I heard someone say, how does it all fit together? Today, I don't know if I can tell you how it all fits together, but I do feel like I should tidy up your minds a little bit, so you can manage to walk out of the room. I also want to express sincere appreciation for your opening your minds to be reorganized, or I even sometimes feel like you've allowed your minds to be opened up, and now maybe to some extent we'll close them back up again, so you can go back to your way of life.

[01:06]

Remember how you used to be? And I also want to mention that in the development of wisdom there are three phases, or three kinds of wisdom, which are taught in this sutra and other places. One is wisdom which arises from hearing, or hearing, which means hearing and discussing with the teacher, and studying is the first level of wisdom, and that's the level at which mostly what's... most people have been involved in that level of wisdom, or that level of learning these wisdom teachings during the Seshina and during this practice period. And the next level, the next kind of wisdom is wisdom that comes from reflection,

[02:11]

so an actual kind of wisdom arises from hearing the teaching correctly, and checking out your understanding, and the next level of wisdom arises from reflecting in your own mind and thinking about the teaching based on the earlier kind of wisdom. This is the wisdom which arises from reflection, or thinking, or pondering, or analysis. The third kind of wisdom comes from taking the second kind of wisdom into a state of tranquility, and then a third kind of wisdom which arises from the context of calm abiding, or calm meditation arises. So there's a variety of people here, but I think a lot of you are still at the phase of just basically trying to clearly understand the teachings of these three natures,

[03:15]

and these three non-natures, or these three characters, and these three kinds of lack of own being. And part of my tidying up is to suggest to you that I think it's okay for you to continue to study these teachings either on your own or with a teacher, but I would suggest that you don't try to meditate on these teachings without a teacher helping you. I myself will continue to, in various venues, continue to study these teachings through the rest of the summer and probably in the August session, but some of you I would suggest that what you work on if you don't actually have fairly ready access to some assistance in your studies of these wisdom teachings

[04:26]

is that in your meditation practice that you practice tranquility. But again, as I was talking to someone earlier, all of us should be practicing tranquility so that we are, as a form of being kind to ourselves and soothing to ourselves, so that we feel soothed and relaxed, because these teachings, these wisdom teachings should come to a person who is already being kind to herself, and continues to be kind to herself while she's doing these studies, otherwise you can become kind of, well, you will be irritated by them to some extent, and irritated by phenomena as usual, and so it's good to be constantly being kind to yourself while you're doing these wisdom practices.

[05:29]

So again, I'm recommending that you don't do the wisdom practices in your meditation practice unless you have guidance, but I think it's okay for you to do your, of course, calming practice, I think you have enough background to work on that, calming practices are not quite as irritating. Also, we have talked about the three natures and the three kinds of lack of own being, but we mostly have emphasized studying the other dependent character, which is the production lack of own being, or lack of own being in terms of production.

[06:32]

And the Buddha initiates the study of the three characters and the three types of lack of own being, he initiates the meditation by the meditation on the other dependent, and the meditation on the other dependent has two, has a dual purpose. The first purpose is to draw us into basic religious practice. Its first purpose is to draw us into recognizing, or I could even say re-cognizing,

[07:47]

that the experiences that we're given right now, moment by moment, are under the influence of causes and conditions. The experiences we're undergoing right now, the experience we're undergoing right now is under the influence of causes and conditions. The experiences we're undergoing now are not produced in and of themselves. That's the main point, that's the initiatory teaching to be meditated on. The things you see, the things you feel, the things you think, the things you experience, in other words,

[08:53]

are under the influence of things other than themselves. They are not produced in and of themselves. This meditation on each thing, each event, is the beginning of the meditation on the other dependent. And I said re-cognizing because actually, moment by moment, you are actually cognizing the phenomena as it freshly comes to you in its other dependent form. Before you conceptually package it in a way that appears to be produced by itself. So we have to have a teaching which countermands the appearance of things as being solid and independent. But actually you are experiencing that, so this teaching helps you re-cognize or recognize that things are other than they appear.

[10:01]

They don't appear to be really due to other things than themselves. So this teaching helps you keep remembering that about each thing you see. As you meditate in this way, you are drawn into another way of being with your experiences. Because as you realize this and meditate on this and recognizing it, you more and more see that things, again, are not responsible for themselves, that they are unstable, impermanent, and unreliable. You start to see that the things that are coming to you, you recognize that they are unreliable. This draws you into wishing to practice virtue with these things and really not wanting to relate to these things in the excessive ways that we do relate to things

[11:07]

when we see them as self-made, permanent, and independent. This teaching will embarrass us when we look at things as though they were pure and stable and reliable. We still may feel that way, but we kind of feel like something's funny about something rotten in Denmark. It's this view I have of things as being what I think they are, and they look kind of like, all kind of like, unitary and on their own. So you start to feel embarrassed about seeing things that way, even though you still do.

[12:11]

You start to gradually sense and recognize that they're not reliable. Still you take care of them now, and you're drawn into by this teaching to take care of them in more and more virtuous ways. At this level of the teaching, we are not yet getting into the profound aspects of dependent co-arising, which is the second reason for teaching this first, is that the other dependent character phenomena is the basis for the teaching of the other two characters, which when we start to study them, we start to realize more than just the impermanence of the other dependent, but also how it's the basis of the more profound aspects of reality. So, I hope that you've gotten a good start on meditating on the other dependent character of everything you experience,

[13:16]

which is also to meditate on the nature of everything that you experience of not producing itself, the lack of having the nature of self-production, that we can be mindful of that teaching, that everything you see has the nature of not producing itself. When I feel, and with your help of perhaps showing me, that you're well-suited, well-situated in this practice, this meditation on the other dependent, that we're together in this, then we can, if you excuse the expression, launch our attack on illusion, launch our attack on the imputational character, well, launch our attack on our belief in it.

[14:23]

And so we'll see throughout the rest of the spring and summer, and maybe by August, you'll be ready, we'll be ready, maybe not. I'm not in a hurry to get into this battle, I want to make sure you can really be kind to yourself before we get into this. So, that's sort of an overview, and I also wanted to say that in the Sutra where it talks about how, you know, when beings have not yet cultivated the roots of virtue and so on, do not have confidence up to, have not completed the accumulation of merit and wisdom, these are the people that this teaching is given to,

[15:26]

and then it says that when they do meditate on this teaching, then they do come to develop confidence, and they do accumulate, and complete the accumulation of merit and wisdom, and then it talks about how then they study the teachings of the imputational character, and the teachings of the thoroughly established character, and then they do become completely unattached, and then they become completely liberated. This is the way it goes, according to the Sutra, but the Sutra doesn't mention that this is a rough ride. I want to tell you again, that's why you have to keep practicing compassion through this process. There's a great deal more to talk about, of course, but I think that's enough from me today,

[16:32]

so I leave room if you have anything you want to bring up. Yes? When you say it's a rough ride, that's what I would like to address. It's not a rough ride when I'm looking at people and they give me, I open to the idea that they're not who I think they are, because it becomes very beautiful. That's not a rough ride. But, here's an example. It is a rough ride, overall. And here's an example which you may be very interested in. I went to Orphanage as a young person, and so I felt a strong urge to ask the question, and I felt this energy, and everything passed, became, you know, rising. I couldn't say not have a lot of energy, but I felt this energy.

[17:35]

And then I realized, I had to look at the situation that maybe asking the question would also bring forth the same material, and it didn't have to be me, so I thought I would practice not asking that question. And then the energy just lost out completely, and I guess even then passed in the steady of, you know, the impression that I wasn't getting anything out of it, wasn't getting anything out of it. And, so I wonder if that's part of the rough ride. Well, I realized that the questions were coming, and it all looked good, but I was more aware of the people around me, more aware of the whole situation,

[18:38]

so it was all coming back, but there was everything that wasn't getting anything, that hurt. You weren't getting anything? Yes. I wasn't getting anything, even not the situation. Well, that thought, that thought you just mentioned of, quotes, I'm not getting anything, unquote, that thought, that's another, that's a phenomena that's coming to you, okay? Now, if you look at that phenomena, quotes, I'm not getting anything out of it, unquote, if you look at that as a phenomena, and that phenomena is not producing itself, that phenomena is not reliable, that phenomena is unstable, if you see that, then you won't overvalue this statement that you're not getting anything out of it. It's a perfectly good statement, I'm not getting anything out of this, I am getting something out of it, those are perfectly good statements, those are phenomena that you're having, okay?

[19:41]

This is your experience you're having, quote, I'm not getting anything out of this. You apply the teaching to that, and then that diffuses this phenomena of its over-evaluation, or its over-valuation, and then your energy won't get blocked. It's because our mind puts too much onto things, and we get really disoriented by things, and then our energy gets blocked, because we're over-evaluating, which also includes under-evaluating things. So if you apply the teaching to, if you're studying the teaching, and then various thoughts come up about the teaching, or the study, or the practice, then remember to apply the teaching to those, and then your various opinions of how it's going will not disorient you, your energy won't get fragmented among these various things,

[20:44]

and won't get blocked by putting too much value on them, giving them too much credit, giving them too much reality. Yeah, apply it to any phenomena that's coming to you. Bring this teaching to bear, and then you'll start to recognize what the teaching says about the things, and then you'll start to recognize how impermanent, unstable they are, and you'll start to be embarrassed when you see them as permanent and stable. But be willing to confess it, because, you know, it's no problem to confess it, because that's part of what you want to do with this stuff. You want to confess. Rather than get this stuff, you want to confess that you're trying to get it. Rather than try to get something out of this, this teaching will make you want to confess that you're trying to get something out of this.

[21:46]

Usually people come to a session to get something. After hearing this teaching, you confess that you came to try to get something out of this. You still maybe would like to, but your main effort is to confess that you're trying to get something. Confessing that you're trying to get something gets your energy flowing again. Trying to get something depresses you. And depresses everybody else. It doesn't do this practice with your depression. Question inaudible

[23:03]

We have more what? Suppositions about what? Question inaudible I didn't quite follow that. To me, there's only one idea about self. Self. Question inaudible That's the essence and the attributes. We project that onto things. We impute that onto things. Yes? Question inaudible It's not reifying the self. Reifying is the self. Reifying is what we mean by self.

[24:06]

You're not reifying the self. Question inaudible Well, reifying is self-imputation. It's kind of the same thing. When you reify an object, you put a self on it. Question inaudible Oh, reify the person, you mean. Yeah, a person is not a self. So, you're Daniel, you're a person, you're a Zen student, blah, blah. But you're not a self. We can put a self on you and that's the same as reifying you. That's like over-valuing you, putting an excessive level of reality onto you, so excessive that you don't need anybody else. So, we do that to you, you do that to yourself, that's projecting self onto a person. There are people, they're just not unitary, independent people. They're other dependent people. Question inaudible

[25:09]

On top of what? On top of another dependent person? On top of what I said? Okay. Armed with the Sutra. Question inaudible Yeah, that's why you should be really kind to yourself. Soothe yourself so you can tolerate this irritating situation you just described. Question inaudible You should soothe yourself while you're trying to escape.

[26:12]

Question inaudible No, it's not saying that. I mean, it's not saying that, but that's what you're saying. Question inaudible It doesn't say in there, it doesn't say you should have different ideas. It says that... Question inaudible It doesn't say that either, it just says if you do take this teaching and apply it to your experience, like for example the experience of I should be doing something different or I should have different ideas, that's an experience you have. If you apply this teaching, if you listen to this teaching, then the experience is like I should be some different kind of person, that kind of experience. You won't take that so seriously. You'll see that that's an impermanent, unreliable comment. Okay? And you'll relate to it in a virtuous way. So this thing will come up on the screen, I should have different ideas, will come up there, you have the experience, and listen to this teaching, you'll relate to that in a virtuous way more and more.

[27:26]

Question inaudible And why do you think they laughed? Did you laugh too, by the way? You're kind of getting the joke, I think. So what are the conditions for the laughter? What is the reason for the laughter, do you imagine? Okay, I heard you say, you don't see the way of escaping the reification of the Sutra. Okay, so in other words, could I say that you think that maybe you'll continue to reify the Sutra?

[28:32]

Question inaudible Okay, seems like a linguistic barrier. And what does the Sutra say to do with that linguistic barrier? Hmm? Got a linguistic barrier called the Sutra, what does it say in the Sutra to do about that linguistic barrier? For starters. Yeah. Again, it's just what? A linguistic barrier? It's taking a linguistic barrier and applying it to a linguistic barrier.

[29:55]

And it's telling you that if you apply this linguistic barrier to your regular linguistic barriers, then you'll start to not be so excessively involved in your linguistic barriers. Pardon? Diminishing return? No, no, not diminishing return. You're... You're... Right. Until you're ready to actually start examining the barrier. Because you've lightened your involvement with the barrier, including the barrier of the teaching which you're applying to the phenomena. Because you're going to do the same thing with the teaching

[30:56]

that you're doing with the phenomena you're applying the teaching to. However, the skill of the Buddha is to give you teachings which you're going to use the way you use everything else, but those teachings will start to change the way you use the teachings and the way you use the teachings on things and the way you relate to things that the teaching is bearing to. That's the wisdom practice, will change your view of things. You're looking at them in a certain way, but they're linguistic barriers because the linguistic barrier is based on an imposition of self on them. That's the way you look at them already and you're going to do that with everything, but this teaching is saying, remember something about this, and then you'll start to relate to these things differently. And it's not a matter that you're going to immediately escape the reification of phenomena, that's not going to happen right away, but you're going to start to become less concerned and less hopeful that these reified things are going to help you

[31:59]

because you're going to be more and more convinced that they're impermanent because they depend on things other than themselves, they're unreliable. And so your involvement with them will change. You're not going to expect that these things are going to give you happiness, and that until you actually enter into the profound aspects of this, the reification process is still going to be effective, but this teaching is going to protect you and draw you into another way of relating to them, which is not so excessive. And it will be called virtuous, and you're going to want it and you're going to like it, and you're going to want to do more of it, and you're going to want to turn away from this old way of being so involved in these reified objects. But the reification may not change that much, but you have this teaching that goes with every reification,

[33:01]

that says the reification is that it appears to be self-produced, the teaching is it's not self-produced. So you've got Buddha in your ear, one ear, and devil in the other ear. So things are starting to start changing. Yes? I noticed the form is an excellent source for these little subtleties, where we designate, and just kind of sit in and do a little bit of stuff. I can see when just a slight sort of misdoing of something, sort of a push can do to me, and usually it's left as a mission, sort of embarrassment or something on there, or I immediately sort of reify it. And I've noticed there's a lot, all of the form, when there's any heaving from it, it really brings up this whole process,

[34:06]

or even just like talking right now, there's sort of a definite palpitation of the beating of the heart, and it's a reification again. And I've noticed like in laughing, crying, different emotions that do come up, they all have the same healing, and when you're laughing, there's this sort of coarsening of the body, there's kind of overlaps, where the coarsening of the same sort of feelings, so how is it that we can sort of call laughing this, when it's got the same sort of feelings that come up when you're crying? It may not be as many muscles, but we put the same label on there, or we put some label on it, and it's been interesting to sort of see that this designation is a really important part of realizing the designation

[35:12]

that we put on there, that it doesn't have to be put on there. Except by convention. Yeah, the over-evaluation, you know, the reification we put on objects is reversed in our practice by forms, by rituals. These rituals and symbols of our practice which we enact are the main way we work on reversing this reification, with the teaching, but the teaching comes together with the forms. So we don't just have classes, we also have little things like sashins and bodies to work with, and we put bodies in certain forms, and we say that the being illuminated by the Buddhism ancestors is to examine this sitting posture.

[36:12]

So it gives you a nice form to work with, so that you can enter into the reversal of this thing, and all this stuff comes up, all this information. You mentioned, I think just before we went, when you were talking to Professor Matt, about the... It's got to do with the actual material that we do this, it comes up, sort of... I mean, you can't really test yourself, you have to be tested by other bodies of self and other... I mean, if we didn't have this stuff, that we could work with, then we wouldn't be making any headway. Well, we could make a little headway, just by having classes and stuff, but the forms... I mean, I don't mean just the form here in sashin, but the form... Of daily life. Yeah, right. Yes?

[37:16]

Yes? It seems to you that the process of making concepts involves grasping? Yes. Maybe so, but to me it doesn't seem like making... To me, the making of concepts, to me, doesn't involve grasping. To me, the making of concepts is dependent co-arising, which is not grasping. The actual process of creation is not grasping. To me, that's how I see it. However, once concepts are made, they can be grasped. And the grasping also dependently co-arises,

[38:20]

but you don't grasp in making the grasping. The grasping dependently co-arises, and the thing grasped dependently co-arises. And the view that the thing that is grasped doesn't... The view that something doesn't dependently co-arise, that also dependently co-arises. But what you're dreaming of, the dream of something being graspable, is the dream that the thing is independent. And with that dream of the independence of the thing, then there can be grasping of it. But the making of all this is not by grasping, it's rather that grasping is made. And because grasping is made, by things other than itself, grasping is empty. And because grasping is empty, we don't have to worry about it. We can be free of it. Anything is possible because grasping is empty. Grasping is not made by grasping,

[39:21]

but grasping is made. That's what I would say. But it looks like grasping is... It looks like grasping is involved in making concepts because it looks like everything is grasping is involved. Because that's the way things look through grasping. Which is the same as that's the way things look when they're reified. It looks like grasping makes them. Grasping makes them or because of the way they are you can grasp them. It's kind of two sides of the same illusion. And we do have to have illusion. We've got to have it. So... But anyway, I would say it that way. Yes? Yes?

[40:23]

First of all, listen to it. You need a little... somebody talking in your ear saying to you, this experience is under the influence of things other than itself and it is not produced in and of itself. Hear that teaching enough times that you can hear it for everything you see, everything you taste, everything you touch, everything you think, everything you feel, everything you do. That's how you apply it. Just listen to it. Same thing. Because what you think, what we think about things, the way we think is that they're independent, they make themselves and you're to blame for being you. That's what we think. Unless you do something good,

[41:30]

then I'm responsible for you. You need to be that thing that's safe and that's good that's really, really important. You need to be that thing. Sometimes it's good to be that thing that's more effective to be together. Don't be... Don't touch when you can't get to touch something. It's important to be louder because you can hear it. Can you say it louder, Pam? Don't... She said something about don't touch. She thought it was effective when she sees things to say don't touch. So my question is is the practice of not moving a different practice

[42:33]

from the teachings that are always the variation practice? Actually I had a conversation I remember Timo's question I had a conversation with someone else where the subtle relationship between tranquility the gesture of the mind which is conducive to tranquility and the gesture of the mind which is conducive to penetrating vision that they sometimes are subtly are subtly related. So when something happens and someone used the expression when something happens and it's allowed and then something happens and it's allowed and then something happens and it's allowed and then something happens and it's allowed you just allow each thing you just allow In that way, you're not moving, so different things happen, but my mind doesn't really

[43:44]

move from one to the other, because I allow this, [...] so the mind is really unmoving, it's always just allowing. And that means you're not moving among the objects, the objects are changing in front of you, either the object has some continuity and it's changing, or you have different objects, but you don't move among them, you relate to each one the same, and you train your attention to relate to the same, in this allowing, relaxed way, you allow them, you don't like comment, you don't value or devalue, you just allow them, that will calm you. Now that's not all that different from meditating on the other dependent, because the other dependent, something happens and you think something about it, but you kind of allow it, but the difference is, instead of just allowing it, you're actually looking at it

[44:50]

and noticing how it appears, and saying, you're looking at the object now, and it's not that you're emphasizing it's different from other objects, but you're actually saying something about the object, you're actually examining the object, and you're looking at it and you're saying, this thing, as far as you want to go, this thing arises in dependence on things other than itself and is not produced in and of itself, those two things, you say those things about it to yourself. This comment could, however, be calming, because this comment will allow you, kind of allows the thing to be that way, you're not going to be so, you know, wrought up about it. This teaching does some, so some people are finding this way of talking to themselves about what they're seeing, which is an insight meditation, as calming. Other people, if they

[45:53]

try to do what they've usually heard as calming, it doesn't work as well as this instruction, so this instruction could be somewhat calming, but for some other people, this instruction, if they were already calm, would be fine, but if they weren't calm, and they did this instruction, they might not get calm. So if you're already calm, and you did this meditation on the other dependent, you might become more calm. Or if you weren't calm, you might become more calm, but also if you were calm, you might become somewhat agitated, because you're talking to yourself now. When you say the teaching, you see what you do with it?

[46:58]

You're looking for that thing which is more, and that might be helpful to some people, but some people might not like that, that might agitate them. So to look for how the thing is produced by conditions, how it's under the influence of things other than itself, to look for that is probably not a good idea, because you're just going to find some story. It's too complex to see, actually, in that way. So you just remind yourself of this teaching. Again, it says, when they hear this teaching, and then it talks about the transformation they go through, when Bodhisattvas hear this teaching, they turn away from wrongdoing and turn toward virtue. When they hear this teaching, they realize things are impermanent and unreliable. When they hear this teaching, they give up being excessively involved in these phenomena.

[48:15]

It doesn't say when they see the other dependent nature, because again, you can't exactly see it, because although you are seeing it, it's mixed with the imputational at this stage of the practice. Later in the practice, they can be disentangled. You can see them as different. But at this point anyway, you're still kind of confusing these different natures, because these are the superimposition of conceptual clinging. You hear the teaching, and you apply the teaching to the experiences that are still mixed with reification. But you start changing even before you can see things differently. But you kind of do see them differently, because you hear the teaching. Just like, you know, again, you're looking at someone and someone's whispering in your ear, you know, she's not just what you think she is. It's kind of like

[49:16]

you see differently. As someone's saying, close your eyes and open them again, or respect this person, respect this person, respect this person, respect this person. They look like they're being disrespectful to you, but respect them. That's kind of what this teaching is saying, respect everything. But that's not all that different from allow everything. Allow this person is like respect this person, so it's a little different than just allowing. Even though when you hear this teaching, you do start allowing things more, because you're not so fixed on the appearance that they make themselves. When you see things that are making themselves, you have to work pretty hard to allow them, because you want to make some comment to this thing that made itself. And you feel various emotions, because the

[50:21]

thing looks like it makes itself, you feel all these emotions, so you want to like push them away or grab them. You've got to bring this teaching to bear, and the pushing and grabbing will gradually calm down. Although, until we address the profound aspects, we'll always be vulnerable to this pushing and grabbing and confusion between the two. Yes? Yes. Okay. Yes. Yes. Now, excuse me. So, the imputation is not terrorist. The word terrorist is a word, so

[51:31]

the imputation uses words, but the imputation is that which is imputed to this phenomena, so that you can say terrorist. So, this thing which we finally can say Bin Laden about, before you can say Bin Laden onto him, you have to override or over-cover his other dependent nature and put this unitary thing on it. Then you can put the word Osama on it. The imputation is not the word. The imputation uses the word to make you say it. Say it again. Say it again. Yes. Yes.

[52:45]

Before you'd be able to do that, you probably already had some compassion, but your compassion will be much greater and much more skillful when you understand, when you actually could understand the other dependent character of someone, then your compassion is really released and your skill is really released. But you have to feel some compassion, I think, before you'd even be able to get to the meditative development where you could see the thoroughly established character of the thing. But you can be quite compassionate up to that point and then you're fully compassionate. Does that make sense? Gee, I'm going to go over this side of the room for a little while. Jeff? When grasping occurs, a person believes a concept, right? When you believe a concept,

[53:58]

you can't stop the grasping. Same thing. The grasping will be automatic as soon as you believe a thing. As soon as you believe it, you grasp it. So you can't really stop the grasping once you believe. So what we want to do is we want to give up the belief. That's what the meditation can do. My question was, who is believing? Who? It's a consciousness that believes. It's a consciousness that sees things appearing a certain way and then the concept comes up and says, yes, this is it. This really is blue or this really is bad. Not even this really is, just this is blue, this is bad. That's the agreement and then there's clinging. And then, based on that, you can put the word blue on it and then it appears all by itself in the world and everybody else can say, yeah.

[55:00]

It's not really the person that believes, it's a person like you or Daniel, you're a person, you have consciousness. It's not the person, your fingernails don't believe it, but you know, Jeff isn't just Jeff's consciousness, also Jeff's teeth, but it's really the consciousness that goes with this person that believes this. The consciousness in your mind, you say, yeah, uh-huh. Your brain doesn't say that, but your brain creates the impression of the thing being out there. And your mind agrees, that's what agrees, is that kind of consciousness. It's other dependent too, definitely. Question from audience

[56:15]

Yeah, and that will be one of the things that will condition further grasping. So the grasping that happens is not making itself happen, it's partly happening under the influence of previous grasping. Question from audience So you just brought in an entity that's making a choice, and that's an example of an imputation, that you brought in an entity that's making a choice. The other way to describe it is simply that the appearance of an essence is put on an experience, and because of that appearance there can be grasping. There's not an entity that's running the show here, but rather there's the imagination of an entity, and once there's imagination of an entity,

[57:20]

then there's grasping of the entity. But there's not an entity that's imagining the entity. But there's the imagination of an entity, and you just voiced it. So meditating on the other dependent warms you up to an entity-less possibility, or the possibility of entity-lessness, which means opening up ... Yes, Hector, a lot of questions. Hector? Question from audience

[58:52]

Question from audience Question from audience Question from audience I missed, I couldn't quite hear what you said. Something about bringing fruit to something? Question from audience Question from audience

[60:52]

It sounds real complicated, but it might work. I don't exactly know what kind of language is going to help you or somebody else get a sense that what you're experiencing is produced by things other than itself, and lead you to have confidence that whatever you're looking at is impermanent, unstable, and not worthy of your confidence. But what you just said might be conducive to that. Question from audience

[62:05]

I didn't understand your question. You said something about art, but ... Question from audience Question from audience Question from audience

[63:35]

I try to hear the teaching. The teaching is that this is not happening by its own power. That there isn't this guy over there talking to me who's making himself say these things to me. That there's a mysterious element in this conversation. Excuse me, I can't hear you. That mysterious element, what? That mysterious element exists in every phenomenal act. That's what the teaching is saying. This ungraspable, dependently co-arising nature of things is with all impermanent phenomena.

[64:45]

At this stage of the teaching, it will later maybe be even related to the imputation on the other dependent, but at this stage of the teaching we're just talking about impermanent phenomena like activity or rocks and people. So that we apply that to this, like right now you're talking to me, for me to do that while I'm listening to you, that's it. Did you have a question? Yes, do it with physical pain, definitely. Well, first of all, be kind with yourself with the physical pain. First of all, be kind with yourself with the physical pain. Try to relax with the physical pain, first of all. Be patient with the physical pain, first of all. Take care of it in the best, most compassionate way you can. Soothe yourself with the physical pain.

[65:47]

And when you're well settled in a compassionate way of being with the pain, then you can also now look at the pain and examine its nature. But first of all, starting with not the teaching of its conceptual grasping nature or its ultimate nature, but with its other dependent nature. This should be founded on taking kind care of the pain in the first place. You're already being kind with the pain, now you bring this penetrating teaching, this teaching to help you penetrate to the nature of the pain. Which is, this pain is under the influence of things other than itself and is not produced in and of itself. And that will help you relate to the pain in a more virtuous way. You're already somewhat virtuous with it by practicing compassion. But to even deepen the skillfulness and the virtue of your compassion,

[66:52]

you can try to be compassionate with something, but if you don't bring this teaching to it, your compassion is somewhat undermined by your grasping of how it appears. Your energy is blocked by your grasping. So this teaching starts to loosen up your grasping somewhat, or it loosens up your involvement in your grasping somewhat. So you become more and more skillful in applying compassion to, for example, your pain or someone else's pain. That could mean what? That could mean, you mean changing your posture? Yeah, definitely. But you might have already changed your posture before you even started to practice wisdom with this pain. Part of the kindness might have been that you already changed your posture before you did this meditation. So some people are sitting cross-legged and they're in pain and they get up from the pain and start walking and feel less pain

[67:55]

and then they start practicing insight. Or they're trying to practice insight in the pain, but they're not being kind enough to themselves so that they can't apply the teaching of the sutra because they're screaming so much in their head. But if they're a little kinder with their pain in their knee by changing the posture or something, suddenly they hear the teaching of the sutra and they have some insight. But sometimes the kind thing to do is that you continue to sit. You're being very nice to yourself, you're soothing yourself under the circumstances and you calm down and then the teaching comes, you listen to it and you apply it and you have deeper insight into the pain. Yes, Delfina? You saw some spiders, translucent spiders on the wall?

[69:01]

Yes. I'd say congratulations. Do you want anything more than that? Do you want to get something? Yes? Did you have your hand raised? Yes. Did you say you can't see the other dependent character of that consciousness?

[70:36]

Yes. Yes. So, you can see an idea of a consistent thing happening? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Okay, so that's a phenomena that you can actually see, kind of like an image or an idea that something consistent is happening? Okay, so that's a phenomena. And then you apply, at this level of the meditation, if you feel ready to do it, you apply the teaching that this appearance, that there's some consistency, that this phenomena has another dependent character. So that you don't get excessively involved in this idea that there's some consistency. So you can relate virtuously to this idea that there's some consistency. There could be another idea, like there's not some consistency.

[71:41]

But whatever it is, in terms of these impermanent phenomena, you're applying this teaching to it, which it does apply to all those things. And then it will change, it will draw you into a virtuous mode of being with, for example, ideas like there's some consistency. Or ideas like there's not some consistency. That's this meditation. Okay? Go over to this side now. Yes? Well, same as skillful, but it also means not being excessively involved. Excessively involved means like too involved or not enough involved. It's like caring, it's not caring too much or too little.

[72:45]

It's like caring the right amount. It's like doing the appropriate thing. It's like being skillful. It's like setting the ground for further development. That's what I mean by virtue. Yes? I was just wondering about this world where there's thousands and thousands of ideas, and thousands of thoughts. And my idea is to just make it a thought, and everything, and nothing, and the way I can do it, is fine. And I've always seen that, that when you're exploring the truth, that's something that you can't work with, you can't work with such a complex world. Yes? Is there a form before you put an identity on it? Well, yes, there is. But it doesn't have an identity.

[73:45]

Well, it's kind of like fog in a sense of, from the point of view of a person who walks around mostly seeing things that are identified, then if you're ushered into a realm where things didn't have identities, you might feel like, yikes, nothing has an identity here. So it might seem like a fog, relative to like where everything's got their label. So in the ordinary world, we don't just look at things in the ordinary world, we zap a little packaging onto everything. And then we can designate it. But before we put this identity on things, they don't have it. That's their emptiness. It's that their identity and their entity-ness is nothing more than the word we put on them. But we put a little thing on them to put the word on, but that's really something we put on there so that we can label them. In the world of dependent co-arising, things are happening in this beautiful way,

[74:51]

but you can't like, you know, you are not it and it's actually you kind of thing. Something's happening, but you don't know what it is. But you are impacted by it. And the impact of it, you start to behave more virtuously. You let this, the teaching of this, as you let the teaching come in, you also let the actual other dependent side of things come into your life. And you start to feel the impact. You start to open to the impermanence and the instability of the world of creation. And from the point of view of a gross eye, like we usually have, which sees things in little chunks, unrelated to each other, these eyes which make everybody separate and deny interdependence, that gross vision we have, that gross vision looks at the world of interdependence, it looks kind of like, I don't know what. You can't really say because as soon as I say what it is,

[75:53]

you come back to the gross realm where I identify how it looks. So you might say, well, is it like fog? Well, I don't know. Let's go see. And as soon as you say it's fog, you just got a hold of it, so you lost it. I told this story many times. I'm just going to tell a bunch of stories now, okay? Here's one. I told it last night. I'll tell it differently now. In the beginning, there was the unborn. The unidentified and the unknown. And it was like a river. But then the river got covered by a road. And the road covered everything. But because the road was originally a river, it was always hungry. Once there was a girl, and she was very beautiful. She was so beautiful that people stopped worshiping the goddess Aphrodite.

[76:55]

And Aphrodite didn't like that. So Aphrodite sent her son, Love, Eros, to bump this girl off. Her name was Psyche. So anyway, Psyche's dad didn't like her either because nobody wanted to date her. Because she was so beautiful. Most mortals were. Although when they saw her, they stopped worshiping the goddess of love. They didn't dare approach her. So he couldn't marry her off. So he just put her on a cliff to get rid of her. So Aphrodite sent her son to kill her with his bow and arrow. But when he saw her, of course, he couldn't do it. She was too beautiful. So Love united with Psyche.

[77:58]

But Love told Psyche, Eros told Psyche, oh excuse me, he united with her in the dark. He came to her in the night and somehow managed to have a nice relationship with her. She was very happy and he was very happy. But he said, one drawback of our relationship is you don't get to see who I am. You won't know who I am. And if you ever put the light on me, you'll lose me. Anyway, some forces induced her to be frightened of him and think that he might be a monster and she should find out who he was. So the idea was that she was going to take an oil lamp in the night and bring it up to see what he looked like and have a dagger and if he was a monster, to kill him. So she brought the candle, the light to him and the dagger and she saw what he looked like and he was very beautiful

[79:02]

and didn't look like a monster at all. So she knew him. But she dripped a little oil onto his leg and burned him and he woke up and he said, I told you, if you find out who I am, you'll lose me. And so he flew off. So he is symbolizing the other dependent nature of our mind. And when the other dependent nature of our mind is joined with our mind, this is happiness, this is happiness. But, if we want to know it, we lose it. It seems like a fog or a darkness from the ordinary point of view. But when united with it, it is happiness. But when we find out about it, we lose it.

[80:06]

And then, all she goes through to get reunited with him is the story of our spiritual practice of getting reunited with the other dependent nature of things. Okay? Timo? Changing the other dependent phenomena? I didn't say anything about that. Oh, I see. The goal is to have, to be a more virtuous person, you mean? Yeah, okay. ...

[81:07]

... [...] That's right. That's already going on. Dependent phenomena are working on dependent phenomena. ... There are good and bad dependent phenomena. It's just that they don't have a self. But there are good, there are bad things and good things. There is suffering and there is happiness. However, suffering, the dependently co-arisen phenomena of suffering doesn't have a self, but it does have a conventional existence and it hurts. Cruelty does exist, conventionally, and it really hurts.

[82:16]

But it doesn't have a self. And if you understand it doesn't have a self, then you can liberate yourself and other people from cruelty. ... [...] Okay, fine. It's a very conventional way to say you want to liberate somebody from suffering. That's a conventional thing. Fine. Yeah. In the conventional world we want to liberate beings from suffering. ... [...] Yeah, that's all there is to it. Nothing more to it than that. Just that. ... No, not more beautiful. No, no, no. That's not right. That's not right.

[83:18]

That's not right. But it is the case that in the conventional world some people want to be happy and want to help other people to be happy and that's all there is to it. There's nothing more to it than that. And that's the teaching of emptiness. There's nothing more than the conventional world. That's all that exists. ... No, you can't drive them. ... You can't drive them. But the meditation does realize happiness. But it's not by driving things. It's by understanding. By understanding we realize happiness in the conventional world. And the happiness of the conventional world is dependent on or based on

[84:21]

the happiness of the other dependent nature of happiness, which is not in the conventional world. So in the realm of other dependents happiness doesn't exist or not exist. Happiness exists in a middle way. And we want to realize that happiness in the conventional world. Buddhas want that. And they understand happiness in the conventional world and they understand unhappiness in the conventional world. And out of the wish to help beings become happy and free of suffering, Buddhas give teachings. Pardon? Because there's not so much why. It's more like, what is a Buddha? A Buddha is simply nothing more than... Exactly, but you missed one point there. You missed a little point there. Buddha is seeing everything as empty

[85:21]

with compassion. That's what Buddha is. That's what a Buddha is. Compassion is dependent? Yes. That's what a Buddha is. A Buddha is a dependent phenomena that understands emptiness, that realizes emptiness and has the essence of compassion. That's what a Buddha is. So they have no choice. That's their job. They just have to like care about people and want them to be happy because if you take that part away, you don't have a Buddha. And if you put that part in, you do have a Buddha. So you have understanding of emptiness, put compassion in there, you got a Buddha. So automatically, all they want to do is like help other people become free. Oh, sentient beings. Sentient beings do not understand emptiness. And they have some compassion,

[86:23]

but they don't understand emptiness. When you take... When you have... Are there phenomena that understand like emptiness but prefer other phenomena like compassion and being free of suffering? Are there phenomena that understand emptiness and prefer compassion? No. They often prefer, for example, ignorance. No. No. Because in order to understand emptiness, you have to become somewhat compassionate. The realization of emptiness arises from compassion in the first place. Buddhas are born... Timo is thinking about something else right now. I just wonder, why does phenomena of compassion have some virtue,

[87:25]

have some essence to it? It makes us realize its essence, yet while others see... Well, you could make a theory that compassion dependently co-arises and part of the conditions for it dependently co-arising is the interdependence of things. Because we're interdependent, because we're interdependent living beings, and planets are interdependent too, but when you have a living being that's interdependent and arises through the kindness of everything else, it naturally cares about all other beings and wants them to be happy. So that's maybe the reason why we feel love and compassion. Pardon? Well, I don't know, but... I don't know whether the historians come in, but I'm just saying once there's compassion in the world, then there is, you know,

[88:25]

the wish to alleviate suffering, and it grows until there's a wish to alleviate suffering for others, and then there is the wish to realize wisdom. So the realization of emptiness grows out of compassion. So when the realization of emptiness, full realization happens, it happens in the context of our having compassion as its root. So they're together, and that's a Buddha. There can be some understanding, there can be some wisdom without compassion, I think, but the Buddha's wisdom grows out of compassion, and compassion I think grows out of our actual relationship. That's why they say we have Buddha nature, because our Buddha nature is how we're all interrelated and how we really do care about each other and help each other, and how we are already in harmony. That's the Sangha aspect of the Buddha. So this gives rise to wisdom, this actuality, and the wisdom

[89:26]

of the dependent core arising about understanding dependent core arising, and emptiness, and so on. That's the story for you today. Holly? Given the lack of own being in terms of production, lack of characterlessness, lack of own being in terms of character, yes. Yes? You want me to say something about

[90:29]

right intention? Well, I guess what comes to my mind is that if you currently feel a right intention, like you feel the intention to not be harmful, not be greedy, and you feel the intention to give up your attachment to impermanent things, if you feel that intention I would say, I would say, hallelujah. And if you feel that intention or don't feel that intention, I would say that if you would meditate on this teaching, that teaching will induce you into wanting those kinds of things. Right intention will arise out of this meditation. But of course, you'd have to have some right intention in order to even consider listening

[91:30]

to this teaching. So if you're willing to listen to this teaching and apply it to your life, moment by moment, you already have quite a bit of right intention. But if you didn't have too much, because that's what this teaching is for, people who don't have enough, you would get more. You'll get more right intention if you meditate on the other dependent character. And you start seeing how impermanent things are. When you start to see how impermanent things are, you start to develop right intention. When you see how impermanent you are, you stop wanting to harm people. You stop trying to be possessive of things when you see how impermanent they are. You start to want to not be so attached to things when you see how impermanent they are. So this teaching will deeply, deeply encourage right intention. And it sets the beginning of developing right view or right understanding. It's the foundation

[92:31]

of right understanding and it drives right intention, right livelihood, right...

[92:36]

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