this last practice period we had at Green Gulch, I postponed discussing the Pentacle of Rising until pretty much the end. The reason why I did that was because I was very aware of the necessity of practicing the first five, six paramitas as the basis for studying dependent co-arising. So the study of dependent co-arising, strictly speaking, is carried out under the practice of wisdom or insight. So I I wanted to make sure that people were well acquainted and well involved and thinking sincerely about the practices of giving, conscientiousness, patience, enthusiasm and concentration, that they were grounded in these practices which help us develop compassion and develop positive energy and

[01:28]

merit as a basis for studying the teaching of emptiness and dependent co-arising in a grounded way. So this practice period, I hope for the same kind of groundedness in our practice, but I I'd like to start sooner on the study of wisdom than last time because it would take the whole practice period, to say the least, the whole practice period to develop this kind of study. So I'm kind of asking you, please, Familiarize yourself with the practice of giving, the practice of conscientious and careful observation of your karma, the practice of patience, the practice of enthusiasm and vigor in your effort, and the practice of concentration, which hopefully go very well with living in Green Gulch.

[02:52]

in the sense that everyone welcomes each of us to practice those, right? Don't you want other people to do these practices? What? Oh, you can't hear me. Oh. Has that been the case the whole time since I've been here? Just that last question. I'm asking you to please practice giving careful conscientiousness about your karma and so on. Okay? And I'm saying that it's good to practice the Green Gouch because everybody else at Green Gouch would like you to do that. And then I ask, don't you want other people to do those practices? Yes. Yes, of course. Yeah. So you know you have other people's support in doing these practices. Now all that's missing is to do them yourself. And then if these practices are done, then when I start talking about emptiness and things like that, it won't be so heady, because you'll be down, you know, well grounded in your experience and struggling with your own work in this way, so these practices won't be too kind of exciting and so on.

[04:07]

Because they're potentially very exciting because they're offering, you know, vision, great vision prospects. So right away I would say, you know, that the Shakyamuni Buddha said in both the old texts, you know, like the Theravadan texts, the early Theravadan texts, and also in the Mahayana texts, the Buddha says that one who sees dependent co-arising sees Dharma, and one who sees Dharma sees Buddha. One who sees dependent co-arising sees Buddha. One who sees the dependently co-arisen sees Buddha. So there may be other ways to speak about how we can see, how we can see through

[05:12]

to the Dharma which will awaken us, but this is one of the primary ways that Buddha talked. And among all the Buddha's teachings, in a way, the one that is most valued by the great teacher Nagarjuna is Buddha's teaching of dependent co-arising. So I'd like to talk about, study dependent co-arising and how that is the kind of teaching and meditation that reveals to us the emptiness of all things. The fact that things, that nothing exists by itself, that everything exists only through interdependence. And I... I think the word emptiness is kind of a cold word for a lot of people.

[06:16]

So it's hard to find another word for that. You can translate it into interdependence, which people find much more pleasant to listen to. But interdependence is more the way you understand that everything lacks independent existence, or everything lacks an identity. And the bodhisattvas, the people who are dedicated to the welfare of others in the way of working for the ultimate liberation of other people, bodhisattvas who are trying to help other beings in any possible way and in all possible ways and in the highest possible way, they need to understand emptiness in order to accomplish their work. And if necessary, I guess, I don't really mind, but if necessary, I'm happy to try to

[07:34]

discuss with you how necessary the understanding of emptiness is among the various among the various enterprises of helping beings one of these movements is called Mahayana and particularly characteristic of Mahayana Buddhism among all the other movements in the world to help people particular characteristic of Mahayana Buddhism that distinguishes it perhaps from some of these other altruistic enterprises, is that Mahayana, the Mahayana involves a deep understanding of emptiness. So we need that. And then, so when are we going to get it? How are we going to get it? Do you have a reading list that has been passed off to you? So the reading list on studying of dependent colorizing emptiness has been expanded.

[08:37]

And so there's a lot of things on here to study. And just one of several of these books could easily be a nice year's study. But anyway, I'm passing this material out to you. But in a way, I also don't want to, by giving you this kind of juicy list of books, I don't want to incite distraction or too much excitement in you. Because I really don't want people to try to read all these books in the next seven weeks. Not to say that anybody would, but even try to read three of them might be too much. And right away I'd like you also to mention one book that I'd like you to add to your reading list, and that's this book is kind of a nice book to add. This is called The Transcendent Wisdom.

[09:41]

And it's a book, it's the Dalai Lama's commentary to the ninth chapter of Shantideva's book. So the ninth chapter of Shantideva's book is about wisdom. And so you might also, the ninth chapter of Shantideva's book, Guide to Bodhisattva's Way of Life, should be on this reading list too. So you might add that. And then also Dalai Lama wrote a commentary called Transcendent Wisdom on that chapter. This one? No, it's expanded. It's got quite a few more listings on it. Are there any more floating around?

[11:10]

There aren't enough. How many were there? So they're all taken? How many did not get one? Wow, how many people are in these rooms? Is that about, that's about, oh, you made 40. Yeah, that looks more like, because there's not like 90 people in this room. I think you need about 25 more. Okay, so there's all these books, you know, about dependent co-arising and many more. So I guess I already told you that we have these new, slightly improved translations of the two chapters of Nagarjuna's Fundamental Verses on the Middle Way, chapter 1 and chapter 24.

[12:31]

And last practice period at Tassajara last fall, we chanted those most mornings. start out chanting Chapter 1 and then alternating Chapter 1 and Chapter 24, because at first it's so hard to read them. But finally we were chanting both of them, I guess, every morning, right? Did we get to that point? So I guess we'll start, if you can stand it, we'll start chanting them soon here in the morning service. So we have these two chapters will be the source text for the study, with all these other books to amplify and facilitate the study. Chapter 1 and chapter 24.

[13:33]

I think there's like 40 chapters. I mean, yeah, there's 36 chapters anyway. There's about 36 chapters, I think. How many chapters are there? 30-some chapters in the fundamental verses by Nagarjuna. So that would be the source text. Do you have that text on you right now? Just some of you do. Yeah, that's it. So I thought I'd say a little bit about how to actually, in practical terms, how to study dependable arising. And then the subtleties of it will come out, perhaps, or maybe just other aspects of it will come out over time.

[14:46]

So in terms of what I've been stressing lately about expressing yourself, we can use that, I think maybe use some of that language as a way to see how you study dependent co-arising. And before I talk about that, I would say that One way to study the pinnacle of rising is just to keep your eyes open for the conditioning matrix of any experience, or the story you're telling all the time, about what's happening. So like right now we have all these people that's running. Each person is running a story about what's happening.

[15:51]

For example, I guess you're all writing a story. You're running it and you say it's safe to stay in the building. It may not be so salient that you're telling that story, but it's kind of like an assumption I guess most people here share. At least it's safe enough to stay for a little while. You may not notice that you're telling that story, but probably you are. We're all telling a story about who we are, who these other people are. Again, that these people are okay to be in the same room with, I guess. And that you feel all right or don't feel all right about the person sitting next to you and the reason why you do or you don't is because of the story you tell about that person and the story you tell about yourself in relationship to that person. I don't know if you've noticed these stories, but this is part of what you could do, is just sort of like tune in to the stories you're telling. Each one of us is going around telling that story all the time. Here comes a nice person, here comes a jerk. Here comes somebody I've got problems with. Here comes somebody I've got a different kind of problem with.

[16:54]

Here comes somebody I don't have much problem with at all. Here comes somebody, and so on. There goes somebody. This is a beautiful day. This is a troubled day. I'm having a hard time. And this kind of thing is part of what it means to study the pinnacle of rising, being aware of how you're telling stories about what's happening. Hi. I'm feeling like the most fruitful area to pay attention to is at the place in the story where

[18:04]

where you feel some obstruction or some difficulty or some resistance. I say you, you know, where I, where the self feels some contact with the other. But not just contact with the other, but some kind of like... some, like, a little bit of stickiness or resistance or difficulty or unworkability. So, like, you're talking to somebody and maybe you would like them to understand you or something like that. You're hoping to. you're hoping to convey a message to them and they... and they don't seem to understand.

[19:14]

So you feel some... some resistance or some obstruction to your... to your interest for them to understand. This is the kind of situation that's particularly... particularly auspicious. Oh, by the way, I just want to tell you, although I don't... it's up to you if you want to go outside, but when I came down here It was an extremely wonderful thing in the sky. It was the moon, the crescent moon, like this, with Venus sitting in a cup. Rare to see. Anyway, something about something, it's auspicious to work with those situations where you're running up against this resistance. Situations where you're expressing yourself and you're just moving right through are fine. That's just the way it is sometimes. But it's harder to get a feeling for the interplay between the birth of your self-identity in a situation like that.

[20:27]

Because what you're contributing to the situation doesn't seem, you can't see what effect it has on the situation because whatever you do, you just go right through. And what the situation's contributing to you is hard to see because basically it just lets you through. So it's like a door that's already opened, it's like, what can you learn about, about, about doors in that case? So in particular, if there's some situation where you can feel this kind of resistance or this kind of either stopping, you're being stopped, or you're being pressured, or perhaps you're even like pressuring something. But not so much get into like pushing it over and pushing it around. Because again, once you start moving, you're not going to learn so much. But when you feel an impasse... In some sense where you're not backing away and where it's not giving in There's some impasse And there isn't any movement and you're kind of trapped in the situation If you can just stay there

[21:51]

you can start to notice that actually, even though you're not doing anything, you start to notice that you are having some effect on this thing. And this thing is having some effect on you. There's something about it that's participating in you, otherwise you wouldn't be able to relate to it. And there's something about you that's participating in it, otherwise there wouldn't be an impasse. This thing is somewhat successful, And it's successful both in stopping you in a way, but also in giving you an opportunity. And if you just stay there with this thing, without you moving, there comes into play, not a movement exactly, but a dynamic. And you start to realize that what's happening is you are making what is making you. You contribute to and have participation in something that's contributing to and having participation in you. And all this is around some kind of static thing, particularly around yourself.

[23:00]

So, there are lots of situations where you can observe dependent core rising, and I may talk about a lot of them, and I may ask you to bring forth examples, but the primary one to concentrate on is the one you carry with you all day. your sense of self. And you don't have to do any special exercises for this to be available to you, except the exercise of being yourself. If you're trapped in yourself and there's no resistance, you just stay trapped in yourself. if you're strapped to yourself and there is some resistance and you push it out of the way or back away from it, you also kind of, you kind of distract yourself from yourself by that. So rather, so this is a big, this is a, what do you call it, this is a big change in life to switch from pushing things around or being pushed around by things or pushing things around or backing off so things don't, so you don't have to push things around or being pushed around by things but getting out of the way so they won't push you.

[24:14]

All that kind of maneuvering I don't know if you followed all those different examples, but all that kind of maneuvering is our usual way. The big shift that's being suggested in the study of emptiness is to, of course, first of all, you have to identify this self and have a feeling for this self, and then put your faith into studying the dependent or arising of this self, rather than your faith into seeing where you can position yourself in the most comfortable way. or how you can get rid of whatever's making you uncomfortable. This shift is sometimes called turning the light around and illuminating the self. And one of the main ways you turn around One of the main ways to turn the light around is to shift from self-exertion or self-imposition on doing things, to turn around and watch to see how the self is appearing.

[25:26]

And then, as I said, watch how the self is obstructed or limited. And then again, at this surface, just sit there and watch that. And I'm suggesting to you that if you stay still and watch this, you'll start to see some dance there. And this is the dance that we'll show you. And this is a dance not around the self being this way or that way. This is the dance around the existence of the self. So you can see that the actual existence of the self is a dance. And that the other and the self are mutually creating each other. And then after a while you realize there isn't anything to this self all by itself. But it's very difficult for us to be there. when there's resistance, and come right up and meet the resistance and not push it over or shrink back or move to the side, to actually be upright there.

[26:33]

And be upright like, you know, like you feel a pulse, so you take up somebody's pulse. If you don't press hard enough, you can't feel the pulse. If you press too hard, you can't feel the pulse. You have to press against this thing hard enough to feel it and not hard enough not to feel it. At that place where you can feel it but not be obstructing it, at that place, you know, it is affecting you because you're feeling it and also the way you're feeling it is making it possible for you. Your contribution of awareness is making it possible, the way you're touching it is making it possible for you to feel it. The fact that you're being gentle but also firm, makes it possible for you to experience it. The fact you're not being too firm makes it possible for you to experience. So your experience is due to the way you are present there. And also, your experience of it depends on it being there. And also your experience depends on something about it, besides being there. It's also pressing back on you, not too hard and not too soft. but it is very hard for us to be there.

[27:39]

In that way. Sitting in zendo, You have your body, and you have the floor, and your body and the earth. Your body and the earth are doing this very thing. The question is, can you feel that? Your body and gravity are doing this very thing. How do you... You're being obstructed by the ground. You're being hindered by the ground. And you can also say, no, I'm not hindered. But if you say you're not hindered, I say... Okay, fine. But isn't there some way you can express yourself such that you do feel hindered? And if you can feel hindered, then you can feel yourself expressing yourself to the earth. You're not just standing here and the earth is just passively sitting there, nicely, in a friendly way, supporting you. It's actually pushing back at you. And you're pushing at the earth.

[28:57]

But again, if you don't feel like you're expressing yourself through your feet, if you're standing, or expressing yourself through your legs and your butt, then if you're not expressing yourself, then there will be no obstruction and there will be not a very clear sense of yourself. Where will you be? Well, there's other places to express yourself when you're sitting in the zendo. There's other ways. But this is one that's kind of readily available. Namely, and this is one which happens to go right down to the skin on the back of your thighs. You don't have to use this one, but it's there. Again, do you choose? Where do you choose? Another place, if you sit cross-legged, the back, the top of your feet are pressing against the top of your thighs. If you put your legs up on your thighs, there's a pressure there. There's an expression, a self-expression going on there.

[29:58]

You can do it there too. You can also have ideas in your head about things you want to do that other people don't want you to do. There's various ways you can set this up. But where are they? Where are you expressing yourself? Are you choosing to express yourself? Or are you choosing to be a self which is... which is... slightly withdrawn from its boundaries. You know? So here's the self, and then you live somewhere in here. If you live somewhere in here, then this area here is pretty much, this buffer zone here is pretty much non-informative. Because nobody else actually can come in here. this zone here, everything stops right here. For example, if this is your skin, okay? The floor or the ground is touching you right there.

[31:06]

That's where it's talking to you, and that's where you dance with it, right here. If you back away over to here, you're not going to get much sense of your interdependence with whatever this thing here is if you're backed over to here. Can you see this, or should I do it from the top? I propose that I myself and most people I know spend most of their time somewhere in here. Some people are in here, or some people are hiding right over in here. So nobody's pressing on here, nobody's obstructing here. You can move this over to here, put it over here. Who's going to mind, you know? Who's going to challenge you? Who's going to play with you? Well, I'll tell you, almost no one can come in there. No one knows what you're doing. Now, if you tell someone, you give somebody a hint, you know, you tell somebody, you say, I got this whole thing in the sink right over here.

[32:08]

Then when you do that, it comes right out to here. And then somebody's here, and then some interaction's going on here. And particularly, if you're not sure, this person pushes back, you know, with a question, or some kind of like, they're there, you know, you've got to deal with them. It doesn't mean that they don't like you or are criticizing you, necessarily, but just that they're pushing back right there. They're meeting you. Come right up there, all over you. Most of us do not do that most of the time. So I'm proposing that a big part of studying dependent co-arising is to sit upright. When you sit upright, you come right out on the surface all around like this, yourself. You meet, you come up there and you're just completely expressing yourself and then sometimes

[33:11]

something will meet you. Like, for example, most of the time the earth will meet you. So that's enough right there. You can work on that all day long. Which is fine. Now what about when you meet another face? There again, perfect case. If you're right up there, totally showing yourself, then you've got somebody to meet. They may or may not be up for the game, but basically it's Pretty close. And every moment, you're offering a different face, different gift. And again, you just do that, I would say, just do that as honestly as you can. As honestly as you can. Just put your face up there. Put your feet as honestly as you can on the ground. And honestly means, most honestly... expressing yourself, most fully expressing yourself. Whatever you think that is, do that.

[34:14]

You don't go, I wouldn't recommend saying, okay, here's my face, I want some resistance. Unless that is your face, to talk like that. Which it might be once in a while, but maybe usually it's not. Maybe usually you have a face which doesn't say that. And maybe that's not what you want to do. And then it's just a matter of waiting until you feel that something's coming back at you. And then at that time, most of all then, you've got a visitor. Now, I don't know who is the host and who is the guest at this time, but that's what we're talking about, host and guest. Somebody arrives now and there's something meeting you and it's really an issue. At that time, Here is where dependent, here is where dependent co-arising, if these surfaces where you're met, is where self and other are dependently co-arising. That's where you're gonna realize it, here, at these kind of junctions, these pressure points.

[35:18]

Now I'm telling, I'm talking about something which again, I say, we don't usually, most of us don't spend all of our time out here, right on the, you know, all the way to the tips of our skin, even though that is the tips of our skin, and we really do care about that. And if somebody comes up and touches it, then maybe we might come out there and say something. Which is good. But people don't do that so much. So we can't depend on people coming up and touching us to call us up to our surface. But if we bring ourselves forward, there's a fairly good chance that we'll get met. When I say fairly good chance, I mean there's some chance. Some chance is good. There is some chance. And, of course, the reason why we don't express ourselves globally all day long is because we have a habit of not doing it, one way to put it, but also even when we're doing it, because our habit is not to do it, we feel weak and vulnerable.

[36:35]

Because, again... ladies and gentlemen, where do we feel most vulnerable? We feel most vulnerable at our surface, at our boundaries, and that in fact is where we're vulnerable. Nobody can get us deep inside here, unless we're vulnerable at our surface. And that's another part of the reason why we don't want to be vulnerable at our surface, because if we are vulnerable at our surface, Then we become vulnerable inside here. And if we let ourselves be vulnerable there, we can finally, we're like all the way through vulnerable. And this is something we're not sure is a good idea. And you know what? Sometimes it isn't. Because some people abuse our vulnerabilities. And what sometimes happens is that we make ourselves vulnerable to somebody or something, we let it be known and we get abused and then we withdraw.

[37:44]

We, the self, make ourselves vulnerable for whatever reason. We get hurt and we withdraw. It's understandable. It's a perfectly normal animal reaction. However, It is counterproductive in terms of liberation. Although, in fact, we cannot go on because if we stay there in an injured state, unless we're very skillful, we may do big damage out here to protect ourselves if we stay out here. So maybe it's good to withdraw sometimes rather than be angry and aggressive and harmful when we feel threatened. by whatever means possible, we need to come out here to the surface and check it out and make ourselves vulnerable and try to... Because again, if you're not vulnerable, you can't dance. You can't learn. If you come out... If you're in a position where you can't be moved, where no one can get to you, or you come out where someone can get to you, but you're so strong that they can't move you, if they can't move you,

[38:57]

You say, well, I can move them. Okay? But then again, that's just sort of one-sided. You're stronger, you just push them away. You don't realize that when you push them away, the reason why you push them away is because they let you. And so on. Again, when you can push them around, when there's no resistance, you lose track of the dependent core arising, and your self stays intact. And your belief, you're basically going ahead and proving that your self exists, and it actually can push everybody around. So that didn't help in it. It's at the vulnerability that you can dance. I used to play judo, and the first thing they taught us how to do was, what's the first thing they teach you in judo? How to fall. How to be defeated. And I think probably Aikido is the same thing, right? That's the nice thing about those is that the first thing they teach you is how to fall.

[39:59]

And some people don't know how to fall very well, so the people who don't know how to fall very well, guess what they do? Yes, out loud. What? They resist. That's the main thing they do. They resist because they don't want to fall because they don't know how. And if you don't know how to fall, it's too painful to fall. If you're good at falling, it's not so bad. Actually, it's kind of fun. There's ways you can do it. You know, I'm not going to show you right now. But anyway, there are ways to fall. It's not that bad. But if you don't know how, you'd be frightened to fall. You could hurt yourself, so you resist. And if you resist, then what happens? If you're resisting when you're playing judo, can you imagine what happens if you resist? Well, you don't necessarily fall. If you're really strong, you don't fall. But what happens? What did you say? What? Pressure builds up. Pressure builds up. Well, somebody else said it. You don't necessarily get hurt. No, if you're real strong and you resist, you don't necessarily get hurt. Like, let's say that you even have a pretty good judo teacher, right? He brings some really big, you know, Big Ten football player in. and like 300-pounder, you know, and he's real strong, and he doesn't want to fall, though, and he resists.

[41:03]

What's going to happen to him? What? He loses concentration? No, no, no, that's, no. What? What? He doesn't dance. He doesn't dance. And if you don't dance, you don't learn how to play judo. He basically just walks in there and just goes like this, playing football, which he knows how to do, but he doesn't know how to dance. He doesn't know how to play judo. In order to play judo, you have to get thrown. Or at least be willing to be thrown. You have to be able to move, but at least you have to be able to move. You don't necessarily have to be thrown, but that's not absolutely necessary. Although very unlikely that you'd never be thrown. Still, you don't have to be thrown. If you're really strong, you wouldn't ever have to get thrown. But if you're afraid to fall, then you're going to be resistant and you won't learn the sport. You won't learn the dance. And I saw guys like that. They're real strong. And guys from the Minnesota football team came to play.

[42:07]

And some of them, you just couldn't move them. They were just like this. And they practiced, they practiced, and they didn't learn anything. After months and months, they didn't learn a thing. But the people, some of these little tiny guys, you know, or medium-sized guys who didn't mind getting thrown, they would just learn and learn and learn and learn. You know? And they still could never beat those huge guys. But they were judo masters. And the other guys were, well, you know, they didn't learn anything. Of course, they didn't need to learn anything. You know, they're football stars. But anyway... And all the sports I played, the people who played those sports were the people who learned, you know, and danced. They were wonderful people, you know. They really weren't brutes, even though they did learn that sport, and they were very skillful, and they could do beautiful, beautiful things. They really were good people because the whole thing was based on this dance, you know.

[43:09]

There's a little bit of, like, winning stuff in it, but some people would never throw people unless it was, like, a beautiful throw. Some people played that way. So as you go through the day and as you go through a meditation period, is there any vulnerability involved? And does the vulnerability have something to do with you coming up there and saying where you're at? How many times during the day do you say to yourself, do you tell yourself how you're feeling and where you're at and what you're trying to do? Doesn't that require quite a bit of presence? Just to tell yourself what you're going to do. When you get up in the morning, tell yourself what you're going to do. When you sit zazen, do you tell yourself that you have some intention that you're actually exposed to yourself so that you could fail at doing it? Or judge yourself for not following through on what you felt responsible for?

[44:12]

Do you do that? Do you express yourself? When you walk through that door, do you express yourself? Are you expressing yourself? If you do, you're vulnerable. And if you don't, After you said you would, you're vulnerable. And when you meet people, do you put yourself out there so that they could resist you? And if they can, then you're cooking. But again, then after you do that and you know you're cooking, well, remember you're cooking now. This is not like some problem that you're supposed to eliminate and not get them to agree with you now or get out of the way or do what you want. You see, this is a radically different approach to life. This is like using the meeting to find out who you are. And then using how, after finding out a little bit about who you are, then again, then now express yourself, express that person, and watch how that person, that person's met or not met. And when you're not met, what are you going to do?

[45:12]

Going to let them get by with it? Well, yeah, of course. It's easier. If I make the mistake of making myself vulnerable and showing myself, then it would really be good if nobody noticed it. That was a close one. I did what he said, but fortunately... and came to play with him, but when I finally got a chance, I said, no, it's okay, you're busy, I'll see you later. I expressed myself, you know, I said to him, I said, who are you meeting? And who are you expressing yourself to? And is there any vulnerability there? I didn't try to make myself vulnerable to him. I just put myself there, and I was.

[46:16]

You don't have to do some big, big thing. You put yourself in the face of somebody who actually would be interested and care about you, and suddenly you feel somebody's needing you. And that'd be a kind of thing there. That's where you study. That's where the study dependence will arise. And then, in that situation, all the, what do you call it, dependence to attribute substance have to sit, and all your problems have to sit, and all the authorities, and that you took the reality to reflect this with us. And that will be the dent, and that will be the problem that you have to deal with. And if you discuss situations with people, your belief in truth of what you think or the real existence of certain things you think are going on or happening, that will start to surface. And the way you think that way will start to be content. And so the text, studying this text, if you express your understanding vis-a-vis the text, that will also be a way that you'll make yourself vulnerable.

[47:25]

But also surface your belief in self. in your own self, but also in the self that you attribute to things all over the place. We do this kind of thing to process it with enlightenment. We do this thing to causal relationships between our practice and its goal. All this stuff comes from the same kind of thing. You can practice this all the time. If you'd like, go ahead and study other things. But I think the most important thing that I would recommend is try to practice it. And then you read the book, too, but try to practice this. You've got to tune into the place where you create the world and the world creates you, where you need things and they need you, where you participate in what you're needing and what you need to participate in.

[48:31]

Any questions? Jim? Where doesn't that happen? Nowhere. That's called nowhere. Nowhere at all. However, where don't we pay attention to it? Wherever you say you are. When don't we pay attention to it? Whenever we don't express ourselves. Of course, we're still out here completely on the surface. So if somebody comes up and sticks their finger in your eye, you say, hey, wait a minute. I mean, somebody's got to be pretty checked out, like catatonic, before you can stick your finger in their eye and they won't say, what are you doing? People do get that with drama, right? So that they won't even say it then. But in some ways, what's nice is that if you eat from a distance and you see somebody, you're already, like, related. They don't get real, real close before you start feeling them coming on you. And also, you can start meditating how, watch how you have an effect on them.

[49:37]

Then you're right, then you're pretty much out there. But then you're vulnerable. Watch how, you know, this thing about animals, you know, how they have these circles around them? We have that in us, too. Like, certain animals, like, predatory animals, like lions and tigers do this, too. Like, if you're outside of a certain perimeter, they won't, if you're outside of a certain circle, they won't pay any attention to you. If you move inside, inside that circle, they're watching you, though. But if you're outside a certain perimeter, they won't pay attention to you. If you move inside, they'll move away. And then if you move closer, and there's another circle around, if you move inside that, they'll move towards you. So animals are very aware of this kind of distance things too, and they have different reactions to different distances. But for us, you know, there's something like that going on too. But are we out there, you know, and sensitive to this border, and are we responding? I can tell you, you know, one of the nice things about teaching a class is that I can feel, you know, how hard it is to be me.

[50:45]

in all these spaces. It's very hard for me to be myself, to not go too far or shrink back, to not do this or that, to really emphasize not so much what I'm saying, but to continue being mindful of being myself while I'm talking to you. This is very hard. For me to stay present with this person while I'm talking to you and not just get off into what I'm talking about. It's very hard to be present in someone else's face. And I can feel it easily in a big group. And most people are like, you know, nowhere near themselves when they're in front of a big group. They don't even want to go in front of the big group, not to mention when they get there. So that's part of the reason why people say such stupid things when they're speaking to a large group, because they're not there. And some people read their, write the thing beforehand and read it, so then they're not so stupid.

[51:49]

But if you're somebody like me and you actually talk from what's happening with you at the time, it's very difficult to speak, because you have to be there. Karin? Can the kind of interview you're talking about, I was just thinking about vulnerability and it just seems that vulnerability from different sources has different qualities. Does it have to be vulnerability that you choose? If you choose, it's not really vulnerability. I was just thinking about when you react to something. seems to be, when you react to something, you are vulnerable. You're expressing it. But if something comes to meet you, well... When you react to something, you're expressing yourself.

[52:57]

Your reaction is an expression, right? Right. But by reacting or responding, you've already been affected. That's why you call it a response, right? Right. So you were somewhat vulnerable, actually, and now you're responding by virtue of, and from being sort of empowered by the vulnerability, you now can respond. Right, but when I look at that picture and think about, I mean, I hate this phrase, but pushing people's buttons. Yes. I mean, those feel like they're sort of inside the circle. The buttons are inside the circle? Yeah. Well, the belly button isn't inside the circle. If you press on somebody's belly button, they sometimes feel in other parts of their body, right? Right now, I'm pressing mine, and I can feel it in my toes and knees. So, the buttons are on the surface, too. And then they go... I think what I mean by buttons, or what I think of in my buttons, is the place you press on the person that goes deep. Like you can press maybe on this person, and nothing much happens, but you press on the high, maybe it's kind of a button, right?

[54:03]

And I can say, maybe I can say, some people I can say, you know, you're a woman. And it doesn't press a button. Some other people I can say, you're a woman, and it presses a button. In other words, they have a big reaction to it. It sets off a complex or something. It goes deep. That's what I mean by pressing a button. What do you mean by that? I think I mean the same thing, except I feel like I don't feel like I was different. I feel like it... I feel like it's really deep inside. Yeah, well, you mean you think something's deep inside and they're not on the surface? Is that what you're saying? Is that what you're saying? Yeah. Well, I would say, to me, that doesn't make sense because if something's deep inside, all right, where is it inside of? Huh? Are you following this? Yes.

[55:04]

Deep inside means it's in here, right? If it's deep inside, it's in here, right? Right. But how did it get deep inside? Where does the depth come from? It comes from here, doesn't it? For me, it would come from, well, I think it would come from how far it was from being expressed. Right. How far it is from the surface, right? Right. That's what makes it deep. Therefore, its depth is determined by the surface, by its distance from the surface. All right? So the surface is totally involved in the depth. So when you press a button and it goes deep inside, it must involve the surface. Otherwise, depth would have no meaning. This is dependent core rising. And that's why. We're careful about what touches our surface because it might touch something that's far away from the surface.

[56:04]

Some things we don't mind on the surface. But what we're afraid of is if it touched on the surface and it would touch something deep because we keep the deep things far away from the surface because they're very important to us. But they're located at the center or the deep place by virtue of our definition of our surface. So our self defines what's deep. And that's why we want to keep our self very clear. Because if you lose track of what's surface, you can't tell where the deep things are anymore. They might slip up to the surface. So our ordered sense of things and protecting our self is built like this. The problem is that we build this into this system and lose track of the interdependence of the depth and the height and the self and the other and see, we start thinking as we turn into, we die, you know, we become stiff and we become, we become people who don't want to play because our surface will get touched and that might endanger some deep place that we can't dare to get hurt.

[57:08]

So they push all the, all the important things in deep and make the outside real hard. But the outside being hard means we really care about the outside. Because that's a protection for what stuff we care about more. So we care about the outside, too. For example, we care about our face very much. We care about what people think of our face, because our face tells them more than cares for them to know. Please, you know, come on out. Bring your surface out. That's enough. You don't have to show your deep stuff. Yes? You're outside of this. What? You're outside of this. Can you tell me an example like that? Well, it seems like sort of like you're actually circled view and you're outside of this. What about projection? How does that work? Yeah. Let's talk about that later.

[58:10]

It's a little bit hard. It's getting kind of late. But basically projection is part of the way, not so much I would say that you go outside the circle, but it's part of the way you get the stuff deep down inside up to the surface. Up to the surface. Yeah, up to your surface where you can see it. Some stuff is so deep you can't see it. And you use other people on your surface to get to know it. That's why, you see, you bring up, that's why these people meet you, show you who you are. And when you see how they show you who you are, you realize that they're making you wake up to who you are. So they're not really not you, they're actually showing, they're the way you're finding out about yourself. Same thing. You are not it, it actually is you. This is, on the surface here, you start to find out that the other person tells you about things about yourself more than you know yourself. Not just by telling you, but just by the way they look at your face. You don't know that you're tense. You don't know that you're scared. They say, are you scared?

[59:11]

You think you're sick, right? But then they see you're sick, and then you realize how you're sick. The more you tell them, the more they show you more. If you don't tell anybody anything, They don't tell you much. If you tell them a lot, they tell you more. But when you tell them a lot, you're vulnerable. When you tell them a lot, you're expressing yourself. When you're expressing yourself, you're telling them a lot. When you're expressing yourself, you're vulnerable. When you're vulnerable, you're dancing. When you're vulnerable, you learn. When you're vulnerable, the individual self is in danger of being fulfilled. The limited self, the unfulfilled self, when it expresses itself, is in danger of being fulfilled by myriad things. Dangerous business of self-fulfillment, which is the authentic gate to Buddhadharma, self-fulfillment. Upright sitting is... So again, Corinne talked about, do you go look for somebody to press your buttons or go into some situation where you're vulnerable?

[60:23]

No, you don't choose. You just be upright and express yourself right out to the surface of your skin. Express yourself right to the limit of your being and be balanced in that. That will bring on exactly the best dance partner. Oftentimes just the one you do not want. But the one you choose is the one you choose basically from some hidden place, you know, from some unfulfilled place. If you just express yourself, the one that's really your partner will come forth. But maybe, any other questions tonight? Yes? Did you have a question? Yes? Did you have a question? Pardon? I do not. Learn, I mean, how did I learn how to dance? Dancing. Dancing with myself, dancing with others.

[61:26]

And reading, and reading dancing books. Yes? Is there such a thing as being fulfilled? There isn't such a thing as being fulfilled. It's not a thing. If it were a thing, it's non-experience. But it is our goal and it is set the authentic gate to the enlightenment. Self-fulfillment. But that's not a thing. Self-fulfillment is by definition not a thing. Things are unfulfilled, because things are not other things. When a thing is self-fulfilled, the thing is not just itself, but it's all the things that it co-arises you. Then it's self-fulfilled. But that's not a thing. That's the entire universe.

[62:30]

So, the self-fulfilling awareness is when the walls, the tiles, the pebbles, the grasses, the trees, the mountains, the rivers, and the great earths, and the wind, and the water, and the sky, all together with you, realize the Dharma, and you realize it with them. And they, in turn, come back to you and help you practice, and you help them practice. The whole world wakes up together. That's self-fulfillment, but that's not a thing. There's no more self. There's a self there too, but it's just swirling around with the grasses and the trees and the walls and the tiles and the pebbles and these other things just mutually arising and ceasing together. It's this tremendous unceasing Dharma wheel, you know, it's turning through everything. That's not a thing. That's the cosmos being the cosmos. That's the cosmos when it realizes its Dharma nature. That's the Buddha being realized in this world. That's not a thing. That's the whole, this self-fulfillment is the whole point of practice so we can enter the Dharma world. So self-fulfillment comes from one who expresses the unfulfilled self.

[63:32]

So ethos has to all day long express our unfulfilled self. Who wants to express an unfulfilled self? I mean, who wants to? Only people that understand it's necessary would want to, because otherwise it's kind of embarrassing. You know, here's my unfulfilled self. Anyone got this? No, no. It's just, you know, it doesn't help to lean backwards. Stand up straight and say, okay, here's an unfulfilled self for you. How about you? Do you have an unfulfilled self? Two unfulfilled selves can fulfill the self and forget the self together. That's the point. Not just one, you know, fulfilled Buddha face. It's two Buddha faces. Two ordinary, unfulfilled, limited people getting together and honestly admitting it. That's how, That's how you realize dependent core rising. Then two people, or ten people, studying dependent core rising together, realizing it together, then they all wake up, they all see Dharma together.

[64:34]

So there is self-fulfillment, but it's not a thing. It's like, you know, it's like a dance. Okay? See, Lidia? That's enough for tonight, OK? So we shall continue. Please study all day long.

[64:53]

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