By the kindness of Elizabeth and Leon Olson, I have copies of calligraphy, which you helped me do. And this is Chinese, and it says, one cut, all empty. One cut means everything. So it says, everything's empty. Everything, all phenomena, all beings lack independent existence. And then this is my name over here in Chinese with my seal. So if you'd like a copy, they're here for you to receive. I was inspired to do that calligraphy because I have the same characters written by Suzuki Roshi, so I did my own version of that.

[01:14]

I didn't feel like I could make copies of his calligraphy for you. It means everything is empty, or all things are empty, but literally the Literally, this character here means one, and one horizontal stroke is Chinese character for one. This means cut. So one cut, the combination of those two characters means everything. And this means all, and this is empty. And by the way, the character for empty This is the character for emptiness or empty. It means both empty, adjective, and emptiness, abstract noun. It means a voidness or a lack of inherent existence in things, but it actually is kind of the shape of a body.

[02:28]

This is like the head, the shoulders, the ribs, the pelvis or whatever, and the legs. So it's interesting the Chinese have this character which means originally in Chinese it meant space or voidness. And then when Buddhism was transmitted to China they chose this character for for the emptiness in the Buddhist tradition. There's another important, very common word in Chinese, which is written like this, And that character means there isn't any, you know, nothing. It means nothing. Or the lack of, just the lack of anything.

[03:30]

Or it also means no. But this character means more like space. It doesn't basically mean nothing. It means space or openness. So this is the character they chose to translate the Buddhist teaching or the Buddhist concept of emptiness. And this character, actually they first started to use this character but they changed because that character meant something like, actually it means nothing but it also means like a non-being in Taoism from which everything comes. So they stopped using that term. And this piece of paper also has written on it that new people, BS with a circle means bodhisattva.

[04:36]

So bodhisattvas, beings who are living for the welfare of others, who give their life to the welfare of others, they carry on their life They do many things, like they breathe and they walk and things like that, if they can. And anyway, they function among whatever beings they live with. They act and so on. But all their activity is by means of vows, by means of extensive vows. excellent vows, the best vows, the vows for the best for everyone. These are the kind of vows they live by, that they carry out, that they're supported by, and by which they support beings.

[05:42]

So the vows support them to support others. And of course they also understand in the process that others are supporting them to support others. But they actually work with these vows all the time. And they vow to work with the vows. They promise. You know, they make a deep and dignified promise to live for the welfare of others, to learn all that would be helpful to others, and to do all these practices which Buddhas do. They vow these things. And so on and on and on. They vowed to save all beings. They vowed to learn all the teachings. They vowed to see that everything is a teaching. They vowed to, like yesterday we wrote the vows, the first vow is to save all beings. The second vow is that although or in the face of delusions being endless or afflictions being endless, they vowed to cut through.

[06:50]

But another way to say it would be they vow to become intimate and cut through. To become intimate and cut through. They don't cut through from non-intimate relationship with the afflictions and the delusions. If you cut somebody or if somebody cuts you or you cut something, you become more intimate with it. But to overlook that intimacy is not the bodhisattva way. So the translation that we use is, afflictions or delusions are inexhaustible, I vow to end them. But it's more like come to the end through intimacy. And the most intimate, in some sense, the most intimate way to be with people is to be with them in emptiness.

[07:52]

It's the most intimate and also the most comfortable way to be intimate. There's a story, actually, it's a Taoist story, but I think it applies to the Buddha Dharma. It's a story, I think it's called, it's in a book called Chuang Tzu, Chuang Tzu, about this person named Chuang Tzu. And there's a story in there which is called The Art of, I think it's called The Art of Living or The Art of Happiness, I don't remember which one. But it's a story about this butcher who worked, this butcher. And how does the story go? It goes something like this butcher had a knife and it was a sharp knife and he had it for a really long time and it didn't become dull. Most butcher's knives get dull quite quickly because they cut through the flesh and they cut through the bones and then their knife gets dull.

[09:07]

But he doesn't cut there. He cuts through the emptiness between the bones and the emptiness between the muscles. So his knife never gets dull and the animal falls apart very easily. So afflictions are inexhaustible. Suffering is inexhaustible. I vow to become intimate with it and find a way through it, to cut through it, a way to cut through it. That's a bodhisattva vow where you can see the place of of emptiness to help you fulfill the intimacy and the intimacy and the emptiness working together to cut through affliction.

[10:08]

So those are the bodhisattva vows. So that's how the bodhisattvas live. That's how they live their life of benefiting beings is by these vows. They think of these vows. They think, I want to help people. I want to help people. I want to relate with the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, other Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, and ask them to help me relate and help people. I want to open to people's suffering. I want to be gentle with people. They think this way. They think this way. And they think this way to remind themselves of what they want to do, but also when they think this way, that's what they're doing. And when they think this way, the world changes according to that way of thinking. So it isn't that bodhisattvas are just free, but that they actually think

[11:18]

which is the basic action. They take action by thinking. And the way they think forms worlds. Now other people are thinking other ways. Like some people are thinking, I don't want to help others. I only want to help myself. So that thinking also forms worlds. So the bodhisattvas are working together with people who are not living by their vows. And they vow to help people who do not have bodhisattva vows. and they vow to be gentle with those who do not have bodhisattva vows. And they think that way and then that's their contribution to world formation along with the contribution of those who do not think that way. So bodhisattvas are acting. Now sometimes they are acting but sometimes they forget their vows. In other words, the way they act is not one of these vows.

[12:22]

They think of something besides practicing with others. They think of practicing by themselves. But then they promise to confess that they forgot their vows and that they thought some other way and then that made some other contribution to the world. So this is how bodhisattvas live and in order to be unobstructed in this way of living, in this active way of working with beings, living with beings, sharing with beings that wish to be of service, in order to have that be unhindered, they also meditate on emptiness. Their basic meditation is emptiness. And it's a meditation not just thinking about emptiness or studying emptiness, but it's the meditation of becoming emptiness. so that they become an emptiness which is an emptiness which is thinking all the time of these vows.

[13:32]

And then the vows fit in with every situation. So that which fits into every situation is emptiness and that which is empty fits into every situation. When you're empty, like I was talking about yesterday, you see all the possibilities, you're not closed, so you can see all the possibilities and then you can go with the right, the best one. But if you don't see emptiness, then you don't, the possibilities become constricted. So again, seeing the possibilities, you see emptiness. Seeing emptiness, you see the possibilities. So that's what I wanted to check to see if you see the need, the necessity for bodhisattvas to meditate on emptiness in order to have wholehearted, unconditioned, unlimited compassion, great compassion.

[14:49]

Does that make sense to you? The new people, does it make sense what I said? So we'll pass out the Heart Sutra again.

[16:31]

Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva Deeply practicing Prajnaparamita They saw that all five aggregates are empty and thus relieved all. Fringshari putra form does not differ from Emptiness, emptiness does not differ from form. Itself is emptiness, emptiness itself. Sensations, perceptions, formations and consciousness are also like this Shalibutra. are marked by emptiness, they neither arise nor cease, neither defile nor cure, neither increase nor decrease, for given emptiness there is no form, sensation, no perception, no formation,

[19:44]

No consciousness, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no body, no mind, no sight, no sound, no taste, no touch, no object of mine, no realm. Sight no realm of mind consciousness. There is neither ignorance nor extinction. Not of ignorance neither old age and death nor extinction. Of old age and death, no suffering, no cause, Cessation, no spat, no knowledge, No attainment, therefore King to us. Abodhi-satsa-dipan-samprasnapara-tha, And thus the mind is without hindrance, Without hindrance there is no fear far beyond.

[20:48]

Inverted is one realizes nirvana. Buddha's a past, present and future. I am Prajnaparamita, there I attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect in life, and therefore know that Prajnaparamita. Is the great miraculous mantra, the great bright mantra, supreme mantra, the incomparable mantra, which removes all suffering and is true, not false, for it proclaims the prajnaparamita mantra. Vamantra that says, gathē gathē bhāgathē saṅgathē bodhisvaha May our intention equally extend to every being and place with the true merit of Buddha's way.

[22:05]

All Buddhas, ten directions, three times. All honored ones, bodhisattva, mahasattvas. Wisdom beyond wisdom, Mahaprasnya paramita. Now we have chanted the Heart of Great Perfect Wisdom Sutra and then at the end we did the bodhisattva practice of the merit of our effort and the merit and virtue in our effort of reciting this text.

[23:16]

We then dedicated that merit to all beings and then we did one more dedication to all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas and to the Prajnaparamita itself. So that's a bodhisattva practice, and bodhisattvas vow to do that practice. So if they do whatever... It isn't that they go around thinking that they're doing good all the time, but whatever good there is, if there is any good in anything I ever do, if there's any good in what I just did, I turn that merit over to all beings for various good purposes. So some bodhisattvas, you know, when they meditate, after they finish meditating, again they dedicate the merit of that, of that meditation to all beings, to all Buddhas and so on.

[24:26]

So you could consider such a practice and See if you'd like to, and if you'd like to, then you can consider promising to practice it. Making a commitment. Making a commitment to do your practice for the welfare of others. Which turns out to be very good for you, but you're doing it for others first. So this is a sutra for bodhisattvas. So in this rendition, Avalokiteshvara is, we're being told, Avalokiteshvara is practicing perfect wisdom.

[25:29]

And he's practicing deeply. He's practicing wholeheartedly. She is paying attention to her experience and she also is simultaneously thinking that her experience that she's having, she wishes to dedicate to the welfare of all beings and all beings are supporting her in doing this practice. That's how she can be wholehearted about it. She doesn't get tired of considering her experience and looking deeply at her experience and caring wholeheartedly for her experience. Because her wholeheartedness, she does not see her wholehearted practice coming by her own power. She sees her power coming through the kindness of all beings. And so she feels buoyed up to do this deep work.

[26:34]

And then she sees that all phenomena, all experience lacks an independent existence. And then she starts talking to a monk there, a great monk named Shariputra. So first we're being told that she's practicing, she sees and in this seeing suffering is relieved, and then she turns and starts talking to Shariputra. And she tells Shariputra that form does not differ from emptiness, and emptiness does not differ from form. Form itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is form. She tells that to Shariputra. And the same is true, form means, in this case, form means colors, sounds, smells, tastes and tangibles. These forms are not different from emptiness and emptiness is not different from these forms. When you hear the sound of the ocean, that's not different from emptiness and emptiness isn't different from the experience of the sound of the ocean.

[27:44]

And the same is true of feelings, feelings of pain, pleasure, or neutral sensation, they're not different from emptiness. They themselves are emptiness, and emptiness itself is those forms, those feelings, those conceptions, and also those mental formations, those karmic formations. So in order to practice deep wisdom, in order to see emptiness and facilitate our work to be intimate with beings and the intimacy with beings is actually what saves the beings. You don't have to like be intimate with beings and then save them. Being intimate with them saves them because they're being saved from a lack of understanding of intimacy. We suffer because we don't understand intimacy.

[28:51]

So by being intimate with beings, by realizing intimacy with them, we are together saved. But again, the point is not just to be saved. The point is that now we're saved, now we can be intimate with more beings. Now we can practice compassion more. Now that we've realized intimacy, we can practice intimacy more intimately. Form itself is emptiness. Karmic formations themselves are emptiness. Emptiness itself is karmic formations. The stories in your mind, the activity of your mind, the vows in your mind, the vows in your mind, that's your karma if you have vows in your mind. That's the activity of your mind that's creating

[30:00]

that's forming as vows to help people. Those vows themselves are emptiness and emptiness itself is those vows. At that moment, emptiness is those vows. If you don't have vows in your mind but you have petty thoughts and stories of how nobody is supporting you and you don't want to support anybody, if you have that kind of mental activity, if that's the kind of story you have, that story itself is emptiness, and emptiness itself is that story. So you can hear that, but Avalokiteshvara doesn't just hear that teaching and doesn't just give that teaching. Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva, looks at the story and listens to the teaching and applies the teaching to the story.

[31:06]

Because if you just hear the teaching that your stories are emptiness, and emptiness itself is your stories, if you just hear that, that's good, but the practice is to apply the teaching to your experience, to put it into practice, to check it out, because you do have you do experience forms, you do experience feelings, you do experience perceptions, and you do experience the stories of your life. And you do experience consciousness. That's your life. You do have these experiences. So when you hear that these are empty, then the practice of meditation, the practice of becoming emptiness, is to watch, is to observe how your experience is emptiness. So that's putting it into practice. That's becoming the teaching. And again, so you can hear the teaching and not apply it, and then it's kind of... What do we say?

[32:22]

You're not practicing it. And if you don't practice it, then you don't realize it. So Avalokiteshvara was not just practicing, she was practicing deeply, wholeheartedly, joyfully meditating on how this experience itself is emptiness, and how emptiness is this experience. every experience appears as emptiness and emptiness appears as every experience. So when you have experience, that's how emptiness is appearing. And the way emptiness appears is as your experience. The emptiness isn't any other than what you're experiencing right now.

[33:27]

It just is a conventional way, an ultimate way. And emptiness is the ultimate way that this experience is. This meditation is to help you become intimate with your experience. Was there something outside that got your interest? Somebody said Eli? I hear girls saying, Daddy, you know, I think girls calling me all over the world, Daddy, Daddy. They don't all sound like my daughter, but a lot of them do. I don't hear granddaddy so much. No, mostly when I hear granddaddy, it's when my grandson's saying it.

[34:45]

But I don't hear people on the street saying granddaddy that much. So usually when I hear granddaddy, it is applying to me. But about 80% of the time I hear daddy, it's like I'm in some different city from my daughter. And again, as I wrote here earlier, the two basic teachings and in some sense the central teachings of the Buddha are the teachings of no-self, independent co-arising. So if you have some experience,

[35:46]

of a story, a mental karmic formation like, I'm talking, I'm drinking, I'm practicing. One can look to see if you can find that I that's eating. when there's eating going on, see if you can find the eye that's eating someplace. And if you can actually see and understand, if you actually can see that the eye cannot be found, when there's eating going on, that the eye that's eating cannot be found, this is a kind of realization of emptiness.

[36:50]

It's not that there's no I, it's just that you can't find it separate from the eating. I'm eating, but there's not an I in addition to the eating. If you look, you just find... If you're looking for the I, all you can find is the eating. or the talking. If you look for the talking, all you can find is the eye. If you look for the eating, when I'm eating, if I look for the eating, all I can find is eye. So then I find the emptiness of eating. If you're giving a relationship with someone and you try to find the gift, all you find is the giver and the receiver.

[38:09]

If you try to find the giver, all you find is the receiver and the gift. If you try to find the receiver, all you find is the gift and the donor. This is the realization of the giver, the receiver, and the gift. Or the emptiness of the action and the person. But again, we have to, with being supported by the bodhisattva vows, if you wish, being supported by bodhisattva vows, being supported by the wish to help everybody, give close attention to all your stories. Because if you're not giving close attention and gracious attention to your stories, then you'll have nothing to apply the teaching to.

[39:10]

I shouldn't say nothing, but the teaching will not be able to be intimate with what you're doing if you're not intimate with what you're doing. And you can't be also completely intimate without the teaching. The teaching, once you're intimate with things, once you're fairly intimate, then when you open to how what you're intimate with is empty, you become more intimate. In... in the Genjo Koan, in the text by Dogen, which is called Actualizing the Fundamental Point, which was brought up yesterday. Japanese is called Genjo Koan. It says that when you

[40:11]

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging your body and mind, you grasp things intimately, unlike things and their reflections in a mirror, unlike the moon reflected in the water. When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. Another translation is, seeing forms with whole body and mind, hearing sounds with whole body and mind, though one intimately understands, it isn't like reflecting images in a mirror. It's not like water and the moon. When you witness one side, the other side is obscure. When you experience a color wholeheartedly with your whole body and mind, there's just a color.

[41:42]

There's not you in the color. When you taste something with whole body and mind, There isn't you and the taste. It's not like the thing and its reflection, or you and your reflection, or it and you being its reflection. It's not like that. And one way to do that is when you taste something and you still... One way to get to this wholehearted way of being with tasting something or seeing something or thinking something, one way to realize this whole body and mind... is to look and see if there is where the I separate from the color is. Where is the I separate from your story? Where is the I separate from the feeling?

[42:44]

Where is the I separate from the pain? Where is the I separate from the pleasure? The experiencing pleasure, are you wholehearted? Were you wholehearted when when the side that's illuminated is all that's illuminated. That's when you're wholehearted. So, you know, work up to being wholehearted. One way is just to check, do you think that there is you hearing the sounds? Maybe some of you do right now. So you're not wholehearted yet. So it would become more wholehearted if you just would make the effort to look and see if you can find that thing. Find something that's in addition to hearing the sound. Find something that's in addition to feeling the pain. That extra effort will bring you maybe to wholeheartedness wherein you can't find anything on the other side.

[43:51]

And it can turn the other way too. There can just be I They're just a big eye and there's no colors or sounds or smells or tastes or touch. That's kind of like emptiness. Emptiness is like super self. In emptiness there isn't anything. There isn't any birth and death. There's just emptiness. And what's emptiness? Me. I'm emptiness. The great narcissistic co-opting of emptiness. They're just me and I'm nothing. Okay, so if you wholeheartedly experience things in that situation, there won't be

[44:56]

two sides illuminated. There won't be the consciousness illuminated and the object of consciousness illuminated in wholeheartedness. There'll be one. One will be illuminated. Either there'll be consciousness, just consciousness, and there's nothing, nothing's illuminated. Or there's what's illuminated, but there's no consciousness. Or there's not, it's not that there's no consciousness, it just says it's in the dark. this is in the light. And then in the same text he says, if you give close attention to all your actions, it will become clear that nothing has a self. That even the things that are illuminated and the other side is dark, they don't have a self either.

[46:00]

they're just illuminated. But without paying close attention to our actions, it may not become clear. Without paying close attention, without giving close attention to all our actions, we may not be wholehearted. Or rather, take it back we are wholehearted but if we don't reiterate our wholeheartedness in practice we don't realize our wholeheartedness we are generous if we don't exercise that generosity we don't realize the generosity and not realizing the wholeheartedness we don't we don't see we don't see the selflessness of things And again, seeing the selflessness of things opens the door for our wholeheartedness to function more fully.

[47:14]

So, maybe that's enough for starters. Is that enough for starters, or do you want more starters? Hmm? Did I say enough? Did I say enough or did I say you want more? I said both? Yeah, take it back and say enough. Do you want more before... Is there anything you'd like to offer? Any feedback, questions, comments? Leon, please come up. Yesterday somebody asked about other words for emptiness.

[48:21]

Yes. So I was thinking about the Chinese character space. Space, yeah. As another, as an alternative to the word. And I'm having moments where I think I understand emptiness. But it's about that long. As I get it in that very moment, it fills me with something that feels good. But I'm having trouble hanging on to the idea of emptiness. I can't get there consistently as you speak about it. go in and out of it. So what was helping me was this idea of space. And so I thought maybe we could talk a little bit more about how that character came to be and how that might help me understand emptiness.

[49:38]

So I can say one little more bit about that. I can say that if I imagine me in space, I can kind of begin to see emptiness. If you imagine yourself in space you can begin to see emptiness or that helps you. Yes. But it doesn't, so then now When I begin to think of you and me here in emptiness, I'm nowhere on that point. The space part doesn't help me. The thought of being in space doesn't help me. How about you and me and everybody here together?

[50:47]

contemplating space, contemplating something we can't do anything with. That's powerful. It's a comforting thought. So you said something about not being able to hold on to it. That's good, because you can't hold on to this. That's why it's a meditation practice where you're returning to the meditation on the space. On space, which you also have heard that the space is not different from forms, but you're looking at the space. Now if you happen to be looking at a form, then you also know the instruction that whatever form you're feeling, if you're looking at a color or so on, or whatever story you're looking at, now you don't have space.

[52:12]

Exactly, you have a story or a form. Now being wholehearted with that, is appropriate and friends with the meditation of contemplating space. Those are friends. But when you're actually looking at a story, at that time, be gracious with the story and the story will reveal. In the story there is this spaciousness. But also the way of dealing with spaciousness should be the same way as you deal with your stories. You should be gentle and upright with the spaciousness or with space. But there's no action in space. So when you're contemplating emptiness, in emptiness there's no form, feeling, there's no forms, feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. There's no birth, no death. There's no story. There's no action.

[53:14]

There's no karma. There's no suffering. And that itself, that place where there's no form, no feeling, no suffering, that itself is form, feeling and suffering. You have that teaching. So when you're looking at emptiness, you have the teaching that it's not different from form. When you're looking at emptiness, you have the teaching that it's not different from your stories, your karma. When you're looking at your karma, you have the teaching that this karma is not different from emptiness. This form is not different from emptiness. You may not be saying it to yourself, but you have that teaching, that way of understanding what's in front of you. So part of the time you actually might want to meditate on space.

[54:20]

And again, in both cases the way of meditating on space and meditating on forms, in both cases the meditation practice is the same. The way of being with form and emptiness is the same. In both cases be upright, gentle, tender, flexible, peaceful. Some people actually get upset and unpeaceful with space. But it's not as common as people getting unpeaceful with stories. Like the story that people are being cruel, more people would tend to be not peaceful and get off balance with that. I should say be not peaceful. But actually people quite often get off balance with space. But they usually don't get violent. But some people do. Some people really get pissed off at space. So this practice of wisdom is meditating on both form and emptiness, not just emptiness, because the teaching of how to correctly understand ultimate truth is that ultimate truth itself is conventional truth.

[55:43]

So if you want to meditate on emptiness, go ahead. And do it the same way you would practice with the stories of your work and the stories of your relationship with all beings. That karma is going on. Take care of that karma and you will see the space. Seeing the space, wholeheartedly care for the space and you will see the story. Seeing the story, wholeheartedly caring for the story. At that time, you will see the space. And then seeing the space, you'll see the story. When one side is illuminated, the other is dark. So you turn from one to the other. Hopefully. Bodhisattvas go from one to the other. Buddhists can see both simultaneously. They don't have to flip back and forth. So you look at somebody wholeheartedly,

[56:52]

And then it can just be, that's all you're doing, completely wholeheartedly doing that. And I say, that's all you're doing, but you also understand that your wholeheartedness is because everyone's helping you look at this person. So you feel really wholehearted, and you're just looking at the person, you're not looking for space, and then you see space. And then you wholeheartedly look at the space, and you see the person. And if you see this, you're wholehearted. And if you don't, you're not wholehearted. And if you're wholehearted, you'll see this. So this is a way to check wholeheartedness. And also wholeheartedness is a way to check reality. We can't really check reality. We can't really... Reality doesn't avail itself to those who are not wholehearted. And again,

[57:56]

Reality is real, and wholeheartedness is real. You really are wholehearted. But the way to practice reality is to practice wholeheartedly. And again, always remember that you can't do it by yourself. And also remember, nobody can do it for you. Buddhists are not going to make you practice wholeheartedly. If they would, then they would just do it. Now we just sit here and wait until they do. But what they do is they send us messages so that we can somehow focus on this wholeheartedness in our relationship with the Buddhists. And in that we realize wholeheartedness with our stories, with our experience, and then we realize space. And then realizing space, we continue the practice and realize our stories, actually finally understand what our stories are, which is of course wonderful to understand our stories.

[59:08]

Is that ultimate truth, understanding our stories? Ultimate truth is that our stories do not exist independently of anything. That's the ultimate truth. But the ultimate truth is not the same as wisdom. Wisdom is to understand, is to look at the ultimate truth and also realize that ultimate truth, the nature to understand ultimate truth is to understand that it's not separate from conventional truth. If you understand ultimate truth but you think it's separate, you don't understand ultimate truth yet. So understanding ultimate truth is to see that the ultimate truth is conventional truth. So wisdom understands emptiness. It doesn't just see it and think, oh, there's emptiness and that's separate from everything else. Wisdom is not just seeing space. It's seeing that space is a characteristic of all form and seeing that form is a characteristic of all space. Seeing that is understanding emptiness.

[60:09]

It's also understanding conventional reality, too. But you need to understand the ultimate truth in order to understand the conventional truth perfectly. But you can understand the conventional truth enough to know what to look at, because you can see conventional truths, like your stories, and people are conventional truths. You can see them, and you understand them to some extent. I mean, it's correct, you know. That's Greg. That's Joel. Yes, that's right. That's their name. You know, if somebody says, where's Joel? That's Joel. That's correct. So I do sort of understand the conventional Joel. I know where to look to study Joel is either there or someplace else. But I know where the word Joel goes. So I understand conventional truth to some extent. And then if I practice wholeheartedly with that, I realize the emptiness of Joel, the space of Joel, And then I practice with that until I understand that the space of Joel is not separate from the form of Joel.

[61:18]

Then my understanding of emptiness gets deeper. So emptiness is the ultimate truth, but the ultimate truth isn't all we have to understand. And understanding the ultimate truth is not just understanding the ultimate truth. It's understanding the relationship of ultimate to conventional or ultimate to relative. which again goes with the ultimate truth, is that to understand something you have to understand more than the thing. You have to understand that the thing is not independent of everything else. So to understand the thing not in relationship to everything, you don't understand the thing. But at first you can understand, well, that's Joel. Without really understanding, my ability to say that's Joel depends on the rest of you. If you disagree with me, then I really don't understand anymore. Very well. So I have to work that out. But I have worked it out. You're pretty much going along with that, right? So that's worked out. But I don't have to really get that you all helped me come up with this Joel thing.

[62:23]

So if I look at the conventional truth and I start to realize, hey, all of you helped me identify him, then I see the emptiness of Joel. then I see how you all worked on that. And so still it's like, it's just a conventional Joel that we all agreed on. And there he is. But it's only because we all agreed that we have such a thing. That's understanding emptiness too. So one kind of emptiness is you can't find anything, any independent me or Joel. The other kind of emptiness is you can see how we make these findable Joels. We need to have both of those. That's understanding the ultimate truth. Even though the first one, the conventional truth, isn't the ultimate truth, but how the conventional truth exists is the ultimate truth. And how it exists means there's no independent conventional truth. This kind of thing is meditation on emptiness.

[63:29]

And you got to keep doing it over and over. Got to do it over and over. You got to spend part of your time working on this. And again, who wants to work on this? Well, bodhisattvas do because they hear that it's necessary. Because they hear, they read. What do bodhisattvas meditate on? Emptiness. Otherwise, why meditate on it? It's just kind of creepy. Slipping and sliding all over the place. There won't be emptiness. Jumping over to form and form. Emptiness there. One side is illuminated, the other is dark. What's this wholeheartedness anyway? Well, bodhisattvas need this wholeheartedness because they're into reality. And it's really beneficial to be into reality, so they make the effort. So it's part of your responsibility if you want to be beneficial to Elizabeth and me and all of us.

[64:39]

If you really want to do it completely to the max, no, bodhisattvas need this emptiness meditation. And it isn't that you tune into it and it stays. That's not as effortful as you tune in. You make a big effort, you tune in, that's great, okay, now let's give it up and start over. Next moment. Because that's more alive, more effortful. That's what's happening. Yeah, good. Alice. Alice. Heart's pounding. Your heart's pounding, great. I wanted to, just to offer an understanding. Can you hear her okay? I wanted to offer an understanding of an aspect of emptiness and have you correct or illuminate me if it's incorrect.

[65:43]

Thank you. It seems that... One aspect of emptiness and form is that we think of them as nouns, and they're really verbs. There are no nouns. Everything is changing so rapidly and rising and passing away so rapidly, including everything around us, including the skandhas, our impression of ourselves. I mean, right down to the blood coursing through our veins and the electrons zipping around our atoms. We can't find any inherent existence because when we try, it's changed to the next instant and it's no longer there. And so everything is inherently empty because of that, that everything is a process. Is that a correct understanding, at least of some aspects of emptiness? So another word for emptiness could be process.

[66:48]

But yet it's not... All things are processes. Emptiness, you could say process, process, conditionality, void, space. But the thing about process is it lacks the negative. And the process, without that negative quality, it might not be as purifying. Even though it's true emptiness is process, we sort of need this negative thing as a medicine for this tendency to grasp. So process is true. It's correct. Emptiness is process. So process could be used for emptiness. But you still have to face this.

[67:51]

We need this ungraspable quality. You can't get it kind of quality. You can't find it kind of quality. So the word, in fact, you can't find a process. When you find a process, the process has turned into a thing. But process doesn't have that kind of like you can't find me up frontness, the way emptiness does. And space almost has it. But space also, this kind of space is not an empty space where there's nothing. It's a process space. The spaciousness is part of the reason why there's so much possibilities in process. So that's correct, process could be a word for it, but it might not confront and challenge us the same way the word empty does or lack, lack of inherent existence or absence of inherent existence. Lack of independence, lack of independence is pretty much interdependence, right?

[68:58]

Lack of thingness is pretty much process. So, yeah, so, yeah, emptiness is process, yes, right? Emptiness is interdependence, right? But somebody's got to, you know, like, say, okay, time to let go of the process, because it is a process, but you think you can get a hold of it, so kind of like lack of handles on process. Identifying it as us. Yeah, you can co-opt anything because we have this great imagination. So we can identify a process as I. Now, I is a process. Yes, that's right. But when you identify with it, then it's like me and it again. So you see, it's really an art. Yes, why don't you come? You haven't come yet. Maya.

[70:01]

First of all, I'm just so glad I have a question because I have a story that, or I've had a story, that when I hear teachings, particularly this kind of teachings, that I'm a slow thinker or that I always, I don't come up with questions until the day after or a couple days after, and then I don't get the chance, and then I'm alone with them. Good. That happened today. Yeah, and actually last night I realized I'm a source of that. That has history to it. So I'm glad I thought of a question now. I am too. Can you hear her? No. Oh, sorry. Okay, we'll hear you now. If you hold it close enough, they'll definitely hear you. Is that good enough? Can you hear me? Okay. My question is about the wholeheartedness, the relationship of wholeheartedness to no self. And I was wondering about experiences, practices like, well, for me, skiing, writing poetry and plays, where this place where it's just, there is just that happening, and I feel like

[71:24]

I don't sense myself in a process or in an unfolding, and yet I feel awake, I feel aware of everything. So I'm wondering, are those kinds of practices actual experience of no-self, or is that something else? So in some situations where we're wholehearted, in those situations there's just like, there's just the activity and there's not a self. Okay? And in fact, that is reality. And sometimes you can see, and sometimes you look back actually and see correctly that when I was skiing or when I was dancing, there was just the dancing, there wasn't me and the dancing. And that's right, there wasn't. There wasn't you and the dancing.

[72:25]

There was you, but there wasn't you and the dancing. And when you look back, all you see is the dancing. Now, if all you look back and saw was yourself, then there wouldn't have been any dancing. And that can happen, that you could be dancing, And later, you or someone will look back at that event and someone will say to you, well, how was that? And you might say, how was what? Well, when you were dancing. I was dancing? That can happen. That there's no dancing while you're dancing. Or that you're dancing and there was dancing and it wasn't even wonderful, there was just dancing. And there wasn't you dancing or even your partner. There was just dancing. So are those experiences of no-self? Well, again, every experience is an experience of no-self.

[73:28]

Every experience is emptiness. Emptiness is every experience. But is there understanding of it? And understanding of it is The enactment of it is great, but the understanding of it changes the way you feel about things from then on. And the understanding of it is not just that there was just dancing and not me and dancing, or there was just me and I don't know what was happening. That's true, that's reality, but it isn't the same as the understanding of it. The understanding of it is that you know that when there is dancing, that you could not find the self. Not just that there wasn't one there, but that you know that there couldn't be found. It's not found in the wholeheartedness. You don't find a self in addition to the activity. Or you don't find an activity in addition to the self in wholeheartedness. That's the way it is.

[74:31]

But there's an additional thing of understanding that you cannot find the self in that situation. And going back and forth on this many, many times after a while, you are convinced that there is no self in addition to what you're doing. So you have that understanding in addition to not, to just being, doing it with not the self bothering you. Okay? you actually understand that, you understand that what you're doing is yourself. And that therefore, the self cannot be found in addition to the activity, and the activity cannot, you understand. So there's a difference between not finding something and understanding that it can't be found. There's a difference. So going back and forth between ordinary life, which is kind of half-hearted, which is I'm talking to you to just talking, or I'm dancing with you to just dancing, and then go even from not even dancing, but there's just me even.

[75:49]

And going back and forth in that until you understand that these, not just the absence of the self, That's not the same as no self. No self is when you see that what's going on is the self. There's no self there in addition to what's happening, but what's happening is the self. Both ways. Then you realize it. And then things are different from then on. Yeah, I think I've had glimpses of that. So continuing to go back and forth to, I feel I have intentionally taken some of these practices on as a part of this. Exactly. Continually. And even, there's no end to deepening this understanding. So glimpses are good and just

[76:54]

consider making a vow to continually have glimpses and to continually be wholehearted about form and be wholehearted about glimpses of emptiness and be wholehearted about seeing how that emptiness is not separate from the form and so on. To vow to be devoted to this teaching. And Zen centers, they chant this, you know, pretty much every morning. And some people who chant this every morning are not wholehearted. They think, you know, they kind of think, oh, me chanting or them chanting. If you ask them, if you ask them, were you wholehearted during that chant, they would probably be honest and say, I was mostly wishing that they would chant faster or they would be over. So, just to wholeheartedly look at this teaching to commit to look at this teaching to remind yourself that there are good activities in life and that's good but if you're wholehearted you realize something which will help you be more intimate with what you're doing than you can be namely you realize the insubstantiality and the ungraspability of the wonderful things that you're doing in life that will aid you

[78:26]

But we have to kind of like bodhisattvas meditate on this according to this tradition that we have to know insubstantiality and selflessness in order to be maximally beneficial to people. So wholeheartedness is required. Realization of emptiness is required. Commitment to vast commitments are required. They work together. They all enhance each other. Thank you. And then I see that this is Joel and Susan and Justin. Is that right? Is that right? Joel, Susan, and Justin? Whatever order? Susan, Joel, Justin? Justin, Joel, Susan? I'd like you guys to be wholehearted.

[79:28]

Let's see what you do if you're wholehearted. Are you wholehearted? I think you're all going to get a chance. That's my prediction. Hi. I have some degree of the sense of emptiness as an adjective. But I get, I feel, I feel emptiness as a noun is very ungraspable for me. Like, you know, we talk about emptiness as a noun. You started with that. Joel, I want you to speak up. Okay. I was saying that I have... Okay, just let me say. The word, the Sanskrit word shunya means empty. adjective, right? The Sanskrit word shunyata, putting a ta on the end of the shunya makes it an abstract noun.

[80:34]

Okay? Also, impermanent is anicca in Sanskrit, and impermanence is aniccata. So there is this thing in the teaching of saying that dharmas are, phenomena are impermanent, most phenomena are impermanent, impermanent, anicca. But then there's also the teaching of impermanence, aniccata. So there's like, things are empty, things are shunya, like all five skandhas are shunya, but then there's a teaching of shunyata, the teaching of emptiness. But the teaching and the adjective or the character of things are inseparable. So you can't keep the abstract nouns separate from the adjective because the impermanence and impermanent

[81:42]

the impermanent and impermanence, the empty and emptiness. So each of us are the empty, but also there's emptiness, there's the general principle too. So there's two different things to work with, which you're naturally, you know, there's a struggle to find the balance between the empty and emptiness, between the impermanent and impermanence. between, I guess, painful and painfulness. So also one is like a characteristic and the other is like a state. Somehow maybe the state is More whole-hardened, it's more universal. The state is more whole-hardened and universal. So you already are empty, but you need to realize the state of emptiness.

[82:48]

You need to become emptiness. You're already empty, you need to become emptiness. You need to be walking emptiness. To demonstrate the principle, you become impermanence. You're walking around impermanence. You're already impermanent. Now you can become impermanent. So you bring the principle into your body. So you are impermanent. You are emptiness. Miss impermanence. Mr. Emptiness. So there's something about that. Manifesting and realizing, becoming the principle, becoming what you are. Something about that. Yeah, and it's something with body. Yeah, it's embodying the principles of, it's embodying the qualities, fully realizing your qualities. Yeah. Even fully realizing other qualities will also facilitate realizing these special qualities.

[83:54]

Even fully realizing your shortcomings will facilitate your realizing your truth. Yeah, impermanence is much easier for me than emptiness. Impermanence as a state of things seems obvious. Obviously, this is just total impermanence. Everything is impermanent. You know, everything changes the process. Emptiness Embodying emptiness, that's hard. How might one... I think emptiness is in a way deeper. Yeah, yeah. Deep and difficult are kind of like synonyms, right? Deep means hard to understand. So emptiness in some sense is really, even impermanence is part and emptiness is deeper. More subtle, because even, you know, you can have some understanding of impermanence and still have a self to impermanence.

[84:58]

Like you said, I can kind of grasp impermanence. I can kind of feel it slipping through my hands. And it's even more subtle. But the most subtle things is the way we're all cooperating. It's even much, much more subtle. The way we're all in peace and harmony, the way we're all loving each other, is not muscle. And understanding emptiness opens the door to understanding infinite subtlety of how we're working together. How do you define the difference then between emptiness and the state of us all working together? Are those different things? Are they different? Emptiness is basically, again, it's a lack. It's an absence. It's kind of a negative quality. It's a liberating, purifying absence.

[86:00]

Whereas the way we're related isn't an absence. It's a presence. And it's a presence which is empty and impermanent. But it's what we want to realize. That's the actual state of enlightenment, is the actual state of how we're working together. And emptiness is, by realizing emptiness, we enter the state of where we actually are, where we realize the practice of great compassion. That's the point, is that state. Enlightenment isn't just emptiness or the realization. It's emptiness which facilitates great compassion. So that's a presence. That's true life. But the Bodhisattvas, are being encouraged to study emptiness in order to realize that state, that existential realm, where living in that realm is the path of enlightenment.

[87:17]

But part of that path is caring for conventional reality, wholeheartedly opening to emptiness, becoming purified from our obstructions, and entering the state unhindered. Yeah. And how that relates to vow, it was just interesting. I've never understood the end of the heart sutra, like the mantra, like this is the brilliant mantra and such. But when you're talking about vow, like you were ascribing those adjectives, it seemed to me to vow, this miraculous vow, this excellent vow, the unsurpassable vow. there seemed, I don't know, some kind of clue there or something. It's also always striking to me that everything else, you know, I could relate to this and that teaching and fine, and it's just summing up everything and cool. Are you following what he's saying a little bit?

[88:17]

He's talking about the end of the Heart Sutra. And he's saying, he's wondering about why they call the Heart Sutra a mantra. Yeah. So then he thought, well, maybe put vow in there. I could see that how. Think of a mantra as a vow. In other words, when you say a mantra that has an effect, you're doing an action of saying a mantra. So you could see this sutra, you could see this sutra maybe as a vow. This could be a vow. This could be something you promise to think about. I vow to think about this. I vow to recite the Heart Sutra. So then the Heart Sutra turns into a mantra. If you say this art sutra, that makes a contribution to the world, right? If you say the hate sutra, that contributes to the world, too. If you say this sutra, that contributes to the formation of the world in a different way than something else you might do does. So at the end of this text, it says that this text, which is like a mantra, in other words, saying this text

[89:24]

is one of the ways you could make a contribution to the world. And then also, after you make the contribution to the world, then you dedicate this contribution to others. You don't make the contribution to try to get credit for it. You make the contribution, and you make the contribution and the merit of it. So I think that way of understanding the word mantra at the end here might be helpful. Yeah. Because again, bodhisattvas, if they do understand emptiness, that's nice because that relieves suffering, that unleashes their compassion, okay? But then their compassion, one of the ways that compassion functions is by them thinking of vows. They're enlightened, but they don't just be enlightened, they keep cranking their action. So they're, I'm enlightened and I'm thinking these thoughts. and thinking these thoughts is my contribution from enlightenment is thinking of all these wonderful things like helping other people understand this teaching, serving all beings, serving all Buddhas, disclosing my own lack of practice, rejoicing in the merits of others, these kinds of things I promise to do

[90:45]

over and over. Every time I promise, I make another contribution to the realization of truth in the world and make a world for realizing truth. So bodhisattvas don't retire after enlightenment. They keep working. They don't go just to peace and stay there. They keep working in the world. And how do they work? They work like everybody else. They think and they talk and they make postures. But basically all they're thinking and talking is, you know, join with these vows. So they raise their hand, like other people, but they raise their hand to benefit all beings. They lower their hand to benefit all beings. So they not only raise and lower their hand, but they do it together with these great vows all the time. So they bring all beings up and down with them. This is the world they're creating. And being, understanding emptiness makes it more fun to do these vows. And so they do it more wholeheartedly and then again that realizes more emptiness which helps, you know.

[91:52]

So the vows and the emptiness purify and encourage each other. The realization of emptiness and their life of vow work together. That's why the bodhisattvas live by the vow and practice emptiness. Practicing emptiness helps them live by vow. So they're watching what they're doing right now. Now they're talking. Now they're walking. Okay, they're paying attention to that. That's part of their... They make a vow to pay attention to what they're doing so they still can drive cars potentially and so on like that. Although they may have a chauffeur. You know? So that they can recite the Heart Sutra while the chauffeur drives or whatever. But basically they still are doing things and they're paying attention to them. But they're not just doing things in terms of body, speech and mind like driving cars and so on. They're also promising to do even more. And they're promising to continue all kinds of good things.

[92:54]

Some of which they're not doing. But they promise to do them in the future. And they promise to continue. So all that together connects to the Heart Sutra as one of the practices that you can do. And also, you can also vow to continue to do this practice. And you can vow to do this practice wholeheartedly. Which, as I say, a lot of Zen students, if you ask them, they say, no, I must confess I did not recite the Heart Sutra wholeheartedly. And I was kind of grumpy this morning. I was kind of saying, ah, same old heart sutra. I'm kind of chesty here. Couldn't we have like a diamond sutra? Sure, we can have other sutras, but this is the one we happen to have today. Could you please do it wholeheartedly? I don't want to. I want a different kind of sutra. I want my game boy. My grandson likes his game board more than the heart suture.

[94:01]

But it's even more beautiful the way he devoted to his game board. All heartedly. This is a great challenge here. Okay? Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Next suture surplus, Susan. Reb, speak more into the microphone, please. Reb, speak more into the microphone, please. Susan. Sometimes I think that I can understand kind of in my body in a way because my brain starts kind of going in circles. But you said something about having to understand, and so I'm going to have to use my brain for that, I think.

[95:08]

So I kind of get, like, I get it that there can't be a giver if there isn't a receiver. Okay. And vice versa. There can't be a receiver if there's not a giver, and in some way there can't be either one if there isn't a gift. Okay, so that part I think I understand. I got confused when you said... Can I say something? Yes. Did you hear what she said? So what you said is true. There couldn't be those things without those other things. However, there are those other things, so there are those things. So there is a receiver and there is a gift, so there is a giver. There couldn't be a giver without those, but there are those, so there is a giver. And there couldn't be those others without the giver, but there is a giver, so there are the others.

[96:14]

So this is actually already going on. You are givers you are receivers and you are gifts, and therefore you can be givers, receivers, and gifts. But that's also your emptiness as a giver, that your emptiness is a receiver and that your emptiness is a gift. So it's already the case, okay? This is already the case. And in some other way is not the case. If it were another way, it wouldn't be. There wouldn't be any giving if there wasn't receiving. But there is giving because there is receiving. So when you said, you know, if there wasn't this, there wouldn't be that, that's basically, that's one way to put that things are empty. No, it's one way to put that things aren't empty, is to say, No, no. It's just saying that there isn't anything, nothing exists without these other things.

[97:18]

That implies empty. Yes. So in that way I can kind of understand interdependence or dependent origination or codependent arising because everything is related to everything else. Is that right? Yes. So it says no self, independent co-arising up there. no self is one way to understand dependent core rising, and dependent core rising is one way to understand no self. They educate us in both directions. Okay, I'm going to go a little Taoist on this for a minute, too. You're going to go Taoist? I'm going to go a little Taoist for a minute. Because a lot of times I think of it like yin and yang, that they both have to exist for the other to exist, right? So where I got confused was when you said that you couldn't find, that if you saw the gift and the giver, you couldn't find the receiver and all the permutations of that?

[98:24]

If you're wholeheartedly in the process of giving, okay, then if you look for the gift, okay? Yes. And if you found the gift, you wouldn't find the giver or receiver. Because I wouldn't be wholeheartedly... No, if you are wholehearted, if you are wholehearted, if you find one, you don't find the other ones. Because I'm wholeheartedly finding the one. Because you're wholeheartedly finding the one. Okay, and the others exist in the dark or in the underbelly? The others exist, but they're in the dark. But even though you find one, and one's illuminated and you can't find the other ones, you understand that that wouldn't be there if it weren't for the other ones. And when you understand that, then you don't find any of them. So when you understand the interdependence of the situation, you don't find anything. And that's emptiness?

[99:27]

Not finding anything is realizing emptiness. Not finding and also knowing that you can't is realizing emptiness. But wholeheartedness both shows you that in this situation there's just the activity, not me and the activity, there's just the activity or there's just me and no activity. In the wholeheartedness I see that. Seeing that, I understand emptiness. You still want to come up, Justin? You have alluded to it already and given some examples of how we might put into practice the meditation on emptiness.

[100:36]

I'm wondering if you could just maybe clarify, offer some examples of how maybe from the time we get up in the morning to the time we go to bed at night, we might practice this meditation on emptiness. So from the first experience in the morning, try to be completely wholehearted with it. And then the next experience, try to be completely wholehearted. Next experience, try to follow through on this experience all the way to the end of it. Not by get it over, you know, with, so you can move on to the next one, but do this one completely to the end of it. And it's not going to last very long, but you may move on to the next one before it's over. You know, even though it's not, you're ready, I'm ready to move on here.

[101:42]

No. You're not. Because you do things completely, of course. So wholeheartedness from the morning, from the minute you get up, is the way, is the practice of emptiness. Which means, you know, you're giving away, you're not concerned with the next action, you're not concerned with other actions, you're giving up the distinction between brushing your teeth and going to work. you're opening up to the relationship between brushing your teeth and saving the world. So in your wholeheartedness you're also dropping away all distinctions that you get involved in when you're being half-hearted. You give up the distraction of distinctions. and the wholeheartedness. And giving up the distinctions between what you're doing and what you're not doing makes you more wholehearted, too. So this is the practice of emptiness, which is slightly different than listening to the teachings of emptiness.

[102:50]

But if you know the teachings of emptiness, and when you're studying those, you do that, you study them the same way as you brush your teeth, wholeheartedly. And if you study these teachings that way, they start to play a role in your toothbrushing. So studying the Heart Sutra and other teachings on emptiness do help you brush your teeth, but also they help you wake up to the deeper reality of brushing your teeth. But wholeheartedness is essential to put any of this into practice. It sounds like being aware, paying attention, then is in and of itself a complete practice of the meditation on impermanence. Would you agree with that characterization? Impermanence? Did you mean? The meditation on emptiness. So you just said that being wholehearted is the practice of emptiness, meditation on emptiness?

[103:55]

Paying attention and being aware or being wholehearted is in and of itself a complete practice. It's a complete practice of emptiness, yes. That deserves a bow. Would you like to have another period of quiet before lunch? Hmm? Well, why don't we have a little walking meditation and then sit some then. Okay?

[104:29]

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