So the interaction which I talked about as the origins of consciousness was the interaction between different kinds of materiality. And so in that sense the consciousness that I was talking about is... I was talking about the origins of sense consciousness. And sense consciousness being then the kind of consciousness that arises in relationship to the interaction between what we call sense organs. Sense organs are material phenomena and sense fields are material phenomena. The interaction between these two gives rise to sense consciousnesses. The sense consciousness together with the two types of materiality, in the interaction between the three, we have sense consciousness.

[01:11]

And I pointed out that we do not say that the sense consciousness is what knows. And we don't say that the sense organ is what knows. and we don't say that the sense field is what knows. It's actually all three together is the phenomena of knowing or the phenomena of awareness or the phenomena of awareness. This is a kind of review which I didn't mind that much. So the in some sense there's a body involved here, a body, a body, and in the Buddha's teaching, one of the ways that the Buddha taught the body is the body is something that can be hit.

[02:15]

So the word, the word that's often used for the so-called material phenomena in Sanskrit is rupa. And I think in Pali it's also rupa. And rupa is derived from another word which I believe is rupani. I'm not sure. It might be rupini. But I think it's rupani. Rupani means can be hit. Rupa is that which can be hit. something that can be hit, something that has location and can be hit. So some kind of body can be hit, can be touched. And touched how? It can be touched by another kind of materiality. What kind of materiality? Well, electromagnetic radiation, mechanical waves,

[03:21]

chemicals, gases, and tactile phenomena like pressure, temperature, roughness, smoothness, slipperiness, these kinds of physical phenomena. That which can be touched by or can respond to that kind of phenomena is the body. So part of the physical world is body. Another part of the physical world is material which touches the body. Okay? When those two interact, when electromagnetic radiation touches some tissues, the human being touches tissues around this place we call the eye organ.

[04:28]

When electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength of a certain wavelength touches this eye, this organ here we call the eye organ, that interaction ties to what we call eye consciousness. In Buddhism we name the consciousness after the organ. The body is hit by electromagnetic radiation of a certain way and a consciousness can arise from that interaction. So this is in some sense a story, a creation story of sense consciousness. The Buddha actually sometimes said when light interacts with the eye, arises. But the Buddha, you know, he was talking to people who aren't as sophisticated as you.

[05:29]

So, you know, he didn't say electromagnetic radiation as far as I know. But actually it's not really true that light in the eye organ and eye consciousness arises because there is no light out there, you know. There's electromagnetic radiation of a certain wavelength but it's not light out there on its own. It's light when it interacts with a tissue and a consciousness arises. And that interaction gives rise to the knowing of this thing called light. Light is not out there. It's not in here. It's a dependent co-arising. The Buddhist ultimate teaching can be found right there in that story in the way that that sense consciousness arises is ultimate truth. The way that actually happens is emptiness, dependent core arising, the middle way. You already know about emptiness, dependent core arising, and middle way.

[06:34]

That's not what we're talking about here, so I just won't talk to you more about that right now. Consciousness is at a rise, and I also pointed out that these sense consciousnesses have built into their origin, into their birth story, is a duality. There's a duality in that creation story, the duality between different kinds of materiality, from awareness to sense awareness. And then I also proposed that another story is now the story of mind consciousness. And mind consciousness will be modeled on the same creation story of sense consciousness. In other words, mind consciousness, the awareness of mind, will be based on two different aspects of mind interacting. So once sense consciousness has been born, at some

[07:39]

cosmic miracle, the mind managed to split itself into or find itself to be of a variety, of two types. Namely, that which can hit and that which can be. In other words, the mind itself somehow could come up with a sense organ and a sense field or a sense organ and a sense object. The mind could, the consciousness somehow, within that consciousness there arose it somehow that part of it could be active, part of it could be impressive, and part of it could be impressed. And from this wonderful cosmic miracle, there then arises awareness of the creative aspect of mind. excuse me, there becomes awareness of that part of mind which impacts on and is known, not known but impacts on and is responded to by another part of mind.

[08:59]

So mind organ and mind objects and mind consciousness arises from that interaction and that's the story of that birth. The things that are known by mind by the mind consciousness are mental representations. And there comes to be a sense that the awareness is separate from that which it's aware of. And it's separated from that which it's aware of by the ability of the mind to split itself into two types of mental phenomena. So this is the origins of dualistic awareness. Dualistic awareness in some sense is the most recent evolutionary breakthrough of the cosmos.

[10:01]

I shouldn't say the most recent, but it's a fairly recent breakthrough. that there could be consciousness, that there could be mind consciousness, and that there could be a mind consciousness which senses that it's separate from what it knows, that what it knows is out there, external to it. Pardon? Is it inaccurate? It is inaccurate. It is ignorance. It's ignorance, but as I tried to point out, What do you call it? We come by it honestly. Which means that it's of our nature, of our evolution as living beings that we are ignorant. In order to have consciousness, we needed some kind of dualistic, apparent, we needed some kind of split in order to come up with knowing. come up with the sense knowing.

[11:04]

And then in order to come up with objective knowing, we have to ignore the interaction. If you look at the interaction too much, the whole thing collapses back on itself and you don't have an experience. In order to have an experience, you have to be somewhat ignorant. We also study here middle way, which is based on ignorance, There are karmic formations. Based on karmic formations, there's consciousness, and so on. In order to have consciousness, you have to have ignorance. But by understanding consciousness, there's a ceasing of consciousness. And with the ceasing of consciousness, there's a ceasing of dispositions. And with the ceasing of dispositions, there's a ceasing of ignorance. Ceasing of dualistic consciousness. But you can still try. you should check before you drive to make sure that you can still drive. After enlightenment, you should retake your driver's test.

[12:06]

Anyway, that's also a review, and I told a story about the Greek myth of Amor and Psyche, which tells the story of the beginning of sin. It's the original. The original sin in terms of Buddhist psychology is what I just told you. It's when the mind cuts itself, sunders itself, you know. Sin, the root of sin is sunder, to split. So when the mind splits itself into subject and object and loses track, object is actually an interdependent phenomena and really the two sides of the subject-object can't exist without each other and therefore separation is not substantial. When you lose track of the insubstantiality of that separation, ignorance is functioning, and that's the birth of sin. There's a sense that your own mind is split into two parts, and part of your mind is outside your mind, and the other part of your mind is inside your mind.

[13:11]

So this is like ignorance, but we need it. Without it, We can't go to high school. Well, you can go, but you have to go to special education classes. You won't be able to either. You won't get invited to the prom, and you won't be able to invite anybody to the prom. So in order to become an ordinary, deluded person, you've got to have this equipment. So tonight I would like to talk about now sort of the same thing in a way but a little bit different approach. So the most superficial and ignorant aspect of ourselves is also the most recently developed. In some sense, complete perfect enlightenment is even more recently developed, but we don't all have that yet.

[14:15]

But we all have ordinary conceptual consciousness. That's the most human evolution that all of us share. It's superficial, it's a great breakthrough, conceptual consciousness. What we ordinarily call consciousness is conceptual consciousness. In other words, it is the awareness of concepts. That's our ordinary, superficial consciousness. Like sitting in this room, we're aware of the room. We're aware of people in this room. We're aware of men and women in the room. We're aware of cars outside and lights in the ceiling and voices. These are concepts. that we are aware of. This is our ordinary superficial conceptual awareness. And it's also focal. It focuses on one concept at a time and the mind is focused on that when it knows that concept, when in the process of knowing the mind is focused on that concept.

[15:19]

So ordinary, what we mean by ordinary consciousness the one where we talk to each other in English and Chinese and so on, that consciousness is ordinary conceptual consciousness. It's superficial. It's superficial knowing, superficial awareness, superficial consciousness, and created by concepts. And what is known is concepts. Concepts, images, ideas, pictures, words, that kind of stuff. Older is this body awareness or sense awareness. This level of awareness is not mediated by concepts. In that sense it's, well, I'll just say that it's not mediated by concepts.

[16:27]

In that sense, it is unconscious or unconsciousness. It is a consciousness that's un. It's not like there's no knowledge at all, no awareness at all, no perception at all. It's just that it's unconsciousness. It's the other kind of consciousness. It's really un-conceptual consciousness. But I don't call it non-conceptual. I call it un-conceptual, if you'll allow me to call it that. But really it's un... And what in the West is sometimes called the unconscious is not this. The unconscious, I think, is actually a misunderstanding. I don't think there actually is a the unconscious.

[17:32]

I think there is a unconscious. And a unconscious is very... Well, I'll stop there. I think there's a unconscious. Every moment there's a unconscious. or a un-conceptual consciousness. In other words, there is sense consciousness moment by moment. It's very important to us. It's going on all the time. When you're asleep, it continues to go on. And when you're asleep, if you're dreaming when you're asleep, you also have, when you're dreaming, a conceptual consciousness. mind consciousness. In other words, in your dream you're dreaming of and knowing. Right? And the relationship between the images and the sense consciousness is different than when you're awake. You know what I mean?

[18:35]

Do you notice the difference? It needs to go on in a somewhat different way from the way it does when you're awake, because there's interplay between these two levels, but they have a different relationship. So, for example, when your alarm clock goes off when you're asleep, it's a bird, maybe. And you think it's a bird, and you think it's a lovely bird, and you're so happy that it came to visit you in this strange park that you're in. And you're wondering why the bird is wearing a suit of armor. And then you think, oh, it's not a bird, it's an alarm clock. And you shift. There's a different relationship. But anyway, the mind consciousness goes on when you're dreaming. When you're not dreaming, mind consciousness is temporarily taking a break.

[19:37]

And sense consciousness is going on. Consciousness, again, is unconceptual consciousness, so you have no... awareness of ideas and images when you're in deep sleep. Okay? So this kind of a body awareness all the time is, again, from the point of view of sitting in this room together, from that point of view the body awareness is generally for most people unconscious, on this kind of consciousness. Okay? That make sense? This type of body awareness or sense awareness could also be called pre-conceptual awareness. You can call it that maybe. You could also call it non-ordinary awareness. Non-ordinary means it's not what we ordinarily

[20:40]

It actually could also be called very ordinary awareness because actually it's going on more consistently probably than mind consciousness because it goes on through sleep. And it goes on when you're maybe in a certain kind of transit. It goes on to some extent. So it could be called non-ordinary since a non-ordinary focal awareness or non-ordinary conceptual awareness. It's not conceptual. But it's also very ordinary. But this, again, is not the unconscious in the sense that there's a in the mind which has its own contents which is separate from this realm, ordinary conscious realm. That's sort of the idea that some people have of what the unconscious is. If anybody does have that idea, I would say it's not that. See the difference between relating, which is not in terms of concepts, and some kind of unknown, unreachable area that has concepts stuck in it, which can leak out.

[21:50]

But it's like hidden or something. It's a different way. These are levels of subtlety or evolution rather than something being partitioned in some separate zone. I don't know if there is anything like that. Then there's another layer or level of consciousness, and I hesitate to put this above or below either one of these other two things, but this is what I would, what we call, I like to use the word, non-conceptual awareness. Non-conceptual, rather than un-conceptual, non-conceptual. Like sometimes we say non-moral, you say amoral and unmoral, like not moral, and maybe non-moral, transcending it in a different ballpark. But different ballpark, I don't want to say that. Anyway, non-conceptual awareness is in some sense the deepest or the highest.

[22:53]

And where it goes in evolutionary scale, I would say, actually, it's empirical. that really it wasn't that there was first there was materiality and then there was consciousness, or first there was consciousness and then there was materiality. So you could say, if you want to, that before there was this birth of these... Are you ready for this? Going back to this thing about these you know, the birth story, the creation story of sense consciousness. So that sounds like first there was materiality and maybe then there was different or, you know, first there was materiality which wasn't differentiated and then maybe there was material that was differentiated. So you could say, well, first there was just materiality and then there was this subtle kind of materiality that developed in the universe

[23:57]

which you could say was flesh. Or, you know, some kind of, like, different kind of stuff, stuff that could, I don't know, that could respond differently. Is this getting too far out? Is this Darwin? Is it Darwin? No, it's me. Hi. This is me, but I have this theory that I'm related to you. So actually, what you're experiencing is Vernon. Now, your name's not Darwin, is it? So for you, what this is, is Vernon. And I say that to you because you told me your name was Vernon. So what you're dealing with here is Vernon, and I'm talking over here, my name's Reb. So what I'm just saying is that I just, maybe this isn't that important right now, but I talked about these two kinds of materiality interacting, but you can imagine a universe, perhaps, for a while.

[25:02]

Like where they were, the atoms and stuff hadn't come together to make this special kind of tissue or materiality which was like real responsive in this special way to other kinds of materiality. And I can't even quite say that this tissue is life yet until the tissue responds to this other kinds of materiality in a way that consciousness arises. Because I can't quite say that this tissue can die or be born before consciousness arises in relationship to it. Anyway, you take two different kinds of materiality that interact. So the question is, was there consciousness before that? And I would say that in a sense you could say, yes, there was consciousness before that. In a sense of the consciousness of the universe wanted to give rise to sense consciousness, which could give rise to conceptual consciousness.

[26:09]

And then once conceptual consciousness arises and there's a split, then there's suffering, then there's anxiety. Because we think that what we know and we're very concerned about it, and we identify with it or disidentify with it, and then we feel anxiety. So I told the story of the birth of anxiety, and briefly I'll just mention it again there. Because of that, we're motivated to reconnect with or discover consciousness which transcends this duality. So the other kind of consciousness which transcends it, and in some sense predates it, because it's a circle. non-dual, non-conceptual consciousness, non-conceptual awareness, then there's sense awareness, conceptual awareness, then there's misery, then there's nothing, and then you learn how to re-realize, or you learn how to be initiated into the realization of non-conceptual awareness, and then is released from the suffering of conceptual awareness, and then from this

[27:19]

Reentry with non-conceptual awareness, we have then the whole thing starting over again, namely sense consciousness, conceptual consciousness, and depending on how out of touch you got with the origins of this whole thing, misery, more or less. And we need to tap back into non-conceptual awareness, non-conceptual consciousness, non-dual consciousness. And non-dual consciousness knows this story I just told you. I'm telling you this story, but for all you know, for all I know, I don't really know this story that well. The proposal is that non-conceptual awareness actually directly knows the story I just told you. And because of knowing this story you don't fall for it, so there's no ignorance. So that's the story of those three levels. And so, well, you know, maybe that's enough for now, and then next week I'll do it again.

[28:27]

Because what's the matter, Blaine? A lot of questions did come up as you were speaking. Right, so rather than just go deeper into it, Well, there is one more thing I'd like to say before I take the questions, and that is, briefly mention to you that there is a way to actually verify this story experientially, and that's Buddhist meditation. And so I just, what would I say? guess what I'd just say, if I could say it briefly, and that is that if you can practice what we call mental stabilization or tranquility in the realm of conceptual awareness, in the superficial realm of conceptual awareness where

[29:33]

you're experiencing a knowing, a consciousness which knows objects and therefore duality between subject and object and so on and suffers. In that realm if you can focus on your experience in such a way that you do not mentally that you do not mentally elaborate on the concepts that you know the mind becomes stabilized. And so next week or the week after I will go into more detail about how you can not mess around realize mental stabilization and then start to understand directly the story I just told you rather than just hearing about it. And one more short thing I might say is that part of what this is about is that by relating to concept of collaboration, you kind of drop down or that becomes a kind of bridge to reconnect with sense consciousness.

[30:55]

Because in sense consciousness there's no mediation by So if in the realm of concepts you don't mess around or elaborate with them, you start to enact or invoke a kind of way of being with a kind of consciousness which doesn't mediate with the concepts. You know concepts, but if you stop meddling, conceptually meddling with the concepts, you start to get more access to the realm of direct sense perception. which is deeper and it's not disturbed by duality much at all. A little bit but not much because you see it's a little bit its origins are based on a duality and materiality. But by then doing the same thing with that realm, continuing the practice there, either you can say we drop down one more step into non-dual awareness and there

[31:56]

we become these knowledgeable creatures called Buddhas. And we actually see this story of the creation of the whole universe and become free of all suffering and develop all skills. So I just thought I'd mention that briefly. And I'll go a thousand more times until all beings are realizing this process. Okay, do you have some questions now? You already asked one, so you have to wait a little while, George. Kendra. And who else? Jonathan. What's your name again? John. Lynn. That's four. And then, is that it? Four? Five. Six. And then seven. Kendra. Kendra. I was curious whether there was or what the difference was between the naming of an alarm clock as a bird or the naming of the alarm clock. What's the difference?

[33:02]

Yeah, I mean, hearing that sound and naming it, whether you named it correctly or incorrectly. Do you understand what I'm asking? The difference was that usually, the way you're usually set up is that when you come up with the concept, the way you access your concept is you come up with the concept alarm clock. But in a dream, the way that information is coming, you don't necessarily say alarm clock. So the actual naming of it, in both cases, is conceptual awareness. So that, it's the same type of consciousness, it's just that you have a different relationship, so you come up with a different word. Right, but you are saying it's on some level from the same. Because in both cases, essentially, you have infinite possibilities when you're awake or asleep, but in both cases, you come up with... In both cases, you have infinite possibilities, but in the conceptual consciousness, usually, we're more routinized.

[34:09]

So in dreams, although you don't really have, you have equal number of possibilities in dreams and wakefulness, but somehow we're less rigid in the dream. Say, you know, this is like, this is like blah, blah, but really you're wetting your pants. So you're not stuck into calling it wetting your pants. Whereas when you're awake, you've been trained to say this is wetting your pants, you know, so... You don't feel the luxury of not coming up with that concept, sometimes, until you're a Buddha. And even then, just to be nice, you also call it wetting your pants. Does that make sense? So one of the things that's nice about dreams is that we allow ourselves different patterns of access, more flexibility in certain ways. So that's why they're kind of a relief. sometimes.

[35:12]

I don't know who was next. Was it Jonathan? Yeah, well, in the story I just told, in unconceptual consciousness, in direct sensory experience, there is a kind of duality built into this birth story of it, namely different kinds of materiality. Well, you don't have to get into thinking that yet. I mean, you can interpret that, but at this level it's not necessarily, we haven't gotten that far necessarily. In looking, you know, I remember one time Gregory Bateson, the biologist, anthropologist said, I think it was him, said, if you were looking at a planet and trying to see whether there was life there, you would look to see if there's any difference If there was difference, maybe there's life.

[36:15]

If there's no difference, you would think there's no life. In other words, of course you see like, you know, and stuff like that, but is there like, do you see some different kind of materiality? Like, is there like rocks and maybe some other chemicals floating on the rocks and different kinds of rocks, but is there something like on that planet that looks different from the rocks, that looks different from chemicals? Is there something different there? Somehow life needs to have difference. But difference is really kind of like, there really isn't a difference. Because actually, if you have two different things and they're different, the difference actually doesn't happen. carefully. You can't actually find the difference. But in order to have life, we somehow have to... The phenomenon of life depends on somehow there being temporarily allowing the illusion of difference. And then this particular type of difference gives rise to consciousness.

[37:18]

Not only do we need to make life, but you need difference for life, at least life as we know it. So there's two different kinds of materiality, and then there's a difference between materiality and the consciousness. Materiality is located, consciousness isn't. So there's difference between materiality, the interaction, and consciousness. And all three of those are necessary for a conscious experience. So if anybody can tell a story of the birth of consciousness without getting into duality, that would be a good trick. I don't know who's next, but John? He thought I was Darwin for a while? Yeah. Yeah.

[38:26]

It's to think that something, to think anything's out there on its own independent of you is sort of one of the kind of like, it's not necessarily, you can put it, but that's basic ignorance. And most normal, healthy, suffering human beings think that what they know is out there on its own separate from them, which is not true, but that's the way we see it. understand that thoroughly, one can become free of that ignorance without necessarily, at least initially, destroying the structure by which there is this discrimination. So subject-object can still function without believing that there's actually a substantial existing separation between them. but we think there is an inherently existing separation. We think things inherently exist outside of ourselves and we think we inherently exist separate from each other.

[39:31]

This is our ignorance. Liz? Lynn? It appears in history of ideas that there... It appears in history? In history of ideas, yes. There's a different relationship to the non... It seems to be self-evolution. You know, most recently, perhaps a mechanical universe. And then you had said that there was a circle in which you returned to a primordial, I guess that's my word, you know, the sense consciousness. When you... Excuse me. You said there's a circle by which you return to the primordial sense consciousness. And I would say that there's maybe two primordials here. One primordial would be that sense consciousness is primordial relative to conceptual consciousness.

[40:35]

But it may be that there's another consciousness which is primordial vis-à-vis sense consciousness, even more primordial. So you could say it's a return, or you could say it's an advancement. But it's a circle, I think. These things are going around and around. I guess I'm trying to understand, when you come in this full circle, you come with any more awareness than if you had left the beginning point, and how the history of ideas somehow relates to that. Oh, so are you wondering if, for example, if one were able to experience and the rebirth of sense consciousness and conceptual consciousness, if that attainment, that at least temporary attainment of non-conceptual awareness would hold in the rebirth back into dualistic existence?

[41:49]

Is that what you're wondering about? No? No. Is that what anybody was wondering about? Did anybody follow what I just said? I'd be interested if you answered that question. Okay. That's a good question. It is possible to touch, you know, the word attain has the root, the English word attain has the root touch, to touch. It's possible to touch this non-dual awareness. I think I've known various people who have touched it and then lose contact again. And it's possible to touch it and have it like, and then the next moment when you may be experiencing dualistic consciousness again, there's a vague memory that you touched it but basically you're falling for the delusion again pretty much before. It's also possible to touch it in such a way that you never feel the same way about dualistic awareness again. Usually you have to touch it for a little longer to have it be that you're actually transformed and when you

[42:58]

experience dualistic awareness, conceptual awareness, and even sense awareness, or both, that you are transforming your relationship to it by that temporary contact with non-dual awareness, that you get changed and you never are the same. Back in the dualistic world, you're constantly suspicious. Yeah, thank you. I still have this other question. Okay. Try another way. What is it, that other question? The question is, is this sense consciousness which does not have duality? It has duality, it just doesn't have, it's not conceptually mediated, therefore it's not known by ordinary conceptual focal consciousness. Right, right. So is that kind of consciousness... Is that kind of consciousness the same... that a realization of this process is in the difference between, as you said, it was a late development, take it back to where it hadn't developed yet, is in the difference between that state and the one that the Buddha attains.

[44:18]

Is there a difference between... Before conceptual consciousness evolved and that... Is there a difference between conceptual consciousness and the Buddha's consciousness? Is there a difference between sense consciousness before conceptual consciousness falls? That's the same thing. Oh, I see. I don't know. I really don't know. I don't know what that sense consciousness was like maybe back before mind consciousness has arisen. I don't know. But you want to know, is that the same as Buddhist consciousness? If there was such a situation, it would not be the same as Buddhist consciousness. Buddhist consciousness Actually, Buddha's consciousness, you know, the kind of Buddha we have now, maybe they used to be kind of like less developed Buddhas in the old days, but the kind of Buddhas we have now are Buddhas who actually can see simultaneously sense consciousness and conceptual consciousness.

[45:21]

They can see that, actually looking at it, and they do look at it, they see it, and they see everybody suffering there. And they also see everybody kind of gurgling around in biological awareness at the sense level. Just, you know, kind of like we're down there all day long just gurgling around, you know. You know. And we're also up here most of the day suffering, except when we're deeply asleep or having a nice dream. But even in our dreams that are nice, we're just a little scared. Anyway, Buddha sees that. And Buddha simultaneously sees through this non-conceptual lens things interrelated and insubstantial, and there aren't actually any phenomena there. Buddha sees both simultaneously. That's Buddha's awareness. So it's a circle that... And that Buddha-awareness could not have been there before there were sentient beings. So there wasn't a Buddha-awareness prior to somewhat screwed-up, miserable creatures.

[46:23]

Now the Buddha nature, the ability, the template in the universe to give rise to a Buddha is, I would say, you know, it's right there in the nature of the Dharma was there before the Buddha. But you had to have miserable beings to precipitate the Buddha out of the Dharma. There weren't any Buddhas before there were miserable creatures. but the Buddha was always there, but there was never the possibility of Buddhas being there without sentient beings being there. There was never such a possibility. That is impossible. The possibility is zero. Now Buddhas, the kind of Buddhas you have without sentient beings are based do not deserve to be called Buddhas. I would say Buddha without sentient beings is just simply truth.

[47:33]

When you take truth and you put sentient beings in there and then compassion arises, then you get a Buddha. And you can't have that Buddha before you've got these miserable people, and you can't have full-scale miserable people without dualistic, conceptual. You can suffer some without that, but to make the kind of suffering that will precipitate a full-scale Buddha, you need people like us. We've got people like this, therefore there are Buddhas. Because we suffer this way, there are Buddhas, and because there are Buddhas, we don't suffer this way. This is something which you should be highly encouraged by. And I hope you sign up to become a Buddha tonight. But it's unrealistic to experience the realization of Buddha.

[48:42]

Period. It's an endless process of realization. Now, was there anybody before George? Oh, no, Berent. Yes, there was Berent. And Renee, how come you guys didn't speak up? Did you forget that you had raised your hands? I'm last, though. Oh, you're last? You're after George? I know I'm last. You're last? You're not really last. George is last because he asked one already. He's a second timer. Berent? I think what I frequently stumble over is... Instead of asking that, which I'd be happy to answer, but you don't want me to, so I won't. It's more important to me to ask myself, is this a problem of faith or a problem of, say, not so deep meditation practice?

[50:05]

Is what a problem of faith? That I stumble over this issue. Let's see, do you want me to answer that? Yes. Or did you want to just say that that's your question? Just a second. Just a second. I'll just figure out what it is now. The choices are lack of faith or what's the other... lack of faith or not to advance meditation practice. Same thing. I mean, I'm not saying you lack faith or not to advance meditation practice, but lack of faith, not very well developed faith and not very well developed meditation practice are the same thing. Meditation practice is difficult to develop. Faith is difficult to develop. In Buddhism, faith and meditation practice are inseparable.

[51:06]

But that doesn't mean that your problem with this, whatever this thing you brought up, doesn't mean that that's a sign of lack of faith or a sign of something wrong with your meditation practice. It's just a question. Question doesn't mean you have something wrong with your faith or meditation practice. Because you could be asking that, you could be an extremely elevated bodhisattva who just is channeling that question for the welfare of other beings. All your problems may be just some kindness that the universe uses you to bring up for us. I mean, I say maybe, but there's no question that that's the case. Now, if you don't trust that, that's a lack of faith and a lack of... If you don't understand that, you know, the Buddhas are supporting you to ask this question, then you don't trust that the Buddhas are supporting you to ask that question.

[52:12]

But they are. Or you think that the Buddhas aren't working very well because the way they're helping you is not so good. The Buddhas are supporting you in your meditation practice and supporting you to have every question you have is the Buddha's kindness. All the problems in your life are just there for you to ask questions about. If you don't go for that, then that's a lack of faith in what I just said. I have complete faith in that except when my meditation practice isn't In other words, when I don't remember that and stay focused on that, then I think, oh, this person is being rude to me. This is not like some kindness to me to help me with my practice. This is like somebody who should be removed from the premises. Then my practice is not so good, you know. Then I don't realize, oh, this is the Buddha Dharma coming in this form. then my faith falls down and my meditation practice slips. But when I realize that everything that's coming is the Buddha teaching me, my faith is good, my meditation practice is good, and the Buddhas are successful.

[53:20]

And I want the Buddhas to be successful, so when I remember that I want the Buddhas to be successful, I say, thank you very much for your wonderful question. And I say, do you want to join? or not? What's the answer? There's a time limit. Renee? Yes. Yes, or Renee wants to, okay. George? Yes, Renee, did you want to say something? Yes. What? I want to ask the question. What is it? The question is, how do you deal with conceptual phenomena phenomena Intimately. So that you can observe when the mind is reaching out to grasp something. In ordinary conception, the experience is the mind grasping an object,

[54:23]

The experience is the mind grasping a concept which is also imagined to be out there on its own. That's ordinary dualistic conceptual consciousness. And I practice by intimately studying that process to mess around with it so I can see it. And all the Buddhas help me do that. And all the sentient beings help me do that. And I'm so grateful. You can talk to Bernd about this later. George? I have a few questions that I think are related. One is consciousness that's older, before maybe the dualistic or conceptual consciousness. You mean sense consciousness? Yeah. I think it's older. I'm sorry, what? I think it's older, you know, biologically. Right. in some sense, less sensational. And I was wondering if you could also say that perhaps maybe it's our comic ground and also it goes beyond life and death.

[55:31]

When you say it's less... When you say less sensational, you mean like less dramatic? In a way, it's sort of like not aware of itself being non-dual, right? It's not aware of itself being non-dual? Well, it's not aware of itself because it is non-dual. It's not non-dual. It's non-conceptual. I mean, it's un-conceptual. It's not... There is implicit duality. It is not non-dual. Non-dual awareness is understanding of duality. And at the level of sense consciousness, that's why Lynn's question is, would a Buddha be kind of like that? The Buddha isn't just able to conceive of things. The Buddha understands the nature of conception. So at the level of sense consciousness, which is unmediated by concepts, we do not yet understand that concepts are illusions.

[56:33]

And, for example, the basic concept, the basic image, the kinds of materiality which give rise to this consciousness, that has not been seen through. The Buddhist sees that even that differentiation between different kinds of materiality doesn't hold up. So that's not non-dualistic consciousness. It is conceptual dualistic consciousness. And the other is conceptual dualistic consciousness. Non-dual consciousness understands the nature, the dependent co-arising of both, the emptiness of both. but it is also true that the level of misery and confusion is not as intense for beings that have conceptual consciousness. So, you know, buffalo just cannot be as vicious and cruel and frightened and mean as we can be. So buffalo and frogs and bacteria are not sufficient to manifest the full self.

[57:40]

You need more screwed up people to bring Buddha on. But we've got it, so, you know, no problem. Question number two? Yes. What's with this sort of, like, protectiveness that ignorance has for itself? What is the protectiveness? Yeah, it seems like it tries to maintain itself. Well, I would say, you know, it has biology on its side. So the biological imperative is, you know, this separate life over that separate life it's a delusion and yet it pays off you know in the world of illusion it pays off so it's like that again that joke I always tell you know Woody Allen says I'm not Woody Allen Woody Allen tells a story the guy goes to the psychiatrist and says my brother thinks he's a chicken and the psychiatrist says well you should tell him he's not he said yeah but I need the eggs I'll tell you that one more time, you didn't get that.

[58:44]

The guy goes to a psychiatrist and he says, my brother thinks he's a chicken. The psychiatrist says, you should tell him he's not a chicken. The guy says, I would tell him, but he's a chicken. But what's that got to do with anything? You think you're separate from me, okay? You're not separate from me. So, you know, and you should tell yourself you're not separate from me. But if you tell yourself you're not separate from me, you won't get any me and you anymore. And you need me and you, so you're not going to tell yourself that. You can't have your girlfriend or boyfriend anymore if you start telling yourself there's no girlfriend out there. And you lose your girlfriend. But you really don't lose her. You really don't lose him. He just afraid you will. You won't lose your eggs either if you tell your brother that he's not a chicken.

[59:52]

He'll still give you his eggs. Don't worry. It's okay. We shall continue next week. All right? Was the, this, you know, do you think, am I presenting too much before we have a question and answer or is it about right? It's about right? About halfway? Okay, so I'll do that next week. Alright, and so next time I'll try to like put a little bit more, if it works out for you, I'll put a little bit more energy into, you know, how to meditate on this situation. So you can like... And then that will help you with all kinds of information that's put forth. Thank you. Good night.

[60:46]

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