn't bring them up. The emperor brought them up. So I'll be dealing with that story. Maybe I'll do it right away. So, Bodhidharma didn't...

[29:03]

I don't know of him teaching the four noble truths. And his teacher, back in India, Prajnatara, I didn't hear him talk about the four noble truths. However, he was asked by an Indian Raj why he didn't recite scriptures. And then he said, Well, this poor wayfarer, basically breathing in and breathing out, does not attach to any of the elements of experience. This is the sutra I'm reciting. In other words, he's reciting not being attached to the five aggregates. So then his disciple supposedly leaves India, goes to China, and somehow has an audience with the emperor of China, Emperor Wu of the Liang Dynasty.

[30:05]

Bodhidharma meets him with those big eyes. And the emperor says, in one version of the story, the emperor says, What is the highest, the number one meaning, what's the number one meaning of these four truths? And Bodhidharma says, Excuse me, I should probably say, of these four truths of the holy, what is the highest meaning of the four truths of the holy? The emperor asks Bodhidharma, and Bodhidharma says, No holy. Vast emptiness. Or actually, vast emptiness. No holy. That's the way Bodhidharma, he didn't bring up the four, the emperor brought them up, but he met the emperor who brought up the four. What's the highest meaning of these four? What's the number one meaning? Vast emptiness. These five, these four truths

[31:09]

for the holy, the highest meaning of them is that they're emptiness. The highest meaning of them is that you cannot grasp them. The highest meaning is they're teaching us not to grasp anything, including not grasping these teachings. That's the highest meaning. So there really is no holy or no saintly that you can't get a hold of anything called holy or truth. You can't get these truths or get the holiness, that's the highest meaning. And you can't get a hold of that either. This is the Zen ancestors' way of dealing with the four truths. And then, as you know, the next line is, the emperor says, well, who is standing in front of me? Who am I face-to-face with? And Bodhidharma says,

[32:10]

I would translate it as, who am I facing, Bodhidharma says? It's not consciousness. They usually say, don't know, but I think what's facing you is not a consciousness. They sometimes typically translate it as, I don't know. But I think it's not, I don't know. It's not even the realm of I and not I. It's a mind. What's facing you is a mind which has become free of consciousness. It's a mind which has become free of grasping the Four Noble Truths. That's what's facing you, emperors. Won't. There is a consciousness there, but that's not what's talking here. What's talking? Last emptiness is talking.

[33:11]

So this is the beginning of the Zen tradition, supposedly, and the Zen way of dealing with these traditional Four Truths. All disciples of Buddha should respect Buddha's teaching of the Four Truths. This is our practice of going for refuge in the Dharma of the Four Truths. But the way we do it is, we don't grasp this Dharma. And we might not even mention it, but if somebody else does, we're ready to deal with that. And here's another story about the Zen... the Zen lineage's way of protecting the Buddha's teaching of the Four Truths by not grasping them.

[34:18]

I gave the Great Scripture to Ted and asked him to take care of it. I'm being asked to take care of this teaching of the Four Truths. The way of taking care of them is not to grasp them. To keep bringing forth teachings which I don't grasp, or I should say, bring forth teachings which I aspire not to grasp. And not grasping them enables a more wholehearted presentation of the teaching which I'm not grasping. So there was this ancestor, six generations after Bodhidharma, who is called Generation Number Six. The Sixth Ancestor. Used to be called Sixth Patriarch, but we got beyond that one.

[35:21]

Now we have the Sixth Ancestor of Zen, the wonderful Hui Nung. And a monk comes to see him. And the monk's name in Chinese and the sign of Japanese is Seigen Gyoshi, who is in our lineage, Seigen Gyoshi Daiyosho. So Seigen Gyoshi comes to see the Sixth Ancestor. Who is this? And Seigen says to the Sixth Ancestor,

[36:27]

What work should be done so as to not fall into steps and stages? So Buddhism has lots of steps and stages, and this Zen ancestor is saying, What kind of work should I do so I don't fall into or attach to the steps and stages? There are steps and stages, and this sutra is the boss of steps and stages. It has more steps and stages of the Bodhisattva path than any other scripture in the world. What does it have a lot of in this sutra? It's got steps and stages. And the book that has the most steps and stages is very influential in the school of Zen, which is very concerned about how to not fall into any of them. And I'm just doing an experiment with you now

[37:32]

of studying all the steps and stages to see if we can not get stuck in them. Now, some people do not have any problem about not getting in the Bodhisattva stages because they don't go anywhere near them. But if you enter the ocean of this sutra, you run into uncountable steps and stages. So we tests are not attaching to steps and stages by entering the ocean, the biggest ocean of steps and stages. And this monk garden knows about this already, this Segen Gyoshi knows this, so he asked the ancestor, what work should we do in order to be able to not fall into, not attach to these steps and stages? He wants to be intimate with all the steps and stages of the Bodhisattva path. He wants to realize all the stages of the Bodhisattva path,

[38:36]

from the beginner to the Buddha. He wants to do that. Bodhisattvas want to do all the steps and stages which are described in this sutra without falling into any of them. The sixth ancestor says, what have you been doing? My commentary is, you want to know how to not fall into steps and stages? Tell me about what you're doing. And the disciple, the student says, I have not even practiced the four truths. And the ancestor says, if even the four basic truths of Buddhism

[39:36]

are not practiced, what steps and stages are there? Again, Sagan says, what work should we do to not fall into steps and stages like the four truths? The ancestor says, what have you been doing? Ching Yiran says, I do not even practice the four noble truths. And the sixth ancestor says, if even the four holy truths are not practiced, what steps and stages are there? If even these four truths are not practiced, what steps and stages are there? In other words, if you can do these practices

[40:37]

and not fall into them, you'll be able to find out that this Bodhisattva path has no steps and stages anywhere, and continue to study all steps and stages at your convenience. So we're devoted to this basic teaching of Buddhism, and the main thing we're devoted to is to be intimate with it, be intimate with these teachings of the four truths. And when we're intimate, we do not fall into them. Falling into them is a step away from intimacy. Intimacy, you can't grasp them, you can't attach to them, you can't own them or disown them. And one more story in the same lineage, coming down to our ancestors,

[41:38]

our ancestors, Yun-Yen and Dung-Shan. Yun-Yen, I'm assuming Dung-Shan says to his teacher Yun-Yen, he says, what does he say? Do you know what he says? What? No, he did say that. He did say that, that's right. But that's good thing, but not this time. And this time he's not yet going on pilgrimage. He's still with his teacher, and he says to his teacher, I have some habits that are not yet let go of. He's got some habits. Like, I've got some suffering. Habits of suffering.

[42:41]

Somebody said, you know, in physics they have four forces, have you heard of them? One is gravitation, or electromagnetic phenomena. The other is... Excuse me, one is gravitation, and the other one is electromagnetism. And the next one is the strong force and the weak force. Those are the four forces of the universe, according to some physicists. But now we've discovered another force. There's actually five forces, and the fifth one is habit. It's very powerful. And he's not yet free of this power, of these habits. So then Yuen says, What have you been doing? Sound familiar? And Tungshan said, I have not even been concerned myself

[43:46]

with the four holy truths. He's telling his teacher he's not free of this force of habit. The teacher says, But he wants to be, right? He wants to be free of, for example, one of the synonyms for the origin of suffering is habit. That's in the book, habit. It's a synonym for the origins of suffering. Habits of clinging. He wants to be free, but he's not yet free. He thinks he's not free. So he asks his teacher about this, and the teacher says, What have you been doing? He said, I haven't even been practicing the four holy truths. And then the teacher says, Are you joyful yet? And the student, Tungshan, says,

[44:53]

It would be untrue to say that I am not joyful. Kind of like I'm putting in brackets, and yet. It is as though I grasped a bright pearl in a pile of shit. What's the pile of shit? What's the pile of shit? Today I would say, It's these habits. We're up to our, whatever, neck, eyeballs, in habit, in shit, in suffering. But we can actually find a pearl in this shit. So he was, in the beginning, he was thinking about,

[45:55]

Well, how about no more shit? How about no more habits? Because I have them. Is that a problem? The teacher says, What have you been doing? He says, I haven't even been getting into the Buddhist habits of stages and stuff. And the teacher says, Okay, that's where you're at, right? You're struggling with these habits, and you're trying not to, what do you call it? You're trying not to hold on to Buddhist teachings. He's struggling with habits. He's not holding on to Buddhist teachings, like Four Noble Truths. And the teacher checks. Are you joyful? Are you joyful being where? In this ocean of shit? And he doesn't say, Yes, I'm joyful. He says, To say I'm not joyful would be untrue. Because it's like having a bright pearl

[47:09]

in the midst of this pile of shit. This is a wonderful story for me about how the Zen people deal with the truth of suffering. The way we deal with it is that we're surrounded by all this suffering, and we are sometimes not attaching to it, not trying to get away from it, not trying to control it, and also not even trying to get rid of, get hold of the teachings about suffering. So this is a little offering to you about our family's way, Bodhidharma and Segen Gyoshi and Dung-Shan, these ancestors,

[48:10]

how they dealt, how they deal with suffering, and how they deal with the truth of suffering. So the truth of suffering is to help us deal with suffering, and it's to help us not cling to the truth of the teaching. So it's a teaching to help us not grasp the teaching so that we can become free of suffering, of all types of suffering, without leaving the pile of shit. And finding pearl in every momentous moment. A thought just occurred. I really enjoyed sharing those stories with you. Yes, serene eyes.

[49:10]

I'm very interested in the Bodhidharma's answer as you were saying, no consciousness, not consciousness. It seems quite different from domino. What's the original? The original uses a Chinese character. There's a normal Chinese character for know, for knowing. It didn't use that character. They use the character which is used to translate Vijnana, consciousness. Particularly, Vijnana is discriminating consciousness. It's the consciousness, we say five skandhas, it's the Vijnana skandha. So the Chinese character there is the character that the Chinese use to translate the Sanskrit Vijnana, which means ordinary five skandhas consciousness. So the teacher, so the emperor says, what is, who is this that's facing me? And the who is not a consciousness. It's not a, you know, consciousness which has a self in it. So to translate,

[50:14]

I don't know, is saying, well, that's saying a consciousness is there in front of you, but the one that's talking to you is Buddha's wisdom, which has freed this consciousness. That's the one which is saying, vast emptiness, no holy. It's... A positive expression of the location. Say again? A positive expression of the not. Yeah. Not consciousness means it's wisdom. Vijnana is somewhat dualistic, but ordinary deluded consciousness is called Vijnana. So, of course, that's Buddha's wisdom reaches that Vijnana. But at that point, it's not the Vijnana that's talking, but the wisdom. Bodhidharma's wisdom says the highest meaning of the four holy truths and all the other teachings of the Buddha, the highest meaning, the number one is emptiness and no grasping.

[51:16]

That's number one. And the one who's teaching this is not a consciousness, as in deluded, egocentric consciousness. It's Buddha's wisdom that's talking. So he could... The emperor says, Who is this facing me? And this works in English, but not in Chinese. Who is this facing me? And Bodhidharma could have said, that's an acronym of what you're looking at. What's facing you is the world-honored one. The world-honored one is not a consciousness. The world-honored one is wisdom that pervades all consciousnesses. The Buddha's wisdom is not a consciousness. It pervades all consciousnesses. And when it pervades them,

[52:17]

then the consciousnesses don't interfere with the Dharma coming forth from a person. So I haven't... Tom Clear is gone now, so I can't talk to him about this. But anyway, as I said, there's a lot of other characters for no, but the character that's chosen there is the character for the vijnana skanda. It's the character for deluded consciousness. It's not that. That's not what you're meaning here. You're meaning Buddha's wisdom. Yes? I feel conflict, because I want to kind of bounce on that, but... I wonder if... the word suffering is the trap, because if you say suffering, and you think that there's something that's not suffering,

[53:18]

and... where I could just say... maybe just sort of life is... this is lifing. And then it occurred to me that... is that so? Is that so? It's kind of alligative, what the attendant presented was something... And you say, Oh, is that so? Or maybe so. It's kind of alligative, whatever's coming up. So... We have the four truths, and Sonja's talking about suffering, and now I hear her talking about the third truth, which is liberation from suffering. And so under the synonyms for liberation from suffering, that chapter has lots of synonyms for liberation from suffering, and one of the synonyms for liberation from suffering has just been brought up,

[54:22]

which is, Is that so? When you have suffering, anybody got any suffering, have you seen any suffering? The liberation from that is, Is that so? Questioning it. Is liberation also just... when they have all those synonyms, means you're not stuck in your particular word. I mean, already there's other words. Definitely, that's what liberation is. Liberation is freedom from what you think's going on in your life. It's liberation from your habits. Of language. Yeah, it's liberation from language habits. Language habits are bondage. So, again, first noble truth is... A synonym for the first truth is bondage to language. I don't know if it's in the book. Bondage is in there.

[55:24]

One of the synonyms for suffering is bondage, but I don't know if... But even if it's not in the sutra, after the sutra told us that a synonym for suffering is bondage, you can feel free, because right after that it says there's four quadrillion other names that are synonymous with suffering. And one of the other names is bondage to language. There's also bondage to your body. But anyway, bondage, the body, bondage to language, all these are synonyms for suffering. But if you can go, is that so? That, I think, is quite compatible with this is a momentous moment. So let's wonder about what it is. It's momentous. This is a momentous. It's not what I think it is, and it's not not what I think it is. It's free of what I think it is. And freedom from what I think it is

[56:32]

is liberation from me, and that liberation of me from what I think is Buddhist wisdom, and you get to share that. Whenever I'm free of what I think, that freedom pervades everybody. All right. Yes, and yes. Well, I have a habit of raising the same question to you in various ways. And so I'm exploring that habit again. I was interested in the image of the shit and the pearl. Well, I seem to see how this teaching that you're giving, which is not easy, I could use it in my personal practice. And then comes a but.

[57:35]

That, like, suffering beyond my own personal experience in my own daily life, like an image came to my mind that I saw yesterday, and it was an image of a baby who had been hit by a cluster bomb, so it had all these wounds. And I thought, well, that is some shit, right? Yes. So... I wonder if I have a bright pearl. Excuse me. That horrible image is not shit. What shit is is to attach to what you think that image is. That's the shit. Well, excuse me. You're excused. I mean... I... Maybe I can't even answer that, because...

[58:44]

Well, you just... You tell me what shit is to attach to the image. Well, I can't disagree with that. Yeah. What is that bright pearl, you know? Is that bright pearl going to make me feel okay? The bright pearl is going to make you feel more willing and more happy to help this baby. You have to keep telling me that, because if you emphasize... You know, I'm going to keep asking. No. If you keep emphasizing how we become all calm and... Yeah, this is how we get trained. This is how we get harmonized and pacified. Pacified, yeah. Calmed. Thank you. This is how we become... But also, the other translation, this is how we get trained. So when we see horrible things, and we notice that there's attachment, there's the shit. If we see horrible things, and we don't attach to them, that means we don't believe them. That's true. That I don't understand.

[59:45]

Well, if I say certain things, and you don't agree with me, you might think that what you think is true, and what I said is not. Or I might say something, and you agree with it, and then you think it's true, and we think both of us know the truth. And then, in consciousness, we grasp what we think as true, and that's suffering. That's the basic definition of suffering. So if I relax that grasping reflex that I have, which is mental, physical, everything, when I saw that image... It's not that you relax it, it's that it's relaxed. Then... Then there's no suffering. There's no suffering. And the no suffering... Now we've got freedom from suffering. We bring freedom from suffering to that situation.

[60:48]

Rather than... It's hard. It's hard. We've got the image, we have attachment, we have suffering. And it's an image of suffering. So you can bring suffering to suffering, or you can bring compassion to suffering. But the compassion is hindered by our habits. So he, the ancestor, is still in the realm of habits. He's still attaching to some of the things he thinks are going on. He still is attaching to what he thinks is true. That was a good explanation. Even so, he's practicing with this. So he's finding jewels, but he's still in the shit. And finding jewels... Finding jewels encourages us to not try to get out of the shit until everybody's going to get out of the shit. Finding jewels in the shit helps us be in the shit without trying to get rid of it. Because everybody's trying to get rid of it.

[61:51]

But some people are not trying to get rid of it, they're trying to embrace it and liberate it. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And... Thank you. We were talking about the word suffering again. You want to talk about the word suffering? Go ahead. I think that everything exterior and there... I think the word suffering is in a state of bad translation. Yeah, right. Dukkha. Yeah, right. And some people even think that Buddha said there is life and suffering. He never said that. No, he didn't. Dukkha. He didn't say life was dukkha either. He said there's a truth of dukkha. The first truth is the truth of dukkha. Yes. And I think some great scholars agree that suffering is...

[62:52]

It's kind of like, what do you call it? It's an easy-to-popularize translation of dukkha. But Shcherbatsky, the great Russian scholar, says a better translation than suffering or ill would be commotion. Or discontent or anxiety. Or discontent. We're starting to get synonyms for suffering. This sutra is saying, look at all these synonyms. And we're just choosing suffering because that's... We're using dukkha, but there's all these synonyms for dukkha, like commotion. Stress. Tessiaro Biku says, stress for suffering. Stress, disappointment, discontent, etc. Many... And Shcherbatsky says a more accurate translation would be commotion.

[63:55]

And then you heard etymologically dukkha is related to a wheel that's out of round. Which, you know, if it just keeps turning, it gradually becomes unbearable. Even though it's just... Yeah, so... I think our tradition is in accord with the early tradition. The Buddha lived in life where he actually really immersed himself in suffering and then he found a way to do that without wallowing in it or trying to get rid of it. He found a way to be intimate with it and then he found out the truth of it. The truth of it is basically not being intimate with it. Did you hear that? The truth of suffering, another synonym for it is not being intimate with it. If it's another translation of the cause,

[65:03]

the cause of suffering is to grasp objects. When you're intimate, you're not grasping objects anymore. When you're intimate with suffering, you're not grasping it. It's not out there or in here. So we're training by hearing all these names, we're training or we're being trained in relationship to this teaching of suffering. Yes, Susan? Say again? In reality, we're intimate to suffering, but we haven't awakened to that. The Buddha awakened to intimacy with suffering. We're not intimate with suffering.

[66:04]

And we're also not not. We're not really not intimate. We really are, but our deluded consciousness doesn't allow us to see it. So we're training by hearing all these synonyms, there are ways for us to get more intimate, I should say, to wake up to our intimacy with suffering. Intimacy with suffering requires that it's not dualistic, it's not out there, separate from us. And all these names are kind of like gentle massages into not being separate from suffering, to free us from the ideas of what it is. Here. Yes, Justin and Homa? I'm really interested in what you're saying on habit, and I've never really thought about

[67:08]

the word habit, and creating habits as a thing. Is there any such a way for me as getting up at the same time? Are there habits that are conducive to practice, or should a habit really be studying that? You said, are there some habits that are conducive to practice? I would say, habits are opportunities for practice. Habits are opportunities for practice. Is there some clinging, some attachment that's conducive to practice? Clinging and attachment is the opportunity for practice. Because clinging and suffering, habits are suffering. They're synonyms for suffering. Clinging and habits are synonyms for dukkha. They're opportunities.

[68:10]

Yeah, they're opportunities. They're opportunities. All the things listed under suffering are opportunities for practice. And also it might help, the second truth is also an opportunity for practice. In other words, study the second one to see something, meditate on the causation of the arising of these habits and clingings. They're opportunities. And when we avail ourselves of the opportunity, then the opportunity, you could say, well now the conduciveness has been realized. But for the people who are not practicing with it, with the habits, they don't see the opportunity, then the conduciveness is not yet manifested. Potentially it could be conducive, but it's conducive when people say, oh, another chance for compassion. Compassion, great. So again, the ancestor,

[69:17]

Dung-Shan, saying to his teacher, basically, I'm still hung up in suffering, in brackets, and I'm here practicing with you, and I still have this stuff to deal with. And the teacher says, well, have you found joy yet in this mess? And he doesn't say yes, he's saying to say that I haven't wouldn't be true, but the joy that I found is still in this shitty soup. But I am joyful that I have a practice to deal with it. I'm not just in shit, I have a practice to deal with it, and I'm joyful about that. I'm not joyful about the shit yet, but I am joyful I have a way to practice with it. For example, I don't blame anybody else for this shit, and I don't blame myself for the shit. I don't blame anybody for it.

[70:18]

I accept responsibility, I'm learning to accept responsibility for it and let go of it by loving it. Yes, Homa? Thank you. I'm just listening. I'm listening and questioning. Is blindness one of the synonyms of suffering? I think probably, you know, when I listen to this thing, sometimes I feel like what's in one category could go over into another category. But when you just said it, I thought blindness more goes in the origins of suffering. So under the second truth, I think you might find blindness. And I think I read faulty faculties. So, like, we have a faulty faculty that makes people...

[71:21]

They're faulty in the sense that they make people look like they're separate from us. It's kind of faulty or deceptive. So deception or... Yeah, they're kind of... But they're the origins of the suffering. So when you look at something, you often discover its origins in the middle of it. When you first start looking and you don't see it, oh, I see where this is coming from. Like one time I cut open a broccoli plant and I saw in the cross section, I saw the history of the broccoli plant in this cross section. You can see how it grows and reproduces itself. So when you get into the suffering, you discover the jewels. What I see is the fault of seeing and thinking that what I see is something. Yeah. We have this deceptive way of seeing

[72:21]

that we make things which are not independently existing, we make them into independent things. Our faculties do that. That's the normal situation. We've got a body and a mind that make things into what they're not, which make them into limited, graspable appearances. That's not what they are, but we have equipment to make them appear that way. So again, deceit is in the second truth of what leads us to grasp. So the grasping is the problem, and then the appearance that they're graspable is where they originate from. If we don't see that they're graspable, we don't grasp. The question is, does everything have to go through this equipment, or does it have to? I would say not everything has to go through this equipment, but I would say there is something

[73:23]

that illuminates the equipment. So Buddha's wisdom is not coming from the equipment, but Buddha's wisdom illuminates the equipment. So we can see, oh, I hate that person because I believe what I thought about them. That's like an illumination. It's not that they're actually that way, but I thought of them that way, and when I thought of them that way, I hated them. And you see that. Oh, I see, huh? Yeah, right, that's why I hate that person, because I think they're a jerk, and I think that's true. And then I grasp it. They are a jerk, and I grasp it. And so now I've just become part of the problem now. I've joined the evil forces by hating the evil forces. When we start hating the evil forces, the evil forces go, Oh, great, I got her. I got her. She joined my crew.

[74:25]

But, just to make clear, we can be wrathful towards things to set them free from attachment. We can be wrathfully loving in order to liberate. But to be lovingly wrathful, we need to be free. So you have to be free first in order to... And you have to love before you can be free. And love does not mean... Yeah, it's a cycle. Compassion, wisdom, compassion, wisdom. And it's hard to be compassionate in an ocean of shit. But that's what... The shit is calling for us to be compassionate. It's not saying... The shit is not saying, Get rid of me. Kill me. Eliminate me. Deny me. Leave me alone. It's saying, Listen to me. And it's saying, Listen to me wholeheartedly. So I can be free with you.

[75:32]

Yes? So I've often heard pain described as the first error. The second is... Sorry, the second error is suffering. So can you talk a little bit about the momentous girl? I would like the example, Lindy, is that the baby... The baby didn't have a story about his pain. Just in pain. But is just pain the same as a momentous moment? Well, in the Buddha's first talking about the truth of suffering, he said it's suffering from pain, it's suffering from separation from pleasure, and it's suffering from what's conditioned. So he talks about... But what he means is that pain is suffering when you attach to it. Pleasure is suffering when you attach to it. Indeterminate sensations

[76:35]

is suffering when you attach to it. So the pain itself is just a sensation. And we'd be dead if we didn't have any pain, painful sensations. It's possible to learn to not attach to the pain. But we start by noticing there is attachment to it, and then there's this thing that happens in addition to it. The definition of suffering is not the painful sensation. It's the dukkha of dukkha, and then there's dukkha of sukha, which is pleasure. It's not the sukha that's suffering. It's attachment to sukha becomes dukkha, and it's not the dukkha really that's suffering. It's attachment to dukkha that's dukkha. And we can notice that we make things worse by attaching, and then we can be compassionate to make things worse, and then we can stop doing that because we see it.

[77:37]

But even before we stop, we can still be working on it, and working on it even before we stop is joyful. I'm not too good, but I'm working on it. That's the joy. And still stuck with the pain and the pearl. So the pain... So the pearl is being present, not attaching, not grasping. Yeah. Even the pain is in the pearl, then, in a sense? The pain isn't in not attaching. Not attaching is the pearl. And then we also had the pearl rolling in the bowl before. So this bowl, this pearl is rolling in the bowl of shit. It's rolling in a bowl of suffering. The rolling isn't the suffering. The being stuck is the suffering. And the pearl, the rolling pearl is rolling inside

[78:44]

the being stuck. The spiritual work turns in this pivot. Yes? I believe one of the phrases used for freedom from suffering was hiding in the essence of self. Did you say hiding? Hiding? Dwelling. Dwelling? Dwell? Yeah. Abiding... Abiding in the essence of self. Can you elaborate on that? Well, I could. The name of this place is no abode. The name of this place is no abiding. When I read that, I didn't skip over reading it, but I thought, that's not a very good translation. I don't think we abide in the essence.

[79:45]

That's not freedom. No abiding. Including no abiding and no abiding. So part of the way you demonstrate that you're not abiding is to abide. Ensure that you can abide in a way that you're not grasping. It's an advanced trick. But we should be able to... In other words, we should be able to enter all realms. We should be able to be intimate with all beings, including the misguided abiders in essence of reality. Some people find those people the most disgusting. You can see I'm very... You are. Uneasy. I can see there's uneasiness, yeah. That's the ship. We're in the ship with the ancestors. The baby doesn't know attach or non-attach.

[80:48]

This is not a teaching for babies. This is not a teaching. Well, actually, it's not a teaching for babies. It's a teaching for babies in the form of being intimate with the baby. So this teaching, when it comes to a suffering baby, is to be intimate with them and not tell them not to be suffering. Just say, I'm here with you and my whole life is being with you and no place else. That's this teaching for the baby. And that's what the baby wants. The baby wants complete compassion, complete intimacy, including that the baby can tell you to get away, and you'll listen to it. The baby wants us to be with them and also get away from them when they want us to get away and then be back when we're... So this teaching enables us to be with the baby like the most skillful mother with her suffering child. Without this teaching, we're somewhat undermined

[81:50]

in this intimacy with the suffering baby. But everything could be seen... It helps to see everything as a suffering baby. Like when I used... My grandson used to be kind of small, like we have this... Pardon? Yeah, my grandson used to be kind of small. I think he's... How old are you, Mateo? Twenty. My grandson's four years older than you. And when he was little... Yeah, he was... He was just little. And he taught... My grandson was little, and he taught that little male... He taught me how sweet the male humans can be. He taught me that. I never saw it before. And he taught me. What did he do? Hmm? What did he do? He was just...

[82:50]

This great sweetness came out of him. And I'd never seen it before. When I was a little boy, I didn't notice that the other boys were sweet. They were my comrades, you know. I appreciated them. But I didn't think the boys were sweet. I heard people talking about people being sweet, but I never thought it applied to my boyfriends. But that little boy showed me that a male, a boy, can be sweet. He can be just as sweet as any girl. That's a great enlightenment. It was. And he did it for me. He showed it to me over and over and taught. Oh yeah, wow, it's possible. And then before him, I had this large 95-pound muscle ball of dog, a Doberman Pinscher. And he taught me that a large black male can be just totally sweet. He was just total sweetness in this large male black body.

[83:53]

I never saw it before. Other people did probably. Other people see their large black male body as sweet, but I didn't see it, but he taught me. A lot of people would be afraid of this... of that dog. I was not afraid of that dog because I knew how sweet it was. But I was also aware that other people were afraid of him, so I was careful of who I would let get near him. Yes? You're using the word black in a way that is a little bit unconscious. I'm conscious of it. He showed me beyond dogs. He showed me that sweetness in black humans. So you mean he helped you get free of racism? You could say that. I wouldn't say I'm free of things, but he helped me see sweetness in large black humans. They reflected your previous thinking.

[85:03]

Pardon? In that moment, they reflected your previous thinking. Previously? Previously, I must admit, I did not have so much see sweetness in large black humans. Or males. Or males, yes. So he did the black male part. He showed me the nonviolence in the black being, and the little boy showed me the sweetness of a little boy. Those were habits. Those were habits, yes. I had habits of a limited view of people, of what boys were, and what large black people, beings are, dogs or gorillas or humans. I had some idea about that. And the dog, the sweet dog and the sweet boy, opened my eyes.

[86:03]

A little. So then after that, when I would see... I went to another state. It could happen in California, but I was in another state, which I won't mention. And I saw these large, actually white, human males driving large trucks and driving them in a very... What's the word? What's the word? Anyway. Self-righteous, aggressive way, in their big cars. And I could see, oh, there are my grandsons in them. They're actually... There's a sweetness and a frightenedness and a vulnerability in them, which I could see. So I didn't just see this big, aggressive male, white guy, actually. I saw a frightened little boy in this large

[87:08]

male human. And that helped me not get angry at them or not hate them for the way they were driving. It freed me... It gave me sympathy for their life. Does that also happen? What? Sympathy? Yeah. I think I could have habitual... I could have habitual... What's the word? Habitual sympathy. Sympathy. It could be habitual. I might have used the sympathy I felt for the little boy on the big boy. But anyway, it was a new... It was a new trip. It was a new... Maybe it wasn't the old habits, but it found a new place to be applied where it had never been there before. I never saw... I never had sympathy for this... this other... this other large, aggressive male.

[88:12]

I didn't have sympathy for them. I more saw them as someone to compete with. It's a pearl of opportunity. It's a pearl in the situation. Yes? I think I'm... I have two things that I'm beginning to see, I think. One is the... You have to not grasp it. You don't have to grasp it. As a small boy, you don't have to grasp this thing that we're studying and looking at. You know what? It's there, it's there for us already. There being his sweetness, is there already? Or the thing he's supposed to become, according to some people. Or the illumination. It's there already. Yes, it's there already. It's there already. The other thing that I'm seeing at the same time is the things that we're studying,

[89:14]

the citrus, the chance. What it has begun to look to me like is, with all due respect, with even more respect, the ultimate society life, in a way, in that so many things are potentially unlocked, or not necessarily unlocked. But yes, it's an amazing tool, or it's an array of intimate, amazing tools. Thank you. So, I'm not imagining continuing until everybody's comfortable. So, if anybody's uncomfortable, I want to honor your discomfort. And I'm uncomfortable with anybody's discomfort too, and I want to honor... I want to be intimate with it all. That's what I see as a great opportunity.

[90:15]

But when I say, again, I want to be intimate, I really mean I want to wake up to it. It's already here, and I want to wake up to it. So, we've been kind of a long session, so it's probably enough, right? Thank you.

[90:42]

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