We're going to have a little midterm probe here. Is there something good about the middle way that the Buddha realized? Yes? Do you say yes? What's good about it? There is a joy that if can, if when it happens, and I'm not sure that's the middle way, but if that's the middle way, there's a sensation of heart opening, which is quite joyful. Any other thoughts about what's good about the middle way?

[01:07]

Yes? For me, it's the transcendence that encompasses it at the same time. There is a certain calmness that is full of integrity. It transcends good and bad, and there's a calmness and encompasses it, and in that And a peacefulness. And a peacefulness. What did the Buddha say was good about the Middle Way? Yes, Yvonne? Just a scratch. Just a scratching of the neck? Remember what the Buddha said was good about the Middle Way, or what did he say was good? What did he say about the Middle Way? It avoids extremes. It avoids extremes. What's good about avoiding extremes? What's so good about not being an extremist? It's supposed to end suffering. End suffering?

[02:08]

Yeah. That might be... How'd the Buddha put it? No harm. No harm? Remember how the Buddha put it early on? Probing. Am I finding out that you don't remember that, what the Buddha said? Released you from the whole morass of delusion and suffering and several other things. Greed, delusion, grasping, thinking. Are you Carl? Yes. What, Carl? Um, talking about what we have absorbed, the first teaching in the Buddha was there were two extremes not to practice, self-mortification and indulgence.

[03:14]

Yes. And I perceive the Middle Way as more or less a path, well, in between a lot of things, good and bad, right and wrong. overindulgence, self-mortification. Right. But what's good about it? The way things are. It's the way things are. What's good about that? Nothing. Not a damn thing. He's right. But what is good about realizing the way things are? You think there's nothing good about what's realizing the way things are?

[04:19]

I really think there's something good about realizing. Yeah, so the way things are isn't really good, but realizing it's good. And what's good about realizing... Yes? Doesn't that empower you then to act skillfully in the world? Yes. What else? Less delusion. Less delusion, like zero delusion. Mm-hmm. You won't feel separate from others. Yeah, yeah. So it, you know, it sort of empowers you to act skillfully for the welfare of others, but the Buddha didn't really mention that. The Buddha said that what it gives rise to is calm, Nirvana is blissful and peaceful. If you combine that realization with certain activities, then you're acting well.

[05:32]

So in a sense, it purifies your activity of compassion, this middle way. When you realize the middle way, when you realize the middle way, then you realize the way things are, which means also that you're no longer misunderstanding the way things are. So that's what's good about the middle way. And as I mentioned already, the Buddha started teaching the middle way. How did the Buddha first introduce the middle way? By teaching it as Yes? I think that Carl kind of mentioned a path that avoids the extremes of self-mortification. Right. But how did he teach that path of avoiding the extremes? Yes?

[06:34]

Eightfold. Eightfold. Eightfold. And then what is the eightfold path? Besides telling me the eightfolds, what is it? It's the way to the end of suffering, yes. Yes? I'm thinking wisdom. Like you had mentioned before, he didn't start off teaching what calm is to live. Yeah, he started off by teaching wisdom. He started off by teaching the Four Noble Truths. But when he taught the Four Noble Truths, actually embedded in the Four Noble Truths where he was teaching was dependent co-arising, because he taught the truth of suffering and that the truth of suffering arises in dependence on something. It has an arising. It has a dependent arising.

[07:37]

It arises depending on something. And that teaching of dependent core arising was the first teaching about how to realize the middle way. So what's the middle way? Then he said, then he started teaching the Four Noble Truths, but really embedded in there was dependent core arising. So realizing the path, realizing the middle way which avoids extremes, you start by studying dependent core arising. You start by meditating on that things arise, everything that exists arises in dependence on something other than itself. That's the first teaching. And so we've been looking at that the last few weeks. We've been looking at dependent co-arising as the way to enter into realization of the middle way. Practicing the Eightfold Path is also the way to realize the Middle Way.

[08:50]

But that path culminates in meditating on, actually meditating directly on the Middle Way, on dependent co-arising, on the way suffering arises, what it depends on, and it depends on For example, craving, but craving depends on misconception of the way things are. When we don't understand the way our objects of knowledge are, when we don't understand the nature of the things we experience, then we are vulnerable to craving, which can then manifest as attachment or hatred and things like that. Looking at the teaching of dependent core arising, I've been talking to you about the teaching that phenomena have this other dependent nature, things that exist

[10:13]

have a nature or a character that they depend on things other than themselves, that they're powered by things other than themselves. They're not powered by themselves. They lack the nature of producing themselves. And this is an important, or forget about important, this is an initial or fundamental teaching because we actually, we have the situation of the things we are aware of appearing to produce themselves. or appearing to exist on their own, appearing as independent, standing, you know, each body standing or sitting in its place. People we meet in our own sense of ourself appears not to be

[11:26]

established or created by things other than itself. That's the way things look. And this is because the phenomena that we experience in our life also have another character besides this other dependent character. They have an imaginary character. they have a character which doesn't exist, which we impute to them, which our mind imputes to them. And the character that doesn't exist is that they exist on their own. So the way things do exist is they exist depending on other things, and the way they don't exist is not depending on other things. But we automatically dream of them as existing on their own. And then if we believe that dream, then we misconceive phenomena.

[12:37]

And then if we misconceive phenomena, various pain-inducing emotions will arise. And unskillful actions will arise. when we see people and other living beings and non-living things as existing on their own. And we believe that that's the way they are. Now, if you see them existing on their own but don't believe it, then you're going to start opening to the middle way. So I talked to you before about while still experiencing things as out there on their own and yourself over here on your own relating to things that are out there on their own, while still in that way of seeing things, while still believing in your dreams, you can still hear this teaching

[13:57]

And as you hear this teaching, as you bring this teaching to bear on your experience, the teaching doesn't exactly affront or contradict what you're seeing because the teaching doesn't say that what you're seeing is totally unrelated to what's happening. It just says that what's happening or the way that what you're seeing is actually happening is beyond your dream of the way things are happening, way beyond. But still, what you're dreaming about is based on what's happening. to some extent.

[15:01]

It's derivative of it. So one way to meditate, to introduce yourself to meditating and training yourself to learn the other dependent character phenomena, which is the beginning of learning the middle way that things are, is just to remember everything you see has this character which is beyond the way you see them, or beyond the way you're thinking about them, beyond the way you're thinking about things. The way you're seeing things actually is pretty close to the way things are, except that we tend to interpret what we see through images and through our imagination and attribute this false way of existing to them.

[16:07]

Somebody told me today that, I think she said she heard a bird, I think that's what she said, she heard a bird, the sound of a bird, and then there was like a sense that she was there. And that's a kind of, in a sense, it's a kind of glimpse of dependent core arising. It's a kind of glimpse of the other dependent character of your self, the other dependent character of your sense of self. In other words, it's a glimpse of your dependent self. Usually we have a sense of an independent self, a self that's already here, and then this self maybe has a consciousness which can hear the sound of a bird, or the self which is aware and has consciousness

[17:30]

can see many things and hear many things and then can do things. That's our usual way or it's a familiar way to many people. This other way of hearing something or having something come to you like a sound or a color or a thought, and then when this thing comes, I said come to you, but take away, come to you, something comes and then there's a sense that a subject, a consciousness is born. And that's a glimpse of the way your consciousness or yourself Actually it is. It's a glimpse of your other dependent character of yourself. It's that when things come, you're coming to existence in dependence on the things that come.

[18:40]

Now the things that are coming are actually more than you can see. But, you know, there's more than just a sound coming to you to create you, but that's still a kind of glimpse. It's a kind of a hint to you of the way you are. It's a kind of awakening experience. It's an enlightenment experience. You're waking from the dream that you're already here, and then you act on the world. or you act on the sound. It's more like the world comes, all the things in the world come, and then there's you. And so you can, so you wake from the dream that you're already here acting on sounds or hearing sounds, and you awaken to that actually hearing the sounds, then you're here.

[19:42]

I'm made by things other than myself. I'm created by things other than myself, moment by moment. And everything I see is also made by things other than itself, moment by moment, and just for a moment. Meditating on this, the behavior of this person, the conduct of this person, actually the conduct of this person starts to be transformed by hearing or listening to the teaching that whatever we're experiencing is born of things other than itself.

[21:09]

and does not have the nature of making itself happen. Any questions about how to do this meditation? Yes? It sounds like, in a sense, you know, the 10,000 things are what confirm you. The 10,000 things confirm you, yes, uh-huh. So, without that there's no confirmation, there's no sense of being. In reality, right. But we dream that we're already confirmed. In other words, we ignore what confirms us and think that we confirmed ourselves. That's our dream. Our dream is we're self-confirming, or self-realizing. But actually, if there weren't those things, we wouldn't be here.

[22:13]

Of course, we kind of know that, but that's not the way things look to us. That's what you said, right? Basically? You didn't say the part that's about how things look to us. You just correctly reasoned or understood that without these things coming, there wouldn't be us. We wouldn't be existing if it weren't for the arrival of things other than ourselves. But it looks to us as though we would be here even if You know, nothing happened. We just make ourselves and wait until something else showed up and then act on it. So, I recently, I learned this song, which I will, upon request, sing for you. Leslie?

[23:18]

Pardon? If I want to... Do you want me to, Leslie? Before or after you ask your question? Before. Before? I didn't write this song, except I wrote the last part, which you probably will be able to tell. Have you heard this song? No, it's the punchline. I suspect you wrote the punchline. You're right. I changed it at the end. So it goes like this. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can do what I want.

[24:22]

I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I'll be all right alone. No, I'm in complete control. Boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom. I thought I was in complete control. Boom, boom, boom. I can do what I want. I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I'll be alright alone. Don't need anybody else. Gave myself a good talking to. No more being a fool for you. But then I see you and I remember how you make me want to surrender to other power.

[25:22]

You're taking myself away. Other power. You're making me want to stay with other power. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Lisa? And Leslie? So when you say meditate on this idea of the right Meditate on dependent core rising. Yeah. Which means listen to the teaching that everything that you experience has this quality. Pardon? Yeah.

[26:28]

You can do it when you're sitting. And you can do it when you're walking around, and I would suggest not doing it every so often, but do it all the time. And you can do it all the time, actually. However, I also mentioned earlier in this class that there's two types of meditation that we sometimes refer to. One is the type of meditation where you give up discursive thought, which leads to calm, and this type of meditation, like meditating on the middle way, which leads to wisdom. But this type of meditation could be somewhat agitating as you're learning it. Although some people, when they're practicing this, they do experience some relaxation and some ease and release. Because what this can do for you is that when you see someone and have like a really low or really high opinion of them and experience stress around believing your extreme opinions about them, when you do this meditation, it lightens up

[27:29]

it starts to bring in some doubt as to the truth of your dream about people, which is a big relief in some cases. It tends to reduce fear and hatred. And as I said, it sets off a process of ethical transformation, which as you get used to the process, actually is somewhat calming. But at the beginning of learning this, it may be somewhat agitating. So you might want to mix it in with calming practice, but it is a meditation. It's a wisdom meditation. The middle way teachings are meditated on, and they can be meditated on daily life, and you use your discursive thought, in this case, to attain wisdom. So you see someone and you think something like, this person is, you know, whatever, outrageous, really acting inappropriately. I don't want to ever see this person again.

[28:34]

Start thinking those kinds of thoughts. You don't want to see the person anymore. You're not going to be nice to the person anymore. You're not going to be devoted to the person anymore. You don't care about the person anymore because you believe that they are really actually what you think they are. What you think they are is that they're really out to lunch in a very repulsive way. This is what you think of them. This teaching comes in and says, this person who you think is really terrible, this person is actually characterized in another way besides the way you're thinking about them. They have this other dependent character which you're not looking at right now. You're looking at some particular characteristic which you're imagining they have. They have another characteristic, which is that they are created by things other than themselves. and therefore they're impermanent, and so on.

[29:37]

And you listen to that teaching while you're looking at the person. You listen to that teaching while you're saying these things about the person in your head or out loud. And it will tend to change the way you relate to them, this meditation. I'll be right with you, Bernard. There's a little bit more I was going to say there. I was going to say... Yeah, see if you can actually keep this in mind all the time. This teaching, this teaching... when applied, means you're meditating on this teaching. Apply it to phenomena. It applies to phenomena. It's not a vague thing. It applies to actual moment-by-moment experience. And then see if you can be fairly consistent in it.

[30:40]

Because it's the basis of further meditations which we're on the verge of bringing up. And you can do it in formal sitting, like you can do with your body. You have a bodily experience, but actually the way your body actually is, this other dependent way your body actually is, this dependently co-arisen way, the way your body is dependently co-arising is beyond your thoughts. For example, if you think you've got a nice body, that's fine, but nice body is not the way your body is happening. Okay, does that make sense? That's just a short little statement about your body. You could have a more complicated story about your body, but whatever story you have about your body, it doesn't encompass the other dependent nature, which is really inconceivably complex. So while you're sitting, you can be aware of your body or your breath, and remember that this breath, this body, or your thoughts, these thoughts,

[31:48]

or anybody else you're thinking about where you're sitting, these people I'm thinking about, all these objects of awareness have this character which is beyond what I think they are, beyond my dreams of them. And my dreams are graspable. That's the nice thing about dreams is they're images. Dreams are images and they're easy to grasp. And we tend to confuse the images with what they're images of. And that confusion is, you know, our basic problem. Now this teaching is to tell you not to take the images you have of people, the thoughts you have about people and yourself so seriously, because they have this other character which is more fundamental, which is beyond these thoughts. So a short version of this, which is helpful, I think, is just everybody you meet You listen to the teaching by saying basically, mystery, mystery, mystery, mystery.

[32:55]

In other words, the person seems to be George, but I say mystery, which means maybe it's not that it's not George, but this thing that I call George is actually something beyond what I'm thinking George is. That changes the way I relate to George then, and so on. Diego also. Bernard? I just noticed, I'm going to give him a little time now to kind of put me on hold. I did feel a sort of percolation up through the diaphragm there, and it was kind of like a nervousness, you know. And then when you just start talking about this sort of, everything else that sort of creates my reality, my existence. But I thought of a couple of little examples.

[33:59]

Like last week and then this week when I saw you downstairs, a couple of times I had my hands in my pockets. And then when you appeared, like at the door and then downstairs, there was this sense of other also arose. and a sort of an uncomfortableness with having my hands in my pockets. The teacher was coming, you know. It's sort of, so it's kind of like as this, you know, creates this sort of level, you know. But also, at the same time, I could see investigation kind of going on as to, you know, what was sort of corroborating this, you know, or supporting it. What was corroborating what? The whole sort of what was going on in my mind. Because I'm also... In other words, you give me sort of consciousness in that moment of a different form, but I also give you the same sort of... I mean, I don't know if you're conscious or whatever.

[35:02]

Yeah. There you are. In other words, I don't know all your story. I don't know what's going on with you. But I know what's going on. The only thing I know is what's going on with me. And so what I sort of get from what's around me is, I mean, I'm really corroborating the whole evidence going on around me. And everything that's going on around you is corroborating you. Yeah. Yeah. And it's what, I think, was it Yvonne was saying about the, she says it's just the one way, but vice versa works also. Yeah, right. I don't know if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes sense to me. I don't know if it makes sense to anybody else, but it makes sense to me. So, yeah. Oftentimes when you're standing on the street, you might think, well, I'm here on the street.

[36:05]

And then when you think that, you put your hands in your pocket. And then teacher walks up, and suddenly you realize that those hands got in the pocket because you think you made yourself. When teacher comes up, you realize, I didn't make myself. He's making me. And my hands are in my pocket. You see, that's not the thing. It's not because nobody made you do anything. I didn't make you do anything, but you did some things before I showed up based on thinking that I didn't make you. My hands were on my pocket before you showed up, yeah. I know, but before I showed up, you thought you made yourself. No, I didn't think. I didn't think that. You did think that. That's what I'm saying. See, that's the thing. Sometimes, sometimes... That's why when I walked up, it was different. But see, sometimes we don't think we're doing anything, but we're doing it. I think you think before I walked up.

[37:13]

I think you were thinking before I walked up that you made yourself there on the street. I think things changed when I walked up that you realized you didn't make... I don't think, if you had been meditating on how Lisa and the stairs and Martina were making you, then when I walked up, it wouldn't have been a big change and you wouldn't have felt funny about your hands being in your pocket and they wouldn't have been in your pocket in the first place. They might have been. They might have been, but usually, usually when people are aware of other people making them happen, they don't put their hands in their pocket. We can't be aware of everything. Usually they don't. Usually when you feel that way, you take your hands, if they were in the pocket, you'd take them out and you'd go, hallelujah. And you keep them out there. And you do stuff like this with them. And you do stuff like this with them. And you do stuff like this with them. And you reach out and you say thank. You don't put them in your pocket when you're aware of people making you. That's not the place for them.

[38:14]

They could get there as a kind of skit, you know, kind of a joke. Okay, thank you very much. It could happen that way. Thank you very much. I'm going to wear my pants low tonight. It could happen. But I don't think so. Not in your case. That's why I think you were felt funny. Because when you saw me, you started to wake up and you knew that wasn't the place for your hands when you're awake. I wasn't, but I wasn't awake before. Yeah. And it wasn't that I woke you up, it's that you woke up because you were aware that my coming made you a certain way. That's what you woke up to, which was going on before. Lisa was making you the way you were before, and Martina was making you the way you were before, and actually I was too, down the street. But you weren't aware. When you saw me, you became aware of that. You woke up. And that's why you felt funny with your hands in your pocket. That's not your awake posture.

[39:16]

That's what I say. There's a lot more to say on this, Dr. Manning. There's a lot more to say, yeah. And thank you for saying that. That was a really good example. Yes, sir? Your response to the thing about the hands in my pocket is so true. I feel that way. I feel like if I have my hands in my pockets, I'm like, whoa, I have my hands in my pockets. They're not available to do anything. And I become aware. And I've just come to that conclusion in the last couple of weeks. If you're an independent person, you can put your hands in your pocket. No problem. It's true, but I mean, I feel that way sometimes. I mean, you're basically, you're basically, you know, gods.

[40:18]

Put your hands in your pocket. No problem. It's all about putting the hands in the pocket. That's extra. But the hands, your hands right now is there. What's wrong with that? You know, it could be... They're not in my pocket. Conscious about it now. I'm gonna put in my pockets right now I'm gonna tell them that they're almost going in my pockets George. Do you understand? Do you want my hands to go in my pocket? Huh, I can't tell all I know is you're making faces It seems as if on this meditation on the middle ways I It's kind of so much about questioning your thoughts about what's happening. It's questioning your thoughts. Mm-hmm. And sort of, there's this quality that's almost like, well, you know, don't believe everything you think.

[41:20]

Or things aren't... kind of necessarily so. It ain't necessarily so. So my question is... The things that you're liable to read in the Bible. Yes? So there's that quality of sort of mystery and questioning and kind of things aren't necessarily so. Not such, I guess the question is how can we be so convinced that having these hands in the pockets. Say it again. I think we'd be so convinced that one action or another is the appropriate action.

[42:24]

I'm not saying it wasn't appropriate. I'm not saying it wasn't appropriate. I think it was appropriate of being in a certain state of mind. It was appropriate. And when he told me the story of the state of mind he was in and then the state of mind he came into, then the hands in the pocket is a pivotal issue, you know. He's the one who gave us all the information. I left out a little bit. Well... He's the one who gave us a lot of information. I was being aware of the interaction between Martina and Lisa and the whole thing that was going on there, plus what was going on in my mind at that point. So the only thing, I mean, there's lots of other things I wasn't aware of. Yeah, right. You didn't need to be aware of. You don't need to. And one was putting my knife in my pocket, which I didn't really, it wasn't, it's not a big deal putting my ass in my pockets, you know, but... We're aware of something all the time. But is it an expansive awareness or is it contracted, sort of concentrated awareness?

[43:32]

Yeah, right. And what I'm suggesting is that the kind of awareness where we're tuned into a little bit or quite a bit of how we're other-powered. You can't actually see, you can't be aware fully. It's actually a mystery how we're other-powered. But when you get a glimmering of it, in a sense, which I think Bernard got, when you get a glimmering of it, you realize the difference in yogic empowerment that you feel when you feel your actual life. The independent person is a very narrow little thing. This other dependent person is actually your full life. And when you feel that, your body does not do certain things, whether you're aware of it or not, whether he was aware of putting his hands in his pocket or not. The hands don't do certain things when energy is flowing through them in certain ways.

[44:34]

And when you're aware of this state, certain things don't feel right anymore. Like being selfish doesn't feel right anymore. Whereas you can be selfish without noticing it, or you can notice it, but when you're thinking independently, being selfish seems alright. Doesn't seem contradictory. When you're meditating this way, as you get more and more into it, the energy of your body just doesn't let you act, it doesn't let you do things in a certain way anymore. Because it's uncomfortable to like cramp yourself up. But when you're all cramped up, and you have no energy, Then being all crapped up is kind of like, yeah, well, no problem. I went into a person's room one time, you know, that was really, really sick, you know, and she smoked cigarettes. She was almost dead and she was smoking cigarettes in the summer heat with all the windows shut.

[45:36]

I went in the room and I couldn't breathe. Because my body needed some oxygen. Her body didn't need any, really. So she was like surviving on almost nothing because she was so close to death. But when you start to meditate on your other dependent character, you start to open to that, you start to feel alive to such an extent that you can't do certain things. Your body just doesn't take certain postures anymore, consciously or unconsciously. And then when he... I feel that when you woke up there, your body... He could stand to have his hands in his pocket. Now, you could also be that person to put your hands in your pocket just as a clown gesture, you know. Like the Buddha could kind of slump. The Buddha could, like, crunch her body over, you know, and squash that huge heart just for theatrical, you know, shock. Can you imagine Buddha going... But really think the body doesn't want to do that.

[46:43]

It wants to sit up straight. When you start to feel the middle way, you want to sit up straight. You don't want to be crunched up. You want to be awake. You don't want to do things which you would do if you were asleep. Asleep to dependent core rising. You don't want to do those things anymore. You don't have to stop yourself. You just don't want to. And that's what I felt that your example was really good that way, that you, you were, you know, when you woke up, the person you had, the setup that had come to be a few minutes earlier didn't work for you anymore, didn't seem right. And for me, what was going on with me was I felt that, you know, you made me into the teacher when I walked by, just by saying good evening in a friendly way. I could feel, you know, I could feel the person that you and Lisa and Martina made me into. You made my day. I walk up there and then suddenly I'm the teacher.

[47:47]

When I'm in the alley, I'm not the teacher. And then suddenly these people say, good evening, and suddenly, boom, there's this teacher there. I go, wow. And it's not so much that I get to be the teacher, but I get to be made. You made me. And then I count the stairs, you know, and I keep being made. When I'm in that way, like I said, I am made by you. I am made by others. My existence is made by you. And that person, when I'm into that, that person is a different person than the person when I forget that, that I think, oh, I'm doing this and I'm doing that by my power. Then I can be really petty. and get into postures which block energy because my energy is already blocked by my understanding. When you think you make yourself, when I think I make myself, my understanding allows me to be really little. When I open to this teaching, my body gets bigger too.

[48:50]

My body doesn't want to be mistreated anymore, miscared for. So I start taking care of it better. Not too much, not too little. And of course it's very nice. Dorit? I actually find the experience very frustrating. It makes me angry. You find what? The experience of that you guys experienced is really frustrating. How so? Well, I kind of feel like an infant or a two-year-old having a tantrum because I want to get things done in a certain way, and I can't really do it. It's all this other stuff going on. It's going in a completely different direction. Yeah. Actually, this morning also somebody, I think it was this morning, somebody said to me, oh, yeah, it was this morning. Last night at Green Gulf, I was talking about this, and I was talking about the emotional adjustment

[49:54]

of making this transition from, you know, thinking of yourself as having a self-powered nature to doing this meditation, that there's certain emotional difficulties in the transition. It's like... When you get used to being guilty and you start to be innocent, you feel guilty. Did I mention that last week? Huh? No. No? But it works. Or I often say, you know, in Japan they have the expression that people in the mountains, when they see fresh fish, they think they're rotten. They go... Do you understand? They're used to seeing old fish in the mountains. You know, in the old days, it used to take a long time to get the fish up to the mountains. So by the time the fish got up in the mountains in Japan, what they basically saw was rotten fish or dead, you know, fish that were really dead, not fresh. And sometimes they would go down to the sea and they would see what a fresh fish looked like and they would just be horrified because it looked, you know, the eyes are bulging out, you know.

[51:02]

So as you make this transition from, in a sense, your guilty state you know, and start opening up to your innocence, you know, being innocent of this narrow view you have of yourself, it's kind of a shock in a way. And because it's a shock, you might, since you usually kind of, or whatever you think about yourself, you're kind of used to, like, this is human, and then you start to do this, you think maybe you're inhuman. Or you're, you know, you think you're maybe guilty, like, again, like in the first class I mentioned, when you start to do this meditation, you stop caring too much about things. And some people are used to carrying too much. So when you start carrying the right amount, you start feeling like unfeeling, like maybe I don't have any feelings. Maybe I'm inhuman because I'm not so hysterical about things. So there is an emotional transition that sometimes is a little bit difficult because we sometimes associate being a decent person with the way we usually are.

[52:04]

And if we don't worry about things excessively, we think maybe I'm starting to be a robot. Or we're trying to get things done. You know, I, Dorit, am trying to get something done, right? I'm going to do it by my own power. You do this meditation, that perspective gets challenged. So it can be frustrating because you still want to get something done, which is reasonable, but you don't know how to have it get done with this new perspective, right? So you feel frustrated and then you have a tantrum and stuff like that. This can happen. This is part of the course. This is kind of natural. Different people have different problems, but there's a transition, and this is an ethical transition that you're going through. There's a wonderful look you have on your face. I mean, it's a new one. I hadn't seen it before. Your hand's in your pocket, and you're starting to sweat?

[53:06]

Yeah. Sonia? I don't either. When I'm having the sense of everything making me, like when you were saying that they were making you as the teacher, but there's a way in which, like I got a flyer that said Brett Anderson is in class, and so I came here with the, There was something that also, something other that made you a teacher that gave me a relationship to you being a teacher before I ever met you. Yeah. Right. Which was in part something that you or somebody helped to Right, right.

[54:07]

The flyer, the flyer, you know? Sometimes in my own experience, what is my part in that of needing me? To have the sense that everything is making me and yet there's something, is there something that I do that also, like where is my responsibility in that interaction? Or is there? Well, like if you look at a flyer, the actual piece of paper has another dependent character. And then the image of the person that this flyer corresponds to is an idea in your head, and that has another dependent character. And also you, the person who's looking at the flyer or imagining what the flyer is talking about, you have another dependent character. And so it would be like, you know, you pick up a piece of paper and you wouldn't like actually, you know, you wouldn't pass up on the opportunity here of picking a piece of paper and say, mystery.

[55:16]

And that would include the teaching, whether you heard the teaching or not, that would include the teaching that mystery means mystery. This thing is not what it appears to be, just what it appears to be. It's something more than that. Yeah, right. Not exactly more. More is still sort of like in the realm of your dreams, like more and less. It's beyond more and less. It's beyond our thinking about it. So a piece of paper, every piece of paper you pick up is an opportunity to do this meditation. Then if you read the paper and an image arises about what's written on the paper, you can do it again. Plus, in the process, you might suddenly realize that you're there reading. Rather than the other way around, which is, you know, as sleepwalkers, we are already here.

[56:22]

You know, we're already a suit. We have this dream that we're already here. And with that dream, we are walking around all over the place. And we go over and pick up pieces of paper. And then we see what they're talking about. And we decide to take the class or whatever. Or we think it's stupid or whatever. You know, this is our ordinary dream orientation. Imagining that we're here separate and there's things out there separate from us. But what can happen sometimes is while you're reading it, suddenly you turn the page or something, or you drop the piece of paper and pick it up, and you notice that this piece of paper is coming up as the piece of paper is arriving, or as it's flipping in the air, suddenly you see that that event creates you. This is like waking up. This is a different perspective. This is a glimpse. This is a surprise about who you are. And it's like this kind of makes you feel like, oh, this is kind of what we're talking about, this other dependent nature that I have.

[57:30]

So remembering this teaching, listening to this teaching, we start to understand it. And then we start to understand, you know, that things are, because of this teaching, things are impermanent and things are unreliable. You can't really trust things because they're other dependent. But also you can't trust that your ideas about them are the way they are. And your ideas about them also have another dependent character. So they can't, they're not really what they appear to be. So your ideas about things don't really, they correspond to the things, they are about the thing, but there's nothing in the thing that your ideas correspond to, and we think there is. Now, after I call on Ivan, I was thinking of introducing something really difficult, just to introduce it and do it again and again, but start at the end of this class with it.

[58:44]

Well, when I get into that meditation that you were just talking about, about not sort of buying into your beliefs and your concepts and... Not buying into your beliefs, you mean? Then it's like you don't have a leg to stand on. And if you really get into that meditation, it's very unstabilizing. I mean, it's... De-stabilizing, yeah. Yeah, uh-huh. So it can almost become paralyzing. Well, that's what somebody said last night, right? Paralyzing. So this is another thing that people sometimes... That's kind of what Dorit's saying. It's kind of paralyzing. She has some projects in mind. She does this meditation. She has a kind of paralysis vis-à-vis certain projects she'd like to do. And last night also at Green Gulch somebody brought up the idea that this was... that if you do this meditation, it might make you paralyzed.

[59:48]

They use the example of, which people often use these examples of, if you come to some scene where somebody's being cruel to somebody and you think they're being cruel, your idea, your dream is this person's being cruel to this person, that they think then you would be like, you wouldn't be able to intervene or do anything helpful because... You think, well, I think this person's being mean. I think this person's being cruel. But what's really going on is beyond my ideas that this person's being cruel. So then they think, well, then you'd be paralyzed. Okay? That make any sense? Or the other example people would say is you'd be passive. Like if someone's being cruel to you, if you think they're being cruel to you, I said someone's being cruel to you, if you think someone's being cruel to you, Actually, people are cruel to us, but our idea about the cruelty is not the actual cruelty. The actual cruelty is beyond our ideas of the cruelty.

[60:49]

Now, it's actually the other way around somewhat. So if people think, well, if somebody's being cruel and you would do this meditation, then you wouldn't be able to stand up for yourself. You'd just be passive and let them push you around. Or if somebody else is being cruel to somebody else, you'd be passive or paralyzed. But actually... It's that believing your idea about people that really kind of paralyzes you. Paralyzes you vis-a-vis doing the appropriate thing. Because you do tense up when you do this way. You become inflamed or the ire rises in you when you see the evil thing. When you see the evil thing, when you see the evil people, the ire arises in you and you become like a god. Right? This is what we're experiencing here in our world situation. But what comes to mind for me is, you know that story about the fish you told him?

[61:56]

The story about the fish, yeah. And the guy that thinks he's saving the fish and throws it back in and the fish eats up all the other fish. I mean, you can't trust your stories. So if you begin to not put trust in them... Yes, if you stop trusting your stories, yes. Then I... I don't know. I guess it's based on fear. There must be a certain fear that without believing in our stories, we're not going to know how to act. Yeah, there's a fear that without believing in our stories, we wouldn't know how to act. Right. There's that fear. But what I propose to you is, which I said last night, is that if I think Gary's being cruel... to Christian, if I have that thought, that thought is about something that's going on. And what's going on is beyond my thinking that Gary's being cruel to Christian.

[63:00]

What's actually going on is beyond that, that there is a mysterious, radiant interdependence that I'm observing here, which I can't really see and is beyond my little dream about what's going on. Yeah, what do I do? What do I do when I see the thing and I realize this, and I'm hearing this teaching at the same time? Well, one of the things I do is I don't get excessively involved in the scene. which means I don't ignore it and I don't think that it's really true what I see. And in my not excessive involvement, I do the virtuous thing. Hmm? Put your hands in your pocket.

[64:01]

I might walk up to them and say, Gary, watch this. Have you ever seen this one? Watch this one. And Gary might kind of like go... You know, and I'm not being all self-righteous. I'm just kind of going... It's kind of like creating a diversion, yeah. Yeah. Or another example I gave last... Huh? You're not getting involved. I'm involved, but I'm not excessively involved. I'm not really intervening. I'm just interacting. And because of my attitude towards the scene, which I realize is a dream, my dream of the scene, because of that way of interacting with it, I'm just like Mr. Other Dependent. And the circumstances operate me into doing the virtuous thing. But if I withdraw myself from the interdependence of the situation, then I become this narrow thing, cut off from the actual workings of the situation.

[65:14]

So then I just become this, I don't know what, self-righteous policeman. There must be limits to that. What if you see someone abusing a child or an animal or someone's being an actor? Someone obviously in trouble. Yeah, exactly. What are you going to do? Well, you know, if you didn't think and you just dove in and you were diving in based on believing your dreams, then I would say, too bad for the kid. You know? Because you might just contribute to the problem. Generally speaking, if I would see a gang of boys beating up on some kid or abusing some kid, I wouldn't try to stop them by making them think that they were doing something really cruel and powerful and vicious.

[66:26]

I might go up to them and say, again, it seems like a diversion, but I might say, I've got something more interesting for you to do than that. But again, if I'm into, like, this view of, like, see, you up the ante, and when you up the ante, then you say, there's no room for flexibility. That's what I felt you were basically saying. You say, well, that example's okay, because there's two men, you don't worry about that. But when a child's being abused, then you say, well, now there's no room, now there's a limit. There are limits. The limits are the dreams. And also the way the thing is happening is also somewhat limited, but the way it's limited, you can't see. You could be wrong about what's going on. Your dream could be inaccurate. But whether your dream's accurate or inaccurate, if you hold to it,

[67:29]

you're in trouble. If you think somebody's, like I said last week, if you think somebody's being rude and you hold to it, you disqualify yourself from making the appropriate response. If you think they're being sweet and you hold to it, you disqualify yourself. The rigid holding to your dream as what's happening means you cut yourself off from the middle way. And also, like I said last night, you know, I've said this over and over, that in martial arts, if somebody's attacking you, and you think that this person's attacking you, it's such and such. You look, you see your, you have your dream of your attacker. And you say, there's an attacker, and the attacker says, yes, I am. And that's your dream. If you attach to that and take that as real, you're going to be less able and less skillful to act in a way that protects everybody.

[68:41]

Because you're cutting yourself out of the actual creative process, which is the way things are actually happening if they aren't in these extreme categories. So again, here's another example I said last night. The girl's on the bus, you know, a bunch of sexual abusers get on the bus, a gang of them. They come towards her. She reaches in her nose, pulls out a goober, and eats it. And the boys get off the bus and run away. Where did that come from? Where does that creative response come from? It comes from your other dependent character because your other dependent character, your other powered nature, the way you are that doesn't make yourself, that's actually your creative existence.

[69:52]

That's actually how you're happening. And if you tune into that, Creativity is at your disposal to make... It naturally animates the body of reality. And it doesn't mean nobody will ever get hurt. It just means the best response, the response that's most in alignment with the fullest life of the situation manifests. Now your idea that you wouldn't even think, you just dive in, that may be okay if you really weren't thinking. But if you were thinking and you did come to the conclusion that this was evil and then you did think of what you were going to do based on believing what you thought, then I would say you would be, again that's a term that came up last night, you would be hogtied or hamstrung.

[70:53]

Because you'd be tripped up by your dream. We don't want to eliminate our dream. A dream can be a tool, you know. It's part of what's going on. Well, I was going to, I'll just say this, you know, and then so I'm committed to this. That which is dependent co-arising is emptiness. This is a descriptive designation having recourse to dependent co-arising. This is the middle way. So this is the next step in the meditation, which we might be able to get into next week, but it looks like... Yeah.

[72:13]

That which is dependent co-arising, or you could say the other dependent character of phenomena, is emptiness. This is a descriptive designation, having recourse to dependent core arising. This is the middle way. Having recourse to dependent core arising is the middle way, but we also need to understand that dependent core arising is emptiness, which means that dependent core arising is empty of our dreams. However, what I just said is a descriptive designation, and a descriptive designation is based on a dream of dependent core arising being emptiness.

[73:20]

So you have to use your dreams in order to talk about the teachings. So we don't throw our dreams out the window, but we need them in order to make conventional designations which show us the middle way. The middle way is dependent co-arising, being emptiness. The middle way is that the way we're actually happening is empty of our dreams of the way we're happening. But we need our dreams in order to be able to discuss the teaching about the way we are. This is the next level of depth in the study of the middle way. But again, I welcome your questions and difficulties you have with the basic meditation. The basic meditation is on dependent co-arising. The basic meditation is on the other dependent or other-powered nature of all experience, of all things that exist. And so I really request and encourage you

[74:26]

to try to remember this teaching and notice, for example, like Dharit, that it does maybe, it could potentially make you passive, make you paralyzed, frustrate you, but also keep working at it and you might notice that actually it makes you more relaxed, flexible, creative, you know, and like skillful. Elated. Elated and also, you know, like doing this surprising, surprisingly helpful thing. You don't even know where it comes from. You just do something really foolish, which really helps, instead of being smart. Because you actually believe that you have really good dreams. Really good dreams. So being... you know, in a mode that you don't take your dreams too seriously or not seriously enough, which again is another version of the middle way.

[75:35]

Is this hard? Is it easy? Is it the middle way? No.

[75:47]

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