What we should do here is we might have them both ready. Once that's up to speed, I just finish it off with some extra fluid there.

[01:24]

The longer version has more of a setting before and after, more of a conventional setting. And let us know that the Buddha was present at the speaking of the sutra. In both cases, the sutra is spoken mostly by Avalokiteshvara. In the second case, in the longer version, Sariputra speaks and also Buddha speaks at the end. Did you have a hand raised, Emmanuel? Yes. Also, the longer one spells out what things mean in greater detail. Like, there are the five skandhas and those he sees in their own being as empty. So it really spells out what emptiness defines emptiness. Rather than leaving it to possible misinterpretations.

[02:30]

That's what it looks like in this translation. In this translation, the shorter version is translated from Chinese. And the Chinese just says that the five aggregates are empty. But actually, the Sanskrit original of the shorter version says that all five aggregates are empty of own being. They're empty of inherent existence. So actually, the short version and the long version, they both say that Avalokiteshvara saw the five aggregates as being empty of inherent existence. But the Chinese just says empty. And for a while, it's in the center. We modified, we did a combination of Sanskrit and Chinese and we said, are empty of own being. But this recent translation has gone back to the Chinese, which just says empty. So there's advantages of saying empty, so that you get used to understanding that

[03:33]

when we say empty in Mahayana Buddhism, all things are empty. When we say each and every phenomenon is empty, we mean empty of own being. Empty of inherent existence. Empty of existing without dependence on something other. Inherent existence means not relying on another. But all phenomena rely on another. Nothing exists that doesn't rely on things other than itself for its existence. And things do not depend at all on themselves for their existence. So inherent existence is how we exist not depending on another.

[04:50]

But we don't exist that way. We only exist in dependence. Therefore, inherent existence, existence not depending on something other, there's no such thing. So all things don't have any such thing as inherent existence. However, funny thing is, things look like they exist not depending on others. So each one of us does not have a little label sticking out of our ears saying, this person depends on things other than himself. He looks like he doesn't depend on things other than himself. Doesn't he? He looks that way. And the reason why he looks that way is because, how come he looks like that? How come he appears like that? How come he exists like that?

[05:52]

Because you put a label on him. A label? That's part of it. I imagine there's something to put a label on. I imagine there's something to put a label on. You know, we mentally impute to phenomena that they exist independent of other things. We grasp, we apprehend things as though they existed alone, not independent. So that's the way they look to us. However, teaching says things do not exist except through imputation like that. So what's our difference between these two sutras?

[06:57]

Yes? Along those lines, I was interested in that top paragraph on the second part. Here it just talks about hindrance. The mind is without hindrance. But here it spells it out a little bit more. In the absence of an objective support to this thought, we have not been made to tremble. If I were to come up and be upset, the idea of objective support to the thought, maybe there's nothing to support it actually being there, really. And so that removes fear. Is that what it means to you? I'm not sure. But that's a difference, you see. What other differences? Yes? I was looking at a longer version of the English translation of the actual mantra. And I was wondering if the Chinese version that we chant on a daily basis, the English translation of the Chinese version,

[07:59]

if they retain the mantra in Sanskrit? Yes. And this translation we have here, where we say, that is a translating from Chinese back into Sanskrit. The Japanese way of pronouncing the Chinese characters is, gya-te, gya-te, pa-ra, gya-te, pa-ra-sam, gya-te, bo-di, so-wa-ka. That's the way they tried to... They used Chinese characters that sounded like the Sanskrit original to make the actual sound sound like Sanskrit. So they didn't translate it into words in Chinese, which mean gone, gone. They used words in Chinese that sound like gya-te, gya-te, pa-ra, gya-te. In that regard, they're not different, though.

[09:03]

Because they're both the same. So if you translate it gya-te, gya-te, you get gone, gone, gone. Any other differences you notice? Would you hand raise? Yes? In the second one, the Chinese version seems more poetic. It's the essence. It's analogous to the work on there. It's just the language in general. It is more of the essence. It is going down even more than the other ones, too. This English translation maybe seems more poetic. I don't know of the... Looking at the two originals in Sanskrit, I don't know which one would be more or less poetic. I'm not up on the poetic status of the original in Sanskrit. But I think this is more... it is more essence-like.

[10:09]

Any other differences? Yes? The smaller one is sort of an account of what Yudhishthira realized in meditation. The shorter one is the opposite. The shorter one is just sort of a narrative of what went down. This one seems to suggest that if you want to follow in those footsteps, that you should meditate on certain things. In the longer version, the question is being asked, how should a son or daughter of good lineage, of good family, in other words, how should a male or female bodhisattva practice if they wanted to practice this perfection of wisdom? So that's actually the question. And then Avalokiteshvara says, they should, first of all, try to consider that the five aggregates lack inherent existence. They should actually consider that. They should actually try to view that the five aggregates lack inherent existence.

[11:16]

They should try to thoroughly and clearly comprehend that the five aggregates lack inherent existence. So we're not, in our shorter version, we're not being told that we should practice this way. We're told that Avalokiteshvara practiced that way. In the longer version, it tells us that Avalokiteshvara was practicing the deep perfection of wisdom. So that's like the shorter version. And that Avalokiteshvara saw that the five aggregates lack inherent existence, were empty of inherent existence. In the longer version, we're not asked the question, how should we practice if we want to practice the perfection of wisdom? The answer in the longer version is, we should try to learn how to see like Avalokiteshvara sees. Or like Avalokiteshvara has been seeing in the past and is now seeing.

[12:18]

In the past, Avalokiteshvara has been looking at existence and seeing that existence lacks inherent existence. That's what the Bodhisattva is looking at. So if we want to practice the perfection of wisdom, we should also look at things that way. And then, in both cases, then it follows up by telling us, giving us some assistance on how to look at it. So then that next part is pretty much the same. Another difference? Any other main difference you'd like to bring up between the two? Yes? Well, it was already mentioned, but I think I would like to come back to something that Rony said in the beginning. Because already last week, what he was talking is that this dialogue on wisdom is, let's say, surrounded by Buddhism.

[13:22]

One way I view it is that actually this is given to us, or as he says here, very specifically, it's given to us by Buddhism. So I always ask myself if I couldn't understand this even as a meditation instruction. Like, there's something more to consider whether or not I understand this meditation or not. It's just that I have no skills. I don't want to minimize it, but I want to understand it as an instruction to practice Samatha. I don't understand this meditation instruction. Let's see.

[14:24]

You brought up several points there. Anyway, I think that, as I think I mentioned last week, this is considered to be a Buddhist scripture because even though the Buddha is not talking through most of it, the speaking is coming from Bodhisattva and the Bodhisattva speaking is coming from the Buddha's meditation. And Shariputra is actually now a Bodhisattva asking another Bodhisattva to give a discourse on how we should practice in order to realize the perfection of wisdom. All this is coming through the Buddha's meditation. This is all the activity of Buddha's meditation. And Buddha actually is in a state of tranquility during most of this discourse. Now, are we supposed to be practicing tranquility during this discourse? I would suggest that, actually, you could be in a state of tranquility,

[15:35]

but I wouldn't advise you to try to practice, train yourself in tranquility while you study the sutra. If you've been practicing tranquility and have been successful at tranquility, fine, once you're stabilized, unless you're in a very deep state of tranquility so that you can't even follow sentences, you can still be quite calm and enter into study of this sutra, but the training in tranquility, unless you're training in tranquility by listening to the sutra, I wouldn't think necessarily you would be training yourself in calming practice as an approach to this. However, the deepest understanding of this will come in the state which is the fruit of training in tranquility. And there must be some tranquility in order to be able to listen to the scripture.

[16:42]

And also, for some people, listening to the scripture might tranquilize. However, you would not be listening to the sutra primarily to tranquilize, even though it did tranquilize. You'd be listening to the sutra in order to start to practice considering that the aggregates are lacking inherent existence. You're trying to understand that teaching and start to see this way. However, people that are already calm are perfectly happy, perfectly ready to look at things that they're experiencing as actually lacking inherent existence. That's one of the virtues of tranquility, is that you're happy to practice wisdom, happy to practice wisdom from your calm.

[17:46]

But the kind of training where you're giving up discursive thought in order to develop tranquility, that type of training is kind of antithetical to learning how to look at things as lacking inherent existence, and looking at inherent existence as not separate from the things which are lacking. I mean, looking at the emptiness of inherent existence as not separate from the things which lack inherent existence. This kind of meditation, you need to keep using your discursive thought. But once again, if you're already calm, you can use discursive thought without getting upset. Does that make sense? So the training in tranquility is implied in this practice, but not exactly simultaneously, explicitly training in tranquility. So either you have the fruit of tranquility training,

[18:48]

which you then can use to study this, or you study this and later return to develop tranquility, and then immerse your understanding in the tranquility practice, in the tranquility state. Anything else about the differences between the two you want to bring up? Yes? Well, just similar to what Joseph said, it seems like there's a lot of versions of this, like a learning process between seven concepts, and it's set up in a context. And the second version has attachment, and one has knowledge. So one's learning, to me, I felt like one is a learning, and the other is knowledge. So that's one aspect. The other thing is there are translations that are a little different, like the adjectives themselves are translated very differently.

[19:52]

Like the formation, and the one we chant, there's an impulses in the Vanda version, doesn't look very different. Yeah, well, same, different translation, but the character, the words are the same. The word is referring to the fourth skanda, which is samskara, which you could translate as impulses, but really, I think, there's no difference in the sutras. The translations are different, but what they're translating is not different. Just the translation is different. So, is the emphasis different? Sometimes when you use different words to translate, is it the emphasis, or is it the sense of the root word? The person who translated as impulse, if he was looking at the Sanskrit of the shorter version,

[20:56]

would have translated that as impulse too. No, I'm talking about, if you're looking at the two Sanskrit texts, the word samskara would be in both texts. The fourth skanda is the same in both texts. So the person who translated this longer version, if he had translated the shorter version from Sanskrit, he would have used impulses. So, your question is, you're saying the difference is not really the difference between the texts, it's the difference between translators. Right. I understand that. But I'm asking about the texts, not the translators, okay? The difference between these two texts, the original texts, so, I'm just pointing out that that's not a difference in the texts, that's a difference in the translation. We used to have impulses in our translation of the Chinese, years ago,

[21:56]

because we used the same translator, who translated in his book, impulses for the fourth skanda, the fourth aggregate, which is, you know, we don't use that word anymore. Any other differences that you have to bring up between the texts here? I don't know if it's appropriate to ask about Deep Splendor at this point, because it seems a lot like that. The meditation is referred to as Deep Splendor. Yes. Well, I think that's the difference, is that we're being told about the meditation in one case, and you want to know about what Deep Splendor meditation is? I don't know if that's the right explanation. Well, it's just the name, of the state of calm and everything. So, it had a deep splendor. Oh, okay, so that's not a... it's descriptive instead of a technical term. Yeah, like we say Jewel Mirror Samadhi,

[22:57]

or Precious Mirror Samadhi, and Self-Fulfilling Samadhi, and Self-Actualizing Samadhi, and Ocean Seal Samadhi, and Heroic Stride Samadhi. These are different names for Bodhisattva Samadhis emphasizing different dimensions of the Bodhisattva mind. Right, and does Deep Splendor emphasize any specific kind of characteristic? It's emphasizing the Deep Splendor aspect. Oh, okay. And I happen to have the full translation. If you want it. No, thanks. Oh, okay. Any other differences you'd like to point out? Yes? The translator's choice between spell and mantra makes me think, how would you apply this teaching? Would one go around and label everything empty, empty, empty? Or would one listen internally, everything is empty, and then the field changes by itself?

[23:58]

Yeah, so you're asking me a question about the mantra. The mantra isn't different in the two texts. Two texts are the same, same mantra. Okay? That's not a difference. How to use the mantra, we can talk about later. Any other differences? Yes? The shorter one says, without, with nothing to attain, this one says, owing to the Bodhisattva's indifference to any kind of personal attainment. That's a difference in translation. Interesting difference, though. And not only, I wanted to say, but then the next one is non-attainment. So the shorter one... Again, the original Sanskrit of the shorter one, and the original Sanskrit of the longer one, says no attainment and no non-attainment. The Chinese just says no attainment. Robert Thurman visited here and said, you guys should change your sutra to say no non-attainment. So there's no attainment, and there's no non-attainment. Okay? The two texts are the same that way.

[25:05]

But still, both of them also say, with nothing to attain. And this other one says, indifferent to attainment. So indifference to attainment, I think is true. I think the Bodhisattvas are indifferent to attainment. In a sense. Or they're, what do you call it, they're kind of equanimous vis-a-vis attainment. They're cool about it. But actually I think it says, with nothing to attain, a Bodhisattva. Anything else? I mentioned this before, I just want to mention it again. And our difference is that in the shorter version, it mentions that Avalokiteshvara relieved all suffering. That the vision of this relieved all suffering. And the other one doesn't mention that it relieved all suffering. There's no difference. And I believe that is also in the Sanskrit,

[26:10]

in the shorter version. Okay? Was that Poo back there? Yes? No, it's a... It's a different translation from... I believe it's a different translation from... Without any hindrance, there is no fear. Without any hindrance, there is no fear. Is what is translated, without objective support, he does not tremble. So I think this idea of without... That's the question there. This is getting into the text. I don't want to do this too much right now, but I just say that the idea here, that what's actually being talked about is

[27:11]

without obstructions to your vision, when the obstructions to reality are removed, there's no fear. So, without objective support... You know, that's interesting, but really what it's saying is without these coverings... The person who translated without objective support changed the translation... himself changed the translation there, and he changed it to without any hindrance or without any obscurations, there's no fear. When you see things as they are, there's no fear. But when you see things obscured, then there's fear. Okay. Did you have a question? Alright. So... When you talk about tranquility, do you mean tranquility as one of the...

[28:12]

or serenity as one of the other thought perceptions? Yes. If those two are so closely aligned... Which two? Tranquility and Pajma. Yes. Do the others come into this? The others are also close... sensitive to the other three? Yes. Yes. For example, someone has recently made a book trying to make the point that basically the perfection of wisdom, called the Diamond Sutra, the Diamond Cutter's Perfection of Wisdom, the person feels is really talking about the perfection of giving. That's really what's being emphasized in that text. Giving really is, the perfection of giving really is enlightenment. Actually.

[29:13]

But most people, because of lack of wisdom, they don't understand how to practice giving. But when you practice giving as a perfection, it is enlightenment. All these practices are actually enlightenment once they're connected with wisdom. But also these practices are necessary in order to develop wisdom. So wisdom purifies them, and it's based on that. Same with patience. If you actually accept the way things are, if you can be patient about things, you actually just accept them as they are. And so on. So all these precepts, I mean all these compassion practices are actually not really different from wisdom practices. And yet, it's possible to practice compassion without wisdom. But once they are fully realized, there must be wisdom there. But you also must be practicing in order to have wisdom. So they're all perfectly aligned, but in a sense, tranquility is, you often call meditation, whereas people don't so often say

[30:17]

that giving is meditation, and precepts are meditation, and patience is meditation, and diligence is meditation, but those are also meditations. Everything is meditation. Everything is like paying attention to certain practices, contemplating certain practices. But in this scripture, the other five are implicit. They don't actually say them, except for in the longer version, they say that Buddha was actually ... It doesn't say Buddha was training in tranquility. It says Buddha was in this state of tranquility, was in this samadhi. He probably ... You know, the Buddha just goes like that and snaps into it, because he's so experienced with training. I guess all he has to do is think of the state and he's in it, because he's already trained himself so well in tranquility practices. But it doesn't say he was training in tranquility. He was in the state. But aside from that, there's no mention of compassion.

[31:18]

But it's implied, because we've got bodhisattvas here. And what are the bodhisattvas working on in this sutra? They're not so much working on giving precepts, diligence, patience and concentration. They're working on prajnaparamita. They're working on the prajnaparamita, prajna transcendental practice. But the other practices must be understood as being practiced, too, at the same time. It needs to be practiced together. But now we're going to look at ... There's two meanings of the mantra. One is the mantra, gone, gone, gone, beyond, gone, altogether, beyond. Enlightenment, welcome. But the other way of thinking of the mantra is that we're going to do a mantra in the form of considering every experience as being empty of inherent existence.

[32:26]

We're going to consider every experience as being empty of existing independent of another. Now, one way to do that positively is consider every experience as being dependent on another. So, again, as I've mentioned over and over, the Buddha starts teaching by saying whatever is happening happens in dependence on things other than itself. Everything is of dependent co-arising. Everything you look at exists in dependence on things other than itself. In particular, everything that you experience exists in dependence on mental apprehension, on mental computation. What you experience

[33:27]

has no existence apart from the way your mind grasps it. And it does not exist the way your mind grasps it. Ultimately. But conventionally, it does exist the way your mind grasps it. The way things exist is not the way they ultimately are, but just the way you grasp them. And that's the way they exist, in dependence on the way you grasp them. So, you grasp them as independent, and that's the way they appear to you. So we start that way, and when you get settled in that, then you're ready to consider that things actually lack that independent existence. But you have to do both, I think,

[34:28]

because otherwise the teaching that things do not exist and independence of this imputation is not appropriate. But if you can keep grounded in that things do exist in dependence on mental computation, they do exist in dependence on mental computation. They are actually merely existing as mental computation. Then you can say, these same things lack any existence independent of this imputation, which is the way I'm grasping them, which is the way my mind grasps them. And that can be a mantra, that can be something you can do all the time. But that mantra needs to be practiced together with the other mantra

[35:29]

of dependent co-arising, which again is also understood as the basis for the emptiness mantra. Q. Is that the emptiness mantra? A. Emptiness mantra? Q. Yeah, because... A. An emptiness mantra can be like... It could be gone, gone, gone,

[36:31]

beyond, gone altogether, beyond, bodhi, welcome. Or it could be... Q. But I thought when dependent co-arising you didn't speak any mantra. I thought there would be maybe a point of emptiness I don't speak a mantra in. A. Um... If you are considering that all phenomena lack inherent existence and you do that repeatedly, then that is like considering things as though you were practicing a mantra with those things. You're repeatedly considering the teaching about their nature. So in that sense, that teaching becomes like a mantra for you.

[37:34]

We have another mantra that comes spontaneously and instinctively, which is things inherently exist, things exist independent of other things. We're doing that mantra all the time. We're projecting self onto conditions. We're mentally grasping conditions as something which exists independent of those conditions which we're grasping as a self of those conditions. We're doing that all the time. That's our spontaneous innate mantra. And if we stop for a little while,

[38:48]

we can feel it. We can feel an impulse coming back to make something again. Impulse to... That samskara means to make. To make. To make. To make. And if we stop for a little while, without mental invitation, without this mental grasping, nothing exists. There has to be this mental apprehending for anything to exist. And things don't exist in another way where they're not apprehended. But these things that do exist through apprehension, the way they actually are, the way they actually are, is that they don't exist independent of that apprehension.

[39:50]

That's their emptiness. And things are empty of inherent existence and things are also emptiness of inherent existence. Things are both empty and emptiness. The sutra doesn't say actually... Actually, the sutra says both. The pure sutra says that Avalokiteshvara saw that the aggregates are empty and then also that the aggregates are emptiness. Do you see that? All five aggregates are empty of only being. And all five aggregates are emptiness. So form is the first aggregate. It's emptiness. It doesn't say it's empty. It says all five aggregates are empty.

[40:53]

And then it says the first aggregate is emptiness. And emptiness is the first aggregate. And it says the same is true of feelings, formations, consciousness, perceptions. Same for those. All these aggregates are emptiness and emptiness is each of these aggregates. But also these aggregates are empty. So both empty and emptiness. So where... I don't understand the distinction. I mean, emptiness is a noun? Right. Emptiness is a noun. And empty is adjective. Right. And as I was talking about this morning, they're both predicates of phenomena. All phenomena are red

[41:55]

and all phenomena are apples. Right? All phenomena are empty and all phenomena are emptiness. All phenomena are predicated by having the description of being empty but also they are actually also predicated or qualified by the noun emptiness. So both of those. The sutra is doing both. There's no emptiness apart from both. There's not emptiness by itself. Well, they're also that. But they could also say... It's kind of funny to say there's no empty apart from form. Right? There's no form apart from empty. All right? So does it work a little better to say there's no form aside from emptiness and there's no emptiness aside from form? Does it work better?

[42:58]

That's why the sutra decided to do it. Also, emptiness is identical with dependent co-arising. But empty is not exactly identical with dependent co-arising. All dependent co-arisings are empty but dependent co-arising is emptiness. And emptiness teaches you what dependent co-arising is. So all things are dependent co-arisings and from the early days the Buddha taught dependent co-arising and the Buddha said when you see dependent co-arising you see Dharma. When you see Dharma, you see Buddha. But how do you see dependent co-arising? Well, you see dependent co-arising

[43:59]

by looking at dependent co-arisings. And what are the dependent co-arisings? Do you know what those are? Do you know what dependent co-arisings are? Yeah, phenomena are dependent co-arisings. So you start by looking at dependent co-arisings made you look at phenomena. But when you look at phenomena, can you see dependent co-arising? Can you see it? It's hard to see. You can think you see it, but in order to see it actually you have to understand emptiness in order to understand dependent co-arising. So we hear the teaching of dependent co-arising and we're told where to look. Where do you look to see dependent co-arising? Look at the five aggregates. Look at any experience. Look at anything that exists and you're looking at a dependent co-arising and you're looking at dependent co-arising. But you need to meditate on emptiness in order to be able to actually see dependent co-arising. Because otherwise, what do we see when we look at dependent co-arising?

[45:04]

What do we see when we're looking at a dependent co-arising? What do we see? We see the form, yes, but when we're looking at a form, what do we see? We see it exist independently because the way it exists is by mental imputation. So we see our imputation. We see our imputation. Poor things. What could go wrong? Right, what could go wrong? Nothing goes wrong, it works perfectly and it's called suffering. By misconstruing dependent co-arising as the way we grasp it, that's where suffering arises. It's taking dependent co-arising as the way we grasp it in order to make it into suffering, in order to convert it into existence. That's where suffering starts. If we can see dependent co-arising and we can understand

[46:08]

dependent co-arising, that follows from actually seeing the lack of inherent existence. We're already free of suffering when we see the lack of inherent existence. And then we also get to see and understand emptiness, I mean understand dependent co-arising, which is beyond freedom from suffering actually. It's understanding the way things function. It's understanding the way these dependent, these conventional things actually work. They do function. And we can see and understand them once we stop believing that the way we grasp things is actually the way they are, rather than the way they conventionally are, which they must have and be that way, because that's exactly the way they are. You can use the teaching of dependent co-arising as a way to understand emptiness, but you

[47:23]

don't understand the teaching of dependent co-arising before you understand emptiness. But you can understand emptiness before you understand dependent co-arising. By listening to teaching of dependent co-arising, not completely understanding it, but applying the reasoning and the feelings that are associated with interdependence and so on, using these teachings and think about them and emote about them and live with them, and you will come to actually understand emptiness, which means you will be convinced of it, so much so that you'll stop believing the way you usually believe or change your belief. Then you'll be able to understand and see dependent co-arising really. But you can use the teaching of dependent co-arising before you actually can understand it. And that teaching will be one of the main ways you can understand emptiness. So that means, when I hear the teaching of emptiness, I basically trust it, even if I don't understand it?

[48:28]

You trust it even if you don't understand it? Well, if I don't understand it, how can it work? Well, like I said just now, I just said to you that all phenomena exist independent on conditions and mental imputation. And again, most people that come to Buddhism are aware that things exist in dependence on things other than themselves. However, even those people, many of them still think, yes, things exist in dependence on things other than themselves, but actually they also depend on themselves. And they also depend on mental imputation. They say that. And some people say, yes, I guess I can see that too. And then you say that without mental imputation, the thing doesn't exist at all. That's kind of unusual

[49:34]

for people. However, if you see that we do say that things do exist by virtue and by means of mental imputation, and then you say that they have no existence without that mental imputation, as you listen to that and look at that, you can start almost to be convinced that, yes, that makes sense, that there wouldn't be anything there at all if it depended on this. Something that depended on imputation couldn't be independent of what it depends on. And as you start to see and understand better that actually things do depend on mental imputation, then you can get closer to actually being convinced, even though you can't directly see it, being convinced, yeah, it really makes sense, there wouldn't be anything there, and yet I think there is. And you do that again and again, you get more and more convinced.

[50:38]

Just like that example I gave you last week about the chessboard. You can't actually see how it's impossible to cover a chessboard missing two corner pieces with thirty-one dominoes. You can't actually see that, you know, because it can't be done. You can see all the different ways that it doesn't work, but you can't be convinced that it would never work except through reasoning. But by reasoning you can be convinced. You can actually somehow almost see, you actually are convinced, you actually understand that it's impossible to cover the chessboard, the changed, modified chessboard with thirty-one pieces. You can see it. But you have to listen to the, look at the picture of the chessboard and think of the dominoes, and then hear the teaching that the chessboard has alternating darkened

[51:43]

light squares. So if you take off the two opposing corners, you're either taking away two white or two black. If you take away two white, then there's only thirty whites left. And if there's only thirty whites left, since you have to cover, whenever you use a domino you have to cover a white and a black, you wouldn't be able to cover all the blacks. You wouldn't be able to. So you can see that. In the same way you can be convinced that things do not exist at all without the mental imputation. But you don't have to believe it any more than just to try it on and reason it until you're convinced. So there's a faith there that you're going to have to try to convince yourself that things are other than

[52:48]

the way you instinctively see them. So there's enough faith there that you're going to apply the teaching, but you don't have to believe that things are empty. He didn't say believe that they're empty, he said they are. But it's more like, not that you should believe this, but you should consider that things are this way. Keep considering and keep considering and keep considering until you are convinced. Because just to believe it isn't sufficient because we deeply believe the opposite already. So believing that they're empty isn't I think sufficient. You have to reason with yourself and feel with yourself and emote with yourself until you overthrow your basic belief, your false beliefs. And then you don't have a belief in emptiness. But what you do have a belief in is you have a belief in perhaps

[53:49]

rather than belief in emptiness, you have a belief in the sutra. You believe the sutra, which means you believe this is a Buddhist teaching, which means you believe it's worthwhile paying attention to. That you believe. You're devoted to the teachings, you're devoted to the Buddhas. Those you trust, those you believe in. But the basic meditation that we're being told to do here, we're not told to believe it, and we're also not told that we don't believe it. But actually I can tell you we don't believe it. We do not believe this teaching. So I'm not telling you to believe what you don't believe, you don't believe it. I'm saying the sutra is saying, please consider what you don't believe and consider it and consider it until you are convinced strongly enough so that you stop believing what you have been believing your whole life. And the sutra is saying, if you trust the Buddha, trust the

[54:50]

Mahayana, it's saying this is what you have to learn. This is what will relieve suffering. And not just relieve suffering, but also lead to understanding how things work, which is also part of what will help you then teach after this relief at some point. Yes? Do you mind if I go back to something you said earlier? No, not now. You said that we can't see and co-arise. And surely when we look at something, what we tend to see is our indication of its inherent existence. But it seems to me that if we try to investigate that thing, the only way that we can describe it is through all the constituents that make it up and all the traditions surrounding its existence. Yes. Do you hear what he said? But each one of those constituents, if you look at a constituent,

[55:55]

if it exists, it exists with mental imputation. It's not exactly a regress, it's an infinite creative process. There's more dependent co-arising you're seeing, but the way you see the dependent co-arising is that you see it by taking it as your imputation. That's part of it, that's fine. And just remember that when you look at something and then you look at the constituents of it, if you're thinking about the constituents and you have thoughts about the constituents, and those exist as thoughts, but those exist as thoughts with mental imputation too. Which is fine, that's how they can eventually exist. The conditions for a conventionally existing thing depends on conditions and mental imputation. The conditions for the thing also, if they're actually existent, then they're also dependent on imputation. If you think about the conditions

[56:59]

of something but you don't say that they exist, then you don't depend on mental imputation. But if you talk about them even before saying what they are, then they exist for you with mental imputation. Which is fine. Each one of those things too, which is contributed to, those also have lacking existence independent of that imputation. So you're still meditating on emptiness, you're still considering emptiness throughout this, you're still looking at the emptiness of the five aggregates while you look at the conditions for it, an example. Any phenomenon, pick it, look at its conditions, that's fine. But can you actually see the conditions for the thing arising with the thing? Can you? You don't. And that's when you don't see that, you see the thing, because your mind apprehends the thing. The thing your mind is apprehending is what you see. You don't see the conditions. But you hear the teaching of it, and you notice you don't see it. That's part of what you are admitting

[58:05]

to yourself. I suppose in some respect to me, if I see an apple, I imagine the seeds and the air and my optical senses. But when you see the apple and you imagine a seed, then you're thinking of the seed. Then you have the mental image of the seed. And that also exists with mental imputation. And one of the conditions for thinking of the seed was the apple which you thought of being the seed for. So your mind is constantly apprehending conditions as being the mental apprehension. And all the things that so exist have no existence whatsoever with that apple.

[59:09]

And, not only that, but the way that they exist with mental imputation is not other than the way they do not exist without it. The way that they have no existence without the mental imputation is exactly the same as the way they do exist with it. So their ultimate mode, their emptiness of inherent existence, is identical with their conventional existence which depends on mental imputation. They're not dual. They're an identity. But they're conceptually distinguishable or distinctive. And one we can see, and the other we're trying to learn to see, and learn to be convinced of. And if someday we can see it, then that's because it exists, and it exists because of

[60:13]

mental imputation. So the way things do not exist, independent of mental imputation, can also exist, the way other things exist, with mental imputation, upon how they don't exist without it. They can also exist in the same way. Those emptinesses can exist the same way as the forms. And that's the only way they can exist, too. Nothing can exist any other way than depending on mental imputation. Was there any people that I'm sort of in the periphery of my vision? I just want to clarify what you're saying, that not depending on the mental imputation has absolutely no existence. But that means no inherent existence, right? It's not like there's nothing there at all. There's nothing there at all.

[61:18]

No, it's not actually... it's actually just saying that it has no existence. Is there some other kind of existence besides things? Well, I'm going to clarify. I thought that dependent arising... I thought that there's nothing that exists without the imputation. I'm sure it would be like mutualism, but what we mean is that it doesn't exist as a separate thing, it doesn't exist without depending on everything. It's meaningless, but a little bit different than saying it has no existence whatsoever. The thing does exist. Got something that does exist? Got it? It does exist.

[62:28]

Got it? It does exist. That's what we're talking about. We're talking about this thing that does exist. We're talking about something that does exist. Existence depends on that imputation. That's how it exists. This thing has no existence independent of mental imputation. You want to say something about that? That doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all. That doesn't mean it doesn't exist at all. But we're not saying it doesn't exist. We just said it exists. We said it existed. It does exist in this dependent way. But it doesn't exist at all, at all, in an independent way. That's all. It has no existence at all, independent of the way it's dependent. Okay? Now are you happy?

[63:34]

Let's see, so Marioko and Bernd and Chinnam Roger. Still? Marioko? Is there somebody else over there? Liz? I think Liz is Marioko already asking. Liz? Um, what about a meditation on, um, people who don't have the vision? A meditation on how would it be to relate to things as if they were all present? Relate to them as though they were? Yeah, that's a good meditation. In other words, you listen to the teaching that whatever you're looking at is a dependent co-arising. Okay? That's good. And that means you look at everything and you remember the teaching that whatever I'm seeing exists in dependence on things other than itself. Whatever I'm looking at exists in dependence on things other than itself.

[64:43]

Notably, it depends on mental imitation. Looking at you, seeing you, seeing the existence of you, that your existence for me depends on mental imitation. That's a good teaching to remember. That's how you conventionally exist. Okay? And, you know, I think you said you can't see dependent co-arising. We do see dependent co-arising, but we apprehend dependent co-arising, which we're looking at, as our mental imputation. Because we want dependent co-arising to exist. We want to make something out of it. So we impute something there to grasp, and then it exists. The dependent co-arising exists. And it exists, dependent co-arises, in conjunction with mental imputation. So that's all good. And the next step is emptiness of the thing. Which is that this thing that dependently co-arises,

[65:46]

this thing that exists in dependence on things other than itself, there is no existence independent of what it depends on. Then you meditate on emptiness too, along with dependent co-arising. Exactly. Yes, you're looking at how your mind functions. You're looking at all that's happening. You're looking at your mind functions, and also you're looking at some descriptions of the implications of the way your mind functions. So now I think the second part. Yes? You didn't ask a question yet, right? No, I'm done. I was going to go to another question, but since it's your first question, go ahead. I'm on hold. I have no idea what to say. It seems like there's a lot of difference between co-arising and emptiness of the thing,

[66:50]

and being able to acknowledge one aspect of the whole thing. I have this association with emptiness that if you start with emptiness, you have to think of it as the root of the whole problem, which is actually emptiness. Let me write it down. And if you start with the experience of emptiness, the understanding of that, you can see that all the emotions are on the different points. So I guess I can use it as a description of emptiness.

[67:51]

I don't think I need that. Emptiness is actually an experience. It's not a theory about emptiness. It's a perception. You have the mind somewhere in your body. How about that line of thinking that you're trying to follow through on? So, the line of thinking that you're questioning whether it would be beneficial was the line of thinking to tell yourself that experiencing emptiness of phenomena would break them down Interested? I guess when you have a phenomenon

[68:52]

that is fixed, if one is experiencing one, it's just a division of one. If you are experiencing one, it's just a division of one. If you are experiencing emptiness, then that can break down your thinking. I'm not sure maybe what you're calling the imputation. Stop the imputation? It doesn't stop the imputation. It stops you from believing that the imputation is what the thing is rather than the imputation is part of what's necessary for the thing to exist. So, we usually misconstrue what's happening as the way we grasp it because we must grasp it mentally in order for it to exist.

[69:54]

So, everything we experience has to have this grasping including if we're going to experience emptiness. So, it isn't that the imputation stops, it's that we understand that the thing that we're grasping through our imputational process has no existence beyond the imputation or independent of the imputation. And that doesn't exactly break things down, it just liberates us from the suffering which arises with everything because we misapprehend things, we take dependent co-arisings as our imputation but they're not our imputation. However, the imputation is part of the way

[70:58]

dependent co-arising comes into existence. So, that's there. Things do exist and based on their existence in dependence on this imputation we're ready to hear the teaching that they don't exist independent of that imputation. And we can then experience that with mental imputation that cures us of believing something which I haven't mentioned lately and that is that we do think that things exist independent of imputation. We do. We do. That's the problem is that we think that they do exist independent of our imputation. We think if you took away the imputation the thing would still be there. You take away the imputation on yourself

[72:01]

you think you'd still be there and that's how we suffer because we think things can exist independent of the very things they depend on for their existence. We think emptiness can exist. We think emptiness can exist independent of mental imputation too. But it can't either. Emptiness only exists as a mental imputation also. However, it is a medicinal a very medicinal, very powerful and helpful mental imputation very powerful, helpful thought construction when you can actually see it like you can see a cow you know just like a cow when you see a cow it can convince you that the lack of cow

[73:02]

is just like not there so when you see emptiness it can convince you that things existing independent of mental imputation is like not so because it isn't so things do not exist apart from the mind they don't and we think they do even if bad sense students think that if they go out of the room and they're not imputing the existence to things the thing's still sitting there without their mental imputation But ultimately they do, right? Huh? You said that they do exist ultimately What? You said earlier on ultimately they do exist without our imputation I said ultimately they do exist without your imputation? Pardon me I might have but that's wrong things do not ultimately exist period and they do not ultimately exist without our imputation they ultimately do not exist without our imputation

[74:04]

things do not exist without our imputation they don't they do exist with our imputation But that's not to say that there's nothing there My third characteristic of phenomena is suchness or suchness It's not quite the same as to say there's nothing there it's just to say that things that do exist things that do exist dependently do not exist at all in another way called independent of the way they do exist dependently they don't exist at all in this other way things do not exist at all in this strange way called not other dependent they do not at all exist that way but that's not the same that's not the same

[75:09]

as saying they don't exist because we just said they do exist we're talking about things that do exist in this you can say wonderful but you also can say kind of lame way depends, you know from the point of view of inherent existence then the way things are actually being told from the point of view of like self-existence from the point of view of the great empire of self-existence from the adamantine gold-plated Cadillac of self-existence then the way things actually exist is kind of wimpy because they exist all dependent I mean all dependent not all they don't exist at all they don't exist at all without dependence however, with dependence they do exist so those things which do exist are dependent things and dependent things do not exist at all without the way they do exist but that's not to say

[76:11]

they don't exist at all because we just said they do exist in this kind of wimpy dependent way but it's not co-dependent it's interdependent it's just other dependent and it's not self-dependent self-dependent is like really bossy right this bossy way from the point of view of the bossy way the way the Buddha says things exist is not so bossy it's more you know thank you very much way things do not exist in a way that's independent of the way they do exist see this is subtle this is what you need to go over and think about until you start thinking this way rather than the other way which is that things do exist in a bossy way we think that's a strange thing we think that things exist in this big bossy hey I make myself way and if even if I stop thinking about me and you stop thinking about me I'll still be here that's the only thing

[77:12]

and we don't know huh we don't know what do you think anyway so we have to like train ourselves with this teaching with this mantra of this teaching until we start to actually start to like more and more see this new way which is still when we start to see it we see it because of mental imputation it also doesn't exist except dependant and I know you're just warming up but you know some people want to go to bed can you believe that is this considered mind only school this teaching is this mind only school no it's not mind only school however huh so what would it be what is considered is considered just use the expression buddha's teaching

[78:13]

ok buddha buddha's teaching buddha's teaching is not one of the schools of buddhism the schools of buddhism are different ways that people have interpreted buddha's teaching or you know for certain purposes so the mind only school definitely looks at these sutras and honors these sutras and they they may try to what do you call it co-opt these sutras there's some other sutras they look at that they might want to co-opt too there's some that may be their favorites but none of the buddha's sutras are of a school except in the main school the buddha school now some people who are some of the scholastics have written treatises but those treatises you know are not the buddha's

[79:15]

teaching the buddha's teaching they don't say that they are they say this is a certain representing a certain take on the buddha's teaching and that's helpful sometimes to do that because then it's specially suited for certain people but the buddha teaches everybody at once buddha's teaching everybody at once buddha's teaching beginners intermediate advanced and postgraduate all at once so you can get all the teachings out of the buddha's teaching so this heart sutra can be interpreted by many different schools simultaneously and some may choose to pass on it but we'd rather not even look at it when they say that may be the way they relate to it ok let me show you first in the earth and shall

[80:16]

we breathe and trade our breathing and place in the earth with the true merits of buddha's way beings are number one all at

[80:35]

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