...the presentations of how to meditate in a systematic way. So it is there. And part of the Mahayana tradition is that Buddha did have disciples that did understand the Prajnaparamita because the Buddha was teaching it. But because they were so wise, they knew it wasn't time to teach it. And the Buddha said, right, keep it quiet. You and anybody who is capable of hearing this teaching without losing their commitment to the precepts is okay. So it's a quiet lineage here. And about a thousand years from now, maybe only 500 years from now, I think about that time the world will be ready for you to put this out. So then it comes out. And it comes out, apparently, around the same time that the Buddhist tradition is getting a little bit nasty in the sense of having a great aristocracy of enlightened people in the Buddhist community. Lots of arhats, lots of big-time enlightened people who a little bit don't like those unenlightened people and talk like it. Those records have been talking in a kind of disparaging way towards the unenlightened.

[01:04]

Whereas the Buddha, again, loved unenlightened people and gave a lot of attention to them. And then they became enlightened. But he didn't want them to start disliking the other enlightened people. And they didn't dislike the other enlightened people. You watch his enlightened disciples. They were totally patient and loving with their unenlightened students. But after a while, a certain kind of intolerance started to develop in the Buddhist writing and just the structure of the whole thing, which you could see literary traces of it. But also you can imagine why this Mahayana finally had to burst forth and why it was so wonderful. But it doesn't mean that it burst forth and the other Buddhists didn't like it. They were allowed, they weren't kicked out of the Sangha. The Mahayana weren't excluded. and put down. They just never got that strong in India. But when they hit China, Chinese liked the Mahayana, partly because it's called Mahayana. And the Mahayana really dominated China, Japan, Korea, Tibet, Mongolia, and America.

[02:11]

And also the Theravada that's come to America has been strongly affected by the Mahayana centers that it's next door to. So like Spirit Rock, they talk about Suzuki Roshi a lot, right? They like Suzuki Roshi over at Spirit Rock. They don't say Suzuki Roshi is a I don't know what heretic. So it's getting homogenized here again. But anyway, the basic thing is that the level of teaching of selflessness, teaching of no-self in early Buddhism, the question is not asked here, but if Paramatma Samudgata said, how come you taught that somewhat limited version of selflessness? I think the Buddha would have said, so that the disciples could maintain the ethical discipline. Because that's the foundation of the wisdom teachings and other meditations. And then, when the next thing came, the big time

[03:19]

Emptiness teaching, in fact, although it was wonderful and a lot of people could continue practicing ethics, there was still the constant danger of going too far in some cases. Plus, the understanding was a little off in certain ways. People took it too literally. You have to take it literally in order to get it in. You can't get the teaching in if you don't take it literally. You can't say, well, it doesn't really mean that. And you're rejected. You have to take it in just like it looks, and then you have to get over that. But some people took it in, you know, like a wonderful ancestor. that wonderful little guy, Tungshan, right? He heard the Heart Sutra, he heard it literally, he took it in literally, and he said, well, it says no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, but I have an eye. In other words, he took it in literally and saw, well, it doesn't make sense.

[04:20]

But he didn't take it in literally and say, that's true. He said, it doesn't make sense. Just the literal meaning didn't make sense, but he took it in literally and then saw a contradiction. So that's why he was a genius, because he took it literally. That's part of what you have to be to be a genius, take it literally and then get over it. Part of getting over it, he said, is a problem. And then he understood, you are not it, it actually is you. He could say that later. That was a long one. Daniel? Sorry, I still don't understand how the ultimate can be an object of observation. You don't understand how? Well, so you read this scripture, you read this chapter, right? A little bit further, and...

[05:24]

And you also read earlier... Okay, now I'm going to just give you a little sketch of the chapter, right? So now we have this. And so this person asks, how does a person come to see the ultimate? How can it be an object that you actually see? Okay? How can you see emptiness? Because it's going to be an object that you're going to observe. And when you start observing it, like I said in the previous chapter... It's said suchness will be the thing that you contemplate and by contemplating you will go through thoroughly established character, contemplating suchness, the ultimate moment. You will go through all the stages to Buddhahood by this contemplation. So these bodhisattvas, they're actually looking at emptiness. Avril Kiteshpara, looking at the aggregates, Okay? Looking at the aggregates. The aggregates are dependent core risings. Looking at the aggregates and seeing they lack own being. He sees they lack own being. He sees emptiness of the things. Okay?

[06:29]

And you'll see, how can he see that emptiness? Well, first of all, so again, here's a sketch of the sutra. Then after this comes that the Buddha describes that when people confuse the imputational emptiness with the other dependent, all these afflictions arise and they get into a regular life of suffering. All the sufferings arise from confusing the imputational with the other dependent. Okay? In other words, not seeing the emptiness of the imputation in terms of lack of own being, in terms of character. Not seeing the lack of own being in terms of production of the other dependent. They don't see that. They confuse these two. They don't discriminate between these two. And therefore, by this confusion, they come to have all these different kinds of affliction. Okay? Then, the Buddha says, I don't teach, well, then he says, initially, to people who have not developed confidence and so on, and wisdom and compassion and blah, blah, I teach dependent core arising.

[07:42]

So, to teach dependent core arising, in other words, you teach five aggregates or whatever. You teach people, look at what's happening. And how does it happen? Well, it happens as people and cups and chairs and walls and stuff like that. That's how it happens. But also it happens as five aggregates. So he teaches that. So you meditate on dependent co-arising. You listen to the teaching of dependent co-arising and apply it to what you're looking at. Now what you're looking at, however, is confused with your invitation of self. So you can't actually see dependent core arising directly because the way you know what's happening is by taking it to be the imputational. So you're meditating on dependent core arising by listening to the teachings about dependent core arising and applying it to dependent core arisings, which is everything. But dependent core arisings, which you don't see clearly because of this confusion with the imputational. But you're still meditating on this. And this meditation... not only should not undermine your practice of virtue, it should deeply enhance your practice of virtue.

[08:46]

So you meditate on dependent core arising. This is the path to meditating on the object of observation for purification. This is the path to actually seeing emptiness. If you start by meditating on teaching of dependent core arising and applying it to applying it to every experience, because every experience is a dependent co-arising. And you apply that teaching to apply that teaching to apply it, and you evolve, and you become more and more virtuous, more and more virtuous, and wiser and wiser, more and more virtuous, and wiser and wiser. And then finally you're ready to then start studying the imputational character, and start to see how the imputational character has a lack of own being in terms of character. And this education will get you ready. You understand what this thing is. You're meditating on dependent core arising. And then you're ready to look and see if you can actually find anything.

[09:48]

And then you look and you look and you look. And you actually, just like now, you can see. You can actually at least conceptually see that the kitchen crew is basically not here. You're studying dependent core arising. of the people in the room, and you can see the absence of the kitchen crew. How do you see the absence of the kitchen crew? Well, it's conceptual, right? You have some idea of what the kitchen crew is, and you can see that that object is not here. You are seeing the absence of the kitchen crew. You can see that. You don't directly perceive the absence of the kitchen crew yet, though. Right? That's not a direct perception for most of you, I hope. Because you don't know how to access that, do you? But you know how to access the concept of the kitchen crew, and you can see that you can't find that. But the actual direct perception of the absence of the kitchen crew, I don't think probably most of you are ready for.

[10:53]

But by meditating, you start meditating now in the absence of the kitchen crew, which you know about now. When I said it, I don't know, some of you may have not checked into that. Go ahead and check it out. Actually, you can see that. And that's a valid perception of the absence of the kitchen crew, of no kitchen crew. The conceptual one? Yeah, it's a valid... The first time you see that, it's called a valid conceptual cognition of the absence of the kitchen crew. So you might just work on that sometime when you think it's a good chance that you'll be able to see that. But that's a conceptual cognition. It's not a direct perception. But if you keep meditating on that a long time, and the kitchen crew doesn't keep coming back to disturb you, you will be able to actually have a direct perception of the absence of the kitchen crew. But that's a tough one to do because kitchen crews are not newly listed and the kitchen crew doesn't exactly have an easily spotted spa lakshana.

[12:00]

So anyway, in a similar way, you keep meditating on dependent core arising and on the imputational character and you get closer and closer to be ready to see that the imputational character is actually absent in the other dependent. that you look at other dependent phenomena and you finally cannot find the essence to them. You cannot find it. And you have, first of all, kind of get that conceptually. And you meditate on that for a long time, and when you get it conceptually, you're using the signs of compounded phenomena. to get that concept. Just like you use the signs of compounded phenomena to build a self on them, to imagine a self, now you use the signs of compounded phenomena to get the absence of self. Because compounded phenomena actually do provide an opportunity to see that the imputation is absent, because it is. But they also provide an opportunity, a sign, for imagining that the imputational is there.

[13:12]

Because you have the predisposition to see selves and things. And that's part of the other dependent character of our experience, is that we have the predisposition because our consciousness is hooked into a body which has this predisposition. So we have a predisposition which is the sign by which we imagine a self, and we have the reality of an absence of it in the other dependent, and we have the ability to get at that conceptually. Then we have the ability to give up the sign by which you get at it and see it directly. So this is a brief rendition of how you come to see Chapter 8 goes into detail about how you would be able to come to see. But by learning these teachings and meditating on these teachings, you will gradually become better able to keep in mind the other dependent character, even though you can't see it directly because you see it or know it by taking it to be the imputational.

[14:19]

You can see the imputational as what you take to be the other dependent. You can also see imputationals that you don't take to be the other dependent. In other words, not all computational characters do you confuse with the other dependent. But those that you do confuse, those are the ones that you have to, like, learn to see the absence of. Let's see who's next. What? I just wonder if meditation on the other dependent is a path towards purification of the body. And why the next sentence would make a point of saying that it's... since the other dependent is not an object of purification of phenomena. Did you hear his question? No. If the other dependent is not the object of purification of phenomena, why is it on the path of purification? Because it does purify you tremendously. It is not the final, ultimate object of purification. you still have some obstruction to perfect wisdom, even though you're meditating on the other dependent, and you go zillions of miles closer to Buddha by meditating on the other dependent.

[15:33]

You can accomplish so much beneficial practice by meditating on the other dependent, but you can't, it's not the final, complete. So it says here, They do all this wonderful stuff happens. So for people who aren't very developed, we teach meditation to the other dependent. By meditating on it, they get really developed. However, they don't become completely liberated, and they don't become completely disaffected towards compounded phenomena. They aren't completely liberated. They're pretty darn liberated, though. If you meditate on this one time, you get, relatively speaking, pretty darn liberated. So it's on the path to purification, but it doesn't do the final job. The final job is done by seeing the ultimate. And part of seeing the ultimate includes that you hear the teaching that the other dependent is not the ultimate. So that you don't waste your time looking for the ultimate in the other dependent. Because otherwise you might... That's going to be my... I'm going to make it there, no?

[16:37]

So again, we need to meditate on this without expecting too much of it. See, so this is also another aspect of this is saying, this is really good to meditate on, and now I'm going to tell you that it doesn't do the whole job, but please keep meditating on it even though it doesn't do the whole thing. mixed with the other dimension of conventionality, which is imputational, by which you know conventional truths, which are false. They're not true. But meditating on it still brings you tremendously well along on the path.

[17:47]

Okay? Elizabeth? If things exist like dependent co-arising, what is it that doesn't arise or ceases? What is it? Those very things. Those things that dependent co-arising do not, ultimately do not arise or cease. Arising and cease is a projection upon dependent co-arising. It says co-arising, but it's not really co-arising. But the appearance of arising is a dependent co-arising But ultimately, you can't find the arising of things. Arising is kind of like a mental construct. The world is not sitting out there, you know. And we have other languages, you know, like German. How do you say it in German? Great, they didn't even know. I can't talk to them in German.

[18:50]

We should call your mother. Call your mother. So the world is not actually in stehung, in horizon. The world is not that way. Those constructs are not actually in the other dependent. So ultimately you can't find the horizon in the ceasing of these things. And you can't find them because they have no They have no own being. They're empty, so you can't find them. And therefore, they're originally quiet, they're fundamentally quiet, and they're in a state of nirvana because there's no way that suffering can get to them. That's the way the ultimate may act. But that's not the way the conventional may act. And you get to the ultimate by the conventional. Isn't that confidence that exists? It exists by the pentacle rising, and that's a projection. The pentacle arising is not a projection. Projection is a pentacle arising, but the pinnacle arising is not a projection. It's a conventional truth.

[19:52]

However, it's also false. It's false. What did you say before about it? Which time? First answer. Just a second, when you said... Well, if the dependent co-living is a projection, does it contradict their existence? Yes. So, false things can exist. Things can exist. There can be false existences. There can be existences which are false. Conventional existences are false. So the existence of emptiness is actually false. Emptiness isn't false, but its existence is false. But it has an existence. It has a conventional existence. But that's false. There are false things that exist. false things exist. You can imagine false things, and when you imagine false things and believe them, you have the existence of a mistaken consciousness, an erroneous consciousness exists.

[21:02]

How does it exist? Other-dependently. And it imagines things that don't exist. It's a mistaken consciousness, and what it imagines exists, in the consciousness, but he's imagining something that doesn't exist. Let's see, anybody, any outstanding things from that first group that take care of the first group? Okay, now we have a second group, which comprises of Stephen, Joe, and all wants to be in the second group. Anybody else want to be in the second group? Diego? and Bernard and Anna. People want to be in the second group. Nobody else want to be in the second group? Want to be in the third group? Who wants to be in the third group? OK, second group, Steven. Tell me a little about the role of virtue in this program.

[22:03]

The role of virtue? Well, virtue is kind of like, what do you call it? It means fulsome, skillful way of behaving. And so without virtue, you can't go forward to realize wisdom and become free. So the role of virtue is that it's pretty good stuff, basically, but actually the goodness of it is ungrateful. But anyway, in the conventional world, virtue is good, skillful, harmless, beneficial, and its greatest benefit is that it promotes the wisdom which will liberate beings from suffering. So more technically though, virtue provides the basis for being able to do deeper meditations. And virtue arises from wishing to do virtue, which is a kind of meditation, but virtue also arises from meditating on the fact that virtue and non-virtue are dependent co-orizons.

[23:09]

If you want to practice virtue and you don't hear the teaching of the Pentacle arising, then you might think that virtue was an independently existing thing that makes itself happen, and that non-virtue was an independently thing that makes itself happen. And having these misconceptions, about virtue, which people naturally do, people naturally think. When we teach kids about virtue and non-virtue, generally speaking, people teach them that virtue has an inherent existence of virtue and non-virtue has an inherent existence of virtue. And even if you don't tell them that, even if you try to soften that a little bit, say, well, it's not always, like, say, maybe so and maybe so, you know, still the kid has the predisposition to project self onto virtue and non-virtue. Have you noticed that? It's hard for them to learn virtue and non-virtue if they realize that they have a kind of dialectic relationship. And kids who are really that advanced can sort of see the... Actually, a lot of kids, I think, can actually see the dialectic between good and evil.

[24:15]

But we sometimes say, come on, take it more rigidly so you can learn it. One time I told this story about Taya. She was in gymnastics and she didn't like gymnastics very much, although she did learn it somewhat. She liked cartwheels. She still can do them. But when she was waiting in line to do the various stunts, what she did, what she really likes to do, is to talk to the other kids. She liked the social life in the line leading up to the exercise. And she was quite active in that class. But the teachers don't like it because they're talking while they're waiting in line. They want a little moment. That's what the teachers like. Quiet kids who are totally concentrating on gymnastics and totally concentrating on, well, it's a nice leotard you have on. And some other topics which are not meant for publication. You know, the things that girls talk about.

[25:19]

Anyway, this is little girls too, like four or five girls. The teacher talks to Taya's parents and tells them that Taya's kind of disruptive. We talk to Taya and then Taya goes back to the gymnastic class and we pick her up and the teacher says, oh, she was really good today. So we'd say to Tay, the teacher says, the teacher says you're really good. And Tay says, mm-hmm. But I'm still actually bad. In other words, I still didn't prefer to talk. So that's the good thing about her upbringing, is that she never really felt like she had to be, like, really good. Being a bad girl, it was like kind of going along with being good. You know? So that's kind of nice, but some kids can't handle both, so they just sort of say, okay, no more bad, just good. And that's kind of nice. But anyway... That actually undermines virtue in one way. It's better to realize that good is a dependent core arising and doesn't really have... The character that it has is that it's a character that depends on things other than itself.

[26:27]

That's the dependent core arising. The other dependent character of good is that it doesn't make itself happen. It doesn't actually have goodness in it. But if you hear that teaching, you say, well, so what? Why practice good if there's no inherent goodness in good? And same with bad. There's no inherent badness in bad if it's just the dependent core arising. Why avoid evil and do good? So again, when you start getting into that, you get too far and you can't do virtue, then the virtue flops. You shouldn't even hear about this, right? But actually, meditating on dependent core arising helps you be virtuous without, again, once again, Without the teaching of dependent core rising, your virtue gets undermined by your limited view of virtue. But you can learn virtue a little bit by this limited view. But it becomes self-righteous and so on. As you meditate on dependent core rising, your attitude towards things starts to change.

[27:32]

It's even unreliable, unstable, not worthy of confidence. And when you see things that way, The vision that you used to have of being permanent, stable, and worthy of confidence, like money is worthy of confidence, sex is worthy of confidence, beautiful people, ugly people, you can trust them to be that way, and then when you proceed to interact with things in that way, you do wrong actually. You try to do good, which is nice, but you do wrong because you You don't see things correctly, and you get too excited about them. You get excessively involved with these people, and you want to get rid of those people. Well, it actually is wrong to get rid of those people, and to get that involved with these people is harmful. Does that make some sense? I'm so not sure why the function of race shooting in development exists. Well, for example, you can hardly even hear the teaching of dependent core rising without some virtue.

[28:37]

In other words, the people who the Buddha gives his teaching to, he says, these are not the people who are really strong in virtue, strong in conviction, have wisdom and knowledge. These aren't these people. I give it to people who aren't that developed. But they have to be quite developed even to hear the teaching and listen to it. That's a virtue, to be able to hear and pay attention and consider. Then, The more you do that in this teaching, you get more ability to pay attention, to listen, and be patient with the teaching. And then you get more of that, and more of that, until finally you can stand to hear stuff like, all dharmas are unproduced, unceasing, quiescent from the start and natural in the state of nirvana, and they have no essence. You can listen to that. You can let it in because you have a lot of virtue. It takes a lot of virtue to listen to that stuff and let it in. So the people in this practice period have enough virtue that they can kind of sit through the teachings.

[29:44]

difficult but they know how to deal with difficulty. Not being able to deal with difficulty in other words, dealing with it badly, getting angry, getting depressed, stuff like that, that's wrong action. Wrong action is that kind. Virtue is being able to hear the teaching, listen to it, remember it, think about it, write it, talk about it, remember it, meditate on it. Virtue makes that possible. And this teaching promotes the virtue which makes possible to listen to the teaching, which makes possible more virtue, which makes possible. And then based on that, then the Buddha teaches the more profound aspects, which are more difficult and require more virtue than the original teachings do. So to hear the ultimate teachings and work with them well requires a lot of virtue. That's why they're taught carefully, because some people, they don't have sufficient virtue and commitment to virtue and enough wisdom to deal with the constant changes in the virtue situation.

[30:47]

And when they hear these teachings, they sometimes collapse in terms of their virtue practice. But their virtue is strong. And plus, once you go into the deeper teachings, you keep doing the meditation on dependent co-arising, which keeps generating virtuous response to phenomena. So without that virtue, without meditating on the conventional, without meditating on the conventional, which means meditating on dependent co-arising, And it also means the imputation is there, because the imputation is the way you get to know the other dependent in order to direct teachings to it. Without meditating on the conventional, you have no basis for the other two, plus also you don't have enough virtue to meditate, to do the meditation. So the other two are based on it. That's why you need to meditate on the pentacle arising. And the virtue makes it possible to continue to meditate on the pentacle arising. And continuing to meditate on the pentacle arising gives rise to more virtue, which makes it possible to continue meditation on the pentacle arising.

[31:51]

It takes a lot of virtue to meditate on the pentacle arising all the time. at this fairly immense level of virtue that you would be able to meditate on the dependent core rising all the time. Can you imagine that? Not too many people can meditate on the dependent core rising all the time. Has anybody attained that? But imagine, you've done it a little bit, right? Imagine what it would be like if you were always remembering that teaching no matter what happened. Imagine what kind of, what an attainment that would be. And how virtuous that would be, and how that would change your relationships. But just to be able to do it, besides all the benefits of it, that would be tremendous. In other words, you would be mindful all the time. As Hakuin said, at 65 he said, I'm finally mindful all day long. 24 hours. That's Hakone.

[32:53]

After 45 years of practice, he was finally able to be mindful all day long. He was all day long remembered to meditate for rising. So that meditation gives rise to virtue, plus the virtue makes possible that meditation. At first you meditate on it once in a while, and that gives rise to virtue. Later you meditate on it more, and that gives rise to more virtue. And the virtue accumulates. The wisdom accumulates. The wisdom accumulates, the virtue accumulates. That's what it says. They assemble the accumulation of wisdom and virtue, doesn't it? Well, as you said, wisdom and merit. Wisdom, no. The merit comes from the wisdom and the virtue. So that wisdom and merit accumulation is the baseboard for Buddhahood. Virtue is the ground for Buddhahood and virtues developed working on dependent co-arising.

[33:57]

The conventional world is where you develop virtue. So you have to work in the conventional world And also you have to pay attention to the conventional world. Just being in the conventional world, everybody's there. But you have to meditate on the pedagogical arising of it for the virtue to exist. And then for the merit to accumulate. So the merit accumulates, and then the more merit... Simultaneously how this meditation is developing wisdom. So the wisdom and merit are coming up together. But they're not complete until you meditate on the deeper teachings in this chapter. But first, you have to set this ground. So you actually, like, are not doing any... You actually are not doing wrong action. You're involved in right action. Now you're ready to take the next step. So then I teach the other two aspects, he says. So that's the... That's the view of the beginning of the chapter. And now, then we go into... studying the other two.

[35:01]

And then other things, too, in this chapter, which we'll get to in the next day or so. Okay? You want to be in group two or group three, Elena? This is two. You want to be in two? Okay, you're in. You can be behind all. He's trying to be in both. Elena and all are in both one and two. Anybody want to be in three? Who wants to be in four? I do. Yes, Joe? Were you in number one, by the way? Yeah. I was wondering if you could explain for a medium, again, how to meditate on that How do you meditate on the other dependent? Without being mired in the imputational? Oh, he wants to meditate on the other dependent without being mired in the imputational?

[36:06]

That might be unrealistic to try to practice that way now. If you're not mired in the imputation, then you would be in the realm, like you're severely not mired. You'd be already in the realm with no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. So then maybe the question is really, how do you meditate on other dependent nature? So now, like you can see me, right? The fact that you can see me means that you're confusing the invitation with the other dependent nature. I have an other dependent nature. But you know my other dependent nature by taking it to be your idea of me. You're actually seeing my other dependent nature. If I walk out of the room, you don't see anything. I take my other dependent nature beyond your sense organs. You don't see me. Now, you can think of me, and that has something to do with my other dependent nature too, because you don't think of me as a pumpkin probably, and I'm not a pumpkin.

[37:28]

But anyway, in terms of just like other dependent, your awareness of my other dependent nature as a visual image, that actually depends on my other-dependent nature, but you don't see my other-dependent nature. You don't know. You see my other-dependent nature in terms of your imitations upon me. That's how you know me. But still, when you see me in this false way, that's based on the way I'm my other-dependent nature. So you're seeing it, You have a superposition that you're actually confusing. That's part of your understanding now, perhaps. Meditating on the other dependent, though, is more just to say that I have this other dependent nature which you can't see. So mostly, it says in the sutra, it doesn't say that they're meditating on the other dependent character. It doesn't say that, although they are. It says when they hear this teaching, then they understand certain things.

[38:32]

When they hear this teaching, they turn away from wrong action and adhere to virtue. So it's basically that you're looking at me but you're hearing the teaching while you're looking at me. So again, back to the four foundations of mindfulness. You're mindful that you're seeing colors and shapes and hearing sounds and seeing me. You're mindful of that. You're mindful of seeing me when you're seeing me. You say, I've seen him, I've seen him. And you're applying, you're doing the fourth foundation, that's the first foundation, and you're doing the fourth foundation which is you're applying this teaching from the sutra to this experience. And you're saying, you're listening, this is an other-dependent character. This thing does not exist by way of itself. It doesn't produce itself. It has a character that depends on other things in itself. You listen to that teaching, again, all the time, and you get really into it.

[39:35]

But every time you look at somebody, you remember their dependent core rising, that softens all kinds of wrong action. If they appear to be an irritable person, and you remember this teaching, it changes the way you feel about their irritable appearance that you projected on them. Now, they are an irritable person, it's true. The irritable person is the basis of your image of them as being an irritable person. It's not that there's no irritable person. It's just that there's nothing in the person which makes you say irritable. But they're still an irritable person. Just there's no thing in the way the irritable person is which is the reason why you say irritable. But that's a more advanced teaching. The teaching you are opening to now is that this person does not make themselves Other things create this experience of this person.

[40:38]

And then you stop getting so infatuated with some people and so de-infatuated with other people. People start to become more similar, because they're all basically landing pads for this meditation. The experience of this person is a time to listen to this meditation. So basically you just listen to this meditation, and there's lots of different ways to listen to it. You can pick what's practical, because it's good to pick something that works, that kind of reminds you of the teaching, but that would be perhaps easier to remember all the time. So we talked about some other things, like, say, mystery. The way this person is an independent character is kind of a mystery to me. I can't really see it. I have to interpret it through my imagination. So that's one way you could do it. But there's many, many ways which come up in the process of the meditation, and lots of other ways that might work better for you.

[41:46]

So if it's accurate and easy to remember, that's a good one. If it's accurate and too clumsy and you just don't want it, just too hard for your level of virtue to deal with, take a simpler version of it that's more portable, because it should be portable. So you take it with you, you should be able to do this meditation eventually all day long, because it's about everything that happens. Ah, let's see. How? Sikha is teaching the selflessness of dharmas, but is it, um, how about the selflessness of person, does it kind of imply that that's already happened, or is it the case that, um, as you're starting with doing the endless dharmas, and then you're looking, and you're starting to look at the subject, you're looking at this, and there's something wrong with the dharmas. I don't think that it's assumed that people who are reading the sutra have already attained realization of selflessness of the person.

[42:50]

Why is it not mentioned at all? Or is it... I think if you meditate on the selflessness, if you're heading towards the selflessness of things, in the meantime you're seeing persons and you're projecting self on them. So I think you can notice that you're projecting self on the person. For example, you can notice... that when you meditate on kind of co-arising of the person that you can see, you think the person's an agent, got a little agent in there, makes himself into this thing that you're seeing. So I think you can see person and then see how you project yourself on that. So I think it comes along with it. So I'm not sure that you have to, like, really focus on that to take care of that separately.

[43:51]

You have to see all of life along the other side of it. Maybe, was it Diego? Were you in this group, Diego? Yes? Well, I think I'm kind of going to change the initial question I was going to ask because you kind of answered it already. But I was thinking, if a person somehow started, became aware of... the superimposition of an imputation of other dependent phenomena, if somehow that person became aware of that, would you say that maybe that person kind of would have entered a world of radical interdependence? No, no. Impermanence. No.

[44:51]

It's just that you start to become aware of what the superimposition is. So I think part of what we need to do, and I think we can do it in the next few days, is to become clear about what's the superimposition that we're talking about here. To clarify that. When you become aware of it, you're aware of the superimposition, but you have not yet entered into what you can see when you drop the imposition. So, we're talking about learning how to withdraw from our stories to let go of our stories. But the meditation on what the imposition is will help us see if we're really letting go of our stories. It helps us see the sticking points, the crucial sticking points in our stories. But that doesn't mean we have stopped, we've given up the sticking. You have to study the position quite a bit before you can really verify and get really fully into not being involved in it.

[46:04]

So we're basically talking about withdrawing from involvement with appearances, the stories we tell and so on, the images we project. We're talking about withdrawing. But to specify what the appearances are helps the withdrawal. Once the withdrawal is complete, then you see things like radical impermanence and emptiness. Just seeing the imputation or the superimposition is not the same as seeing its absence. But as part of seeing its absence, just like the kitchen crew, it's kind of easy for you to see that it's absent because you've got it pretty clear what the kitchen crew is, more or less. Those are the people that were sitting in those empty chairs. And now you have the people going to the bathroom. They're not in the room. So on and so on. You already can see this. But to see you're in positions that you're not so familiar with. So once you get familiar with the position group, you can tell when it's left the room.

[47:09]

And then you look. Not at the imposition that you saw left the room. And not at the room that's absent of the crew, the other dependent, that's absent of the imposition. But you look at the absence of the imposition. And then you actually change your whole attitude towards the imposition. You have to find the imposition. and then see its absence, and then by meditating on its absence, you stop believing when it does appear. So first of all, you withdraw from the imposition. First of all, you find the imposition, and you withdraw from it. Then you see its absence, and by seeing its absence, you just don't believe it even when it appears. Let's see, there's quite a bit of work there. This is all based, however, on meditation on the pentacle arising. You have to keep that going. That's a kind of boom, boom, boom, boom. It's a basic thing going.

[48:12]

Underneath, there's more elaborate or more profound aspects. Anna? My question is more like in a political context. Yesterday you quoted the phrase, I have to be... To be... to turn it, or that's what I heard you say, when I came to the Design Center, when you came to the Design Center, you wanted to stop dreaming or wanted to face reality in a way more directly. So my question is now talking in the, like, unraveling our story making or analyzing our the positions? How does this work in a political context? Because I can see that I am a dreamer. The whole story around it is a very strong story. And in a situation that is a very difficult social situation, how do you project something that is

[49:23]

kind of a hope without making this kind of a story? Is that still what I'm asking? Yeah. Well, my dream of being able to interact with beings, you know, freely, without being encumbered by my misconceptions about them, that's my dream, but holding on to that dream, you know, interferes with the realizing. That's part of what I understand. And his dream, a place where people basically respect each other, that dream, it's a wonderful dream, and not getting involved in that dream, I think, turns out to promote that dream. Now, if you have a dream of people disrespecting each other, you know, not being kind to each other, that's your dream, then it's good to be into that dream, hold on to that dream. That promotes the realization of the dream of disrespect and harm.

[50:31]

Yeah, you can verify it very quickly. But the other way, unfortunately, is not so easily verified. Okay. For example, if I have a wish to be kind to you all, individually and as a group, if I have that wish to be kind and respectful to you, not getting involved in that dream will promote me being kind and respectful to you. If I have a dream of being somewhat less respectful to you, and I don't get involved in that image, that dream, then that will promote me being respectful to you. If I have a dream of being respectful and I hold to the dream, that's antithetical to realizing being respectful. Remember, respect means look again. Look again. So you see something, you see an appearance, but when you see an appearance, that's a falsity. All appearances are false. Reality is not an appearance.

[51:42]

And dreams are not reality. However, good dreams are realized by letting go of dreams, and bad dreams are realized by holding on to them. And aside from dreams, the appearance of harm in the world comes from people holding to dreams of goodness and evil. So the Nazis wanted to clean up the world. They wanted a world of beauty. And they were willing to use violence to obtain a world of beauty. That was their dream. A dream of beauty. Violence was part of cleaning up the situation to achieve beauty. If they had let go of that dream, that dream wouldn't have come true. This violence wouldn't have appeared if they had let go of that. If they let go of that, but they held to it, so terrible things happen. The dream didn't come through exactly the way they wanted to, but something bad happens.

[52:46]

They thought they had a dream of something good, and they held to it, so harm. If we have an idea of something good and we hold to it, the holding to it, the holding to the dream, is counter-virtue, anti-virtue. If you have a good dream, Great. Let go of it. And something good will come of letting go of it. If you have a bad dream, let go of it. And something good will come of letting go of it. Withdrawing involvement in appearances. Dreams are appearances. Appearances are dreams. But, like I said, it's pretty easy to verify that if you hold to your dreams and get in trouble fast, or at least somebody gets in trouble, you may not get in trouble, but somebody's going to get hurt really fast. Does that make sense? In two seconds we can demonstrate that. But the other way is not so fast.

[53:49]

It's actually equally fast, but it's hard for you to see it because you're moving to a realm that's not so familiar to you. Buddha can see, oh my God, just like that, she turned on a dime and she entered virtue. But she's not familiar with virtue that doesn't look like her idea of virtue. But actually, she did exactly what she wanted. She wanted to be good, and she gave up her idea of good, and she was immediately radiantly good by being that way. But actually, she was also good before she gave it up, and when she gave it up, it was realized. And this is to be applied in difficult situations. The problem is we're happy to apply it in difficult situations sometimes, and sometimes we are. But it's also to be applied in lovely, comfortable situations. Because if you get in the habit of applying it only in bad situations when you're in trouble, when things aren't working, you might not be ready. But who answers in group twos? You or not? You or not? He's in twos.

[54:51]

This may be a confession. That's fine. Confession is part of withdrawal and involvement and appearing. Yesterday we had some quiet time, or silent lunch, in the dining room. It was conventionally designated as silent lunch. Yeah, yeah. And after I sat down, I realized the absence of most of my strategies, which were to... they can choose where I was going to sit by because I'd already sort of figured it was time we're all quite angry and just sit where we want them. But I was thinking back when you were saying the difference between the absence of a hat and without a hat. Actually, it applies to Stephen's thing about virtue and the importance of having the... without as opposed to the absence. You mentioned that part of the Jewish question also. Yeah, that's a good point.

[55:56]

I don't know if you saw how good it was, but it's a good point. So, anyways... Did you get that? There's a difference between without and absence. You're without this thing and the absence. The without is pretty good, though. That's part of it. That's the best part, because that's kind of like the... Well, that's kind of the reality. But you need the absence to find the without, to actually see it, and to realize that when you can look at without, without it being nothing. So you need the absence to get yourself to let go of the with. And by doing that, you go back to the without. But it's not nothing. It's not a nothing without. It's just that it's an actual life that's without misconception. And it's a happiness. But that's without certain things. But in order to stop seeing those things, you have to look at the absence of them pretty hard for a while.

[56:57]

And I noticed a few other examples of that, Jim. One is when the guy comes and gets the clapper, usually just right in front of me. or in the kidney, it's like the arising of anticipation, or something comes in, or the seed of anticipation arises, and then it's sort of checked out, and then it usually kind of fuses it somewhat. And so I can see the width, the invitation of anticipation, I guess you'd call it. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Okay. Anyways, there was lots of role examples of that during the day. So the confession part is that we're kind of going around the dining room and picking people that I really have felt are sort of... Because now everybody can think that you hate them. No, no, no. No, no, no. Don't say it. Don't say it. you love everybody now that now you don't sit with anybody yeah that's the funny thing that people who love people who love everybody are sitting alone is group two finished can we finish group two

[58:25]

Okay, so should we stop or should we have group three? Stop? Thank you. Thank you.

[59:28]

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