I think most of you have heard that the Shakyamuni Buddha realized the Four Noble Truths. But he also taught in terms of he also spoke in terms of two truths. And The two truths are sometimes called conventional truth or conventionalities and ultimate meanings. And as I've mentioned a number of times, the great teacher Nagarjuna said that without

[01:05]

being grounded in conventionalities, the ultimate meaning should not be taught. Or another way to say it would be, without understanding the significance of conventionalities, the significance of the ultimate should not be taught. And without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not attained. So, in other words, if we understand the significance of ultimate truth, liberation is attained.

[02:09]

But we shouldn't try to understand the significance of the ultimate until we're grounded in the conventionalities of the world. So, conventionalities are basically that which is realized by a dualistic awareness. There are seats up in front here. And ultimate truth is that which is realized by awareness in which dualities have vanished.

[03:36]

Everything that one is aware of as existing out there, everything that one is validly and correctly aware of as existing out there on its own is a conventionality. And this is saying that the conventionalities are not your attitude, but those things which are realized by a dualistic attitude. And ultimate truth is not just the right attitude,

[05:08]

a non-dual perspective. It is the truth which is realized by that non-dual perspective. So, presenting ultimate and ultimate truth and conventional truth this way says that they're objects of knowledge. which is different from what sometimes people think of, is that there are different perspectives on the world, different ways of looking at the same world. There are different ways of looking at the one and the same world.

[06:12]

This teaching is not saying that there are two worlds. of just one world. And there are different ways of looking at it, but the different ways of looking at it are not the two truths. The two truths are what is realized by looking at the world in these different ways. And everything in the world can be looked at in these two ways, so everything in the world could be realized as a conventionality or as an ultimate truth. in the Heart Sutra, which we chant here every morning, almost every morning.

[07:29]

Maybe there's some mornings when we don't chant it, but almost every morning we chant it. In English it says that sometimes, some English translations say, in emptiness, no form, which means no colors or shapes, but it also means no smells, no tastes, no tangibles, no sounds, no feelings, no mental formations, no perceptions, no consciousness. So in the context of emptiness or given emptiness, There are no colors and so on.

[08:32]

There are no feelings. Emptiness is the ultimate truth. Emptiness is that every phenomena is empty. Every phenomena is anything but itself. Every phenomena lacks inherent existence. So, in the context of ultimate truth, we say there's no eye, no ears, no nose, and so on. What that means is you can't find anything in the context of emptiness.

[09:43]

And when you can't find anything, you're liberated from the usual way you find things, which is that they're out there existing by themselves. You can't find anything like that. And that's the way things really are. The way things really are is that you can't find them. But also the way things really are, or the way things not really are, but the way things really do appear to be, is out there on their own. Separate from you, dualistically living, separate from you, the aware one, and separate from each other. There was one of our ancestors, when he was young, when he was a child, I think, I don't know how old he was, maybe, I don't know if he was four or eight or six, but he was listening to the Heart Sutra one time, and when it got to the place where it says, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue,

[11:43]

he said, I think he took a hold of his nose and he said, but I have eyes, ears, nose and so on, why does the Heart Sutra say that there aren't any? And so, some of you have chanted the Heart Sutra where it says in emptiness or in the context of emptiness or given emptiness there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue. What happened to you when you got to that part? This is not an indictment, this question. I think a lot of people maybe just go, I don't understand that, which is fine, but the little boy says, I have a nose.

[12:58]

The little girl says, I have eyes. To some extent, that means they're willing to face the conventional truth. So... We start by facing the conventional truth. And I've been talking to people who are here for this week on this retreat about how to ground yourself, how to become intimate with conventionalities. how to become intimate with these things that are being realized by dualistic consciousness. And the basic way to become intimate with them is to practice compassion.

[14:17]

Compassion means or it implies that we are aware of our suffering and we may even be aware of other people's suffering and that we would like the suffering to come to an end. It could include that you'd like the suffering to be reduced somewhat, but it also reaches the point of wanting to be utterly ended. And it also includes the possibility that one would wish to work, make efforts to end the suffering of oneself and others.

[15:29]

And whether, I guess whether or not we understand it, In order for this compassion to be really strong and really deep, there has to be patience with the suffering. There has to be loving-kindness with suffering beings. it might be possible to not have much patience and still feel compassion. In other words, to feel some pain and not be very patient with it, but still wish it to end.

[16:47]

But the deep compassion is a compassion that arises out of and develops with the ability to sit in the middle of our suffering. The compassion is more stable if we can become intimate with our suffering, be willing to and be able to feel like we can We can sit in this. We can stand in this. So patience is part of it, but also loving-kindness is part of it. There has to be a great amount of positive feeling and energy to help us settle into the suffering

[18:00]

which accompanies the world which arises by means of dualistic awareness. when we are grounded through patience and all kinds of love and compassion in the conventional world the world of self and other the world of birth and death the world of anxiety then

[19:16]

the revelation of Ultimate Truth is appropriate. Not just the teaching of it, but actually the revelation of it, the realization of it by non-dual awareness. Now, when I say this, the thought crosses my mind, would it be possible for someone to have non-dual awareness, see the ultimate truth, without being grounded in the consequences of dualistic awareness? Would that be possible? And... I think maybe it would.

[20:22]

But it would be, I think also, if I imagine such a person, I think it would be, it wouldn't be liberating because they wouldn't be grounded in the place where they need to be liberated, and it might even separate them further from the work they need to do to make that vision relevant and helpful. In other words, in a sense, they would be dreaming of being out of the world But they wouldn't be out of the world. They would just have a special kind of awareness which worldly people need to develop in order to be free of the world. But they aren't yet completely of the world. And their breakthrough to nondual awareness might inhibit them doing the grounding work that is necessary.

[22:09]

The grounding work of generosity careful awareness of all activity, all dualistic activity that one feels is arising through your life. Patience, enthusiasm, and contemplation of phenomena in a way that makes us ready to realize non-dual awareness. So, I feel that the Ultimate Truth has been spoken of and defined, but has not been taught.

[23:59]

So, there's no problem. Conventional truth, I don't know if that's been taught, but if it hasn't, we could have more teaching about that. And you could consider whether you feel willing to become grounded in it. whether you feel willing to be intimate with it. And if you're willing,

[25:18]

where I was going to say, stand up. But maybe that's rude. Maybe it's better to say, if you're not willing, stand up. Consequences of dualistic thinking are, well, dualistic thinking doesn't always have the consequence of realizing

[26:28]

a conventional truth, but sometimes it does. And when dualistic consciousness is successful and there are things out there that we feel are separate from ourselves, then the consequences of that realization is suffering. we need to be grounded in the suffering, which is the consequence of our ignorance, in order to appropriately study the truth which liberates us. And I mentioned some of those things I mentioned because sometimes people start studying emptiness too early.

[27:33]

And some of you may feel like you don't have that problem, that you're not studying emptiness at all. So, when you recite the Heart Sutra, you don't like, you just get through that part of the sutra where he's talking about emptiness without getting too involved. And then, you know, service is over and breakfast and so on. So you're not really that bothered by emptiness. So you're also not, you're not that excited about it. And you have no, you have no worry about being liberated. It seems to you to be sort of somebody else's problem. But some people, perfectly good meditators, do kind of get really excited about emptiness and get into it ahead of schedule, so to speak. So I just wanted to start by making sure that nobody gets into emptiness too early.

[28:39]

Maybe that's not a problem here, but I just want to make sure that nobody does. And the way to make sure nobody does is have everybody get into the world. as much as possible. By as much I mean not to indulge in the world, but to become intimate with it. Not to wallow in the world, but to settle with it just as it appears to be. And feel what that's like. And Meet that. Meet what it's like with compassion and friendliness and patience and nonviolence and balance and energy and work to develop a non-dual awareness of it.

[29:54]

And once you've done all these other practices and you're really settled, the non-dual awareness I spoke of this morning, which I've mentioned many times, the non-dual awareness is like when there's an awareness of something, like a sound or an idea, Non-dual awareness doesn't grasp that sound or grasp that idea because it doesn't see, it doesn't understand something out there. There is just the phenomena. There's nobody grasping it. And the phenomenon is not out there leaving out somebody.

[31:06]

There's just as much somebody as there ever was, there's just as much the sound as there ever was, it's just that they're not two different things anymore. And therefore there's no way for one side to grasp the other. So in the herd, there's just a herd. That's it. And in the scene, there's just a scene. And in the face, there's just a face. Yes. And this kind of, when this awareness is developed in the context of the world of duality, the world which dualistic mind manifests, there is liberation in that world.

[32:27]

But if one does that kind of practice without being settled, then such practices are, well, they could be kind of, I don't know, abstract or theoretical or a distraction from more basic work that you just skipped over. So I don't... My intuition will be operating this week to guide my speech and my activity so that I don't talk too much about the ultimate truth unless I sense that there is a real settling into the world.

[33:40]

among this community here. Which for me, in some sense, is being patient with any sense of pain that might arise from feeling that there's some duality between talking about the world of suffering and the world of freedom from suffering. Or any pain I may feel from some dualistic sense between the two truths. And therefore that just talking about one of them would be missing out on something. But these two truths are locked together.

[34:58]

Nothing just has one of these truths. Everything has two of them. They're locked together and they're locked together intimately. They're very closely And they are completely exclusive of each other. They don't overlap. And they're very intimate. And everything has both these truths. That's my A little salve I take so I won't rush. Did you have your hand raised, John?

[36:05]

I'm studying. How does one know when one's grounded enough to take on the concept of emptiness? How does one know when one's ready to take on the concept of emptiness and the The consequences of taking on the concept? Well, my first feeling is that you said, how would one know when one is ready to take on this kind of practice? And I guess...

[37:09]

My first response is, I guess I would never take it on. Ready or not, I wouldn't take it on. I would almost be more in a position of having it forced upon me. Pardon? It's like grace. It's like grace. It's like grace. Yes.

[38:22]

It's like grace. It's a gift. It's a gift from Buddha. Yes? Yes. Could you speak up, please? Could it be a phenomenon like mourning a lost loved one or when, say, a tiger comes out in a pack and gets scared? I mean, that's pretty natural. That's the truth, but that knows... no responses come up in us. And we say that crowning yourself is to beg for truth, but to say that is just what happens. Yeah, it's kind of like, yeah, this is happening, and

[39:35]

And this seems to be, there is actually awareness of this loved one, or the loss of this loved one, or this wild animal. There is awareness of that. And for this consciousness, it seems to be true, truly existing. And it exists over there, independent of me. That's the way it exists. It exists dualistically. Okay? And I'm uncomfortable about this. Okay? And then from there you go on to become more and more settled with what such a world is, how such a world is for you.

[40:37]

And if you've been exposed to the Buddhist teaching, you might seek, you might go and ask for encouragement from scriptures and teachers to continue studying this world of self and other. And try to find out what's the most effective and thorough way to study such a world Because the more intimate you are with how phenomena are appearing to you dualistically, the more intimate you are with how phenomena are appearing to a non-dual mind. The more ready you are to receive the gift of a different perspective, and a different perspective will bring a different truth.

[41:50]

So we have a certain perspective on the world that gives us a truth which we feel uncomfortable with. The other perspective is a gift and the truth that comes with that other perspective is also a gift. But also, the world we have now that comes to us under the auspices of our dualistic perspective, that world is also a gift. It's called the gift of suffering. We don't engineer the world of suffering all by ourselves. It's just that we contribute the dualistic attitude which manifests it conventionally. So we make a contribution, but we also receive a gift. And if we can accept the consequences of this interaction and settle with it, we can gradually develop a different attitude, a different perspective.

[43:07]

And that too will be given to us. given to us given to the kind of person that we are and the kind of person we are is that we are really who we are and nothing else and so we have to be fully who we are not because that's gonna uh what do you call it that's gonna like make the truth happen, it's just that that person is the person who is going to receive the gift. Yes? I see that the way to end suffering would be like going to a transition, going to a burial, and then being okay with dying.

[44:09]

So I see that being born, dying in the continuation of life, like a reincarnation, I don't feel possibly a little bit dull. I feel alive. Well, that could be, that's one way to look at it, because when you develop a a new awareness, a non-dual awareness, there is a kind of death involved there. Because, for example, there's no more Fred and Reb. There's no more Fred and the sound, Fred and the taste. So, in a sense, you could say Fred dies. The Fred who is separate from the sound, in a sense, that Fred dies. And then when that Fred who's separate from the sound dies or is forgotten or dropped, then when the next thing that happens, the next thing that comes like a sound or something, then we get a new Fred.

[45:26]

But this Fred is a Fred that's born of the next event. It's not the a priori Fred. That one's dead. So there is a kind of death that happens when you practice compassion fully. And when you take on in a sense a kind of compassion which is that you train yourself so that what you're being compassionate with is all that there is. So the pain you feel, there's just a pain, there's not you and your pain. You train yourself that in the pain there's just a pain. In the sound there's just a sound. And it will get forgotten for a while.

[46:32]

But you have to settle with this one first before you can effectively let go of it by training yourself at letting things be just the thing rather than the thing in you. Otherwise, you're just kind of spacing out and forgetting that you're staying home, holding on to yourself and suffering, but overlooking it. Yes? Susan? On the scale of one to ten, if you put a conjunction out there and you put an alternate group on the other end of the turn, someone like me who just definitely knows all the time and you're doing so well in this space and has only got this one count, compared to someone like yourself, Is it a graduate, is it an epiphany, or is it a graduate process, and how far are you back? What's the one to ten?

[47:35]

One being conventional and ten being healthy. I see. Let me see if I can... So, one is the conventional and ten is the ultimate? So, I am one and ten. Because I'm not a Buddha. Buddhas are one and ten simultaneously. I switch back and forth. I'm over here at number one at 99% of the time. What percent of the time are you at? When I'm at 10, I'm 100% at 10. 100%. When you're at 10, there's not some other time. The thing about other times, that's one. So when I'm at 1, then I could set percentages.

[48:50]

OK. Flip over to 1. OK. And from the point of view of 1, what percent am I at 10? Yeah. 78% of the time. That's from the point of view of 1. which is delusion. So if you argue with me and say, you're not 78%, you know, you're only like about 3%. You know, I'm not going to argue with you because that's just a deluded impression. But I do think about 70%. Well, not maybe deluded. By definition, your calculations are the calculation from the dualistic perspective. Therefore, basically ignorant.

[49:52]

So you could also say 99%. It would just be an ignorant calculation. Buddhist perspective would be that you are always completely possessing Buddha's wisdom and virtues. But Buddha could also see that you think at a given point in time that you live in, and you think such and such about your practice. And whatever you think about your practice, that is what you think. And Buddha can see you think that, but Buddha doesn't think that what you think is correct. But Buddhists can see that you think that. And therefore, at this time anyway, regardless of how well you think you're doing, you are not realizing your Buddhahood.

[50:55]

Because you're in the calculations. I think, I don't know, I think Suchitra and then Renan. Is it possible to be too grounded? No, it's not possible to be too grounded, but it's possible to indulge. It's possible to sink down into. So the near enemy of compassion is depression. So depression isn't compassion. Depression is an illness. Compassion is health. Compassion is what will help you live in the world in the best possible way and will set the ground to be liberated through your compassion. But if you get depressed, that's not too grounded.

[51:58]

That's like... That's like going past the point of getting grounded and leaning into your situation, sticking your head into your suffering. The antidote to depression? What? It's not too aware, it's less aware. It's less aware of your suffering. When you're depressed, you're less aware of your suffering than when you're not depressed. Your vitality is being crushed by the way you're looking at your suffering. Compassion is a way to energetically face your suffering. Compassion includes patience and enthusiasm. So when you don't have enthusiasm, you're less aware. Matter of fact, some people that are very depressed, when they start to recover, they start to become a little bit more aware of how bad they feel and they often commit suicide when they're recovering.

[53:07]

As they get more energy, they see how terrible it is. And then they say, then they have the energy to do something and they kill themselves. Compassion has energy to face, there's an energetic facing of the suffering, but also there's a gentleness there too, and a nonviolence, and a kindness. By being kind and loving, we can face our suffering more, more fully. We can't face our suffering entirely unless we're kind to ourselves. We all have suffering. If we're mean to ourselves, too, we're not going to face our suffering. But if we're really nice to ourselves, we can dare to open to it. It's not that you're too grounded, it's that you're not grounded enough, and you're not grounded enough because you're veering off into depression or cruelty or harshness or laziness or some kind of thing like that in the context of your life.

[54:26]

That's not too much. It's unbalanced. ... Same thing. Rene? On the perspective of the jittite suffering, one realizes that one of the consequences that's realized from within that truth is temporality. And if I follow what you're saying about the truth of liberation, there's no overlapping, there's no temporality. Can this thing be said about causality, that causality is a realization, a consequence of the truth of conventional wisdom, but that when we talk about such things as interdependence, it can't be a causal realization.

[55:28]

It has to be a connected truth that is atemporal and causal. Right. In ultimate truth, ultimate truth refutes causation. Ultimate truth is interdependent. Everything depends on that thing, but there's no cause and effect. Cause and effect doesn't make sense in interdependence. There's no mental formation. There's no consciousness. There aren't any of these things anymore. Independent things. There is everybody working together in ultimate truth. Pardon? Everybody is in a mutualism? Everybody is to mutualism? In the sense that, is that just a breakdown of the language to continue to talk about

[56:31]

Everybody seems to apply a cold trinity. They think they're applying locus to bodies, but there are really no subjects or objects in that sense. Is that a breakdown of a lineage? Is that what it refers to? I'm not sure what it is that's being interconnected. It can't be saying that it's a body that's interconnected. Phenomena are interconnected. Phenomena are interconnected. And there can be any kind of phenomena you ever had that you still haven't. They're just interdependent phenomena. Which means that none of them have a core by which they create themselves. But they also aren't created by another because there isn't a cause of them because they also what they depend on are things that don't cause them. Causes imply If you're caused by something, it implies you depend on it.

[57:33]

But if something caused you and wasn't dependent on you, but it was actually a cause separate from you, then that wouldn't be able to cause you because it would be existing by itself. It couldn't do anything to you because it would be self-existent. So causation and ultimate truth break down, but interdependence is ultimate truth. But we usually speak of ultimate truth as lack of inherent existence rather than interdependence, but interdependence is lack of inherent existence. Interdependence is compassion. Interdependence is ultimate truth, OK? But interdependence is not compassion. Interdependence united with compassion is Buddha.

[58:43]

So we want to bring compassion in union with the realization of interdependence. That's Buddha. That's what we really are. We're not just interdependent. We're also compassionate because there's two truths. One truth is we're interdependent. We're free. The other truth is we're separate. We're miserable. And Buddhas are inseparable from the miserable ones. And the miserable ones are inseparable from Buddha, but they don't get it. So therefore there's compassion. And we need to realize that because of interdependence there's compassion. And compassion needs to realize interdependence. Because it's our nature to be interdependent and to be compassionate.

[59:51]

But it's also easy for us to access ignorance of interdependence and ignorance of ultimate truth. Therefore, we don't understand that it's our nature to be Buddha. But even if we lose track of that, we can still practice compassion because we're suffering. And by getting good at practicing compassion, we'll be ready for accepting the teaching of emptiness. We'll be ready for accepting the truth of ultimate meaning. So you see, here we are. Except for the people that left the room, we've got it, you know, we've got all we need, right?

[61:02]

We've got our bodies and our minds and our problems. We're all set. And all I have to do is practice patience and loving-kindness and enthusiasm and concentration and giving and precepts. Yes? Is there a difference between alternate truth and ? Say it again. Is there a difference between alternate truth and ? Is there a difference? Yes, there's still a difference. There's still a difference. that you can discriminate between the two of them. There's slightly different ways of talking about, excuse me, not slightly different ways of talking. They are two different qualities, or two different, let me call it, they're two different,

[62:18]

ways that the world can appear. But when you're intimate with the conventional truth, you are ready to have revelation of the ultimate truth. And revelation of the ultimate truth will come and is there in intimacy with the conventional truth. It's right there. It's just a flicker away. For a non-Buddha, it's a flicker away. But if you're not intimate with conventional truth, then it's more than a flicker away in the sense that you're more than a flicker away from the conventional truth. But if you're not the flicker away from the conventional truth, then you're only a flicker away from the ultimate truth. But when ultimate truth appears to you, you won't see the conventional truth anymore.

[63:24]

Because they don't overlap. Except for a Buddha. Fully realized Buddha. Then Buddha can see both simultaneously. We switch back and forth. even though you do have actually see the ultimate truth and experience liberation there's some difference between you and a Buddha who can see both simultaneously. So the two are they're locked together You never find one without the other. They're intimate, but they are what we call, they are isolates.

[64:29]

They're isolated from each other, at least by the fact that you can talk about them differently. There's a subtle separation that is perfect. there's at least a subtle separation and it is a complete separation. They're completely separate and they're locked together. So when you're with one, you're not with the other. But if you're not with one, if you're not with the conventional, you block your access to the ultimate. which means if you're not present, if you're not paying attention, if you're not noticing what's going on, then you have no access to the ultimate teaching. That's why it says the ultimate should not be taught to someone who is not settled with the conventional.

[65:31]

You shouldn't teach it to them. It's a distraction. They've got other work to do. Let them do their work. Don't distract them with this fancy teaching. Okay? Yes? It's not seeing duality. It is seeing things out there, separate from yourself, existing on our own. It is brought to you by virtue of dualistic consciousness. Seeing duality When you see duality, that means you see, you understand it and you feel separate from things. That's not a thing that you see out there. That's just an awareness you have of the nature of your mind, that there seems to be subject-object separation. That's something you understand, but that's not something you see as a phenomenon that actually exists there.

[66:36]

Now you could turn, perhaps, and look at that sense of separation and make that into a thing which you think is real as, you know, a table. But usually we don't do that. Usually we have, well, more of a kind of sense or an inference of dualistic thinking. Okay? But dualistic thinking is the vehicle that is what we contribute to creating actual, you know, external realities, things we think are real and aren't us. So it's not a duality that's a truth for us, but dualistic thinking is what makes that possible. Does that make sense? I think it's going to take me a while to grasp. I don't know that I can say I understand. Yes?

[67:39]

Yeah? Mm-hmm. Is there a teaching of Siddharthi Kurukshetra about what? Well, you said gradual awakening. I didn't. You said something about settling into what's happening. I said, yes. Now, the Buddha said that the way you are right now, you fully possess the wisdom and virtues of all the Buddhas right now. But you may not get that because of some attachments you have. If you would settle into

[68:58]

the way you feel now and the way you see the world now and how that is, you would be ready to receive a different perspective. And through that different perspective, see a different truth. When you see that different truth, then if you look at that from the point of view of some idea of past, which you don't have anymore, but if you were looking at it from the conventional perspective of a life history, then you would see that you suddenly switched from the way you've been thinking for some number of years to a new way of seeing the world. But before you switched, you were seeing the world the same way you saw it all along. not the slightest bit different. You really did think that things were out there, not you, all the way along.

[70:01]

And all the practices you did, you thought there was you and the practices. That's the way you did it all the way along. And suddenly, suddenly, from the point of view of watching history, you see suddenly there was a difference. And then suddenly she saw things in a new way. And then what she saw was that this whole history thing is just totally made up by dualistic consciousness and so on. But that would look sudden because you can see that you couldn't partly switch. I mean, you would think that things were out there. If you think they're out there a little, that's enough. The ultimate truth is nothing's out there, not even the slightest bit out there. There's nothing separate from us at all. That's not the way it is. Things aren't that way, that they're living by themselves out there. Everything is always connected to us.

[71:03]

That's the way it always is. And that's Buddha's wisdom. And we're always that way. We are always just like that. That's our wisdom. Our wisdom is that we are not separate from anything. That's Buddha's wisdom. But to realize that is like you do or you don't. So that's sudden. Can you flicker? You can flicker too, yeah. But when you flicker, you don't flicker gradually. You're on one side or the other. But can you flicker when you come back? Yes, you can come back. But hopefully you don't stay when you come back as long as you did the first time, like several eons. So when you change your perspective, it's instant from the point of view of time. But from the point of view of being, instant or long doesn't mean anything anymore.

[72:05]

Long times and short times are non-dual. Is there anybody that hasn't asked a question that wants to ask a question? No? Okay, you get a second question. What truth is realized in Zazen? Ultimate truth is realized in Zazen. Yes. What you just said reminded me of something that I read. Once the heart of awakening is open, and anything we do to reverse habit energy, there's

[73:09]

awakened activity, just as, and we don't have to go back to opening the heart and awakening again, just as when we're looking at a cloudy sky to see the sky. Once we see the sky, we know there's sky. This is vis-a-vis flickering? Sort of? Yeah. So, once you Once you're liberated, and this is your question too, Pim, if you had some liberation, if you had a realization of ultimate truth, then when you come into a conversation with somebody and you say, I, wouldn't you be back in convention? Yes, you would. But you would no longer believe what you're seeing the way you did before. But it would still be a truth for you it would still be a truth, it's just that you'd know that it was a falsity at the same time.

[74:26]

You'd understand it was a falsity and it's only because of adopting dualistic perspective that it appears that way. But you would not be simultaneously seeing the non-existence of this thing outside. A Buddha can do both simultaneously. So once you have some realization and you come back and start using the words I and so on, you are using conventionality, and that's false in a sense, but you could use them. And the Buddha did that. As a matter of fact, most of what the Buddha taught, given the time he lived in history, he mostly taught conventional truth. He said I and you. He taught in these ways that he also taught these things don't exist as such. Okay? And by the way, I, you know, I said in Zazen the ultimate truth is realized, but also in Zazen Buddha is realized and Buddha realized, Buddha understands both truths simultaneously and has no preference between the two.

[75:45]

That is also realized in Zazen. So, the thing about zazen is what's realized there, again, cannot be something that somebody's aware of. As it says in Self-fulfilling Samadhi, there's no, like, awareness of what's going on in zazen, no dualistic awareness of the world of zazen. There's no zazen out there that I'm doing, that I'm practicing. So nobody knows what that world of zazen is because nobody's looking at it. But everybody's moving in it all the time. So please jump in, but when you do, don't forget

[76:48]

Or before you do, don't forget how you feel now. Jump from here to there. Don't forget about here and go over there. First be here and then jump from here. But jump is something that you do not by your own effort, but by your thoroughness at being here. It's not by your own power that you jump, but by your willingness to be where you are, that the jumping happens. You don't do the jumping, but the jumping happens because you're willing to be where you are here. It's the Buddha that makes the jump. And Buddha doesn't do things by her own power. But Buddha can't make the jump if you don't stand where you are.

[77:53]

So that's the job we have to do, always first. So my intuition says that you're kind of settled.

[78:14]

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