Different parts of the Sixteen Bodhisattva Precepts, those three parts, they're all well known in Mahayana Buddhism. The Three Refuges are well known in all schools of Buddhism. The Three Refuges, going for refuge in the Triple Treasure, is well known in all schools. The Three Pure Precepts are well known in all Mahayana schools. and the ten major Bodhisattva precepts are well known in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, all East Asian Mahayana schools. But to put them together as sixteen and to drop off the forty-eight, that's an innovation. And I just might parenthetically remark that that innovation is one of the main reasons why the Soto school in Japan is a major religion because it has a different set of precepts from the normal 58 precepts that were given in Mahayana Buddhism in Japan.

[01:11]

And because it has a different set of precepts, it's a different school. And more people have received, since Dogen's time, more people have received the 16 precepts than the 58. Now there's much more Soto Zen Buddhists in Japan than Tendai Buddhists, which are the school that Dogen came from, and the school that was the dominant school at his time that had these 58. So now many people in this room have received and committed to practice these 16 Bodhisattva precepts. How many people have received and committed to practicing these precepts? Please raise your hands. Yeah, so maybe more than half the people have gone through this initiation into these Bodhisattva precepts. it is it is precedented to consider these precepts as koans for people who study koans systematically in certain major koan traditions after going through the Book of Serenity and going through the Blue Cliff Record and going through the Mumonkan and going through other

[02:46]

Zen stories, Zen koans, the final koans to be studied are the sixteen. So in one sense for us to look at these precepts as koans is it's unprecedented to do so without tremendous training, without lots of training. You could say it's very advanced for us to approach them as koans, but that's happening now. You are beginning to approach these precepts as koans. because you got yourself in this room. Now, you may not be in this room next week, but I might be.

[03:49]

which reminds me that in this class, you're here tonight, and if you'd like to continue, please commit to come to all the classes. And if you can't come to a class, please explain to me the reasons, the causes and conditions for not coming. Otherwise, please commit to finish the course if you keep coming. Okay? Is that clear? But I don't mind if you don't continue if it looks like this is not appropriate for you. We have a wide variety of experience here. And so I'd like to consult all these different kinds of experience that we have here and just ask at the beginning, do you have any response to what it would mean to, for example, look at these precepts, any of these precepts, as koans?

[05:07]

What would it mean to look at, for example, going for refuge in Buddha as a koan? Any response to what that might be? To me it already is a colon. And what do you mean by, it already is a what? Well, it's already somewhat inconceivable. Okay, did you hear that? Did you hear that? Or maybe I can't say somewhat inconceivable. That would be fine, you can shorten it to just inconceivable. Just, to me, going for refuge in Buddha is inconceivable. Alsos Brock, Jane. Okay? Yes, Alan? It occurs to me that a possibility might be that in

[06:10]

just sort of the moment-to-moment-ness of our lives. Every moment presents some new or different situation. Even just sitting zazen, for instance, things whirl by your brain. And so, to me, I'm seeing it as the koan being each moment, and this precept being maybe you've got something to use to try and deal with the koan, but the koan is is how do you apply that pretty soon, moment by moment, as different things come at you in your life? How does, for example, how does going for refuge in Buddha apply now? I thought that it's relational and it's alive. So the precept of going for Revision Buddha is relational and alive.

[07:12]

That could be a way that you look at the practice of going for Revision Buddha as a koan. Yes? For a long time, even the way The name Buddha is used in so many different ways. Pardon? The name Buddha. The name Buddha. Whenever one says Buddha, there's a variety of meaning that they might be pointing to. And I've always had questions about that. And when I'm told to take refuge in Buddha, in the past it was always a great abstract concept to me. I could understand taking refuge in Dharma, taking refuge in Sangha. but not Buddha, because I don't know what that signifies. And I asked, actually I asked Jeremy, to shift us in a question, what it represented, and he replied, it's taking refuge in all beings.

[08:23]

It's taking refuge in... In all beings. In all beings. And to me that was... a very profound image or feeling to work with. So that is the thinking then about, or feeling, taking refuge in all beings and what that is, what that actually comes up behind that is the koan for me. Okay. Did someone come in just now? Who came in? Would you stand up, please, and tell us your name? I'm Shauna. Shauna. Would you come up in front, please? Sure. Are there more Christians? You can sit here, Shauna, or there. Yes.

[09:29]

Is it Brandon? Brandon. Yeah. Brandon. Brandon. For me, I guess it's taking something that is universal and making it personal. So just like, that came up for me in listening to everybody's responses. Good. Yes? You just inspired me to change what I was going to say to taking everything that's imagined and making it real. Yes, Brian? The idea of studying Receptus Collins was new to me, and I felt comfortable with that.

[10:30]

And then when you said it was precedented and was traditionally advanced training, I became much less comfortable. Yes, what's your name again? Your name? John. John. Well, please, you know, I read For example, one of the precepts, you know, I've read it different ways. One pops into my mind sometimes is not indulging in intoxicants, and then I've also read it as not dealing in intoxicants, which is something very different to me. Same goes with the sexuality one, too. I've read different ones around that. Maybe just all the different meanings out there can make it kind of like a koan. There's no particular way of understanding it. So he just said, if there's no particular way to understand it?

[11:37]

Well, maybe I'm saying there's many ways to understand it or to look at those. There's many ways to understand it. Look at those, like intoxicants, for example. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, just technically speaking, the actual major precept in East Asia is not selling intoxicants. Then there's a minor precept that of not taking intoxicants. So it's considered more major to like give somebody else intoxicants to get money for it. That's considered to be a more grave precept, more heavy. But there's also a minor one which is not on the list in our school. That's why we sort of changed it to not not giving it to others or taking it yourself. We combine those two in that one.

[12:41]

Because a lot of Americans say, well, I don't sell drugs. So I'm cool, right? So I just wanted to relate that these koans, these precepts as koans could also be, which I think I hope harmonizes with everything you said, is to look at these precepts in terms of that they're about reality. And then I would say if they are about reality, because they're about reality, they can have innumerable meanings. Because these precepts, if these precepts are koans, koans are, in some sense, mean ultimate truth. That's what koan kind of means.

[13:44]

It means a public example of reality. These koans, these precepts, can be seen as public examples of reality. They can also be seen as guidelines for karma. for action, that you guide your action towards going for refuge in Buddha, that you might actually try to make your karma, make your mental, vocal, and physical karma into going for refuge in Buddha. So that's one way to use bodhisattva precepts as a guide to your action. And in terms of your action, the Buddha gave the teaching that action can have good results and bad results.

[14:49]

It can have desirable results like peace and ease and non-violence. It can lead to those kinds of experiences, or action can lead to war, violence, and misery. Now, karma is not the only thing that determines these experiences, but it's the one that Buddha emphasized to study the most among the various conditions. But the way of using these as guidelines to practice comes to relate to the teaching that if you practice these precepts, that these precepts, when they're practiced, will actually, truly, in reality, have these good results.

[15:54]

which ordinary people cannot see. You can't, with ordinary perception, see that if you go for refuge in Buddha, it will bring peace to your life and the life of your other people. So even if you approach these precepts in terms of practicing these precepts, yes, that's fine, but also it's being said that these precepts, when they're practiced, they do determine a type of life, but not absolutely. The determination isn't strict or absolute. And that's another part of the reality. A part of reality is that when a knowledge bears on reality, its content is indeterminate. If you just follow these precepts because you think they're good, then you could actually think, and not think that they're real, not think the precepts are reality, and you just follow them because you think they'll probably be good or you believe that... If you don't encounter the reality you think, you might think, well, the precepts would always be like this.

[17:20]

They would have these results. But I offer you this kind of strange statement that when we believe in the reality of something, we understand that it will manifest in unexpected and unseen ways, unforeseen, unprecedented ways in the future. That's the characteristic I would propose to you of when something bears on reality, is that it will have you could say, like the Lotus Sutra, it will have innumerable meanings. If something is real, it will have innumerable meanings. Some of which you might really be shocked by. What do you mean by if something is real or if something bears on reality?

[18:21]

What do I mean by reality? What do you mean by the whole phrase, if something is real, if something bears on man? I mean innumerable things by that. I mean innumerable, inexhaustible things by what I just said. What I just said I also would say bears on reality. And I give two basic examples, or no, six basic examples. One is from science. In the history of Western science, there was a person named Copernicus. And not only did he, he did some calculations, and based on his calculations, he imagined, based on his calculations, he imagined that the earth rotates around the sun. that the Earth orbits the Sun.

[19:25]

He imagined that. He didn't think of it just out of the blue. He thought of it from his calculations. His calculations, the information he got, the data he got, and the calculations he did with his data led him to imagine to think that the Earth goes around the Sun and that the other planets do also orbit around the Sun. It used to be that the Sun and the other planets orbited around the Earth. So it could have been that he thought, well, the Earth goes around the Sun and the other planets go around the Earth like they used to. But he didn't. He said, not only does the Earth go around the Sun, but my calculations go with the other planets going with the Earth around the Sun at different distances and different shapes, size of circular orbits. So it wasn't just that his calculations were new and more elegant than previously.

[20:31]

It's the image he had of the universe changed. And his successors, based on taking what he came up with as real, they came up with discoveries which he never thought would come up. And actually that contradicted his beliefs about his system. But although they contradicted his beliefs about the implications of his system, they proved his system right. And so they proved that the content of the reality of the universe is indeterminate. But that doesn't mean it's not true. It's still true that the earth goes around the sun. It's just the content of that truth has innumerable meanings. some of which will totally shock the person who discovered the truth.

[21:38]

But even though you discover the truth and you're right, the meanings, the content of the truth you discover, you can't control, you can't limit. So in Buddhism, in the Buddha's knowledge, the Buddha, I would say, discovered dependent co-arising of what we call samsara and nirvana. He discovered the dependent co-arising of suffering and he discovered the dependent co-arising of freedom from suffering. He called it dependent co-arising, pratityasamvatpada. He discovered this and he taught this And I can't tell you a specific quote where he said, this is true, he did say that, this is true, and if you understand this dependent core rising, this is true, and if you understand dependent core rising, you will understand reality, and you will be free of suffering, and you will understand me.

[22:47]

And if you don't understand dependent co-arising, you will follow the course of dependently co-arising misery. He did say that, but he didn't say that I know of. The implications of what I've discovered are far beyond anything, are far beyond what I've discovered so far. I don't know of him saying that. But in fact, they are. even though he was a great discoverer of truth, the content of his truth has innumerable meanings, some of which he did not know about. So his successors came up with teachings that seemed to contradict some of the implications of his teaching. So the precept of going for refuge, we have the precept of going for refuge in Buddha.

[23:57]

We have the precept of going for refuge in someone who had a knowledge of reality. And I'm starting by saying to you, let's look at this precept as reality. Not just a precept about, you know, be close to Buddha. But that going for refuge in Buddha is truth. And Buddha is truth. And therefore, there's innumerable meanings to what this first precept means. Its content is indeterminate. And practicing it, according to the Buddha, if you practice this, you will have good existences and other people will be drawn into these good existences. This is how to bring peace to the world by doing this first precept.

[24:59]

But there's one other big part here which is wonderful. One of the meanings of reality is also that it can be proved. It can be affirmed and confirmed. But again, the way we confirm it is partly by its contents, but its contents are indeterminate. So the confirmation process using content would be different than a confirmation process where the content was not determinate, was determined, was strictly determined. So I would suggest further to you that

[26:09]

There's two other kinds of indeterminacy if these precepts are reality. The second kind of indeterminacy would be indeterminacy in terms of coherence. Let's use the example of a hand. If a hand is a real thing, you understand that this hand will manifest in ways that you've never seen it manifest before. If it's not real, then it would be just the way it is now. This hand is coherent. So you believe it's real.

[27:13]

But the reason why it's coherent is because of all the different things that you're seeing it as. All the different particulars that make this thing. But the content of this is indeterminate. The content of the reality of this is indeterminate. In the coherence of it, there's no particular definition you can give of what makes this coherent. You can list lots of different particulars that are fleeting around to make you think that there's really a hand here and that a hand is real. But what makes you... But the sign or the token by which you can sense the coherence is indeterminate. And if it isn't indeterminate, then the hand wouldn't be real.

[28:15]

Yeah? Would you say that if we took any particular token in itself to the approval of the hand, that we don't actually understand the hand? Correct. So another example, and in discussing this with you, I would also point out that there's a psychological process here by which we come to accept reality. And one element in that is related to Gestalt psychology. That when you see a Gestalt, somehow you can accept the thing as real. However, the Gestalt, although the Gestalt is a signal to you or an indication of the reality of something, the Gestalt doesn't determine the reality. In fact, the reality is determined in an indeterminate way.

[29:17]

So the example, the famous Gestalt example is you have the picture which you look at with your eyes and you can see it as a vase surrounded by empty space or two profiles looking at each other with space between them. And in fact, there is a vase there. And in fact, there are two profiles looking at each other when you see them. But the token of the reality of the vase is a fleeting thing by which you can see the vase, the coherence of the vase, but the picture isn't, the indicator isn't what makes the establishment of the coherence because it switches to another coherence.

[30:21]

So it's another quality of it. And the third kind of indeterminacy is that the data by which you come up with the knowledge also cannot be explicitly defined. So, what is it? Well, there was this famous theorem called Fermat's last theorem. His last theorem because it was the one, the last one, the one nobody could solve. And for 350 years, mathematicians tried to solve the theorem. And Fermat said, I have a solution to this. And I don't know if he did have a solution, but if he did, the data by which he came up with the knowledge

[31:23]

could not have been the data by which people 10, 15 years ago came up with the proof. The proof that they got, the data they used to come up with this truth was they used data which were not available until the 20th century, namely all kinds of mathematical tools that they just invented in the last few years. Or the data that Copernicus used to come up with this image of reality, he couldn't define deterministically and also you could have had a whole different set of data and come up with the same thing. Just like people all over the world look at the sky from different points of view and came up with the same theories of the way the stars move.

[32:30]

So, I'm bringing this in as part of what we need to deal with in order to prove, to verify, not just to hear that these precepts are reality, but to use this information to actually now prove that they're reality. And you can prove it partly by practicing them and observing what's going on. But also, see if you can prove them. See if you can prove that going for refuge in Buddha brings happiness. If you can prove that practicing these precepts is practicing reality. I can think I'm practicing a precept, but that's my own view.

[33:43]

Correct. Right. Or you could say it's your perception. I perceive that I'm a person who is trying to practice embracing and sustaining certain forms of practice and certain ceremonies. I'm trying to do this precept, the first of the three pure Bodhisattva precepts. I'm trying to do that. I'm trying to enact, ritually enact, the forms of Buddhist practice. I think that I'm aware that I think that, and I seem to be acting with my voice and my body, enacting these practices. I perceive this. Okay? But perception is not exactly the same as knowledge that this is so. Matter of fact, you said, I do something like, well, that can be my view.

[34:48]

Did you say my view? Yeah. So you know you have a view of what you're doing, and you also sometimes have views like, I'm not doing these practices. I'm not practicing these precepts. You could have that view too. But what would be the knowledge that's not just your perception, that you're practicing these precepts, and that in reality... practicing these precepts is reality. In fact, in reality, you are practicing these precepts, so you better practice these precepts. Otherwise, you won't be in touch with reality. So actually, I sometimes talk that way. These precepts are reality, but if you don't get that they're reality, well, act like you're practicing the precepts. Because then at least you think in your world of perception you'll feel like you're doing that.

[35:51]

But then you say, but what is the meaning of these precepts? So then you get into the indeterminacy. But I would say that the knowledge of what these precepts are in a sense is an extension or an enlargement of our perceptions. And we can use the knowledge of these precepts in ways that we can't use our perceptions. Our perceptions do not bear on reality. So I may not have the perception that I'm practicing the precepts when I actually have. Yeah, that's right. Or you may have the perception that you are practicing the precepts when you actually are. But then there's the knowledge that you're practicing the precepts dash the knowledge that the precepts are reality. And that will go with the way you perceive that you're practicing the precepts does not have indeterminate content, is not tokened in indeterminate ways, and is not based on indeterminate data.

[37:02]

The perception is not? No. No. The reality of the perception is, but when we perceive that we're doing something, We don't really feel that we're open to, you know, that we could be doing anything. Not in our perceptions. Our perceptions are narrowing. I thought there would be determinants. Perceptions are determinants. Perceptions of anything but reality would be more determinate. With perception, you actually pick a sign. Whereas in knowledge, you may pick a sign, but you understand that the sign does not establish the thing. It's just something you use to tip yourself off so that you can trust this thing.

[38:03]

But you know that you could be tipped off in innumerable ways. But in perceptions, we limit the world to having a particular sign, and we pick that to have the experience. That's part of the perception thing. But not to put down perception at all, but this is to open it up, to extend it. into a knowledge. So you've now heard or I can tell you more stories about the Buddha's discoveries of dependent core rising. I gave you just a kind of a nickname for it. I could go into details but still when you hear this you're perceiving this information. Knowledge of that which would be true that will have this quality of indeterminate content, indeterminate coherence, or indeterminate signs of coherence, because we want coherence in reality. We can't accept something as real without coherence.

[39:08]

Like my hand, there's coherence here. Changing, all the elements are changing all the time, but there's coherence here. And also the data you're getting, you can't define the data you're getting to feel this is real. And you're right, it is real, but not determined. When you use real right there, you're not using it as equivalent to reality. Yes. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Capital R reality. Yeah, but if you think this hand, if you don't understand that this hand is going to manifest in ways that you can't imagine in the future, if you don't understand that, you don't understand the reality of the hand. You understand the hand's real. You can tell the difference between a fake hand and a real hand.

[40:10]

You can do that. That's your perception. Understanding the reality of this would be an extension of your perception to understand more about the reality of this hand. Which is indeterminate? The reality isn't indeterminate. The content is indeterminate. What's the content? Well, like, for example, It's a true image of our solar system that the earth rotates around the sun. But the shape of the orbit is part of the contents of that orbit. So you discover the reality but you don't know the shape of the orbit. And you find out the shape of the orbit which is different than what you expected. Which affirms not only the truth of the orbit but the reality of the orbit, but the reality of the whole system, in that there's room for your successors to go beyond what you ever could imagine.

[41:20]

The implications of reality are inexhaustible. I was speaking in this conversation several times about an example maybe about in relation to human interactions and people such as your mother or your daughter or a friend or a stranger and when they're unknown they have more reality because you haven't got a story about who they are and what they're going to do next. They have more reality. Then there's this quality of, well, I know her, I know what she's going to be like, and I have a story already for what she already did, what she's about to do, and blah, blah, blah. And then they do something that doesn't fit into your system, and they become a real again. Right. So I'm talking about these precepts. These are the precepts of the school here. So they're wonderful precepts. They're really great. Can you practice them now? Not just I'm going to practice these precepts.

[42:23]

Not just I want to practice going for refuge in Buddha. I don't quite understand what it means, but I'm going to try it. But also actually like try to find out what it is. Like now, what does it mean now? What does it mean here? It's inconceivable. And what does inconceivable mean here? Inconceivable doesn't mean no meanings. Inconceivable doesn't mean useless. It means indeterminate. It means inexhaustible possibilities around these precepts. as something that we offer these precepts now let's meditate on them as very deep and inconceivable with tremendous possibilities but let's take care of these things as koans and then let's see if you can verify in some ways the truth the reality of these precepts i welcome you to for the rest of your lives to try to do that i would like to hear how you

[43:34]

how you struggle to realize the truth, the reality of these precepts. And I'm telling you, before you start, what do you call it? Lighten up. or, you know, don't try to get a hold of something deterministic here. That won't be what it's like to find the reality of these things. That would be like to find out the unreality of them, some limited version of them, which is fine, you know, like your limited version of trying to practice going for refuge in Buddha is still probably a pretty good, pretty nice thing to try to do. But when the Buddha says that practicing these precepts brings benefit, he means practicing them with the correct understanding. If you follow these precepts holding onto a limit idea of them, you're not practicing with the reality of them. So how do you need to be committed to practicing these precepts with this mind which is actually searching for reality in them?

[44:42]

And they're offered to you by the tradition as real. see if you can prove they're real. But you have to like study them. Like Kepler studied Copernicus' findings and like early Buddhists studied the Buddhist findings and then found things which the Buddha never taught in those teachings. And those things proved not only proved the truth of what Buddha did, but proved that the truth of what Buddha did is even more true because these unexpected implications are there. The Buddha's teaching is inexhaustible, inconceivable, profound. Watch your mind when it starts treating the precepts not as reality, but just in terms of your ideas and your perceptions. Yes.

[45:48]

If the precept is reality, they have innumerable meaning. If I think precept has only one meaning, then precept is not reality or just I'm wrong. Then you're treating, then you're talking about the reality, then you're relating to the precepts not as reality. So, which means precepts can be not reality through my perception? The precept that you see that way is not the real precept. It's not the real, it's not the real precept, it's not the real precept and also it's not a precept as reality. Could you tell me what is not reality then? Example, so I can understand the reality. Is the hand is reality? The hand is a real thing. The hand is a real thing. And the reality of this hand is that its content is indeterminate.

[46:50]

You can kind of get that, can't you? The content of this real thing is indeterminate. And this real thing you understand, can manifest in ways which you have not seen yet and even that you can't imagine. And also the data that you use to come up with the theory, actually, But understanding that this is a real thing, the data you have, no one can really, no one can say what data you used to come up with this. You do use data, but it's very hard to strictly describe it. And how you, and this has coherence for you. All this information about hands is tremendous, innumerable. In this few seconds, you have got innumerable information about these hands by which you know they're real, real things. Just one more thing. But you cannot You cannot say clearly what it is about the information you got that led you to this understanding.

[47:56]

Yeah? So it sounds to me like indeterminacy is related to impermanence and no self. Yeah, yeah, right. Yeah. And no self is reality too. But if that's the case, then if no self bears on reality, then the content of no self is indeterminate. The coherence of no self is indeterminate. And the data that you get to come up with the understanding of impermanence, I mean of no self, the data that you get, you can't really define. This whole process of understanding comes through the power of our minds. Just like the whole process of our trouble comes through the power of our mind. But this power of our mind is, you know, indeterminate.

[48:57]

Brendan? So, can you say what you just said about the hand again? This is a real thing. But you can't say you can't say what determined... Yeah, so like, for example, you're getting lots of information here. As long as you look at this hand and keep seeing that it's a real thing, you get a tremendous amount of information to do that. If there's a break in that, you lose the real thing. Getting lots of information, but you can't say what the content of the reality of this hand is. So you're saying that this applies to the precepts? I say, whenever knowledge is about reality, And if we're looking at the precepts, if we're proposing the precepts are real things... You can't say what's determining their content. Not only can't you say what determines their content, but you can't say in a determined way what the content of them is.

[50:07]

You can't say what the content of a real thing is. You know it has content. You know it has lots of contents. Like the content of the reality of the solar system has lots of content. But the people who discovered this wonderful image of the solar system, they didn't know about the content. He didn't know about the content. Then his successors, they knew more about the content than he did. But again, in finding out more content than he knew, which contradicted what he knew, they proved... they further prove the reality of what he discovered. Usually, I think usually we think if somebody has something true and you discover there's something that contradicts it, that that wouldn't prove that the reality of what he, excuse me, if somebody discovers some truth or some knowledge, they may have implications of that, which they draw.

[51:09]

then you may come and show those implications are wrong and further prove the validity of not their implications, which are wrong, but their original theory. What I'm finding really interesting is that a lot of the stuff that we said in the beginning is coming up through that. The inconceivability, what is imagined becoming reality, what is universal becoming personal. I mean, it has to be really personal if it's something that you know but is inconceivable. Right, right. And our perceptions are personal too, but our perceptions aren't really knowledge of reality. But our knowledge of reality, you know, we can know reality. That's being proposed, that we can know reality and we can use the precepts as an object of study to know reality.

[52:20]

I think I have heard you say that our perceptions bear on reality in a different way than knowledge bears on reality. However, I'm proposing that knowledge depends on perceptions in a fundamental way. But can I gain knowledge without our perceptions? Right. And also knowledge can be seen as related to and based on our perceptions, but extending our perception beyond perception. I wonder where it extends to and how that relates to my life and my perceptions. It extends to reality. Knowledge can extend to reality. So we must not be talking about propositional knowledge, like knowledge like, you know, the Earth revolves in an elliptical orbit. We're talking about more principle-type things, or what?

[53:28]

Well, the image of the Earth rotating around the Sun is a useful, kind of, you could say, true image. It's based on reality. And then when you have this image, there may be some content that you have about this true image. And the content could be wrong, but it doesn't necessarily prove the image wrong. The wrong part is maybe that you didn't realize that this content was just one of innumerable possibilities, and the likelihood of this one is much smaller than some other ones you never thought of, as a matter of fact, that you thought were wrong. So some of the content you imagine for this true image, in fact, are not correct, but it's still a true image. But isn't that image just a perception? Or another way to say perception? We can call it knowledge. It's a perception, but look, in this case, this perception didn't come from just him seeing it. First of all, he did these calculations, and based on these calculations, this image arose.

[54:34]

But that's not perception. Well, you know, you look up at the sky, right? And you see the sun, and you're perceiving that you're going around it. You perceive it's going around you. Did he perceive it was going around him? Yeah. Yeah. So that's a perception, right? Is it knowledge? It's not real. Now you're sitting here on the earth and you imagine yourself going around the sun. Are you perceiving that you're going around the sun? Are you imagining that you're going around the sun? So strictly speaking, that's not a perception. That's a conceptual cognition. You are perceiving the sun up there. And based on that perception of the sun, you're now imagining that you're on a planet that's going around the sun and used to maybe imagine the sun was going around you.

[55:49]

In both cases you perceive the sun and then you inferred in two cases, one incorrectly and the other correctly you inferred. So now you have this new kind of cognition which is an inference. In one case, first for many years it was a false inference Then you've got this true inference based on, partly based on the data, this undefinable data which can lead to a correct inference about this planet's relationship with that thing. You're perceiving the planet, you're perceiving the sun. Now you're imagining correctly that this planet is going around that thing up there. I guess I'm just not so confident that my perception is true. I mean, it's relatively true that scientists in the past conceived something else that we know not to be true. But we think that we know something today, but I'm just not so confident. Well, I'm not saying that the perceptions are true.

[56:51]

But you can perceive a reality. But the perception itself isn't true. You can perceive a hand as real and then you can perceive the reality of the hand. You can perceive it. But the perception isn't the reality. But there's a knowledge about this that's not a perception. And that knowledge bears on the reality. The perception doesn't. So it can be knowledge of these precepts, knowledge of these precepts as a reality, and it can be perception of the reality of these precepts. But perception of reality, precepts are a little harder than perception of reality of a hand. It's harder to see a real thing called going for refuge in Buddha. You watch somebody like they're walking over there, there's a Buddha statue, and they're bowing down. So you seem to be perceiving them going for refuge. But is that the reality of going for refuge?

[57:57]

It might take a while before you can see that's the reality of going for refuge. It's maybe hard for you to collect enough data to see that was a real refuge taken. Whereas with hands, you can do it more easily. You know how to figure out hands better than you know how to figure out going for refuge, I think, don't you? We have much more equipment to tell that this is a real thing than we do to have to watch whether somebody's really going for refuge when they walk over and bow to the Buddha or say, I take refuge. But what if it's yourself? You're not watching another person. I would say even for yourself, we're less equipped to get a lot of information about going for refuge the way we are equipped to tell whether this is a hand or not. I myself, look at myself and I do not have tremendous amount, extremely rapidly changing sense of whether I'm going for refuge or not.

[59:00]

But I do have lots of information about whether this is my hand or not. That's part of the way we're built. But you could develop that with refuge taking. If you studied it. Just like people do not we're not well endowed to be able to tell if we're going around the sun or the sun's going around us. We're not, we didn't grow up primarily being kind of equipped to figure that out. This is not a big deal for us. So, many people got it kind of, you know, got it wrong for a long time. But those people were most of the time getting their hand right. so when it comes to our body we've got lots more equipment than we do about planetary movements and things like that those take lots of study and the people who do study them come up with knowledge but they study a lot more than the other people who don't the shepherds sitting out there with nothing else to do for centuries and centuries and centuries they understood something about this thing

[60:15]

this universe. But being able to tell this is a real thing, it really comes naturally to little kids. But little kids do not look up at the sky and think, oh, this planet is going around that thing, or that thing's going around us. They don't do that. Either one. They can learn, either one. You can teach them, say, no, the sun, we're going around the sun, the sun's going around us. You can teach them that. They can get it. But it's not something that they really can't feel the reality of it so easily. They don't have the equipment to get the data to make a real thing, which takes a lot of data. Can I ask you something about the reality of our own life? the inner sense of life. I think about life we do, yeah. So that seems closer to what I was thinking about, knowing what you're going through. You might not be able to discern what someone else is doing, but there's some knowing about your own... Yeah, and your own self, and what's yours and what's not yours.

[61:24]

Well, that might be more ambiguous. It may be ambiguous, but they've got the equipment to really zero in on that and have a theory about it. Yeah, from early on, from two or less. But they don't have that for the son. And they don't go around saying, that's my son, leave it alone. But they do for some other stuff, a lot of stuff that you can touch with their hands and their feet and their tongue. If I enacted a ritual of taking refuge in Buddha, and then I felt some kind of, I don't know, my heartbeat slowed down or something like that, could I reduce the doubt? Could I interpret that to be... some kind of knowledge? If that happened consistently, could I interpret that as some kind of knowledge about what happened?

[62:32]

I mean, could that be... Basically, I think you're on the right track. Namely that if you study refuge-taking, if you study going for refuge in Buddha, as the data accumulates, and coherence starts to dawn, somehow you feel like, oh, that's what it is. And you didn't have it before. And that might be a perception, but it's a perception of a knowledge at that moment. And part of the way you can confirm the reality of this is by these indeterminacies. rather than by determinacies. That's what I was going to say. What about the proof? Yeah. So the proof is by indeterminacy? In some sense, the proof is by making inferences allowing it for indeterminacy.

[63:39]

Yes. So... Is it therefore possible that perpetrators of mass genocide were taking refuge in Buddha? Is it possible that they were? In reality, yes. It's not just possible. In reality, they were going for refuge in Buddha. And that's why this study is advanced, because of that kind of example. Someone's going to bring up that example, and so you did. Thank you. Now we've just taken a huge leap with that example. the content of the reality of going for refuge is indeterminate.

[64:47]

And the data by which you come up with this knowledge cannot be clearly defined. However, do you have coherence about what going for refuge is, the reality of it? Yes. If what you just said in your exchange of humility was so, what role do karma consequences play in all of this? If the people who are committing the mass genocides really work as a refuge, but the results of their action are a mass genocide, which is doing lots of harm to lots of beings, how does that square, how does that work? It works that if it's beneficial, if mass genocide is beneficial, it gives desirable results. To who?

[65:56]

To anybody. Some people do profit a lot. There's lots of Nazi generals that have lots of money, Catholic priests and stuff like this. They're selling, you know, damn, they're selling... Isn't the idea to have it benefit all beings, not just... Yeah, benefit all beings, right. It's good to make it benefit all beings. So if it's just, you can just do it for that way. If it benefits all beings... It almost seems like it's a second... There's like two different levels of understanding of this going on. There's the level that we've been talking about from Noah's question, which I thought that was following, and there's this other level now that I'm not understanding. You said, at the beginning, you said, if I would look at this precept of going for refuge in Buddha and how it applies now, okay? So then this imaginary now was brought up.

[67:02]

People are being terribly cruel to many people. So that could be a now, right? So then I would say, well, how does the precept of going for refuge in Buddha apply to that? What's the reality of that precept? How is that precept the reality when that kind of thing is going on? That's the question. In a terrible situation, what does going for refuge in Buddha mean in that situation? I guess what I thought I heard was you were responding to this question by saying that those perpetrators were to take refuge in the Buddha by perpetrating these Lutheran crimes. Maybe I misheard that. No, I heard the same thing. I was just wondering how that would, how would that be, that seems, maybe they perceive that as reality, but the ultimate effect of that is this horrific, karmic consequences for lots of beings.

[68:03]

I'm not able to line that up. If people think that the sun goes around the earth, even though the earth goes around the sun, they're still on the planet going around the sun, even though they think that something different. So when you're going around the sun on this planet, you are doing that. But if you don't think you're doing it, you're still doing it. I'm not saying somebody who's being cruel thinks that they're going for refuge in Buddha. I'm just saying they're going for refuge in Buddha, even though they're being cruel. You're still going for refuge in Buddha. You just don't get it. And if you don't get it, if you don't understand you're going for refuge in Buddha, well, guess what?

[69:04]

What's that like? That's called horror. It's horrible to not understand the reality of these precepts, or a little less than horrible. But it's basically somewhere between a little horrible and very horrible if you don't understand these precepts. That's the teaching of the Buddha. They were still... So you're proposing they were indeed in some twisted way going to refuge, but with flawed understanding. Not in a twisted way. Huh? Not in a twisted way. Well, what was the result, shall we say? They were perfectly following the Buddhas. They were perfectly taking refuge in Buddha. However... But they were perfectly doing that. That's the reality. But they had fixed ideas, like these people are enemies. and they had attachment to gain, so we have a horror show. In reality, this is, and the Buddha didn't say this historically, but his successors followed from his teaching, that in reality this is a wondrous, blooming universe everywhere.

[70:19]

But if you're attached, and all beings, all beings, cruel beings, kind beings, wise beings, stupid beings, all beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. But if you don't study yourself, then you're going to be in big trouble. You're going to have big karmic problems if you don't study your karmic consciousness. So these precepts are for us to study our karmic consciousness. But also I'm saying, yes, study your karmic consciousness and remember that these precepts are also telling you from the beginning the reality of your karmic consciousness is that your karmic consciousness is heading towards Buddha. Your karmic consciousness is going back towards Buddha. But if you don't understand your karmic consciousness, then your karmic consciousness is going to be suffering and unskillful. And the reality of that teaching I just said is the same. That's reality too. The knowledge of that is reality too.

[71:22]

But that also follows the same rules as going for refuge and everything else. It follows these teachings that some actions lead to undesirable results for everybody and other actions lead to desirable results for everybody. Some reactions are celebrating the understanding of the universe, the correct understanding, and others are going against it. But in fact, we are, all beings are moving back home to Buddha. That's the trajectory. Pardon? I want to say always changes, but like... Yeah. I can't help but, let's say, translate your indeterminate words into like limited meaning.

[72:24]

Yeah, yeah, right. That's a law. It's a law that you can't help translate. So... kind of playing with this example of genocide, which also came up in the past. You wash this out, I feel, when you talk and teach. Would you say, that's my understanding, would you say that if the perpetrators in the middle of their activity were inconceivably touched by the teachings and maybe understood, realized, sensed, felt that they were taking refuge in Buddha, that at that point they would actually repent and stop what they are doing? Of course. And we have stories like that, where people are totally nuts.

[73:31]

They hear the Dharma, and they snap out of it. And they're really sorry. And they get in trouble, and they still get some trouble for the stupid things they did. But they're perfectly happy to receive whatever comes now. There are no more arguments with what's being given to them. They're welcoming everything. They woke up. And the Buddha, you know, The Buddhas are here to teach people with various levels of understanding, but the Buddhas are also saying everybody has the potential to understand this and actually already has the wisdom and virtues of the Buddha. But also all these sentient beings who are not yet Buddha, all sentient beings fully possess, all unenlightened beings fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddhas. The unenlightened ones do. But all they've got also is karmic consciousness. And if they don't take care of their karmic consciousness, then they don't realize that they fully possess the wisdom and virtues of the Buddha.

[74:41]

They are still sentient beings. They're not enlightened yet. Yes? So if all things are taking refuge, if there's nothing that isn't taking refuge, doesn't refuge depend, our concept of refuge depend on its opposite of non-refuge? So therefore, if there is no non-refuge, then there is no refuge. So we're fooling ourselves by folding that concept. I mean, we're going to get waylaid by folding the concept of refuge. It's a non-dual situation. It's not based on non-refuge. Yes, but that's another way to say what I was saying. You've got this refuge thing here, and now you're finding out that the content of refuge is indeterminate. So if you're holding on to what refuge is, then you're not... If you're holding on to what refuge is, you're not relating to refuge as reality.

[75:43]

if you relate to going for refuge as reality, you wouldn't hold on to it. You would be wondering what it is. If you see going for refuge as reality, you don't know what it is. But if you actually do, then you're kind of wondering. You've got reality here to look at, to take care of. Go for refuge. Reality. It's right here. But you can't hold on to it. That would be showing that you don't understand. You don't really believe it's real if you hold on to it. If you believe it's real, you keep wondering what it is and you watch how it keeps surprising you. Just like this class. It's surprising you if you're open to this class being reality. Yes? What role does the bow play here? Because we're taking the precepts as bows. And obviously it's a limited understanding of the time when we're taking the vow.

[76:47]

So what role does that play? Well, I'm sorry to say, really kind of sorry to say, I'm not sorry about very many things, but I'm sorry to say it's 9 o'clock. it's one of the few things I'm sorry about and I vowed to end at 9 o'clock but I'd be happy to start with vowing at the beginning of next class if you remind me it definitely is part of the deal here okay so please I beg you study these precepts as reality and also please study yourself while you're at it And, yeah, please take care of these precepts as reality. Because they are. But don't hold on to them because you can't hold on to reality. It has indeterminate content.

[77:51]

You can't get a hold of the content. But you can still know reality. You can. It's possible. It's possible. May I?

[78:05]

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