What's suffering then? It's a false conception. It's the experience due to false conception. If you make this conception, you get suffering. Because there's this disturbance created between the notion of what that would be like and what actually happens, which is another event which is included in the five and is not outside them. And this disturbance, this frustration, this conflict, this vibration is imagined to be something again other than what's happening. And again, you feel like it's suffering. That's what suffering feels like. If there weren't this imagination and belief in some way to unite these into one little package, if it wasn't the belief that they existed, that they existed separately, and also they could exist as a unity, if there weren't all these false concepts, they wouldn't be suffering. But when there is these false concepts, then there's suffering. That's a relative statement.

[01:05]

But it happens to be a true relevance statement. So as an example of a relative statement, that's reality. In this case, again, the relative and the real can't be separated. Once you have five skandhas and you've got suffering, well, why don't you just call it what it is? That's what's happening. Why not say so? So the Buddha said so. It's a relative statement. But it's true. It's as true as you can be under the circumstances. As a matter of fact, there's not another kind of truth you can have under a different set of circumstances. Well, there's another kind of truth in a different set of circumstances, but you can't have truth outside of circumstances. There's not a truth floating around somewhere where there's nothing to... nothing happening. And if there is, let's hear about it. Yes? Well, usually the best thing to do is consider where you're at.

[02:21]

Then, if you feel really confident that you are meditating on emptiness and nothing can disturb you from that meditation, then the best thing to do is to do what they ask and enter into the smidgen. Take a hold of it, attach to the thing that the objects that they are and harmonize with them. But if you're not so confident, if you think you could be distracted and take things as real, then do the calmness thing and excuse yourself. which you say you are whether you're confident that you will continue your bodhisattva vault through whatever the situation is or not if you say I'm not going to then I'm sorry I can't recommend you go in such a situation but if you can continue to say I've got to save all sentient beings even in a situation where people are saying isn't it cute you can say it's very cute

[04:00]

I was going with this girl once, this woman once, and I met her mother, and her mother said to me, Doctor, you just love your goats. That woman met me too early. Now I could say yes, perhaps. At the time I had to say, I won't be marrying this lady. That's going to be my mother-in-law. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. I'm not saying what I did was totally harmless, but I just couldn't plunge into that world.

[05:08]

Because who knows what would have happened next? She might have asked me if I loved her. What? These were baby goats, too. If they were big, you know, raunchy goats, I could have said yes. But when you take these little baby goats and somebody says to you, aren't you just love them? That's what you call dangerous water. Isn't it? I met this girl last night in the hospital. She was with her mother who was getting some medicine.

[06:11]

It really wasn't her mother. She was adopted from Korea. She was half white and half Korean. But she loved me mostly Korean and mostly Oriental. And... ...to say yes. And we can't say yes today. Tomorrow you can say, now, what did I miss? Why was I confused? And you concentrate yourself again, remember what you're doing, and then you can say yes. Yes, it's cute. If I had had a couple of days warning that you were going to ask me that, I might have been able to work myself into a state of confidence so I could have answered the question in the positive. But just all of a sudden, wandering around in days in the park, somebody says, you're not ready to face it. Sorry. So being boring and sort of out of it for a while will give you a chance to concentrate yourself and be ready to meet it head-on, non-dually.

[07:16]

That's another time. Eventually that's what we want to be able to do, but if you're not ready, you're not ready. Good night. You die for me. That's when it's first, because you can't do it at that moment. Maybe you can't, in that case, maybe you can't love the goat. So maybe you can cry.

[08:20]

Maybe you can't love the goat and see through that. Maybe if you love the goat you'll get caught. But in a case like that, that won't work. So maybe you can cry, maybe you can see through your tears. see through grief. Some people can see through grief, some people can see through pleasure. It depends on the type of person it is. People who are susceptible to acuteness and love, sometimes they're not fooled by grief. It's the same kind of person. It's the other way. In the meantime, the person there may wonder what you're crying about. They just asked you to tell you what it goes. Why are you crying? But in fact, although they don't understand what happened, you know, why are you crying? At the same time, they don't get cut out of your life. They know you're there. And if your mother wants you to say, oh, come on, play Pinochle with me, or isn't this a big TV show?

[09:29]

And you can't say yes, not taking care of your mother or you. And you can cry and take care of yourself. Or whatever, you know, anyway. If you don't have time, you have to do something like that. So in that case, if I knew that this is the last chance for this person and with me, and I couldn't penetrate that thing, I could switch to something I could penetrate. Most of the time, I feel like you don't have to. And in fact, switching the other side may seem quite dangerous too, but you have to decide whether you're safer in that realm. Very likely you will be safer. On the other hand, it might be just bad. But there's not just two. Many possible responses.

[10:30]

And if you know you don't have any time, and you have to make it work right now, you just keep searching until you find one that you won't get fooled by. Plunge into that one and break through that one. And as I say, the person will be quite confused about what's going on, but there will be no feeling of being cut off and near compassion. They won't know what's happened, but they feel like someone's with them, that's there, that's all. That's what's important, somebody's there. When a person's dying, all they want to do is just have somebody there, that's there, that's all. If they're not there, they're not there. If they're there, they want them there. than most anybody can expect to you, and that's really what they want. And in fact, when we know we don't have no chance with somebody, we can rise to this kind of effort. If we stay right with it and keep, you know, we can do it. People do it.

[11:32]

Okay, so we did last time we talked about mindfulness of the body and so the Bodhisattva does the practice just the same way as the as the Arhat Yogi or the small vehicle Yogi and these practices are You should know how to do them all, but some are particularly suited for you. For example, if you tend to be a kind of a, sort of a babbler, confused person, it's good to do for everybody, it's good for everybody to do mindfulness on breathing, but mindfulness of breathing is pretty good, very good for people that are characterized by delusion. Mindfulness of, rotting corpses and various parts of your body are good for people that have predominated by passion in the form of raga, lust.

[12:51]

And mindfulness of posture is also good for people that are characterized by delusion. Mindfulness of breathing is good for people who are angry and people who are lusty and people who are confused. So it depends on what, if you're going to be taking one of these mindfulnesses of the body, you might possibly take one that was particularly good for you. And that would be from the point of view of hinayana, or taking care of yourself. Bodhisattva would study all these equally. And in each case, the more you study these mindfulnesses of the body practices, the more sure you are the body's just a coincidence of a bunch of illusory causes and conditions and it really doesn't exist. So you hit your toe and you know it doesn't exist. It's empty. You see all these things as empty. You try to see these various forms as empty.

[13:55]

Okay? And the next one is mindfulness of feeling. And so, has anybody not... I don't know how I should say this, but anyway... How many people have read about this in something, mindfulness of feeling somewhere? Okay. So, mindfulness of feeling is... Maybe it's not necessary to read it here. Anyway, it's basically knowing which kind of feelings you have. And there's three kinds. Positive, negative, and neither. Or you can't tell which. And they can be a bodily kind or a mental kind. And you just basically keep track of which they are. And if you think about them, you can develop a real distaste for them.

[15:09]

even for the positive ones. For example, in the commentary in the Sutro, it says, it wants to see, if you just meditate on these feelings, just knowing, just keeping track of which kinds they are, you will be relieved of the idea of pleasure. But then you can also do some special things and say stuff like this. Having attained to the application of mindfulness of the body, the meditator thinks further, why do sentient beings greedily cling to this body? Now this clinging occurs because feelings, Vedana, of these beings are pleasurable. Why is this the case? From contact between the external six senses, excuse me, the internal six senses,

[16:13]

and the six sense fields, the six objects, there arises six kinds of consciousness, which are produced in three sorts, painful, pleasureful, pleasant and unpleasant, and neither pleasant or unpleasant. All beings desire feelings of pleasure and converse through dislike, suffering, or pain. While feeling is neither, while feeling is neither, suffering No, not suffering is not grasped or rejected. Thus it is said, be they evil men or monks, devas, worldly, crawling creatures, in all the ten directions, in all the five destinies, all beings desire pleasure and dislike suffering. But being confused, perverted, and deluded, they do not know that nirvana is the place of eternal peace. are aware of these pleasurable feelings and know them as they really are, lacking any pleasure and possessing only suffering.

[17:19]

Why? Pleasure is called true pleasure when it is without perverted views. Since all worldly pleasurable feelings spring from perverted views, they consequently have no truth. Furthermore, these pleasant feelings Though one may wish to experience pleasure, in fact, only pain results. Thus we have, if a man goes out and, well, basically it says, even respected elders or wealthy men degrade themselves when associated with persons of low estate for the purposes of sex. In this way, all manner of great suffering is due to greedy thoughts bent on pleasure. Thus we see that feelings of pleasure produce all sorts of manner of suffering. And in the Abdhradharma Kosha, Vasubana discusses how, of course, painful feelings are painful and how pleasurable feelings are painful and how neutral feelings are painful.

[18:28]

And where does he discuss this? I can't remember. But I'll... I know a place where it's reprinted and I'll try to find it and put it on the reserve if you want to read about how he reasons out. Now this is an important point here to raise and that is he reasons out how you can see that all kinds of feeling, positive, pleasant, unpleasant, and neutral feelings are really suffering. Now, if you don't think about his way, if you think about the way he reasons about it, and you think about it, and you think about it, and you think about it, pretty soon you think about it that way. Or at least you really can think about it that way very easily. And if you do think about it that way, you don't any longer think that they're, even the pleasurable ones you don't longer see that way. As you're thinking about it that way, that's the way you're thinking.

[19:31]

And you are relieved of that point of view, and you will see how you feel. If you like that way, then you just keep thinking that way. This is the Theravada or Hinayana way to look at them, okay? If you look at them that way, your mind will be calm and you will correct that view, namely that there's such a thing as pleasurable feelings which you might want and therefore all these disturbances, okay? Once that's happened, you're ready to look at it from the Mayana point of view, namely Not so much that they're unpleasureful feelings, because actually they're all suffering, but actually there's no feelings at all. In other words, you start looking at feelings as empty. You look at form as empty, now look at feelings as empty, consider them as empty. If you watch them, you will again see that they also arise from causes and conditions, which are illusory.

[20:36]

and which in turn are based on further and concurrent and the same illusory views of pleasure, of permanence, of purity. You will see that feelings actually don't come from anywhere. He said, where does the pain come from? You try to find out where the pain comes from. Try to find out where it comes from. It doesn't come from any place. Where does it go? If it doesn't come from any place and it doesn't go any place, how can it be born? Now I say this to you and you may say, so what? What are you talking about? But if you ask yourself that again and again, you'll notice that actually you do think it's born. You know? It's like I say, look at this philosophical statement, look at this philosophical statement, you can see that doesn't make any sense. This particular view doesn't make any sense. And you say, so what? Little do you suspect that you hold that view.

[21:39]

Namely, you actually do think, whether you realize it or not, if you experience a pleasurable feeling or unpleasant feeling or neither, you think it is born. You do. So all this talk about birth and death and stuff, you say, well, what's that got to do with me? But actually, you think that way. Now, if you think about it further, Where does it come from? If you keep thinking about where does it come from, where does it go, you will not be able to find a place it comes from. No one has yet been able to find such a place. And you won't be able to find out where it goes because there isn't such a place. Yes? What? It does? That's right. So these causes... That's what I'm saying. The causes that give rise to the feeling and give rise to the body, they themselves are illusory. The causes don't even meet the criteria of a cause.

[22:42]

Because how can you get a hold of the causes? Causes should be something that you can get a hold of. Here's a cause, here's a cause. Get these all these causes together. You have to have all of them. And then they all come together and you have a feeling or you have a form. But what are these causes? How you can't even get a hold of them? Because what do they do? They're due to all the other causes. You can't get a hold of them They're all illusory. They're all made up. They're all empty. And in fact, none of the causes will ever meet any of the criterion you set of a cause. Pick a criterion for a cause. Pick a characteristic of a cause. Give me anything you want. Where will it come from? It'll come from other causes. You won't be able to get hold of a characteristic of a cause, much less a whole bunch of characteristics of a cause by which you have a cause. Now take all these causes which you can't get a hold of and put them together and what do you get? Feeling. But where is those causes coming from? Same problem. Yes? There's no problem. That's what you'll find out if you think this way again and again and get this into your system.

[23:47]

There won't be any problem. ... Okay, so that's where the cause is, that's what the pain is. The pain is nothing but those. Is the pain anything but those causes? Now, look at each one of those causes. Are any of those causes anything other than a bunch of causes? That's all we're talking about. That's all I ask you to do.

[24:48]

That's all the sutras asking you to do is to look at that. Look at how that pain is nothing other than all those causes, and how each one of those causes is nothing other than a whole bunch of other causes. And you'll soon see that you never get a pain aside from the causes, and none of the causes exist aside from the causes, and you won't get a hold of anything. And you'll learn that you can have your life and you can stub your toe. And where does the cause come from? Where does the feeling come from? It doesn't come from these illusory causes and conditions. But forget about causes and conditions. Just maybe for you that's not so good. You should maybe think of where does the cause come from? I mean, where does the pain come from? That's what he said. He didn't talk about causes and conditions. He said, where does it come from? The pain, particularly good, I'm going to try that out on. Where does it come from? What does hurt come from? Does it matter where it's coming from? It doesn't matter where it comes from.

[25:50]

Where does it come from? It doesn't matter, but where does it come from? You say, well, that's what I said to you. You say, what difference does it make where it comes from? What does it matter? I'm not going to say it does matter, because to say it does matter means it is coming from somewhere. It doesn't matter that it doesn't come from somewhere or that it does. It's up to you to say it matters. It doesn't really matter. But if you think anything matters, okay, I'm not telling you it matters because I can't prove it does. Because how can I prove it matters if I can't even say where it comes from and know that it exists? I'm not into proving that all this stuff really matters. If you think it matters, if you have any problems, I'm telling you a way to be free of it. And if you know anybody else that has any problems, I'm telling you a way that they can be free of it. Just think about this. Think about where your suffering comes from. And you won't be able to find it. Where does the fall come from?

[26:52]

Where does it go? Where does the winter come from? Where does it go? This is what these people say when the fall changes into the winter. They say that. and they wrote it down because they got enlightened when they said that. Or they got enlightened when they said that. Why did they say that? That was the best way they could talk about the mystery of it all. So I'm not, I'm just saying, if you think this, if you think there's any problem in terms of suffering, pleasureful feelings, painful feelings, if you have any attachments in this area, if you care about whether you have this feeling or that feeling, And this disturbs your mind at all. Just ask yourself these questions. Just examine these issues. And you find out there is no feelings. They don't exist. Because they're not born. But actually, if it hurts, then you say, what difference does it make if it hurts?

[27:54]

But does it hurt? If it's not born, does it hurt? You say, yes, it does hurt. But how can you say it hurts if it didn't come up in the first place? If you say it hurts you, you think it was born. And you don't think it's born. It turns out your mind works in a certain way. Maybe yours doesn't. But somebody's mind around here works in such a way that if something's born, they think it came from somewhere. They can't imagine something born from nowhere and when it dies, it doesn't go anywhere. They can't think that way. Now, not everybody's that way. Some people can think that way. They can imagine something born without coming from someplace or going someplace. And if you're one of those people, we have other messages for you. But a lot of people anyway, if they think something is there, they think it was born. I say, well, some people think it was always there. But if it was always there, then he wouldn't have made a difference when he stubbed his toe. He would have been screaming all the way down the hill. He would have stubbed his toe and kept walking.

[28:55]

But in fact, he was tromping down the hill, all enlightened, going to visit these guys to perfect his enlightenment, right? And then it whammo. He hit his toe, but... He got this unexpected little thrill. He got to realize the body wasn't there and the feelings don't come from anywhere and don't go anywhere. They're not born. He had pain and yet it wasn't born. It doesn't deny that people scream and holler and blood flows. It doesn't deny that at all. But the person who had it said, where does it come from? And he was a very... whatever about it and he had what we call an abrupt realization and the expression of that abrupt realization was where does it come from and when you have in your daily life when you drink your coffee or when you you know grab the doorknob you say where does it come from if you do say where it comes from you're enacting his enlightenment which is your enlightenment

[30:02]

He said that not only because he was enlightened, but that is enlightened, to ask that question, that's the practice of enlightenment, which is to enact the unborn nature of all things. Ask that question is a way to realize unborn nature of saints and unborn nature of Buddha. So you do that practice, you say, do you do that? Hey, where did this come from? Where did that come from? Where did that come from? Do you do that? If you do that, you'll see, you'll never figure out where it comes from. And this is not born. But the fact that this is not born, also it doesn't die. And it doesn't mean that because things are unborn and undied, please watch this very carefully, it does not deny this experience. It just shows you the true nature of it. The true nature of this is that it's unborn and doesn't die. It's impermanent and birthless. It's impermanent, empty, and has no marks.

[31:09]

But that does not mean it doesn't exist. Because non-existence is a mark. Like existence is a mark. It doesn't exist, it does not exist. It's marked that it doesn't have a mark. And it's not born, and it doesn't die. That doesn't say You don't mark it by saying, I'm not doing this. That's a mark, too. So there's no denial. Or if there is denial, denial is unborn, too. So I'm just saying, if he says, so what, or you say, so what, you're so what. I asked that question in the beginning. So what? Well, the so what is, you already think this way. These things... The reason why they don't strike you is because you're not aware that they're striking right at where you already think. If you do them, you'll find they're actually revolutionized the way you think.

[32:13]

They'll restructure your basic assumptions. And so what? Well, then it really will be so what. Because you won't think that way anymore. And if you don't think that way anymore, you will enter the first you enter the door called, if you do this practice I'm talking about, you enter the door called Anupatika Dharma Liberation. You enter the door of liberation, which is called Dharma's Don't Arise. One of the doors to liberation. And liberation, once again, means that you have mastered this practice and yet you don't realize the fruit of a stream in it. In other words, you're a big bodhisattva. But you're going to have to do this until you really catch on to how to do it, until you really get a feeling for it, until you actually don't feel things arising, until you actually know that feelings don't come up.

[33:24]

So I don't know what to do now about this stuff. There's two more to go. And as I said, as I've been saying now for a few weeks, please send me a note. You don't have to sign it. And tell me that you wanted something else. Because I feel like the next two, we haven't done the next two of the 37. And I sort of think it might be good to do at least four of the 37. But that's just my idea. Actually, I'd like to do 37 of the 37. I don't know. That's what I said, you see. What may happen is nobody will send me a note, and then someday everybody will be gone. It's everybody simultaneously say, I can't go back there and study this stuff anymore because I'm not getting anything out of the course.

[34:32]

We're making no progress. I haven't learned a thing. And I think I'll go learn Chinese or something. But to avoid the embarrassment of me coming here and being all by myself some night and having to do these practices. But actually, I'm enjoying very much doing these practices and trying to see how they're done and... And actually, I do them to try to see that they're part of practicing Zazen. I keep putting them in that test to see if they fit into my Zazen practice. Not adding anything. If I feel like I'm adding anything or doing something in addition to just sitting, then I don't know how to do these. But maybe the next time...

[35:33]

Whether I get any notes or not, I'll talk a little bit about how I feel Dogen Zenji wants us to do these, okay, as part of Zazan.

[35:43]

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