Someone asked me if it would be all right if she left when the kitchen left, because these long classes were hard for her. And I said, okay. So I think anybody who wants to leave when the kitchen leaves can go at the same time. But I asked her to do walking meditation, not just to sort of wander off. And so if you want to leave, you can go do walking meditation around the zendo, either on the road or on the walkway around the zendo, the wooden walkway or the dirt walkway, so that when other people leave, you can see that we're leaving and you can join the meditation. Or you could go and sit. That would also be okay. Okay? And I asked the leaders of the small groups to bring up the issue of compassion last night, to check to see that we're all working on compassion, or at least to, yeah, to check to see if we are.

[01:29]

And they found out that many people were working on compassion and quite a few people were also working on compassion and also working on realization in the form of working on developing calm abiding, mind like a wall and so on. So quite a few people were doing that. And a lot of people were not actually yet doing this meditation on emptiness in the form of meditating on or looking for this image or this idea or this conception of inherent existence. Not too many people were working on that. And I want to say that, you know, part of compassion is patience with ourselves and part of compassion is patience with others' suffering and others' practice.

[02:47]

to whatever extent we think we understand it. So it really is okay if these teachings about meditation on emptiness do not yet seem applicable to your life, or you don't yet see a way of applying them. It doesn't seem quite right. That's part of why I asked this topic to be brought up last night, because I wanted to make sure that people weren't rushing ahead and trying to meditate on emptiness without being sufficiently grounded in compassion practices. Because if you're not grounded in compassion practices, it's really easy to slip off into these extremes. So we're already in the extreme, most of us are already in the extreme view of believing in inherent existence of the person and things. We've already got that. that view. So a lot of people, if they start meditating on emptiness, and if they can't find that view, then they just flip over to the other side and say, well, there isn't any self.

[03:57]

So that wouldn't be very compassionate. The Buddha taught that there is a self, a conventionally existing self. And then he taught emptiness not to free us from the conventional self, but to free us from the belief in the inherent existence of persons and things. So even though most of you, or many of you, will not necessarily be ready to apply these teachings. I'm going to continue to try to present them, and again and again and again, and they will be useful to you at some point. One of the great Chinese monks, his name was Dao An, a really great, I mean, quite a great, well, you know, quite a person.

[05:13]

Kind of a bright guy. I think, if I remember correctly, he was from a poor family. In other words, not from a family of educated people. But he was kind of smart anyway, and he went to his teacher... And he said, you know, could I have some teaching? The teacher gave him a sutra and said, here, read this. So he took it and read it and brought it back, I don't know, in a few minutes and gave it to him and said, thank you, can I have another one? He says, well, actually, I want you to memorize it. He said, I did. So he did that to basically the whole library of this teacher. He would give him the book and he'd go off and memorize it and give it back and So he was a bright kid and a great teacher. And he, towards the end of his life, his great wish was that he would be reborn in a pure land where he would be able to understand emptiness.

[06:25]

He couldn't understand it, even though he was kind of exceptional. He lived in China before the correct understanding of emptiness was transmitted. He lived there before the Prajnaparamita literature was translated properly. He lived before Kumarajiva. But he hoped to be born someplace where he would be able to understand. He knew that that was the teaching that he was lacking in. So, you know, we may not be able to understand emptiness in this lifetime, but still... This is kind of being offered. It may be useful any minute now. So I propose, I observe, I see in myself and I see it in others, this belief in inherent existence.

[07:31]

I see people acting that way. And I hear that it's very typical for human beings. Whenever we see any phenomena, whenever we have an image of ourself or any other phenomena, things appear to us as if they exist solely on their own, as though they were self-sufficient and did not depend on our mental imputation. This view is innate and has great habit strength. It's like a samadhi. It's like we have this false view samadhi. We're really quite concentrated on this point, fairly steady on it. It's kind of an unconscious samadhi, but it's like a samadhi. It's like we're really focused on this point. We're also focused on phenomena just in the sense of their...

[08:34]

the appearance of their characteristics. But along with the characteristics of something, we also seem to be aware of, focused on its inherent existence. And I thought, yeah, it's like a samadhi. I said, it's like the opposite of the, what we call Jiju Yuzamai. We have a sort of like an an innate opposite samadhi to the Jijyu Zangmai. I just thought I might write these characters for the board. This first character is Ji, usually translated as self.

[09:54]

And also in Asia, when people speak of themselves, they often hold their nose. They grab their nose to indicate themselves. And I just read in the Chinese dictionary that one of the meanings of Ji, of this character, which means self, one of the meanings of it is nose. And probably the character came from the Chinese character for nose, because that Ji is on the top of the Chinese character for nose. So anyway, Chinese people and Japanese people grab their nose when they... Yeah. ...meet. Or they touch it. We kind of do that too, don't we? Who, me? Who, me? We usually touch someplace else though, don't we? Touch our heart? Touch our sternum? Our throat? Our watch? Huh? They do?

[11:03]

They touch each other's nose? Eskimos do too. When they're friendly. But Maoris do it even just in ordinary circumstances. Yeah. So that's Ji. And that character, Ju, means to receive. It also means to receive or accept, to get, to take. It also is a character that the Chinese usually use to translate the second skanda, feeling. So it means to receive, experience. Okay? And then third character U means function or activity or employment. Huh? It's U, employment, activity, function. So self-enjoyment, function, self-enjoyment, activity. The next two characters are like a transliteration of samadhi, sam-mai, Chinese san-mei, Japanese sam-mai, samadhi.

[12:19]

So this samadhi is the standard of the Buddha's sitting meditation. This is the thing that makes... In sitting meditation, when there's this kind of samadhi connected with the sitting meditation, it's the sitting meditation of the Buddhas. In other words, the Buddhas have the samadhi which is the opposite of our innate samadhi. Our innate samadhi is that things are out there on their own, inherently existing, including our self, inherently exists. That's our innate samadhi. The Buddhist samadhi is the other way around, that things aren't out there on their own. The self isn't out there on its own. How is the self? The self is the self that receives its function. It doesn't have its function all by itself. It doesn't set itself up. It gets its function. It receives its function.

[13:22]

So self receiving its function, or self getting its job, or getting its activity, or getting its life. Self receives its life. The self gets its life from something other than itself. The self depends on something else. So the self receiving its function is the dependently co-arisen self, is a dependent self, is a self that's empty of existing on its own. It's not an independent self. So to be aware of that and to be steadily aware of that to be absorbed in the self as it receives its function, that's what makes our sitting meditation authentically Buddha's meditation. In other words, it's a sitting that's absorbed in emptiness of the person, but also this applies to all phenomena

[14:33]

You watch all sub-phenomena receive their function. You're watching the dependent core rising in the self. You're watching the dependent core rising of phenomena. No phenomena is any longer sitting out there on its own. So the self, you watch your person receive its activity itself. And you watch phenomena receive its activity primarily from the fact that you're looking at it. So you're absorbed in watching how things aren't out there independent of your mental imputation, but actually how things receive their activity, receive their life through you looking at them. Everything, in a sense, is your offspring and quite a family you have.

[15:35]

To be absorbed in this, actually kind of, if you're in the right mood, wonderfully creative aspect of your mind, of how it is giving birth to phenomena, be absorbed in this, and then also realize that because of this, the phenomena do not have inherent existence. But even before you realize that point, you're still kind of like tuning into how creative the relationship between your mind and the world is. That your mind meeting the world, the offspring, is phenomena. Is it the same as the character for U-Province? I doubt it.

[16:39]

I doubt it. It might be, but I doubt it. As the famous scholar Edward Konda said, one of the signs of an advanced language is lots of homonyms. The Chinese has many homonyms. So does Japanese, of course. Like there's In Japanese, there's, I think, about a hundred shows and many, many so's and many u's and many to's and many... There's almost all the sounds you can make. There's lots of homonyms for it. Okay. Uh... So... The hands are already going up.

[17:44]

Should I call on the people or should I go a little further? Huh? Be calm? All right. But not too calm, right? So I'd like to go a little bit, a little bit, well I just, you know, I'll just say something about what this thing we're looking for looks like. I'll just say it and then I'll go back and say what it might be like to actually look for it rather than hear about it. So I'm going to tell you about this and you can try to see it, you know, in a kind of fake way after you hear about what it's supposed to look like, but I think that's okay.

[18:47]

What it looks like is it looks like this self, this inherently existing self, is like... It's like this person or this thing that you can see that it depends... You can actually see that it depends on mental imputation. You can see that. In other words, what we're looking for is not a super gross version of the self where you completely don't think at all that it depends on you at all. It's totally out there. know on its own and your mental imputation doesn't touch this person at all now the when you start looking you might think that there's such a person like there's a person sitting there like me and it doesn't depend on my mental imputation at all but the the the actual one that [...] can be dropped and then actually the basic one is where they actually do see

[20:08]

that this self does depend on, for example, the imputation of a name or something. You do see the self as dependent on mental imputation. But you still think that the self can establish You know it depends on mental imputation, but you still think it kind of doesn't depend on mental imputation. It is self-sufficient. It's a little bit more dependable than that dependent relationship. And if you took away that dependent relationship, it would still be there. And that will be something that you can finally get to see, and that will be the thing that we will study in detail, if we can find that.

[21:21]

And I'm going to go back up to grosser versions of this so you can see how kind of special this view is. and have some little scenery along the path to arriving at this vision. But before I get there, I just want to say, again, forecast, and I'll do this again, is that this self is also what's being looked at in Case 37 of the Book of Serenity. When they say, hey you, The discrimination between the different levels of belief in self or different sense of ignorance that are being worked on in that case are being addressed in that case.

[22:26]

So let's go back now to some grosser versions. So you're looking for this image or this concept, this idea, something that you can actually be, that you can know, that you can have, that can be the object of your consciousness, something you can actually experience. Okay? So one of the kind of things that could be would be something that is pretty dissociated and stands on its own, but actually separately from, pretty much separately from the aggregates. Even though you know that you wouldn't be able to know even where to look for this thing if it weren't for the aggregates, still, the relationship is very little relationship there between psychophysical experience and this self, which is right there in the neighborhood.

[23:46]

Well, it looks like we're looking for the view, really, but we're actually, there seems to be a self there. But when there seems to be a self, you found a view of such a self. So we're, I don't know, we're really looking for the, I don't know what we're looking for, but we're sort of looking for the view, because it's not really there. Okay, the self isn't really there. So we're looking for a view, but when we find the view, we see the object. When we find the consciousness that sees this thing, we see the thing. So the way we know we found the view is that we've got the thing that the view has, namely of a person, of something like a person that's associated with, very loosely associated with the five aggregates. It has to have some association, otherwise you wouldn't know where to look for it at all. It wouldn't be anywhere. So it is there with the five aggregates, but it's separate. And so it stands on its own in loose association with the five aggregates.

[25:04]

So this is not the conventional self. This is not the conventionally existing self. Conventionally existing self is one that does not have an inherent existence. It's just simply something that is designated on the basis of the five aggregates. And even while you see this conventionally existing self, which just is something dependent on the five aggregates, you still can see also the inherent existence of this image, of this person. But, again, the inherent existence is freestanding and the conventionally existing is not.

[26:58]

And as much as there is anything conventionally existing, this person exists. As much as there's anything existing, this person exists. And Sonia showed me this book where Geshe Ramten is talking about this, and he says, like, you know, that this is good meditation is like when you have your meals presented to you, so the food's put out there in the bowls for you, and then you look at the meals and it seems like the food's actually out there on its own. You don't necessarily see how the food's there due to your mental imputation. And there actually is food there and you can eat it.

[28:08]

But mixed in with the food, with the food that's actually there, is this belief in inherent existence. So you're eating the food and you're not eating the belief in inherent existence. You're not eating the inherent existence of the food. But yet, as you eat the food, you're also mixing that food that you're actually eating with this inherently existing food, which isn't there. But your vision of it is mixed in with the regular food. And I thought, that's kind of nauseating, but kind of interesting that we kind of like, in this way, pollute our food by mixing this view in with the actual food.

[29:17]

And we do that with our self, too. We mix this view in with our self. We actually use this self, but we interweave this this belief in inherent existence with this conventionally existing self, which we use with some facility, with some compassion, hopefully, because this inherently existing self is the nominal designation of these five skandhas that are suffering. This pain in this psychophysical situation is suffering because of this belief that's mixed in with with the aggregates which are designated as a person. So, of course, I guess it's not surprising to you that emptiness is kind of subtle.

[30:50]

The middle way is very subtle. But this pivotal false view is also very subtle. people say over and over again how difficult it is to understand the middle way and it's almost as difficult to understand the middle way as it is to understand almost as difficult as it is to understand the middle way as it is to understand this false view you know the fundamental false view So this sense of self which seems to be separate from the five aggregates, although you feel like, yeah, I think that self is standing by itself, I don't see, I actually feel that self is independent of mental imputation, but the fact that it's still separate from the five aggregates is still a little too gross.

[32:16]

So you may see that one. And that's good that you're seeing that, but we have to go deeper. So another next step might be that the cell seems to be pretty much the same thing as the five aggregates. That's a little bit more subtle. Pretty much the same thing. but not sort of one entity, or not one fact. It has a little bit different factness to it, or existence. And this one is kind of cute, this level. It's the level at which particularly old people, I think, or not necessarily old people, but people who have old bodies.

[33:29]

Now, some of you are not too old, so you don't know that when you get older, even older than anyone in this room, some very old people have these young selves. So the five aggregates most people recognize, most people over 40 recognize, the five aggregates are changing. The body is changing. And now that, now is the body changing like the skin wrinkling, and the teeth rotting, and the hair falling out, and the vision going, and the taste going, and the touch going, and the balance going, but also the mind's going. So the five aggregates are changing, and in a certain sense, losing some of their integrity and tone But inside the five aggregates, there's this young person who's pretty much the same as, you know, at six. There's this young, healthy person inside of this body, and there's something terrible happening to this body of this young person.

[34:34]

And that's the source of the song, Young at Heart, you know. If you're young at heart. So there's this stable, fairly stable, not necessarily young person, but pretty much the same person as there used to be inside this decaying shell of the five aggregates. And among the five aggregates is a feeling of sadness and poignancy, which this young person notices and sympathizes with. It's such a sad, kind of sad situation. We've lost all these past bodies and minds. But basically, it's the same person, fairly stable. Pardon?

[35:44]

Are there old people in little kids' bodies? Old people in little kids' bodies? Well, if they're old people, then they're kind of the same old person that they were when the little kid was even littler. You have something like grumpy, you know, grumpy, stiff old person inside the little kid's body, then it's a stable old grumpy person. It doesn't get like younger as it gets older. Huh? People are growing backwards. So, okay, so that's Maybe, I don't know, that's something that I think maybe some of you can sense, you know. Something stable inside of this rotting situation that's pretty much the same as a rotting situation and yet... and yet it's more stable.

[37:00]

The next level would be that you would sense that this young person, this stable person, this cute little thing inside this wrinkled old forgetful body and mind, that this depends on mental imputation. You start to become aware that it depends on mental imputation. First of all, you have a sense of self that seems to be pretty much different from the five skandhas. Then you have a sense of self that's pretty much the same as the five skandhas, but it's more stable. The other case was more stable also. It was the same self moment by moment, more stable, but also pretty much very loosely associated with five aggregates. Now it's closely associated with five aggregates, but still not changing as fast.

[38:05]

Sometimes, and the more the five aggregates change, the bigger the difference between the self and the five aggregates. When the five aggregates are holding together pretty well, then they seem to go with this kind of young person, this young hopeful person who, you know, basically can't get that much younger. Basically, you're in the prime of your life all the time because basically the main thing is to be you. This is the most important and wonderful thing, is to be this independent thing. But to notice that it's all different from the five aggregates but very closely associated is a more subtle view than to think that it's not associated. Now, the next step will be to notice that this sense of self depends on mental imputation.

[39:07]

Is that the same thing as saying it's a figment of our imagination? I think figment of imagination means that there's nothing there. This is not just a figment of your imagination. Because some people, you cannot just, you can't imagine just anything like this. There's some dependence on something other than mental fabrication, but mental fabrication or mental imputation is the key issue in being able to find this subtle view. There's other things it depends on, but they tend, I think, to distract us from finding this. Because the other things that this sense of self depend on... Some of the things that this sense of self depends on are things that do conventionally exist, like the conventionally existing person depends on the same kind of stuff.

[40:14]

So it's... The conventionally existent person depends on something. This depends on something. But if you want to find this subtle belief and this subtle object, mental imputation is key in locating it. And the other things it depends on are part of what make it more than just mental imputation. The fact that this phenomena depends on more than just mental imputation means that it's not that there's nothing there. Other conditions have to be satisfied for a phenomena, too, besides mental imputation. It's just that there's no phenomena without it. But there's lots of other conditions that can be present or not for a phenomena to be present, like blue depends on something different than red depends on. But both of them depend on mental imputation. A female depends on something different than male.

[41:15]

But both of them depend on something. But it's not that there's no such thing as male or female. It's just that in both cases, mental imputation is necessary for the phenomena of male or female. So it's not just there's nothing out there. Otherwise, you should be able to really clearly imagine yourself as a man, and then that would be just like the same as me imagining that I'm a man. But our imaginations, our mental imputations, are on a different basis. There's something more than just our mind. But no phenomena appear without it. So, now this next level is that you start to detect mental imputation, but still you feel that the self is a lot stronger than the mental imputation, than the conceptual imputation. You feel like it's more durable and it's a more durable thing, it's a more lasting thing.

[42:19]

Mental imputations come and go. But when it comes down to it, the real power for the appearance of this thing is coming from itself. But, you know, if this question is now, I think it's okay to stop before we take some more steps into this more subtle view. Because you look, I see furrowed brows and stuff. Do you have a question, Shari? Shari? Shari... Shari Raimon. Yes? How can it come from the self? How can it... It doesn't... That's a false view, but it seems like that. It seems like it does. Pardon? No, no. Whatever is happening depends on mental imputation, on conceptual imputation. Okay? And as your vision of this self gets more refined, you start to see that your sense of self, that this person there, does depend on mental imputation.

[43:32]

At a certain point you get to see that. If you want to back up earlier, before you started to see the dependency of this sense of self, of this person, of this image of a person, before you could see the dependency of that on mental imputation, before that you thought it stood on its own, even separate from the aggregates. Now, if you reason with yourself, you'd see that that's really ridiculous, because you say it's separate from the aggregates, but it's always right next to them, or always behind them. Just like to say the inherent existence of your food is separate from your food, you know, It's separate. You could see it as separate, but it has to be somewhere in the neighborhood, right? You can't have the inherent existence of your food too far away from the food. Otherwise, you got a problem, right? It's somewhere, it's mixed in with the food. It's interesting that one teacher said,

[44:35]

that it's like mixing milk and water, just like Sukershi said about the monastery, that we're like mixing milk and water. The students are mixed like that. So, at the grossest level, you actually, you understand that you must have the sense of self identified with your skin color, your memory, your name, and some few other details that you require which are psychophysical data, you require some of those in order to have a self, in order to talk about what it is, in order to specify it. But at the gross level, you feel like it stands separately. On its own. Even though if you think about it, well, it sort of has to be kind of near them, doesn't it? And as the more you look at that, the more it gets closer and closer until finally you pretty much say, well, I'm pretty much this body and mind. I'm pretty much this body which is now old, even though I kind of feel young.

[45:40]

But my feeling young is a psychophysical phenomenon too, so I feel young in this old body. So my sense of self is pretty closely related, almost the same thing as my attitudes in my body, even though, like I say... I keep being surprised that I'm getting old even though I expected this to happen and all that. So that's what's gross. But I still haven't really seen. This sense of self depends on conceptual imputation. And I feel like this self is more stable. Now the next level is I start to feel like this self does depend on mental imputation, but I still feel like it stands on its own. So I both feel it's dependent on mental imputation, but still... Okay, yes. Five aggregates. The other aggregates.

[46:42]

There's certain, for example, to come up with the, to come up with, you have a mental imputation of Rosie, but there's, you know, and that Rosie's a woman and all that. But there have to be certain conditions for that to work. But some of those conditions would also work for Vicki or Jane or Cedar. So same conditions, right? So to talk about those conditions won't necessarily get us to this sense of what you all share in creating this self. And that is mental, this conceptual imputation. All of you use that. Take that away. None of you will have a sense of self. But you don't all need the other, some of the other conditions that you are using to specify your own location where you're going to do this imputation. So are you saying that the power, the power of the vocals and times, is that coming from naming?

[47:44]

Is the power coming from naming? The power of the view of self, is it coming from naming? I said the view is that the self has more power than the power of naming. Okay? So at this stage, you're starting to see that there is a power in the naming. You're starting to recognize the power of naming. You're starting to see that at least a little bit, that the power of naming has some power, but you still think that the self has more power than the naming. In other words, that the self can establish itself. So just by thinking that, that power is there, the thought? Just by thinking what, what power is there. Just by thinking that the self has more power than the thought?

[48:44]

Just by thinking that the self has more power, you give it more power? Let's see. By thinking that the self has more power, that way of thinking is the false view. And that's one that we're getting to the core of the false view, which is in the first line of... Nagarjuna's fundamental verses on the Middle Way is nothing whatsoever. There's no evidence of anything that is produced by itself or caused by itself. But we're starting to get down to the place where we see this is caused by itself. The self is caused by itself. Nagarjuna said there's no such thing as that, but we think that way. This is the view. And we actually think we see something over there which is caused by itself. which is our person. We think the person is caused by the person. We do.

[49:47]

This is the view. But now at this stage we're starting to incorporate the view that there's some naming power here. This actually erodes this a little bit. This ignorance that the self can produce itself is now being eroded to some extent by the recognition of the power of designation. But still we think... that mostly it's coming from itself. Okay? Yes? Yes? Baron? So, many of my problems at the moment, I feel, have to do with trying to distinguish between... He's trying to distinguish, he's having a little difficulty distinguishing between the view of of inherently existing self.

[50:51]

Okay. You're having trouble making the distinction between the conventionally existing self and the inherently existing self. Yeah? I think this is because of that which is the consequence of the view that is, on everything I experience, I impute permanence and substantiality and difference. Wait a second. You said you impute permanence, substantiality, and difference on everything? Yes. Okay. All right. Do you put impermanence on the conventional self? Do you project permanence on the conventional self? Well, I said in the beginning I have difficulty, let's say, locating or identifying a conventional...

[52:06]

because, yes, I do compute permanence on conventional... Okay, so he's having trouble finding the conventional self. This is similar to having trouble finding your lunch because you mix in the vision or the image of an inherently existing lunch with the regular lunch. So it's hard to find the nicely presented conventional lunch because we mix in this unconventional lunch with it. Unconventional means your own personal delusion about what lunch is. So it will be difficult to find also a conventionally existing person because, in fact, no matter what you're looking at, you will mix in this false view. So you'll put this inherently existing person right in the middle of this conventionally existing person.

[53:09]

So you won't be able to see the conventionally existing person very well. It'll be all mixed in. It'll be there, and you'll be looking at it and using it, but it'll be polluted by this other view. So you won't be able to clearly see it. That's right. So that's why we don't really spend a lot of time trying to look for the conventionally existing person. We just say there is one. We say there is not, not one. There is one. It conventionally exists. That's how it exists. There is one. But we're not really looking for it because we won't be able to find it until we drop this other view. Once we drop this other view, then we'll be able to see what we really are as a conventional person. In the meantime, don't spend too much time trying to see what actually is my lunch and what actually is this conventionally existing person. More try to find out where's my false view of my lunch and where's my false view of the person. If I can see that, drop that, then I will see emptiness of that view and drop that view, plus I'll be able to see what the person is.

[54:17]

Okay? So don't spend too much time trying to distinguish between the two. Try to find the one. Try to find the false one. It's mixed in. No, it's not everything you see. It's mixed in with everything you see. The five skandhas you see, they actually are... It's part of the way you see everything. Part of you is seeing reality, conventional reality. And part of you is injecting this string of gold through everything. So it's not total delusion that the body is getting old. There's a conventional reality to the aging body, to the sick body, to the suffering body. This is what we feel compassion for, this suffering sentient being. This is not total delusion. But it is total delusion that this person inherently exists.

[55:24]

That's a total delusion. Nobody thinks that, really, in their right mind. But everybody in their right mind, including even a Buddha, thinks that there's a conventionally existing parent who is getting old fast. Even Buddha thinks that. Conventionally, there's such a thing. Buddha taught there is a conventionally existing parent. So not everything you see is total delusion. That part of it's okay. But the delusion is mixed in with it. This samadhi of the self that's not receiving its function is mixed in with the self that is receiving its function. So the two samadhis are intertwined. We have to bring out the view of the self, the subtle aspect of the view of the self existing inherently. We have to bring that out. As you bring that out and don't find it, then your view of yourself, still there as usual, will be purified.

[56:31]

So you understand the nature of all things, including yourself, Plus also, you understand the nature of the apparent conventional self. You understand its ultimate nature, plus you also clearly see the conventional self. Does that make sense? So you get a vision then finally of what the conventional world is. So you can actually see your, eventually, first of all see your person, unconfused with this belief, and then eventually be able to see your lunch in that way. And before you can see that way, when you're practicing Samatha, you actually start to see that way a little bit, because in Samatha, you kind of stop getting involved in that pollution. So you start to see a little bit more what things actually will be like.

[57:38]

I don't know who is next. Do you know who is next? Do you? No, I don't know. Well, why don't you ask a question then, dear, that nobody knows. In relationship to... Oh, you were next. Yeah, you were next. You were next. The conventional existing you was next. the inherently existing you, I don't know where to put you. It would be conventional. Okay, that's a good place. For example, speaking in class, there is definitely an experience of the inherently existing self. Looking at it again and again, it starts to... I'm just trying to think of the idea of that. By studying there, I think the one factor of it is some mutation of separation between this body and other bodies.

[58:46]

But this is what I'm also so confused at the time about. Then my inclination was to keep sort of producing the Dependent Core Risings, and to see, like, all the factors that are involved where it comes up as being a product. But what I think I understand from what you're saying is don't do that yet, or just try to see the view. Just try to see the view. When you say don't do that yet, you said produce Dependent Core Risings? Is that what you said? You don't have to produce Dependent Core Risings. I mean, the imputation, in terms of, like, understanding of it, If there is no inherent existence,

[59:47]

What is the experience I'm having? You asked that question? Well, that's a reasonable statement, but it's a little bit different than looking for what you think is not a dependent core arising. So we're looking for delusion rather than trying to talk ourselves into enlightenment here. In practicing compassion, we're trying to talk ourselves into enlightenment. The compassionate practice is where we're thinking all the time in this enlightened way, like thinking about not stealing, thinking about not killing, thinking about being generous, thinking about being patient, thinking about caring about other beings, thinking about enthusiasm, thinking about concentration. These activities are compassionate activities, but now we're not trying to think ourselves into enlightenment. We're more trying to find our delusion.

[60:56]

So, the part where I said if I had an imputation of my being separate from other people, is that... If you have an imputation of your being separate from other people, if you feel separate from other people, yes. You feel separate from other people and... So you want to know what to do with that? Yeah. Well, my... Feeling separate from other people means that you feel other people are over there and they're existing, independent. Other people over there are, that's a skanda, those other people. Okay? Do you know what skanda that is? Yeah. So you're looking at the first skanda and you think the first skanda is over there, independent of you and independent of mental imputation. Okay, so that's your current view then. No, you're telling me you don't see it.

[62:09]

You see yourself as separate from these other beings. Okay. Right. You don't think this is something that you're closely associated with, pretty much the same as. Namely, you're looking at somebody else and actually yourself is closely associated with what you're seeing over there in terms of colors. You don't see that. But when you do see it, you still may feel like, but there's something here which is more stable than my vision of Eleanor and my vision of Helen and my vision of Taigen. There's some stability, some self here that's the same as that and yet more stable. So I have a sense of self even while I'm not necessarily feeling separate from you as a sensory experience because I realize I'm one with my experience of you.

[63:19]

But I still have some kind of like different... Like my experience of you is like changing. You walk out the door, but I'm still here. Before I come in the room, I'm there, and then you're there. So you're a psychophysical experience for me. But I'm still something... more stable and reliable than my psychophysical experience, which now I have a version of, includes a vision of you. Now, this sense of self is getting somewhere when I feel that self, but then the next level would be to be aware that that self that I feel is here, regardless of whether I'm looking at you or Deirdre, and that my sense of self is not, this self is not someplace separate from looking at people in blue jays, that's more subtle than thinking that I'm separate from the blue jays, which are really the basis of myself.

[64:28]

The fact that I feel separate from the blue jays is the basis upon which I designate the self. I'm not separate from it. When I see that I'm not, I'm getting more subtle in my view of what the self is, but I still think that there's something in the midst of these five aggregates that's stable, more reliable, changing slower, maybe not changing at all, really. And the next level would be that I sense that this thing that's been set up in the middle of the five aggregates, which include my vision of other people, as not separate from this self, that this depends on mental imputation. That it's set up that this thing's more stable. And that's part of the reason why it seems more stable is because it's based on this mental imputation, which is that it's more stable. I don't know if that made things more clear for you or not. Can you open those doors? Yes. Could you open those doors? Deirdre?

[65:29]

No, my question got more complicated. So your question got more complicated, okay. Well, I was wondering about with... A view of an inherent self that is permanent but actually is cause. So there's this... A view of a permanent self... ...that has a beginning... ...that has a beginning... ...but then seems to be permanent from that point on, and that beginning is in relationship to another. So it's not like self-powered, it's not self-caused. I would say, yeah, I would say that that self that has a beginning is the conventional self. This is a good question, okay? The self that has a beginning is the conventional self, and that depends on another. The conventional self is the dialogical self, the conversational self, the self that develops through interfacial dialogue with primary caregiver.

[66:32]

That self has a beginning and it starts around six months. Before the brain has certain kinds of development, there is not such a self. And then it starts. And it gets pretty fully developed by a year and a half. And it's a dialogical self that depends on the other. And even if the other is gone, we carry the other around in our self and have constant conversations between this self and that other in our head. That's the conventional self. And that conversation we're having between our self and our mother in our head is what keeps it conventional. We keep checking to make sure we've got the conventional self rather than we're just getting, you know, totally spaced out. That self has a beginning and end, and that self changes. But there's another self that you had before that that doesn't have a beginning. And that's the one we're really concentrated on. That's the one that we need that's causing the problem. It doesn't have a beginning.

[67:33]

Do those two get kind of... That's what I was talking to Berndt about. They're stuck together, just like your lunch is stuck together. You have a self of a lunch before you even saw a lunch. Before your mother put her nipple in your mouth, you had an idea of inherent existence of food. The idea of inherent existence predates your first meal. You're born with it. Then you get your milk, and you bring this belief of inherent existence together with the experience of the milk. And when you develop a sense of conventional self, you bring this pre-verbal, beginningless ignorance, and you mix it in with this conventionally arrived at self. And if you try to see the actual conventional self independent of that view, it will not be possible until you can see that view, look at it, and be free of it.

[68:34]

And then you can see the conventional self, which has a beginning, which evolves, which is a social construction. But you can't see them separately. Lunch is also, at least at Tassajara, is a social construction. But you can't see that lunch independent of this view. Okay? So now the kitchen has left and some other people have left and should we go on for a little longer or do you want to stop? Stop? I told you the next one at the beginning. And the next one would be when you get to the point where the sense of self is not separate from the five aggregates, you're aware of mental imputation, but still you're aware of the dependence of this sense of self on conceptual imputation, but still the sense of self is a little bit stronger and stands on its own still.

[69:49]

That's the subtle one. That's the bottom line one. And that's the one that's being pivoted on in case 37 by the test, by the two tests, is to look at the difference between the sense of self. And some of this work, this is another thing to study, and that is being calm helps you see how you see. If you calm down, you will be able to see the relative grossness or subtleness of your view of the self. So, when some of you have described to me what you saw, you were describing, for example, more of the conventional view of the self, which is not gross, but you were not able to articulate how the belief of inherent existence was mixed in with that view.

[71:18]

So you are reporting something which is reasonable, namely the conventional view of the self, but you are not able to articulate how you're interjecting this other belief into your view of yourself. Just like if somebody tells me what lunch looks like, I might be able to say, yeah, I agree. That's what lunch looks like. But somebody else might be able to tell me, how they, that actually in the lunch they also see inherent existence. Tell me about that. That there's something there about the lunch which stands on its own out there. And not only that, but I can see that that sense of it standing alone depends on mental imputation, but still that side is stronger than the mental imputation side. Now we're ready to drop that view. But again, it's better to start with the self. And then there's other views of the self, which is not the conventional self, again, now we're starting to look at the false view of self, the false self, and that is the conventional self does not exist independent of the five skandhas, but we see one that does exist independent, or independent or rather independent.

[72:27]

Then we see one that's pretty much the same, but still stronger, more important, more dependable, and somewhat self-caused. And there's another self over there, right next to it, that's not self-caused. This is a conventional self. But we're starting to see this other self we mix in with the conventional self. Then we start to see that that self depends so strongly on conceptual imputation. And yet, although we see that's important, we still think the self's stronger. Now we're getting close at that point. And then we have to try to keep that very clearly in mind, that sense of self. And I have this poem about this. which you've heard before. And this poem can be understood on so many levels.

[73:30]

Children's poems maybe are that way, that they can be understood on many levels. But this is a poem which I think you've heard before, which I've used for other types of meditations, but I think it applies here. It's called How to Paint the Portrait of a Bird. It's originally written in French by Jacques Prévert. And it goes something like, If you want to paint a portrait of a bird, take a canvas and then paint a cage. And paint the cage with the door open. And then inside the cage, paint something pretty, something useful. I think something, Lovely and something beautiful. I don't remember and there's four things paint something pretty something useful Something X and something beautiful for the bird for the bird And then Place the canvas against a tree and then sit at the base of the tree and wait and

[74:49]

wait for the bird to come. But you've already put something in there to maybe attract the bird, something to encourage the bird to come. Anyway, you sit there and you wait, and then he says, the longness or shortness of the wait has no rapport with the quality of the painting, so don't worry. But anyway, if you get worried, we can be a little bit less pure than the children's poem. and do something to provoke the bird to come, but that's basically something in the cage to get the bird to come. And then it says, when the bird comes, this is the first half of the poem, when the bird comes, if the bird comes, observe the most profound silence. So you've been sitting quietly, and then you put this painting out there to attract the bird to come into the cage to be observed.

[75:53]

But then when the bird comes, at that time observe the most profound silence. So you sit quietly with this information in the background and wait for the bird. But when the bird comes, stay quiet. Whatever kind of bird it is, whatever level of subtlety of this bird, this bird now is delusion. this image of the self is gonna come. And if it's one of these grosser ones, just let it come. Now, one way to see it is that it'll come, and then as you sit quietly, it'll get more subtle what's there. Or succeeding birds will come, more and more subtle birds will come. You can see it either way. But every time either the bird gets more subtle, or a new bird comes, stay quiet. Don't get excited. Stay calm around the arrival of this information about the self.

[76:54]

And that's the first half of the poem. The second half of the poem will be about after the bird comes, after we get the actual, the right bird in the cage. Is Rozzy, like, throwing up? Is Sanchi throwing up? Is the outside throwing up? Huh? He's okay? Oh, okay. So that's sort of where we are now. And I'd like to then in the next class look a little bit more at this subtle belief, this subtle image, this subtle object of inherent existence, the inherently existing self, and see how that is before we start to do the next part of the poem.

[78:09]

Let's get the bird in the cage first. Oh, by the way, it says, once the bird gets in the cage, you observe the most profound silence, and then very quietly, very gently, you take the brush and close the door. But before you close the door, check to make sure we've got the right bird. Okay? So, some people wanted to end it, and yet there's still hands raised. So, can the people who have their hands raised... write their question down. And you could write the question down and give it to me and I could read it and then I'd sort of have it in my mind when the class starts next time. And or bring it with you and bring it up in the class if it doesn't get addressed. Okay? Okay? So anyway, this work is something that, what do you call it, the road to shu is hard.

[79:25]

It's hard, the road to shamatha is hard, and the road to the view of emptiness, the accurate view of emptiness, which avoids extremes, is very difficult. But I hope you can be compassionate with yourself and others while we do this study. Because it seems like we're surviving so far. It's hard, but it seems like people are surviving this rather difficult study. Is that right? Kind of okay? On the edge a little bit? So unless I hear otherwise, I'll just keep... going deeper into this cave. And one way to talk about compassion in relationship to this study is that you make a vow not to leave the world of suffering beings, not to leave the world of conventionally existent suffering beings.

[81:00]

You keep in touch with conventional reality. Keep in touch with your suffering and the suffering of others. And also remember that compassion is not depression. If you get depressed, that's something to be patient with and gentle about, but it's not compassion. But depression is the closest enemy or side road to compassion. The farthest is cruelty. Cruelty is not compassion and depression is not compassion.

[82:15]

Compassion is joy. It should be joy in this staying in the world with suffering beings if compassion is operating properly. Yes? Yes. Sympathy is a close enemy of compassion? That's a different school, I guess. That's the, what do you call it, the anti-sympathetic, the non-sympathetic school. Pity? No, compassion is pity, and compassion is sympathy. Compassion. Compassion. Karuna. Karuna, right? That's what I mean by compassion. I'm not talking about loving kindness. Karuna. Karuna. You know, you're touched.

[83:17]

You're joy. You have dented joy. You have dented joy. Not dented depression or inflated depression. You're joyful. Compassion is joyful. And when you get depressed, it's an enemy. It's a side road. Pity, if you want to make pity into something anti-compassionate, well, how would it be anti-compassionate? Mm-hmm. Looking down on them. Mm-hmm. Right. Right. So I mentioned this before, but in Chinese there's two words, like dai he shin durani, the he in dai he shin, that he is translated as compassion and sorrow and pity.

[84:21]

But pity, like looking down on people, That's not your perspective to look down on them. Other people might feel like you're up above them. Like Avalokiteshvara means looking down from above, but Avalokiteshvara doesn't feel above. It's just that Avalokiteshvara is above because of compassion. Compassion puts you above in the sense that you're happy. You're happy to be in the world. In that sense, you're above it, but you don't think you're better than people. You're happy to be with suffering beings, but their happiness, their unhappiness, does hurt you. But anyway, that character, he, in Daishin Dharani, is often translated as sorrow, compassion, and pity. The other word, ji, which is also translated as compassion, means love, or maitri, or metta. loving kindness.

[85:25]

Loving kindness isn't so much emphasizing the sorrow side or the pity or the pain side. It's more emphasizing just wishing well, but not so much talking about the negative. Karuna is taking into account the negative. Sympathy and compassion are, of course, closely related to becoming aware of the samadhi, where you realize that everything that happens is your self receiving its function. So other people's suffering is your life, but it still hurts.

[86:29]

everyone's suffering is the offspring of your mind. But it doesn't mean that there's no suffering aside from your mind, or that there's no beings aside from your mind. It's just that your experience of their suffering is the offspring of your mind. May...

[87:12]

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