This will probably, or this, I should say, this may be the last Dharma talk that I'll ever give. And it may be the last Dharma talk of this three-week intensive that we had at Green Gulch, which we're planning to conclude tomorrow. During this intensive, and also for the past year, there's been an emphasis on some wisdom teachings here at Green Gulch. Wisdom teachings which are intended to help people open to and and awaken to and enter into wisdom, into Buddha's wisdom.

[01:05]

The main reason that Buddhas appear in the world is to help people become wise so that they can benefit the world. We may wish to be helpful, and that's wonderful that we want to But in order to fulfill our intention to benefit the world and be of beneficial service, wisdom is necessary. So the Buddha comes to help. In a sense, I didn't hear that the Buddha came to help people care for each other or love each other. Because we do. The Buddha helped us, wants to come and help us be wise so that the obstructions to loving each other will drop away. In the light of wisdom. One particular focus of these teachings is the teaching to help people become wise with respect to the nature

[02:20]

Because most of us, without special education program, are not wise with respect to the nature of phenomena, the character of phenomena. And so there are teachings about the character of phenomena, and in particular, in what we've been studying, the Buddha has taught that all phenomena have three characteristics. We can also say that there are three types of phenomena. All phenomena can be classed into these three. And all phenomena have these three characteristics. The three characteristics are what are called the other dependent character, the imputational character, and the third. The other dependent character is simply the fact that all things that exist exist independent on things other than themselves.

[03:43]

All things come to exist through dependence on things other than themselves. They do not exist through themselves. The imputational character or the character of imputation is that which is imputed. The imputational character is that which is imputed to phenomena as names and symbols in terms of a kind of own being or an essence, an attribute. whereby we can make conventional designations about phenomena. And the third characteristic, an established character, is that this imputation upon phenomena, this imputation of an essence whereby we can talk about things,

[04:54]

actually never reaches the thing. The fact of the absence of the invitation on the other dependent character is the thoroughly established character. Those are the three characters. It takes several years of studying, That's the definition of them. The other dependent character of the world and every single thing in the world cannot be grasped. If you reach for a person, for the other dependent character of a person, or anything, you're reaching for that phenomena, but all that is there is a sum total of things other than itself.

[06:17]

So before you impute a packaging, before the mind imputes a packaging onto the other dependent character of the world, or anything in the world, all things are actually ungraspable and inconceivable. All things are coming together of many, many supportive conditions. And you can't... The thing appears through this support, but there's no core to the thing. That's the basic character of all phenomena, this other dependent character. But if you can't grasp it, with your hands or your mind, then you can't name it. Then you can't own it, sell it, push it around.

[07:23]

And also, I say you, but the other dependent character of everything is that it's not at all separate from you. Your awareness of it is part of what it is, so you can't separate yourself from it and put it out there to grasp. However, we have the ability, with everything we experience, to separate ourselves from everything we experience. We have the ability to separate ourselves from the world by meeting our emotional character, by our mind superimposing upon something that's ungraspable a way to grasp it. Our mind imputes and superimposes upon something that's inconceivably vast, inconceivably beautiful, inconceivably wonderful, inconceivably interdependent and free and glorious, and enlightenment itself, but ungraspable.

[08:35]

Our mind imputes onto it a way to get a hold of it. But actually, even though we impute something on it so we can get a hold of it, the imputation never reaches it. And the fact that the imputation never reaches it, the packaging never grasps it, never comprehends it, never really has the slightest foothold in it, that's the thoroughly established character. Recently someone said to me, how are you? How are you doing? Somebody said to me. you know, we're having a very deep conversation. How you doing? And I said, I said something like, great. I don't know if I said it that way. Something like that. Great. And he understood my meaning.

[09:38]

I didn't mean good. I was rather sick at the time. I meant great in the sense of very, very, very, very big. I meant great in the sense of vast. And I don't consider that exactly a compliment. That's a statement of my faith. I think I am great. And I think you are great. I think each of us is an ocean beyond anyone's comprehension, including the Buddha. The Buddhas are those who know that all things are beyond, are inconceivably vast and wonderful. And no one, nobody's mind can measure it. All day long, one can meditate and be mindful that she is great. that she has a character beyond all description and conception.

[10:48]

However, simultaneously with that, there can be a projection of a little version, a pint-sized version of her upon her by which she can talk about herself. We have to do this in order to talk. and we have to talk in order to live together. So it's kind of unavoidable, this imputation, so we can talk about things which are far beyond the imputation. So this analogy I use over and over is the analogy of what we are is like an ocean. but much, much bigger than any ocean that you can see. And so is the ocean. And if you go out in the ocean, in a boat, for example, or swimming, and there's no islands around, and you look at the ocean, it will look like a circle of water.

[12:05]

But the ocean is not a circle of water. That's just the way it looks. That's just the way your mind apprehends the ocean. There actually is the ocean. And when you look at any phenomena in this world, the way it appears is not in the thing. The way it appeared is only the way you imagine it so that you can get a hold of it. What you imagine is based on the thing. If you go out in the ocean and see the circle of water, the circle of water is based on the ocean, but there's no circle of water in the ocean. When you look at someone and you see them some way, as That image of a beautiful man or woman is based on the person, but there's no beautiful man or woman in the person.

[13:09]

There's nothing at all like that in the person. You might say, that's too bad. But also if you see the person as not beautiful, cruel, there's no ugly and cruel in that person, the way you see them. That's just a way that your mind gets a hold of it. The absence of that is the thoroughly established consciousness of the phenomenon. So that's an introduction to these three. Now I'd just like to talk a little bit about different ways that these three relate. One way that they relate that is the process of and misery. And another way that they relate, which is the process of liberation from bondage and misery. Okay?

[14:13]

First, how do they relate to each other such that the process of bondage and liberation? Well, basically what happens, the way it happens is that, again, as I said, I'll say it again, The other dependent character is basically, you are intimate. Whenever you meet any phenomena, you actually are intimate with this other dependent character. This other dependent character is that you're intimate. The other dependent character of me is actually that I'm intimate with you. But since I'm intimate with you, so intimate that I'm not separate, you can't actually make me into an object. Because we're creating each other. So in order to know me and grasp me with your eyes or your hands or your ears or your mind, you have to project, you have to know me through the image your mind casts upon me. So, the relationship between these, the other dependent, the dependently co-arisen nature, the inconceivable nature of everything, the relationship between that

[15:24]

And the imputational is that the imputational, when placed upon it, gives you a way to know it. It makes it into an appearance that you can know. Okay? Then that's kind of useful. However, that usefulness gets used over and over so that you put a little packaging on the inconceivable that you're meeting and relating to so that you can have an appearance of it and you can give it a name and then that tends to make you do it again and again and pretty soon you actually start to think and believe that the packaging you put in the thing is actually the thing. You strongly adhere to the packaging as being the thing. You think the packaging actually reaches the basis.

[16:26]

So the packaging is based on something. It's based on this color-dependent character. It's not based on nothing, but it never reaches what it's based on. It has a source, it has a base, but after using it that way for a while, you start to forget that you just put that on there so you can designate it and get a hold of it. And you start to think that the imputational character, that the image is the thing. And that is the source of soul. It's to believe that what you think of things is what they are. Again, you can think about your own meditation practice. You can think, oh, I have a pretty good meditation practice. If you think that, as a way of like being able to talk about your meditation practice. That's okay. But if you believe that your meditation practice is a good meditation practice, then that will be the source of suffering.

[17:32]

The idea good meditation practice doesn't reach anybody's meditation practice. Not even me. If you think your meditation practice is not too good or really bad, That's fine. You can talk about it at the coffee table. I have a really lovely meditation practice. How's yours? Great. And that person may say, it means great. The idea of great actually applies to it rather than it's great because I really don't know anything about my meditation practice. That's why I say great. But no matter what you say about your meditation practice, your meditation practice is not touched by what you say, and it's not touched by what you think of it, so that you can say something about it. But if you think it is, then there is suffering.

[18:36]

Even if you think, my meditation practice is good, that sounds fine. My meditation practice is really good, really excellent, wonderful. I'm telling you, to think that and to think that that actually applies to your meditation practice will be the source of suffering. And you might think, well, I can see why if I thought my meditation practice was really poor and I believed that that would really characterize my meditation practice, I can see that that would be suffering. And you're right, it would be. But no matter what you think of your meditation practice, and no matter what you think of yourself, and no matter what you think of other people, even if it's extremely positive, if you think that's really what they are, you demean that person, you demean yourself, you demean that thing by believing. You deprecate, you diminish whatever anything is, if you believe that what you think of it

[19:38]

other than what you think it is, is just what you think it is. Which is all that, and that's all it is. What you think it is, is just what you think it is, and it's not, it doesn't ever reach the thing. And I wouldn't say how to do the thing. It's based on the thing. The thing is the support. That's why it's so nasty. Because everything is giving you support and offers and comes up to you and says, hey, I'm with you, baby. And then you say, okay, I'm going to package you. I'm going to denigrate you, demean you, decrease you, diminish you so I can get a hold of you. And when you do that, you can say, please excuse me for doing that. I'll do it, but I won't believe what you are. I'll just do that so I can tell my friends about you. And then it might say, actually, okay, you can decrease me, diminish me, so you can tell your friends.

[20:58]

If you promise not to believe... Diminished version of me is me. I promise, I promise, I won't forget that you actually are vast beyond all conception and description. And I'm just using the description so I can tell my friends that I met you. Okay. Or... Okay. Go ahead. Have a ball. But don't forget what I told you. Do not believe that this description of me is me. It's not, right? Right. But we do it over and over and after a while we forget. We forget. And then the suffering starts. No matter if you say, this person is the most wonderful person. That sounds nice. That's no problem unless you believe that that statement that they're a wonderful person actually embraces them. It doesn't. That doesn't get a hold of anything.

[21:58]

it's a nice compliment, that's fine. But if you believe that that really reaches the person, it's a great insult to your relationship. And as a result of insulting the world, you suffer. And then do things based on that suffering which are not good, all the while the third character is not being utilized. So the process of bondage is to mix the other dependent character and the character of conceptual imputation, to mix those together and to take them to be the same and forget about the third character. I'm telling you that the imputational character never touches the other dependent.

[23:07]

It never gets there. It never touches it the slightest bit. It emanates from it. It's born of it. But it never can go back to its source and get it. The thoroughly established character is understanding that. But when you forget that, you suffer. So the origination of suffering is these two mixed together and forgetting about the third, or getting out of touch with the third. is to somehow, and we have, this is the course of meditation, to somehow stop adhering so strongly to the conceptual imputations, to the false supernatural thing, And false superimposition means false in the sense that the superimposition, it's false to think that the superimposition is the way the thing is.

[24:12]

It's to put an appearance on something of existing in a way that it doesn't. In that sense, it's false. To learn how to not strongly adhere to these things, to learn how to find the absence of conceptual superimpositions on dependent phenomena, As you loosen it up, it is known. And as you learn that they're really established and meditate on it, this is the gate to liberation. Knowing that they're really established is the gate to liberation. In other words, knowing The superimposition upon things is not in accordance with reality. That's the gate to liberation. And so in the Buddhist practice world we have various methods and practices for loosening the strong adherence to what we think about things as being them.

[25:28]

For example, the founder of Zen Center, trained in Japan, born in Japan, and trained in Zen in Japan. And he was trained. I think he had a number of other young monks there with him. And I think his teacher gave them some food to eat. And the food that they got was... pickles and the boys looked at the pickles and they noticed that the pickles were rotten and they didn't want to eat the pickles because they thought the pickles were rotten and of course they thought that what they thought about the pickles was really the pickles that the view of rotten pickles really characterized these other dependent phenomena called pickles They thought, well, we better not eat these pickles.

[26:49]

But they knew that their teacher didn't like them not to eat the food he gave them, so they buried the pickles. They didn't just leave the pickles sitting on the dining room table for their teacher to come in and say, you didn't eat the pickles, boys. He knew that they would be asked to eat the pickles then. So they thought, we'll just bury the pickles. Then he'll think we and he won't make us eat them because they won't be there. So the six or seven smart boys buried the pickles. And for some reason or other, they're digging that day in the garden. Now I don't mean to say that to you to make you think that Zen masters have like supernatural powers.

[27:51]

But anyway, just by chance because of the wondrous working of the other dependent nature of the enlightenment of the Buddhas with the practitioner. These boys were working hard at their practice. Teacher started digging and what did he find under the ground but the pickles. So he took the pickles And he washed off the dirt and he gave them to the boys. And he said, you missed these pickles. You didn't eat them this morning. Now time to eat them. And then little boy Suzuki ate the pickles. And he said after that, he understood something he never understood before. This was his teacher's way of helping him loosen up a little bit around his idea of rotten pickles.

[28:59]

Another story, I don't know if that was true, that story he told, but anyway, I like it. And I tell it over as though it happened. But that story actually doesn't reach And if you think it did, and if your mind right now is trying to use that story to reach what happened, then the story is going to backfire on you. That story does not reach what happened. There's a whole bunch of stories like this about what Buddhist teachers do to help their students loosen up on this strong to their stories about what's happening and being what's happening. I will temporarily refrain from telling more and move on to something else.

[30:14]

Again, the gate to liberation is to realize the phenomenal do not exist in accordance to the false superimposition that are the source of suffering. so to get started in this loosening up we start not by going directly to the strong adherence and try to like tie the image away from the thing so that the adherence won't be so strong we don't usually start that way usually we kind of like warm up to that so these monks

[31:16]

These young boys, Suzuki Roshi, they'd been glinting. He'd been warming them up to that so that he could like pull pickles out of the ground for this loosening practice. But before that, there's a basic practice that we start with. So someone asked, and the basic practice is meditate on the other dependent character. You can't see it. You can't see it because it's too vast. and inconceivable to be conceived of. So you hear the teaching of the dependent co-arising. You hear the teaching that they are other-dependent. And if you think about that, that will mean that you are not able to see them. You only can see them as objects, as appearances, through projecting images on them. And then you see them and know them as those images. but you still can look at, everything you look at, every person you meet, you can realize this appearance, which is an image of visual image, tactile image, auditory image, taste image, touch image, mind image, this image is based on something which is beyond images.

[32:34]

And that thing which is beyond images is something that itself happens. It's something that exists in dependence on things other than itself, and it is not anything in addition to those dependencies. But you just meditate on that as much as possible, experience. You look at the appearance, that's how you know something's there. It's based on what is there otherdependently. But you remember, even though this thing doesn't look other-dependent, it's based on something which is its other-dependence. Someone asked recently a question about this, about how to apply it. In this retreat we're having here at Green Gulch, the second to the last day of the retreat,

[33:39]

we have ninety people sitting. We started with ninety people anyway. And we started the retreat on January 6th or something and we had in the valley ninety-nine people on the wall. Actually we had ninety-nine people in the valley and ninety-nine people on the wall. Ninety-nine people looking at the wall and if one of those people should happen to fall Eighty-nine people watching the wall. And then, and then, and then things got a plague hit Green Gulch. And, you know, kind of devastating. But anyway, we kept going with the practice period and here we are, almost done in this kind of messy way. And not only did the plague hit, but we had a fairly rigorous schedule of meditations and work and classes.

[34:51]

And some people, because there was quite a bit of sitting, some people had some physical difficulty sitting, so some people had some pain in their body while sitting. People had pain in their body because of being sick. Some other people had pain in their body because they got just all kinds of problems with their body. So people had pains with their bodies. And then also the classes were difficult, as you might imagine. So they had pains with the classes. That kind of stuff happened. They had stories about the classes like, these classes are really like a waste of time. And they thought that those ideas about the classes actually applied to the classes. they forgot these classes are actually great but in order to talk to each other at the table dining room table they made various conventional designations based on imputing certain things to the classes and they believed that and they suffered so people were suffering a lot

[35:59]

So somebody said, well, how do we apply the teaching, the beginning wisdom teaching, how do you apply the teaching that phenomena have an other dependent character to the phenomena of the whatever? Pain in the legs, pain in the back, pain in the nose, pain in the sinuses, pain in the intellectual faculties, pain, how do you apply it to pain? How do you apply these teachings to illness? They could have also asked, how could you apply pleasure and health? But there wasn't any of that. But this teaching can be applied to pleasure and health. To be clear with you now, when there's pain... Okay?

[37:08]

Pain is a dependently co-arisen phenomena. It has other dependent character. And the appearance of pain or your idea of pain is based on pain. But the pain is not your idea of the pain. We're not saying there's no pain. We're just saying the pain is great. The pain is much bigger than your hindsight version of the pain. It's not that it's more painful. It's not more painful. It's not less painful. It's just an ocean which you pintified so you can talk about. Illness, the illness you experience, the illness that appears to you is based on illness. But that illness, that dependently correlated illness, is beautiful and wondrous beyond imagination.

[38:12]

We're not saying that no pain and no illness, we're saying that your ideas about your pains and your illnesses don't ever scratch the surface of your pain and your illness. That's all. If you understand that, you will be inconceivably happy and free. If you don't believe that and think that your little version of your pain and your illness is what your pain and illness are, you will suffer and cause trouble around here. And so will I. I can certainly see that. That when I believe what I think of my pain, and when I think, when I believe that what I think about my illness is my pain and my illness, I'm in big trouble. As many of you know, about two and a half years ago, I was riding a bicycle and somehow I got thrown very hard onto Houston cement.

[39:33]

And when I hit the cement, I said, it hurt. But I got over that. And then I decided to get up. But somehow I couldn't move my leg. And the reason why I couldn't move my leg is because as I started to move it, I got a... my leg, but that was not a good idea. A pain, a pain that wasn't really that intense, it was more like... If you move this, you're going to get a pain that's going to be intense. There's a pain waiting for you... It's like, you know, you have not seen this before. And you don't want to know it. So forget about moving. And I tried again, like, it was like, you know, kind of like, it was like, it was this big whisper, like, no.

[40:39]

You can't even move a little tiny bit. Even though you have muscles there and you have arms, you could pull yourself around the block on your arms. But if you did that, if you move this leg even a little bit, it's going to be like, you're going to be real sorry. Test it. I could feel like, I'll wait here for a while, see what else happens. that little tip of the iceberg of pain that I felt, it was useful because, you know, if that pain hadn't been there, I would have stood up. I would have tried to move. I would have. I would have like stood up and watched these two little swords of my broken femur go through my thigh muscles out into the world. You know, there were two broken... ...in there, was sharp in the muscle.

[41:45]

And if you moved them at all, they would start moving through and ripping the muscle and cutting arteries. And it would have been, well, I could have died in a short time. That's why there's little nerves in there saying, when this happens, do not move. Anybody else move you either, please. Pain is a dependently chorism phenomenon. It's part of how things are working very nicely. But if we misunderstand the pain, then we have a good pain. Illness helps us know that we should rest sometimes or whatever. These things are... But the way we know them is not really them.

[42:46]

And that's okay too because the way we know them is the way we tell people, I don't think I can get up. Would you call an ambulance? But if I think that what I think of my leg is my leg, then I suffer in an unnecessary and much more harmful way. The Buddha at the end of his life thought he was really sick, but the Buddha thought about his sickness and he could talk about his sickness, but the Buddha didn't believe that what he thought about his sickness was his sickness. So he kept being the Buddha. If the Buddha had believed that what he thought his sickness was and how his sickness appeared to him was his sickness, then he would have been fired as Buddha.

[43:51]

But he didn't believe, after he was enlightened, he didn't believe that what he thought was happening was what was happening. So even though he was sick, And even though he could see the appearance of his sickness, which was not reaching the sickness, and tell people about it, he could still teach the Dharma as usual. And he kept being the Buddha right there. And so there's a possibility that you too, as you become sick and are in pain, that you can be a very happy, peaceful, free, enlightened being through a messy situation that you're probably going to get into pretty soon, especially if you come to Greenville. So there's the pain.

[44:59]

And remember that that pain is based on something, based on another dependent character, which is that this pain does not make itself happen, and this pain is produced by things other than itself. when you realize that this pain and this illness is existing, independent on things other than itself, then you won't care too much about your pain and you won't care too much. The way I understand that instruction is that when the teacher is sitting tranquilly, the teacher is already sitting tranquilly. So Dogen says, Rather than telling the whole story in Kukamsa Vengi, he says, first of all, enter into this tranquility. In the original story, this teacher was already sitting tranquilly, and the monk says, when you're sitting in tranquility, what kind of thinking does that bodhisattva do?

[46:04]

So this is like a developed bodhisattva. So what kind of thinking does that bodhisattva do? Well, he thinks of emptiness, basically. I'm thinking of emptiness. In other words, I'm thinking of how thinking is not thinking. thinking of not thinking, and thinking of the appearance of thinking in thinking, and so on. He's thinking of the suchness of thinking, and so on. That's what he's thinking about all day long, but also most deeply, we think most deeply about emptiness when we're very calm. Think very clearly about emptiness and have a good understanding, a valid understanding of it, and then when your valid understanding is taken into samadhi, into calm, you'll understand even better. But in order to reach thinking of emptiness, we have to first of all think of the pentacle arising, because emptiness is the way the pentacle arising ultimately is.

[47:09]

mainly that you can't find any Dependicle Risings. They're not findable. They're not graspable. That's just the way things are, is that ultimately you can't get a hold of them. The only way you can get a hold of them is to throw a false appearance on them, which we are, which we do. Does that make a little bit of sense? Go ahead. Go ahead. It's okay. I think. Yes. Yes. In the Chinese text it says, turn your awareness to the thoughts, and when you turn your awareness to the thoughts, they vanish.

[48:15]

In an early version of Fukunzazengi, he did have that in there. He copied that part too. But that spot is exactly the same spot where he now introduces this story instruction of think of not thinking. That's the place where he replaces it. So thinking of it... I guess there's two reasons I think why he put that in there. One is he wanted to use a story from our tradition as an instruction rather than use a technical instruction. And the other reason is that he understood that looking at the thoughts and seeing them vanish was not the same as clearly understanding that their appearance is absent in them. So you could understand that when you look at things and you see them vanish, that earlier where it said, when bodhisattvas are wise with respect to these phenomena, they do not perceive them.

[49:27]

Are you following this? So that could be a wisdom instruction. But the thing about that is bodhisattvas are wise with respect to these different aspects of mind. They don't perceive them. That instruction just tells you that bodhisattvas can do that, but it didn't tell you how to get to the place where you don't perceive them. The place you get to not perceive them, you start with meditating on the pinnacle horizon. So you understand that when you don't perceive something, it's not that there's nothing there. It's just that you're seeing it in a way that you can't be grasped. You're seeing it, actually, in the absence of the imputation of ways of grasping it. So I think the story that he put in there introduces the way of entry into the vision the non-perception of things in such a way as to, again, protect against an immature or nihilistic understanding of disappearance.

[50:38]

See, disappearance, I think, that means there's really nothing. But it's not that there's nothing, it's just that the way things are can't be grasped. So it's not that there's no... No mind doesn't mean that there's no mind, it just means ultimately you can't find it. And also, it doesn't mean that... It just means that ultimately no dharmas can be found. Because they actually don't come with any hooking points. We have to put them on them in order to find them. Because we know them by projecting a false appearance upon them. But the false appearance is not just any old dharma. It's a false appearance that our mind can grasp and use to make conventional designations. Does that make perfect sense now? You understand now, finally? Great. Well, it would be easy to go on way past lunch today because you have all these questions built up for eons.

[51:46]

But, you know, in some sense it's kind of good just to give up and realize that we have to keep studying this for a long time. But, yes, I will. Yes. That's one possibility. Yes. Yeah, or you can understand it as, in one person, when they heard the instruction, he would just sort of like, move over to the tranquility side. And then he would say, basically give up conceptually, giving up conceptuality, give up conceptually elaborating on what's happening.

[52:51]

And then they would move over to the tranquility side. And then later he would say, now I want you to give up conceptuality or conceptual thought in another way. I want you to give up the perception that's being projected on what's happening. Well, in order to give it up, you have to see how it's actually not there. Once you see it's actually not there, then you can give it up. Right? Then you give up sin. Then you really say, never mind. You really say, yeah, I really, I'm not hooked on this appearance. You really don't agree. but you sort of have to see its absence. And that would be part of giving up conceptual thought. You have no attachment to conceptual thought. So conceptual thought arises, but no attachment. So again, you might say, the question would be, well, what about for a Buddha?

[53:52]

Can a Buddha, like, use conceptual thought to project onto dependent phenomena conventional designations? Do they pull that off by using the conceptual thought as a landing pad for the words, but they really don't strongly adhere to that. And I guess I would feel that's the way that they do it. Just enough to get the name owl onto the person, Bernard onto the person, but very lightly. Just enough to talk to people. They go into the world just enough to give people what they need and no further. And you might say, well, that's quite a waste. But anyway, they go as far as they need to go into the dust, into the appearance of... in order to talk to people. But basically, they could... they have the ability to completely drop that and live in a way that there's no possibility of making conventional designations because there's no... words do not reach the realm where there's no imputation...

[55:01]

on the pinnacle of rising. So in that realm, there's no speech. But speech can emerge from realization of that realm, but when it does, it starts connecting to the world of ordinary people. Speech can also emerge from that that doesn't connect with conventional realization. You know, like they can just say, Gujarat! You know, that can come out of there. That's not like applying, that's not designating something. That's just a sound coming from that space. But when they say emptiness, it's designating something. And designating, when they say emptiness, they mean emptiness of that sticking point. That sticking point is not really ever to be found. I just want to tell you that at some point, hopefully I'll talk with you about what these three turnings are, and the various different types of emptiness, and this difficult point that this sutra is the basis for some people saying that, well, the sutra does say that if something doesn't exist by way of its own character, it's not produced.

[56:41]

And this leads some great ancestors to say that, well, therefore, things, dependent phenomena, and actually emptinesses too. Emptinesses, to the interpretation of the Yogacara, emptinesses do ultimately exist. The lack of ultimate the lack of inherent existence ultimately exists. Because that's ultimately the way things exist, is that they lack inherent existence. So emptiness, in a sense, ultimately exists according to this school. And other dependent characters also exist by way of their own character, because their character is the way they exist. They exist other-dependently, and that's the way they exist, and that's the way they ultimately exist, but it doesn't say that they can be found. Emptinesses cannot be found. ultimately, and dependent phenomena cannot be found ultimately.

[57:45]

But imputational characters do not exist the way they exist. They do not exist by their own character. Excuse me. They do not exist ultimately. Pardon? Pardon? Pardon? You find them everywhere because they don't exist? And there's two kinds of imputational character. One kind exist and one kind don't. But the imputational characters don't exist by way of their own character. So they don't ultimately exist. So that's a difficult point that's out there on the horizon, ready to nab you at some point in your study, which maybe we can talk about next January. In the meantime, We got this far. We lost a few people on the way, but... They shall return, I suppose, some day.

[59:10]

May our intention equally penetrate every being and place.

[60:13]

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