The Buddha, Shakyamuni, said something like, profound Ananda is the law of dependent co-arising. Profound is the law of dependent co-arising. And profound it does appear. Profound is the principle of how everything in the world and all beings arise in dependence on each other, arise through mutually supporting each other in mutual complete interdependence.

[01:36]

This law, this way things are, is profound. This interdependence, this dependent co-arising of the world is the central focus of meditation of all Buddhas. All Buddhas are constantly mindful of this dependent co-arising of the world. For one who does not

[02:41]

Understand, the Buddha said, for one who does not understand this dependent core arising, who does not penetrate into this teaching of dependent core arising and become intimate with the process of dependent core arising. For such a person, the world will appear as a great tangled mass of thread. It will appear like an infested bird's nest. It will appear like a twisted thicket of reeds and thorns.

[03:48]

And when the world looks like that, it will be not possible at that time to become free of various states of woe and predation and the endless cycle of suffering rebirth. On the other hand, if one can witness, can see, things dependently co-arising, one sees the Dharma. And when one sees the Dharma, one sees the dependent co-arising of the world.

[04:54]

And this vision will liberate oneself and others. this teaching of dependent co-arising, although central, it's very profound and difficult to study. So one hesitates to even bring it up, as I do today. I don't want to bring up something that's too difficult for Sunday morning, and yet I just did bring up something which I hope is not too difficult for Sunday morning.

[06:01]

This teaching is very profound. It's not only as profound and as extensive as the entire universe of beings, but it is not just coextensive with that, but it also includes the tremendous interrelationships that are involved there. kind of like our brain. There's quite a few neurons in there, I've heard. Like, what is it, billions? Something like that. But the interrelationships among them, the number of interrelationships among our neurons is, well, inconceivably greater than that. So how do we begin, how do we enter into the study of this dependent core rising of the world?

[07:25]

We enter by practicing presence. We enter by being present. Now, first of all, we have to enter, though, being present. And being present and entering into being present is a way of complete, utter, radical simplicity.

[08:42]

It's very simple. But it's not easy to practice because in order to be simple, one has to give up everything. One has to give up all complications. And giving them up does not mean getting rid of them, pushing them away, and of course it doesn't mean pulling them towards us. It means to meet the basically inconceivable complexity of every moment. And that's it. And by meeting, I mean you face, we face our experience,

[09:53]

and love it, and love it with a love that goes beyond all desire. It means to become intimate with, to become close with each moment of experience Always starting now. Not getting ready for it and doing it later. Not doing it in the past. Only doing it now. being present like this, being present like, not like this, but being present, and simply meeting what's happening without, meeting what's happening without meddling, tampering, interfering with what's happening at all, are some words about

[12:05]

being present. This kind of presence is, if you excuse the expression, the alchemy of Zen. It's nothing at all over and above your experience. It is simply your experience being itself. It's simply you being yourself. So the Buddha teaches us, the Buddha encourages us to practice such, to practice thus, to practice being like this, whatever it is for you, to practice being present.

[13:26]

And that means that In the herd, and you can take that either as a herd of animals or in particular in what you hear and what you see, in the herd, when you're present, in the herd, there will be just the herd. In the herd, there will be just... the heard. In the seen there will be just the seen. In the imagined there will be just the imagined. And in the cognized or known there will be just the cognized or known. Train yourself in presence thus

[14:37]

Simple? Yes. Requiring you to give up everything else? Yes. When you hear, there is a hearing which gives up everything but hearing. That is just hearing. Just hearing so thoroughly that In the herd, there's just the herd. There's not even you listening. There's just the herd. There's not you commenting. There's just the herd. Complete simplicity. Now, when for you, in the herd, there is just the herd, And in the seen, there is just the seen.

[15:41]

And in the imagined, there is just the imagined. And in the known or cognized, there is just the known. At that time, with that presence, you will not identify yourself with it. You will not locate yourself in it or out of it. You will not be here or there or in between. And this will mean the end of suffering. Last week, during this lecture time, the Ocean of Compassion told the story of Rumpelstiltskin,

[17:01]

You know the story of Rumpelstiltskin where the young lady was supposed to spin a room full of straw into gold? So how do you spin a room full of straw into gold? Do you understand? The Zen alchemical process for spinning straw into gold is in the straw there will be just the straw. And when for you in the straw there is just the straw, then the straw will turn into gold. To any other person, it may still appear to be straw.

[18:03]

And to you, nothing has changed except your attitude. The attitude that this straw is something that you hold in your hands and let it be just what it is. And when you can take anything and look at it and touch it and have enough respect for it, to leave it alone, to not meddle with it, to not push it up or shove it down, to just let the straw be straw. The straw is the most precious thing that there is at that moment. Any experience that you let be what it is turns into gold, but not ordinary gold, but gold which sets you free from suffering.

[19:05]

Somebody gave me a... a little tool to use recently. It's a three-hole punch. And on the end of the package, it said, limited lifetime warranty. I enjoyed reading the word, limited lifetime warranty. Such a wonderful expression, limited lifetime warranty. Well, if you'll excuse me for saying so, I offer you a warranty on the practice of presence, which is not a limited lifetime warranty. It is a warranty that will work, that will be operable forever. life after life, and for every moment in this life.

[20:26]

But this warranty must and can only be applied in the present. If you try to apply it in the future, it won't work. If you try to apply it in the past, it's useless. But I have another warranty, is if you try to apply it in the future or past, then you can be sure that you'll be caught in a tangle and mass of pain. We must be present in order to be free. We can't be free of suffering from some other place from our suffering. So, the straw can be pain. And when in the pain there is just the pain, The pain doesn't change into pleasure. The pain changes into gold, into freedom, freedom from itself.

[21:28]

This is the way for each of us personally to attain liberation from suffering. unlimited lifetimes guaranteed. In fact, actually, if you apply this in one lifetime, you won't get another lifetime. When Zen monks, Zen monks are usually people who have committed themselves to save the entire world, not just themselves. As a matter of fact, to save the entire world before themselves.

[22:32]

Each and every being in the world before themselves, they've made that commitment. The reason why they make this commitment is because they not only want to be free of suffering themselves, They want everybody else to be free. And in order to free everybody else, to make sure they're free, you have to set them all free before you. You can't leave and then assume they'll make it. So in the Zen tradition, we vow to save all other beings first. In that case, what one does is one takes this practice of presence and applies it, as I just said, but then, after entering into this presence, which liberates you individually, you the present one, and changes the world of painful straw into liberated gold, or the gold of liberation, Then, because of your vows to benefit all beings before yourself, you then, guided by this great compassion that you feel, commanded, ordered by this great compassion, which you've committed yourself to,

[23:56]

In order to fulfill these compassionate vows, you turn your present being, you turn your presence towards the contemplation of the dependent co-arising of the world. And you study how the world is formed and how the world is unformed. You watch the world become integrated and disintegrated. And you see in this process of contemplating the dependent core rising of all beings and all beings going out of existence, back and forth. By this contemplation of dependent core rising of the world, it occurs to you, you see, you witness that all the suffering in the world and the bondage in the world is due to self-clinging.

[25:08]

And that if there is no self-clinging, there is no bondage to the world. Then the Bodhisattva sees that it would be appropriate now to try to show and teach others about this dependent core rising and to teach others about the presence by which you enter into the contemplation of dependent core rising. So as I said before, to say that this is a big topic is to say that it's the same as contemplating the interdependence of the whole world.

[26:27]

How do we approach that? And it's often taught in terms of twelve elements or twelve links in the process. In one sense, if you view it as a chain, as a lockstep process of bondage, it could be called a chain. We don't necessarily know if the Buddha said chain, but If you view it a certain way, it could be as a chain, but you can also view it as just 12 elements that interrelate with each other. And they're usually presented in a certain order. And I will present that order to you now, which perhaps you will study again and again

[27:31]

for a long time. I don't know. We'll see. These are called the Twelve Links of Dependent Core Rising. Okay. Try to memorize them if you have a chance. And now's a chance. So you could learn something this morning. You could memorize these 12. And then you'd be all set. Okay, so I'll just, I'll go through the whole list once because if I, I'll just go through the list and then go back because I have a tendency to stop and I'll only get to like one. So I'll just go through. Ready, get set. Number one is called ignorance. Number two is called karmic formations or accumulations due to action.

[28:47]

Number three is called consciousness. Number four is called name and form. Number five is called six sense doors. Number six is called contact. Number seven is called feeling or sensation. Number eight is called craving. Number nine is called clinging. Number 10 is called becoming. Number 11 is called birth. Number 12 is called old age, sickness, disease, death, grief, lamentation, despair,

[29:59]

Despondency. Misery. Forever. Because it keeps going around. Then you go, ignorance, da-da-da-da. This thing, this is a perpetual wheel. For one, who does not see how this wheel works. For one who does not understand the process just told, it will be eternal. However, for one who does see this process and does observe it and understand it, that person will see Dharma. And in every phase of this process, that person will see a light. a light which will wake the person up and realize Buddhahood through that person.

[31:04]

The light will overcome you and make you into a Buddha. Okay, I got through the list. Now what? Well, Again, this list has 12 things on it, so if you take those 12 things and all the different combinations of those 12 things, it's a large number. And all the different combinations are worthy of consideration. And then if you put all those combinations in relationship to the combinations of your mind and in your relationship with all other beings, you see it's really a complicated study. Come back now. You heard you got these 12 things tossed out to you. Did you memorize them, by the way? Ready? Number one.

[32:08]

Number two. Number three. Number four. Name and form. Number five. Number six. Number seven? Number seven? Number seven? What was number six? What was number six? What's number six? What's number six? What's number six? Right. What's number seven? Okay. What's number seven? What's number seven? What's number seven? All right. What's number seven? What's number eight? Number eight is craving. Number nine? Clinging and grasping.

[33:11]

Number nine? Clinging, grasping, attachment. Number 10? Becoming. Number 11? Number 11. Birth. And number 12. Death. Death, etc. Forever. Forever. Okay. Have a... Okay, so you got that now. That's great. You can use that now for the rest of your, for eternity, to save all beings. Got that teaching? Study it. You want the cessation? Okay. Now there's four noble truths the Buddha taught. What the Buddha did is the Buddha became present with himself at some point, completely present, and he woke up.

[34:15]

He himself woke up. He contemplated these 12 links. He saw how they give rise to this suffering forever. And then he saw how by contemplating them, At any point along the way, that link can cease. That link can be seen through. And any point in this chain that you understand a link, the whole chain is broken. You can break it at any point. And he saw how when... Oh, and then I didn't tell you the other part about this chain. I told you the names of the chains, but the way he taught it was, and the way he saw it was, that... Dependent on number one, number two arises. Dependent on number two, number three arises, and so on. Each one of these depends on the former one, and also each one depends on the latter one.

[35:21]

So this chain is interdependently arising with itself. Because all the links are dependent on each other, none of them actually inherently exist. And therefore, they can be lived with. You can live with them. In other words, you can be free. with each one of these because none of them have any inherent substance. However, if we do not see these elements, and if we do not see that each one of these elements dependently co-arises, then we take them as real and then we're locked in. For one who sees any of these, take any one you want, take your feelings. For one who does not see the dependent co-arising of feelings,

[36:24]

Then feelings are infested bird's nest, are a thicket, are a ball of entanglement. And out of that entanglement, there may be, very likely, the arising of craving. But even then, if you could observe how craving arises in dependence on sensation, and particularly the sensation of pain and entanglement, one can become free of craving. Anyway, back to the Four Noble Truths. The Buddha taught Four Noble Truths. First one is that given this setup of ignorance, life involves suffering. Now, it turns out that this suffering has an arising, that it dependently co-arises, and that this suffering has a cessation, and that there's a path to the cessation of the suffering.

[37:36]

The cessation arises when you see how the pain arises. The cessation also dependently co-arises. It arises in dependence on seeing the origination of the suffering. The suffering originates by this process I just told you. But in particular, in short, oftentimes people say the second truth is that pain has an origination, that pain arises in dependence on something. And the thing it arises in dependence on is craving. Craving gets a special honor in the whole chain. Of course, the suffering arises in dependence on the whole sequence of events, but the craving, the thirst, the desire gets a special emphasis.

[38:46]

And if we would become free of desire, then there will be cessation. First of all, will there be cessation of the condition for the arising of suffering. So there will be a cessation of the suffering. And the path, the practice, is the path by which we are able to let go of this thirst, this craving, this desire. And when we can let go of craving and desire, then the key ingredient or a key ingredient in the arising of suffering will be missing. And what that one's missing, the suffering cannot find a foothold. So looking at the origination of suffering means to look at the dependent core arising of suffering.

[39:57]

So again, we're taken back to study the dependent core arising of suffering. And again, how do you study the dependent core arising of suffering? By what? Presence. You got some suffering? Got some suffering? Be present with it. And how do you be present with the suffering? You love the suffering. Not like the suffering. Love it. Now, some of you are parents. Sometimes you like your babies. You like your children. But sometimes you don't. But you always love your children. Now, to love your children in the way of presence means you love your children without desire. You love your children without craving. You just love them as they are.

[40:58]

you don't love them and want them to be something else. Now, if you do love them and want them to be something else, then you're not present with them. Then you're leaning into the future. Then you're wanting them to be something other than that that's craving. To love your experience, even if it's suffering, to love it and have that love go beyond desire, Have that love go beyond craving. That's the presence with the suffering, which will mean the end of suffering. And it will reveal to you that if you crave around your suffering, then that pushes you into clinging. You watch the dependent core rising of the chain right there. If you don't crave and thirst around your suffering and you're just present with it, then you get to see the presence and you get to see that the link, the chain of going from sensation, of going from number seven into number eight does not have to happen

[42:24]

They can just be number seven, and by being present in number seven, and number seven can be pain, and it can be pleasure, and it can be neither. And being present there, one is not inexorably propelled into clinging, becoming, birth, old age, and so on. Even a Buddha, especially a Buddha, has feelings, has sensations. But the Buddha, we, each of you, as a Buddha, has sensations.

[43:27]

As a Buddha, you also have the experience of contact. Contact of what? Contact of the six sense doors. So you also have the six sense doors. Also you have name and form, which means your style of consciousness, your personality. Name and form is your personality, your personal personality, your way of thinking. And you also have consciousness. As a Buddha, each of you has consciousness, number three. Name and form a personality, number four. Six sense doors, number five. Contact between them, number six. And seven, sensation. Each of you has life processes that you get from being a human. And Buddhas have those life processes. Now... in each one of those to just be present especially to be present at the very last one where the pain hits then not only are you do you have these qualities of experience as a buddha but you realize

[44:46]

being a Buddha, or I should say you realize being a liberated being. You're not yet a Buddha until you then take that liberated presence and turn it back to thoroughly understanding this whole chain from the point of view of all beings. That's why the bodhisattvas who want to understand this process for the benefit of all others, those are the people that become the Buddhas. But your Buddha nature is realized by simply being present with these five aspects of being alive. Number three through seven. It's 1109.

[45:52]

So you can imagine that the talk would go on rather a long time if I went through in detail each one of these steps. So I won't. But I'll just go through a little bit, okay? Number one, ignorance. Ignorance. Ignorance means you got a living being, particularly human, and you've got ignorance. That means this living being is ignoring something. What are they ignoring? What do you think they might be ignoring? Any ideas? They're ignoring the present. They're ignoring pain. What else? Huh? What? Louder. They're ignoring the chain of dependent co-arising. So we ignore... We might ignore pain, but that's not necessary. We might not ignore pain, but we might ignore pain, we might ignore the present, and particularly we ignore dependent co-arising.

[47:03]

By ignoring dependent co-arising, we also ignore the Buddhist realization of what we call non-self or no-self. But no-self doesn't mean there's no self. No-self means you ignore the fact that the self is something that dependently co-arises. We ignore the fact that our self is not independent. We ignore that. We're born and we ignore the fact that we're born through interdependence. We ignore that. So therefore we ignore the true nature of self. Therefore, we ignore the pain which will arise from ignoring the Pentecost rising. We also ignore impermanence of everything, how everything's changing in relationship to everything. We ignore these basic realities of our life. Then, based on that ignorance,

[48:09]

there are karmic formations, there are actions which can arise from that ignorance. And as a result of those actions, we have a kind of consciousness, which is a consciousness born independence on this ignoring the way things are. And the actions and habits based on ignoring the way things are, then we get a nice consciousness based on that stuff, which basically sees things as independent things. and also ignores the pain of seeing things as independent things. And that's what we're born with, or develops embryologically and so on. At a certain point in our development, we get this nice consciousness which sees things in terms of I'm a self, all by myself, separate from you, all by yourself. Or who cares about you? I don't know about you. But anyway, I know I'm independent, and you might be dependent, but... you know, on me, for example, but I'm not dependent on you.

[49:13]

I'm an independent operator. I can do things by myself. I'm a karmic machine. So there I am. I've got that kind of consciousness where I can say, self, other, this, that, and this thing and that thing, and... I'd rather not notice any more than that. This is the deal. You can't avoid this. It's part of the deal of getting to be a human being. And it's based on his background. Then following from that, because of this way of seeing things, each of us has our own style, our own dispositions based on those karmic formations of things we've done based on ignorance. Each of us has our own style, and that's our personality, our own way of seeing ourself and other and doing things on that basis.

[50:17]

And that's the basis, our independence on that we have six sense doors, and those are kind of like a little boundary, a little sensory surface that we put around this personality. So not only do we have a style that's kind of like whatever, style of relating to things, but then we encase that style in a sense surface so we can tell where that style ends and where other styles start. And on that surface, we can feel pain and pleasure. If other things in the universe press on this system and ask it, for example, to change its style too much, we feel pain. If they kind of press on it in a certain way of saying, this is the way your operating system is acceptable, we feel pleasure. And then, all these different possibilities of

[51:26]

a sensation like the consciousness and the organ by which we sense these things, and the objects which are impinging on the organ and relating to the consciousness, this contact occurs, and then there's feeling. Any one of these points, if you study the dependent core arising at any one of these points, there can be personal liberation. And there are meditation practices for each one of these stages. You can tune into each one of these stages and see how they dependently co-arise and become free of them, free of your personality, styles, your ways of thinking and relating, free of your consciousness, free of the actual way your sense organs and consciousness work. free of all this stuff. There's different meditations for each one, which basically are ways to guide ourselves in contemplation once we're present with our experience.

[52:32]

I have, so I have brought this up, I don't know, some of these, this might be really new material, and I, for those people, I've just now, you know, brought this up for you to look at, and for those of you who are more familiar with it, for everyone, basically, what I'm suggesting, what I'm hoping is that all of you will practice presence, that you will take on this practice for your own good and for the good of all beings. And that you will consider at some point to take on this study of the Buddha's teaching of dependent core rising, which I just gave you a little sample of today. It's a rather daunting prospect, this study, but I hope you consider entering into it.

[54:46]

I feel embarrassed to say I will be happy to help anybody study this teaching, this practice of the dependent core arising. I got a story in the mail which is about this. It's a, you know, we have these things in Zen called koans, which means public cases.

[56:00]

They're stories of people who interact in such a way as to realize dependent co-arising together. These wonderful stories. But this is a Western story. a story from the Western culture, this person felt was a Zen koan. And the story is about two famous people, two famous Russians, one named Chekhov and the other Tolstoy. At some point, anyway, they were together in the winter in Russia, and they were sitting down talking, and Tolstoy said something like, Check off, I've read your stories, and some of them are really quite good. Matter of fact, I would be proud to say that I had written some of them.

[57:08]

You're really on the right track there, young man. Chekhov was very happy to hear that. And then the old man kind of grimaced and frowned. And then he really grimaced and frowned. And he said, Chekhov, about your plays, These are really no good. You're making a big mistake in the way you're writing these plays. You should definitely stop right away. They're really bad. As a matter of fact, you know, they're even worse than Shakespeare. Chekhov had to leave that winter night and catch a train.

[58:30]

So he left, got in his carriage, and started storming off through the ice and snow. And as he traveled, he started riding his horses, driving his horses faster and faster. saying to himself over and over, even worse than Shakespeare. Even worse than Shakespeare. How about you? Even worse than Buddha? Are you going to be even worse than Buddha?

[59:32]

Don't try to be better than Buddha. Don't try to be worse than Buddha. But if you ever are yourself completely, and therefore completely liberated from yourself, some old man or some old woman may say to you, you're really off track here. This is no good. You're worse than Buddha. But maybe that's too much to expect. So don't expect it. Forget about that stuff. Forget about expecting anything. Okay?

[60:38]

That's also to be given up. Give up expecting anything out of this. Give it up. Give up everything. Okay? Please. Will you please give up everything? Okay? No, I didn't hear anybody say yes. How about will you try to give up everything? Yeah. I'll try to. And if anybody ever does give up everything, again, you have a standing invitation to let, I'd like to hear about it. That will encourage me.

[61:24]

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