I brought this calligraphy for you to see, which some of you have already seen, I suppose, but some of you don't because when you come in the Doksana room this is behind you when you bow, so you might not see this. This is calligraphy by Suzuki Roshi, the founder of Zen Center. It says, everything is all empty, or everything is ... all things are empty. And when I saw that calligraphy, and also on other occasions too, I was struck that Suzuki Roshi

[01:06]

chose to spend his time drawing words about emptiness and the relationship between form and emptiness. I think I saw an article, I think it was a magazine called Oracle, it was a hippie magazine I think, that was published in Haight-Ashbury, during the height of the ... whatever you call that time. And there was an article about Suzuki Roshi in there, I believe, I might be wrong, maybe it wasn't in Oracle, but I think it was in Oracle, everybody remember that there was the Oracle, the people who were like about 60, you remember, and so there was an article

[02:22]

about him in there, and they said, this Zen Master's teaching is, his main teaching is, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and I don't remember if he said also that form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form, but I don't think he said that, I think he said, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and then he said, form is form and emptiness is emptiness, and that's what they had in this hippie magazine. But I had already been to Zen Center and I'd heard the Heart Sutra and so on, but I still thought it was interesting, among the various things he could have talked to these people about, to put out there among the flower children, he did this Heart Sutra thing, or not, you know, Prajnaparamita, in its technical presentation, he didn't say, you know, I don't know what, he didn't say, the great transcendent mantra, the great great mantra, mantras were more popular among the hippies then, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, that kind of thing.

[03:27]

But he did talk about that and it struck me that he would choose that and that they quoted him as saying this was his main teaching, he told him, this is my main teaching, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, form is form, emptiness is emptiness, he didn't even say my main teaching was, you know, Zazen, maybe they said my main practice is Zazen, I don't know. But it struck me, and I'm also seeing his calligraphy, because he didn't talk about emptiness in daily life much, you know. And I had a similar experience with him one time when he was teaching me how to count people in Japanese. I thought, why is he spending his time teaching this guy, why isn't he teaching some kind of like more Zen thing? So the relationship between form and emptiness is prototypic of the relationship between

[04:31]

everything and emptiness. Everything has a relationship with emptiness. All of our … everything we experience and all our relationships with all beings are relationships between these things and emptiness, it's always there. And this is a way of talking about the deepest, the most profound way that we're related. So, just kind of a summary thing, which you've sort of heard before, but I just want to say that at this point I would summarize by saying that this section of the sutra where it says form is emptiness, emptiness is form, and then to elaborate a little bit, emptiness is not different from form, form is not different from emptiness. That form is emptiness in the sense that emptiness is the ultimate way that form is.

[05:39]

And emptiness is form in the sense that you never can find emptiness apart from form. However, we do not say that form is the ultimate way that emptiness is, or feelings are the ultimate way of emptiness. The ultimate way that emptiness is, is not form. The ultimate way that emptiness is, is emptiness. Form and emptiness are contradictory in two ways. One way that they're contradictory is conceptually or terminologically they're contradictory,

[06:47]

or they're contradictory in the sense that they're terminologically different, they are conceptually different, in that sense there's a contradiction between them. They have no common locus and there's nothing that is both form and emptiness, there's not something that's both form and emptiness, and they're conceptually different. And another way that they're contradictory is in the sense of mutual elimination or mutual abandonment. The basic thing is the fact of being one eliminates the possibility of the other. The fact of being form eliminates the possibility of emptiness, limits the possibility of it

[07:56]

being emptiness. So they're contradictory, form and emptiness. But before I go on I want to say although they're contradictory, they have the very deep contradictory relationship. This deep relationship between conventional reality, between everything we experience and the way it ultimately is, the deep way that it is includes contradiction in these two ways, and in the way of mutual contradiction in the sense of terminologically different and mutual abandonment. They are not contradictory in the sense of not abiding together, they do abide together. Form and emptiness abide together.

[08:56]

Emptiness is not found apart from form, form and emptiness abide together, just like similar to grandfather and grandson abiding together, and teacher and student abiding together, but not completely the same because there's not a terminological characteristic between student and teacher, or maybe there is, I just didn't figure it out yet. Okay and then another way to talk about this is that they have ... so there's two types of contradiction between them and there's two types of relationship that they have. One type of relationship is a relationship of identity and the way I would use the term identity here is identity is a relationship between two things that are terminologically different but related in such a way that if one's absent the other's absent.

[10:05]

If two things are terminologically the same and one's absent and the other's absent then they're just synonyms for the same thing, but that's not the case here. You have two things that are conceptually different but one's absent and the other's absent. That's an identity. This is not saying that they're the same. And the other way that they are related is they're related in the sense of production or arising, in the sense that a cause in effect in its substantial cause, that way of relationship. So form and emptiness are related in that sense that they're the same entity because you could not ... because emptiness cannot exist without form.

[11:08]

So a summary of this is that form and emptiness are ontologically the same, they are not the same, they're ontologically the same, but conceptually or terminologically different. And this is, I think, this seems to me to be a startling, a startling depth of their relationship. Forms ... you can have one form without another form. That's why a relationship between at least a living grandfather and a living grandson is not the same way.

[12:12]

You can have a grandson without a living grandfather, but you can't have emptiness without form. So I just feel, you know, that the teaching of the Heart Sutra in this way is a very, very deep and radical presentation of the relationship between superficial or conventional reality and the way it ultimately is. And ... maybe that's enough for starters. Does that make sense, somewhat? Is there any kind of tangible example? Tangible example? A tangible example of what? Of emptiness with no ... emptiness can't exist without form.

[13:12]

Is there a tangible example of that? No, there's not. Because if you have a tangible example, you've got something like a form. So if you give me a tangible example, then we don't have a tangible example of emptiness existing without that form that you just gave me. There's no tangible examples of this thing that doesn't happen, namely having emptiness not existing without form, because we have to have something tangible to have something emptiness. Emptiness is about tangible things. So ... or did you mean a different question? Did you want a tangible example of emptiness cannot exist without form?

[14:14]

I do. But there isn't one. There isn't one. How about an intangible example? Yeah, an intangible example is that the lack of inherent existence has nothing to do with anything. That's an intangible example, I guess, but that's not true, because it's not true. There's no real example like that. I just said that. Because lack of inherent existence applies to things. It doesn't exist by itself. It's just impossible. Just like the presence of inherent existence is also possible, but the presence, the lack of inherent existence of things that appear to inherently exist, that is readily available, although difficult to see, because we tend to see things like forms as inherently existing.

[15:21]

We tend to see things in a way that they don't exist. So this teaching is to give us practical, concrete examples of how concrete things are accompanied by always abiding together with emptiness. So, rather than look for a concrete example about how emptiness doesn't exist, apart from forms, let's find practical examples of how emptiness does abide together with form. That's what we want to find. I think that's what we want to find. Yes? It would seem to me that the world of ideas, the world of pure concepts, although not concrete, is also very much subject to emptiness. That's correct, yes. This Heart Sutra starts out by saying all five aggregates are empty. And it just starts with the first one, because form is, in a sense, it's the foundation

[16:23]

of the other ones. And if you can understand how form is emptiness, the other ones will be easier, or easy. But to start with concepts is a little harder to start with, and it might not be so easy to go from concepts to form, but form to concepts is, I think, easier. So we start with form, and then after we do the form thing, we say, form is not different from emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. Then we say the same is true of feelings, perceptions, mental formations, including concept, conceptualization and concepts, and consciousness. The same is true of all those other things. Yes? So the question that arises for me when I listen to your presentation is, isn't this deep relationship that you presented for the terms form and emptiness, isn't that simply

[17:25]

true for all phenomena? Yes, it's true. It's the deep relationship of all phenomena, and it's the deep relationship of form and emptiness, and all other phenomena and emptiness. Everything, according to this calligraphy, is empty. So I'm not talking about telling you about the relationship between everything and emptiness. All phenomena and emptiness. I'm playing with that in my mind right now. Could we also take two phenomena and juxtapose them in that way, for example? You and I, conventionally we are separate. The characteristics of the relationship between form and emptiness are not the same as the

[18:33]

characteristics between two forms, or two people. It's not the same. For example, you don't have to have Reb when you have Bernd. Reb will soon be gone, but Bernd will live forever. Or anyway, for a few weeks, maybe. But as long as you've got Bernd, you've got emptiness. Emptiness is always with Bernd. But Reb is not. So the relationship between Reb and Bernd isn't quite the same as the relationship between Reb and Bernd and emptiness. There are relationships between forms and people, and the relationship between people and emptiness elucidates our true relationship. But if you take emptiness out of the equation and just talk about phenomena, they don't follow the same principle. They're operating at the level of delusion, where things inherently exist, and the way

[19:36]

that they relate to each other is different in the way lack of inherent existence applies to things which apparently inherently exist, which the way of ungraspability relates to things that seem to be graspable, where insubstantial existence relates to substantial existence, and so on. That's the relationship we're talking about here. Once we see that, then we understand the way the impermanent phenomena really work together, the way they actually function. Before we understand emptiness, we don't actually see how people function. We don't understand it, how they actually function, because we mix in dreams of inherent existence with what we see, which disguises the way things actually happen, to some extent. So was that educational?

[20:39]

Yes, this is educational. As I said to you before, I don't necessarily understand it. Yes, but you're docile, aren't you? So there you are, learning a way. It's opening up. What? How can we talk about our relationship, considering the alternate? Well, we could say... Wouldn't we be ontologically the same? We could talk about our relationship, because we do have a relationship, don't we? Yes, we do, which we can grasp, which exists for us in dependence on mental imputation,

[21:41]

which we're so good at. And that relationship we have, which depends on mental imputation, so we do have a relationship. It's very intimate with. It does not live separate from emptiness. Our relationship is empty. Our relationship is a contradictory relationship with emptiness, though. Our relationship is conceptually different from emptiness. So emptiness can help us understand our relationship. We see it as something that exists on its own, but emptiness says it doesn't, and that emptiness is always with it. That lack of inherent existence is the ultimate character of our relationship. So meditating on emptiness would help us with our relationship,

[22:43]

and would eventually, once we understand, actually really understand and can see emptiness of our relationship, then we would thoroughly understand our relationship. We would not only be liberated in our relationship, but we would also have the joy of understanding it completely. So we've got something to work on now, right? I see, I think, I see, Henry had his hand in it, and Stephen, and Astrid, and Bernard, and Linda, and Susan, and Liz just touched her nose. Yes, she did. Yesterday my grandson learned. Shaking means, this is called shaking. He knew before that this meant I don't want it, and this meant I do want it, or I agree. Yesterday he learned that this is called shaking, and this is called nodding. Shaking means don't want it, and nodding means do want it.

[23:51]

Yes? It implies, these statements that form itself is, emptiness is itself form, and that's true of the other skandhas as well, that implies a very interesting relationship between the skandhas themselves. In other words, it all seems to come out of that emptiness. There's an equivalency of the skandhas at that point. I like how an alarm goes off and people say, come out of emptiness. Right. Okay, that was not a good statement. Or that emptiness comes out of form. It's more like they live together. They live together, right. I understand that. There's not a thing called emptiness that the forms come out of, and there's not a thing that form and emptiness come out of. It's just that because things are ultimately empty, anything can happen, and anything can happen about our life is not separate from the emptiness. But then there's a certain unity among all the skandhas that they're ultimately the same thing.

[24:58]

There's a unity because they're ultimately the same thing? Well, in other words, they all live together in this emptiness. That unity that you're talking about doesn't have any inherent existence. Just remember that. That unity is a concept. There's not an actual unity of the five skandhas. That would be a self, but there isn't one, so there isn't really a unity. But you can think there's a unity, and that's one of the skandhas, and that's empty. Skandhas don't really have a unity. That's one of the things we do, is we think there's something that wraps all the skandhas together. So the thing that wraps all the skandhas either is one of the skandhas wrapping all the skandhas, or it's a sixth skandha, and we'd only have five. So, actually, what you said is an example of something that the unity of the five skandhas is really just one of the skandhas, and it's empty like the rest of them. Okay?

[26:01]

And that's like a little, you know, mini-pumped-up-their-self that just jumped in there, right? When you said that. Steven? I noticed a little while back when you said lacks inherent existence, instead of using the word emptiness, that I suddenly understood what you were talking about. Yeah. And I wonder what is the usefulness of using emptiness as a noun. When I say form is emptiness, why not just say form is empty? Well, we do say form is empty. Okay? In other words, in that case, I think empty is an adjective. Right. Okay? But it isn't quite the case that a noun lives together with an adjective. It's that the abstract noun, emptiness, lives together with the concrete noun, form. So, it's not just that form is empty, which is true, it is.

[27:05]

Form is empty. And it says in the beginning of Heart Sutra, all five skandhas are empty. Okay? That's what it says at the beginning. That's part of what we want to see, is that everything is empty. Everything is empty. But empty is different from emptiness. Emptiness is ultimate truth. Empty is an adjective. So, form is both empty and emptiness. But empty is not form. But emptiness is, in the sense that you never have emptiness without form. So, we need to realize both, that form is empty and that form is emptiness. In the sense that the way form really is, is that it doesn't have inherent existence. And you can substitute lack of inherent existence, lie.

[28:05]

The acronym for that is lie. The ultimate truth is lie. You can substitute lack of inherent existence, lack of independent existence. Those words, you can just use them instead of emptiness if you want to. But, someone who is close to me hates the word emptiness. He said, give me some other word for emptiness. And for a long time I said, well, how about interdependence? And she liked that much better. But actually, they're not actually completely the same. They're an identity. Dependent co-arising and emptiness are an identity. But they're mutually contradictory. Because color is a dependent co-arising. But it's mutually contradictory with the lack of inherent existence. Even though, the things that lack inherent existence never exist apart from emptiness.

[29:08]

And emptiness never exists apart from dependent co-arising. But they're not synonyms. So when I gave the person a synonym and she was happy with it, that was like, I'm getting ready to move beyond that. But you can, lack of inherent existence is a synonym for emptiness. Absence of inherent existence is a synonym for emptiness. Void is a synonym. But dependent co-arising really isn't a synonym. Even though dependent co-arising is emptiness in the same way that form is emptiness. In this case, it doesn't mean that they're the same. They're not the same. But they can't be different, really. They can't be really different and they can't be really the same. They're an identity. There's a difference between them. But they're one.

[30:09]

They're one being. They're not one thing. Again, don't make it into that they're one thing, so that this thing is both these two different things. It's one being. It's one being. They are one being. They're intimate. I don't know, maybe Astrid was next. Your last sentence has actually addressed my question, because I really have a problem with this expression, identity. What I conventionally understand by identity is that you have two things that are like two socks and they are identical. So it's kind of a form that looks just the same. But you're saying it's not a form but it's a being and that's something that I'm trying to understand and I just can't. Yeah, well, to use your two sock example, let's say you had a right sock and a left sock. Then there would be some difference between them. So in that sense they'd be like form and emptiness. They'd be conceptually somewhat different. Because there's no right sock that's also a left sock.

[31:12]

So that way they'd be like form and emptiness. But they wouldn't be like form and emptiness in the sense of you can't have one without the other. You can have one of the socks without the other one. But you never have form without emptiness. So I just say, please, if you can find a better word than identity and identity. They're not identical, they're an identity. They are an identity, not identical. They're not the same, they're an identity. Identity, I'm using that now, that term, to specify two things that are conceptually different, but in being they're not. You can't have one without the other. If one's absent, the other's absent. That's different from socks. Would you say they're the same process? That might be OK, yeah, if you like process better than being. There is a term for that. In mathematics or logic, it's called one-to-one. They don't call it identity, they call it one-to-one.

[32:16]

It means they arise together, they exist together, or they don't exist together. Linda and Susan, is that right? When you were talking with Barrett about religion, I was wondering about only a Buddha and a Buddha, what one might say about that, or is there nothing to say about that in terms of relationship? Well, I think I would just start by looking at isn't their relationship the same as the relationship between other people? Namely, isn't it something that's empty? The Buddhas themselves are empty of inherent existence, and the nature of Buddha is that they need each other, which is also part of their lack of independent existence. And their relationship, too, is if it's a phenomenon, if they actually do have a relationship, which it's been proposed that they do, and that's an important relationship,

[33:17]

the relationship doesn't have an inherent existence, and the lack of inherent existence of the Buddha's relationship with another Buddha is contradictory with the actual graspable experience of the relationship which arises through mental imputation. So there is an actual relationship between them, like it's a form and a feeling and an idea, and all that stuff it could be, it could be five skandhas, a five skanda thing. So the fact that both the Buddha and the Buddha have realized lack of inherent existence, have understood thoroughly, and when they look at each other they both don't see inherent existence, right? Yes, that's right, both of them do not see inherent existence. So how much do you think it would be different?

[34:23]

Well, how? How would it be different? When they don't see inherent existence, that doesn't eliminate the relationship, that's not what that vision does. They have this relationship, and it's empty, and the emptiness of it wouldn't be there without the relationship. Okay. And they understand that this relationship depends on various things, like mental imputation, but they both see that their relationship lacks inherent existence. In other words, neither one of them can find their relationship. But the fact that they can't find their relationship is inseparable from the relationship that they have. They have that type of relationship. They have this wonderful relationship where neither one of them can find it,

[35:29]

whereas the relationship they have with other people they can't find but the other people can find. So that's the difference between their relationship with each other in their relationship with their students. The students find the relationship, grasp the relationship as the form of it or whatever, they can't find it, but the relationship is still there, even though one can find it and the other one can't, it's the same relationship, but it's different when both of them can't find it than when one can't find it. And aside from their relationship, the two Buddhas are walking around, already neither one of them are seeing inherent existence in all their relationships with people and things, they don't see it, but then they get together with somebody else who doesn't see it, and this is a relationship where the Dharma is most completely realized, when two people don't know what their relationship is, rather than just one. And we need that kind of cooperative realization of the ungraspability of phenomena to realize

[36:39]

the Dharma in the deepest way, that's what the Lotus Sutra is saying, right? Yes? I've been searching around to see if I could see some other relationship that has some of the same qualities as emptiness and form, and I was wondering about space and form. Form doesn't exist without space, and space doesn't exist without form, or it isn't space. I mean, you were talking about dependent co-arising, that's similar to always being in form. Let's see. So that sounds pretty good, space, you don't have space without form, in other words, space is what allows form to be someplace, so you don't have form without some space for it, and you don't have space without form, or space doesn't function without forms and

[37:45]

things, so that's like that. And being form, I guess, kind of eliminates being space, I haven't done this analysis before, but I guess being form eliminates being space, and being space eliminates being form. What I'm trying to sneak up on is, you know, then doesn't that make emptiness and space the same thing? I mean, that makes emptiness a thing, if there's function the same way. No, space is not emptiness, but ... I know, but I'm looking for ... But sometimes, Dogen does say, in the chapter, what's it called, Mahaprajnaparamita, Great Perfection of Wisdom, in that chapter he says, cultivating space is cultivating emptiness, cultivating emptiness is cultivating space.

[38:47]

So space may be a way to access cultivating emptiness, but space is not the lack of inherent existence. Nobody says space is a lack of inherent existence of form, it's more like something that form needs, because form takes up space without interfering with it, and space makes a place for form without being interfered with. So that's why I wouldn't say that it's the same, but the Chinese character that they use for emptiness, this character ... I'm not sure anymore ... Anyway, one of the words, I was going to say this is a character for space, but I'm not sure it is ... It is space? So when they first translated Buddhist scriptures, the first Chinese character they used for

[39:50]

it was Wu, or what the Japanese call Mu, which means there isn't any or nothing, and the Taoists thought that everything came from non-being, from Mu, but we don't mean that about emptiness. Everything doesn't come from lack of inherent existence, but lack of inherent existence sponsors everything, in the sense that because things lack inherent existence, there can be something, but it isn't like their source, it's more like their ultimate or their final or their finale. But this meditation on the relationship between space and form, or space and other things, has been recommended, actually, as a way to practice emptiness. I see ... Is anybody ahead of Luminous All that I didn't get before?

[40:56]

This is coming to mind from the Sādhanī Emotionists, who feel that relationship of, they say, the ultimate and compounded, as like a shell and the whiteness of the shell. That's a relationship where you can't have one without the other. Right. And there's a chapter in the Sādhanī Emotion Sutra talking about the relationship between, for example, compounded things like forms and ultimates, where they talk about the relationship that they're not the same, and they can't be the same, completely the same, and they can't be different. They have to be a little bit the same, a tiny bit the same, somewhat kind of the same, because they have to be kind of like in the same ballpark. Otherwise, when we looked at a form, emptiness wasn't there. We just keep seeing the form as having inherent existence. So when we see form, we think, oh, it's there on its own. That's the way we instinctively misconceive it. It's out there on its own. If emptiness was really different, it wasn't like a body together with it, it wouldn't

[42:03]

be there to refute this misconception, and we wouldn't be able to become enlightened. So it has to be right there to help us understand the nature of phenomena, but not the same. However, if it was really the same, then when you saw things, you'd see emptiness. So everybody that saw anything, children would be enlightened shortly after birth, but they aren't, because when they see things, they also misconceive them, just like we do, just like older people do. They don't see the lack of inherent existence of colors and tastes and things like that. They actually grasp them as inherently existing from birth. So they don't actually see the emptiness, even though the emptiness is right there. So it's not that the form is exactly the same as the emptiness, and they can't really be that different. Otherwise, if they were the same, we would be automatically enlightened, if they were

[43:08]

different, we never could be enlightened. So when you say they're not the same, that's from a conventional viewpoint? I don't know what you mean. Are you thinking that I'm saying that they're not the sameness, it's like an inherent existing not the same? Is that what you're saying? I don't think so. That would be the conventional point of view, is that their lack of sameness, or their lack of difference, the conventional view is that there really would be a thing called sameness, and really be a thing called difference. But if I just say they're not the same or not different, and I just say that's a formant, then that's just a way to make clear the relationship so that you can meditate. Well, I'm trying to understand the way that you're saying they're not the same, when in the sutra they say they are the same. No, the sutra says…

[44:09]

Is form is emptiness. Oh yeah, it does say that in the Heart Sutra, but it isn't literally the case that form is emptiness. Sometimes they translate it as this very form is emptiness, but you can just leave it as form is emptiness and say that literally it's saying that, and then I would say literally the sutra does not mean that form is emptiness. I mean, form is not to be taken literally. That teaching needs interpretation. Somebody made the point that the sutra could also, instead of saying form is emptiness, the sutra could say form is not emptiness, it could have said that, and then you could have interpreted that the other way from there, that form is not emptiness, in other words

[45:15]

they contradict each other. But then the next part of the thing says form is not other than emptiness, emptiness is not different from form. So, it says form is emptiness, then it says form is not different from emptiness, it could have said form is not emptiness, and then said form is not different from emptiness. It could have said that, that would have been right too, and one interpretation is the reason why they put it that way... Ah, you had your hand raised too, sorry, it's your fault. The emphasis by saying form is emptiness, the emphasis is on the way Buddha sees things, and then we adjust, we say form is emptiness, and then we say that there's a contradiction between form and emptiness, that they're conceptually different. The code form is emptiness means the ultimate way that form is, is emptiness.

[46:24]

But the ultimate way things are are not the same as the way they are conventionally. I think that's what I, when I said that's from a conventional viewpoint. Yes, that's from a conventional viewpoint, again. This way of looking at them as mutually contradictory, because it's, because conceptually they're different, but ultimately they're not different. No, conceptually they're different, but they're not different in being. Ultimately they're both empty, and it's not so much conventionally that they're, it's

[47:29]

different in being. They're actually, we're being told they're not different in being, and you can have a conventional take on that, namely you can grasp that with your mind, and have this way that they're one thing, as something which you experience. But actually, ultimately, you can't find the way that they're one being. That's the way they ultimately, that's the way the ultimate identity is. So this is a relationship, it's kind of like Linda's question about the relationship between Buddhas, this is a relationship, and there's, there would be a conventional and ultimate way to see the relationship, but this is the, like we're saying, there's blue, there's green, and there's an identity, an identity relationship between form and emptiness. And in the Sutra line it says, form is not different from emptiness, but that is also not literal. It's not literal in the sense that it's not different, it should be taken as, I think

[48:32]

it should be taken as, you can't have one without the other. But also, form is not different, now the other way to take it is, form is not different from emptiness in the sense that form can't be found, and emptiness can't be found. Form is ungraspable, unobservable, really, and so is emptiness. So in that way they're not different too. So they're not different in the way that they ultimately are, they're not different in being, but they are different conceptually. And what is one, is not the other. So these are ways. Bernard? I think I just got a bubble pop over here, so... I was thinking of kind of a concrete example in my life, where, and it's related to selflessness, where if you're doing a good job, say I'm just doing a job, and somebody comes along

[49:37]

and says, wow, you're doing a good job, and all of a sudden the self arises. But from that self arising, you notice the absence of the self from some retrospection, you see that absence of the self. So I'm just trying to figure out what... Congratulations. So the self arises, and then you now have the choice of continuing what you're doing, which may be a good or bad job, whatever. But the self is then... It can drop away again, or else it can actually sort of rule your life. It can take control of the situation, this seemingly inherent, existent self. But if one can sort of, at this moment, sort of investigate and see the emptiness of the self, and so that's my question is, I'm trying to figure out how it happens for me,

[50:42]

when that does happen, and how you can just kind of wash it aside, and just carry on with what you're doing. And so there's this sort of, it seems like it's pretty concrete, but it seems like the absence is a much more present sort of example than the present self. You know what I mean? No. The absence of the self is more present? Yeah, the recognition of the absence of the self, or the recognition of the absence of relationships. In other words, there's no subject-object relationship that is perceived retrospectively. Did you say there's no subject-object relationship that you can perceive? Ahem. Well, yes and no. Yes, in the sense that, retrospectively, because since there is a self to look at it,

[51:50]

then there was a seemingly form, or subject-object, but at the time, there didn't seem to be subject-object relationship. There was neither, nor. Neither a relationship, nor not a relationship. Are you saying that you feel it's possible to have some experience or some awareness of a relationship that's neither a relationship, nor not a relationship? I'm saying you can't when it's actually happened. When there is neither, nor a relationship, there is nobody there to experience it. So, at that point, you can't investigate emptiness because things are just happening, because there's no relationship. So the only time you can investigate emptiness is when there is a relationship.

[52:55]

And so there is the... I mean, you need the concept to investigate it. You're saying the only time you can investigate emptiness is when there's a relationship? Yes. And is there a relationship available for the investigation of emptiness? There's lots of them. Yeah, there's only one relationship. And is it available? Sometimes. And when it's available, is it available? When one's attention is on to investigation. So, at the time that it's available, do we have some availability for the investigation of emptiness in that case? Yeah, there's plenty of availability. There's no lack of availability. Right. And that's the way time theory translates all these different categories of phenomena.

[54:05]

It calls them available facilities. Available facilities. Available facilities. It comes like a form and available facility. A feeling and available facility. A concept and available facility. These things are available ways of understanding emptiness. Ways of understanding emptiness, ways of realizing Prajnaparamita. Ways of realizing perfect wisdom. All these things provide that opportunity. So, the relationship between subject and object is sometimes… It's available there to be investigated and understand. Another translation, what was it? Some of you know another translation of that? I think it's like… Understandable explanations. I think it was the other one.

[55:08]

Any… Barrett's got his hand raised, but any first timers want to go ahead of Barrett? You can go ahead if you want to. Otherwise, it's… Yes. Could you… You earlier mentioned about phenomena being on a different level than form and emptiness, and I lost you there. That doesn't sound familiar, but… Or where does phenomena… Form and emptiness are both phenomena. They're both phenomena. Form, like color, is a phenomena. So, what's happening in our lives as phenomena comes to us, right? As we experience phenomena, yes. Yeah? I'm trying to put together what you've been saying with what's happening. Like, for example… Like, integrate the whole…

[56:17]

You're trying to integrate everything? Yeah. Okay. It's phenomenal. You're saying it is it, it's not separate from it, is that what you're saying? I'm saying when you see a color or hear a sound at that time, those colors and sounds lack inherent existence. They're empty. And also, their emptiness is not something separate from them. So, even though we… And also, I'm saying that usually when you look at somebody or hear a sound or feel a pleasure or a pain, usually your mind imputes to that thing inherent existence. I'm looking at it in a larger picture, like events. The larger picture that you're looking at right now, the larger picture, that's a phenomena.

[57:19]

Right. And that phenomena doesn't have inherent existence. However, your mind projects inherent existence onto it, so that you actually think there's something called a big picture. Like it's happening. Well, it's happening and that you think it's happening on its own. You actually think it inherently, it has an independent existence, yet that your mind naturally does. Didn't Dogen say that phenomena happens to us or it comes to us? Did I misread that quote? Are you referring to when he says, when things come forward and confirm the self? That's enlightenment? Is that the one you're referring to? Something like that. Yeah. How does it go? When all things come forward and practice and confirm the self, that's enlightenment. It's on Galen's, it's on your house, that little plaque by your house, Galen?

[58:23]

What does it say? It's the study of the ways to set yourself still, so to speak. Oh, now that's… That's what she said. Anyway, whatever you're looking at… To carry yourself forward and experience married things is delusion, that married things come forward and experience themselves is delusion. That's… Married things, what is that? It means all phenomena. So it's coming forth, what does that mean? Coming forth means that coming forth or arising, like a color arises or a color comes forth, okay? How about an event coming forth? An event comes forth, okay? Right. An event comes forth and then there's a self. That's enlightenment. Delusion is, got a self, put it on things. So…

[59:26]

That's what most people do. So it does come forth, it does come forth. There's something that comes forth. No, that's delusion, what you just said. You just put self onto the things by that way of talking. How does it go again? When things come forth… Right. It's not to say that there are things. It's when things come forth and then there's me. That's enlightenment. When your life is confirmed by the arising of things, that's enlightenment. But usually things arise and then we put the self on top of them. We already got the self. And we're looking up, okay, we're just sitting waiting for the next event. And as soon as the next event arises, we put a self on it. That's what we naturally do. That's our natural ignorance. We got the self and we put it on everything that happens. So what is things arise? What is things arise?

[60:29]

Yes. It is emptiness. Things arising is emptiness. Yes. And they're really not arising. That's what you're saying. They're not really arising, that's right. Like it's happening. Oh no, it's really not happening. It's just, you know, I'm putting a self on it. I'm making it exist. Exactly. That's right. That's right. But it's really not existing? It's really not happening. It's really not arising. Really it's not. But it appears to because your mind grasps it in a certain way and makes it appear to that way. It appears to be that way. That's the way it exists. Well, I have this confusion and I think it's going to be ongoing because it's been there for a long time about myriad things, the definition of phenomena. I think of phenomena as your life happening.

[61:35]

Yes, that's right. As all these conditions. Except it's not your life. Your life is delusion. But when things happen and then you have a life, that's enlightenment. But usually it's that things happen, it's my life. So already you got the self and you put the self on the things. That's the deluded approach. The enlightened experience is things happen and then you're there. Or then they're there. But even you're there, that's the self. It's not a self. When you say you're there, it's not a self? It's not a self in the sense of a self existing before the things. It's not that kind of self. It's a self that's born in the coming of the things. That's not the independent self. That's a self born of things. But we carry around an independent self that's already there and then we zap it on to everything that happens. The delusion is, I got myself and I put it on everything that happens. The enlightened approach, everything happens

[62:36]

and then there's a self born out of everything. The self born out of everything or through everything, that is the actual self. That's the dependent self. That's the empty self. The self which is already there is an inherently existing self, which we already have. And that's our ongoing confusion. That's our ongoing confusion, which we're born with. So we're trying to learn about another self, which is related to this self, except that this self doesn't have inherent existence. So what does a Buddha that's not quite a Buddha do when they're energized in a particular event, whatever it may be? Do you just say, this is not happening, it's empty? Or what does the not enlightened one,

[63:37]

that's sort of getting the idea of what this is all about, do in those circumstances? Well, there's various ways to, I guess, talk about getting the idea. So getting the idea means, getting the idea could be, I've heard about the teaching of emptiness, but I noticed that I don't agree with it. Well, if you do agree with it, but there's this contradiction that we're talking about. You agree with it now? Okay, so now you're in a different place. There's a contradiction. There is a contradiction. There is a part of you that agrees and there is a part that doesn't. It's in constant battle with it. Well, I was trying to find out how enlightened this person is. I had him a little bit less enlightened before. And then, I don't know, did you just sort of up... Did you move along a little bit there? Did I up the ante?

[64:38]

Did you make him a little bit more enlightened? So now they have kind of a struggle. They do kind of believe the teachings of emptiness, but they also don't. Is that where they are now? And you want to know what that person does? What does that person do? Well, from your description, it sounds like this person... I'm not saying that it's me, by the way. It sounds like this person has come quite a ways, but until you actually do not believe, until you do not believe the old story, and you're so convinced of the new one that you do not believe the old one, basically you're still operating in the old system

[65:41]

and you're still acting upon your delusion. Because your delusion is starting to get challenged, but you actually haven't been really convinced that it's a delusion. You still think, well, it's a little bit true. And this new thing is pretty cool, and I kind of believe it, but you're not convinced. It's not your real, dominant view. You still kind of think things that haven't had an existence until it becomes really certain. You're still going to go with the old program. So what happens if you're there and something happens? If you're where? And you're struggling. You're struggling between the two places. Take refuge. What? Take refuge. Yeah, but what about the emptiness part? That's refuge.

[66:45]

Yes? Is this like in each moment you have absolutely no personal history, that each moment is a new creation and you can't make any assumptions and you can't refer back to all of your history? Is it like each moment... What again? In each moment what? You have no personal history. No, it's not like that. In each moment you do have a personal history. However, the personal history is, you know, your personal history, and your present moment is the present moment, and your future is your future. You do have a history, you do have a past in this teaching. Conventional. However, your present

[67:50]

is not the future of your past, and you really abide in the present. But you have a past. Could you say some more about your present is not the future of your past? Your present. Well, again, we say, we do not call summer, you know, the future of the spring, or winter the past of the spring. We don't. What do we call spring? We call spring wildflowers and birds and bees. That's spring. But does spring have a history? Yes, it's got a past. But we don't call it the future of the winter. Well, if the seeds hadn't been dormant and grown,

[68:52]

they wouldn't come up in the spring. That's right, that's right. So spring does have a history. It does, that's what I said. It does have a history, but we don't call spring the future of the winter, or the past of the summer. We don't do that in Buddhism. But most people do think that way. They make their present the past of their future, and the future of their past. That's the way they function. This is carrying a self. What was that? This is carrying a self. This is what we do. But to not carry the self doesn't mean that you eliminate your history and your future. You have a past and a future, but you actually exist where you exist. You don't exist someplace else. But ultimately, do you have a past and a future? Ultimately, you can't find a past,

[69:54]

you can't find a present, and you can't find a future. But this relationship that you're bringing up here about history and so on is part of how we don't destroy conventional reality and emptiness. But you can't get the past, you can't get the present, and you can't get the future. You can't get any of them. However, when you're in the present, that's what you can find. And that's what is inseparable from emptiness at that time. But that doesn't mean you eliminate the past and get rid of your personal history. So if you're trying to get a feeling of what it's like to meditate on form and emptiness in the present, you work with the present, you work with this form, and you realize the teaching that this form, the way this form ultimately is, is that it lacks inherent existence, and it's inseparable from that inherent existence right now. But that should not eliminate history, because history is part of the reason

[70:55]

why the present doesn't have inherent existence. Your history is part of why you don't exist inherently. You depend on your past. You have a past. That's why you don't inherently exist right now. You're a dependent person. You're a dependent co-arising right now. How would I be different right now if I was living in ultimate reality? How would you be different? Yeah. If you were living in ultimate reality? I mean, if I was understanding that... If you were understanding how you were different? Well... Let's see... Never mind. It's something like that. There's a hand by the lamp.

[72:01]

Demo. Hand by a lamp. The non-deluded self coming forward, is this self free of afflictive emotions? It's not so much a non-deluded self coming forward, but that when the self is born in the coming forward of things, that's enlightenment. And that liberates that self from affliction. So the description of that is that non... that their afflictive emotions are not... Sorry, but I can't see. Afflictive emotions are not manifesting at that moment. Correct. So one can assume... Even if what was born was a person who was suffering afflictive emotions, but the way the person who has afflictive emotions is born, in the advent of things,

[73:04]

if you see that person born in the advent of things, that view disperses affliction. Yeah, or that person would not be... If that person was having that experience, the experience would not be grasping those afflictive emotions. Right. So, in an interchange, if somebody is suddenly hurt or gets angry at you, you can assume that that self is coming forward, rather than the deluded self is coming forward. If someone's getting angry at you, you can assert their deluded self to me. Right. If you see somebody getting angry... Yes. But is it both of you who are actually attaching to that afflictive emotion simultaneously? No, a Buddha might look at somebody who's getting angry and not see inherent existence in that person. And what's happening to that person? Well, the Buddha might know that that person actually did understand actually how they were happening at that moment,

[74:07]

and then that person would be liberated in the middle of that... It's very difficult, but would be liberated in the middle of that afflictive situation. And people who experience liberation in those situations are in these very dramatic awakening experiences. Right, right. Because there's such a big difference. You know, so they feel like... But it can make this tremendous difference. But when you see someone who seems to be angry at you, if you understand how you're born through this angry person, then you don't see the self in that person, because you see that they gave you life by whatever they... However they appeared, that's your life. So you see the way you really are. Namely, you're born of this person and the whole situation. Now, whether they get it or not, we can look into that later. Say, hey, did you get that too? They say, yeah. Now you got... This is nice, this is a happy meeting. But it's not so much that...

[75:12]

The thing that's born is the actual thing that is existing. It's a thing that's born in the advent of things. It's born in the advent of mental apprehension. And when you see these things coming together and they're the thing born, that's when you realize emptiness, which is there all the time, but we usually don't realize it because we're holding the self all the time and applying it to the coming of things. So we keep exiling ourselves from the process of dependent co-arising and the vision of lack of inherent existence by holding this. But if we keep bringing the teaching to bear on this attachment, it actually can start to work on it. It softens it, softens it, softens it. And we get more and more convinced as we keep meditating on it. But it takes repetition. That's why we say this every morning, over and over.

[76:18]

It takes repetition. And we used to chant the Heart Sutra three times in Zen Center, in Japanese, every morning. Can you believe that? We felt somewhat relieved when we switched to English. Then we just did it once in English and once in Japanese. Now we just do it once. That's the problem. Well, thank you for looking at the Heart Sutra. I'm going to probably continue with this during Sashin, in different ways, keep working on this Prajnaparamita thing, this wisdom which is actually meditating on emptiness. Thank you for offering this class. You're welcome. As I said last week, I was kind of impressed by the high level of dropout in this class.

[77:22]

But now it's pretty good. I mean, you've all recovered. You're back in the saddle or whatever. We're back in good form. Yeah. So let's keep studying. This is called the deep perfection of wisdom, right? By deep, in one sense they mean deep like, you know, it's wonderfully deep. It really gets down to what's happening. But another meaning of deep is it's difficult. It's really kind of hard to understand emptiness. And a lot of really wonderful long-term students of Dharma say, you know, emptiness teaching is really subtle and difficult. So we kind of have to have good spirits about studying this thing, which is really deep and takes a long time.

[78:25]

So if you don't get it in one class or two classes or ten classes or a hundred classes, it's not really necessarily something to worry about, because a lot of people aren't getting it after that much time. It's more like, be glad that you've been studying it. I've been able to study it a lot. There was this one great Chinese Buddhist, and he was like, you know, I think he was like the leading Chinese monk in China in like the fourth century. And his hope was that he would be reborn in a pure land where he could understand the Prajnaparamita teachings. Because he studied them all the time, and he was the leading Chinese scholar and monk in the country. And he could tell he didn't really quite get it, didn't quite understand the teaching of Prajnaparamita. The greatest Buddhist teacher in China at that time didn't quite get it.

[79:33]

So these are words of encouragement. Isn't that encouraging? And then he died. And just a short time after he died, Kumar Jiva came to town from Central Asia. And the next generation of Chinese people got a whole new interpretation of the Prajnaparamita. And then the Chinese started to understand this teaching, this Mahayana wisdom teaching. But it took them 400 years in China before they were able to get it into their language in a way that the Chinese people really could understand it. But the Indian people were trying to tell them. But, you know, no problem. 400 years. How many years have we been doing it now?

[80:41]

May our intention equally penetrate every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way. Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Divisions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[81:32]

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