That's just normal. But then you receive the next teaching, which says any idea you have of what that was actually are lacking in it, are absent. That's the third characteristic of that. the ultimate meaning of events, the ultimate way events are, the ultimate way it forms and feelings and perceptions and mental formations and consciousness. In other words, any experience, that's the ultimate way it is. That's the characteristic that all things have called emptiness, or suchness, or thoroughly established character, or selflessness. That's the purifying way that all things are. And everything you see has this purifying aspect. If you can see this aspect, it will purify you of all hindrance to perfect wisdom.

[01:05]

And so perfect wisdom looks at this aspect. When looking at this aspect, we have perfect wisdom. There's other kinds of wisdom which look at other things. Like there's some wisdom in just looking at and just meditating on how the imaginary things are imaginary. There's some wisdom in that. Just meditating on interdependence is wisdom too. But it's not the most profound. But again, although it's not the most profound, it is, I won't say excellent, because excellent, it's not excellent, it's just really wonderful to meditate on the interdependent nature of all your experience. Really wonderful. and tremendous transformations can happen, and you can develop greatly and experience considerable relief of suffering by meditating on the other dependent character. That's your basic spiritual practice, is to meditate on other dependent character.

[02:11]

It's the basic one. And that is the basis for the deepest practice, which is the meditation on emptiness. And when you meditate on emptiness, you still have one of your foot, feet, is on the practice of meditating on dependent core arising. Because emptiness applies to dependent core arising. Because it's the lack of any self in the dependent core arisen that we're looking at. And this connection of applying emptiness to the pendent, the co-arisen, keeps us from becoming nihilistic, because we're not saying there's nothing there. We're saying that things do happen, things do exist, and they can exist conventionally, only

[03:20]

And they exist conventionally only through mental mutation, so they do exist. But this conventional existence is based on dependent co-arising. So there is something happening. But ultimately, happening and not happening are actually just ideas. And actually, things are wonderfully free of happening and not happening. The ultimate way things are is that they're free of arising and ceasing. Because arising and ceasing is another example of the way you can understand the pinnacle arising. Did that make it any clearer? Yes. I have another question.

[04:25]

Do you want me to probably wait for tomorrow? Yes. I don't want you to. Do you guys want me to wait? If you say that ultimately it's free of all conception, Is it when you tell us that we are dependent on the kindness of strangers for our existence, isn't that a conception of how things are? And so... Okay, can you hear what he said? Can you stop here for a second? Okay. He said, I think he quoted me as saying we're dependent on the kindness of strangers for our existence. I didn't get your exact quote, but you said something like that earlier today. So he said, isn't that statement that we're dependent on the kindness of strangers for our life, isn't that a conception? A conception of how things are, which we really are is empty of that.

[05:28]

That's a conception of how things are, right? And he said, I said that earlier, and I did. And I think that truly the way we exist is that we exist in dependence on things other than ourselves, or the kindness of things other than ourselves. That's how we exist. What is the kindness part? I would say that the conditions that support life are kindness. I think life's wonderful. So I think kindness also, you know, means of the same. It means same originally. Like same kind. So kindness comes from same. So we are supported by things like us to be what we are. So it's a kindness. We're supported through the kindness of all beings. But you can take away kindness and just say we're supported through all beings. All beings supportive. And we're also supported by our own mental

[06:28]

Another way we come to exist and appear is through our own mental imputation, our own imagination. That's how we exist. And he said, isn't that what I just said? A conception or an imagination of how we exist? And I would say, yes, it is. And I would say, in a way, it's a true imagination. However, I also would say that the way we are is free of that image that I just used, which I think is true. So we say dependent on other things, but when we say that, it is an image. However, it's an image which is saying that there's a way that that inner dependence works, which is free of my ideas that I'm using to present that to you and to think about it myself. It's free of those ideas. But we did use ideas to present that. That's right.

[07:31]

But the process is ultimately free of any imagery we use to comprehend or convey that teaching. In the room I do interviews in, in the room I do interviews in at Green Gulch, which is sometimes called the interview room, or duksun room, I have a piece of calligraphy by the founder of Zen Center. And the calligraphy looks like this. This is not the collegiate, this is a copy of it.

[08:42]

And it says, first this character here, this horizontal line means one. And the character under it means cut, one cut. And one cut, Chinese way of writing, meaning everything. One cut, everything. The next character up here means all, and this character means empty. It's a little redundant, but it's saying everything all empty, or everything's empty, or everything's completely empty. So I copied, I wrote this for you. I wrote it. This is not in writing. I wrote this for you. You can have this, cut this if you want to. It says, everything's empty and don't you forget it. And I wrote it in two different ways.

[09:54]

And so I'm going to leave this up here. This is your Saturday night party favor. I'm going to leave this up here if you want, when you can come and help yourself. So I wrote it this way, which is sort of the same style, but is going to look here as she did. And then I wrote it this way. So help yourself, if you like, as you leave tonight. Yes. There is a ... Oh, by the way, oh, excuse me. And down in the corner here, this is my name and my seal. This is Chinese characters pronounced in Japanese anyway. Zenki. The Chinese way of saying it, I think, is trenji.

[11:02]

Trenji? Yeah. Say it again. Trenji. Did you hear that? That's the Chinese way of saying it. The Japanese way is zenki. And it means the whole work. And the whole works, which is part of my name, I think it can be taken both colloquially and standard, both in standard English and colloquial. Colloquial of the whole works means everything, right? Do you know what I mean? It's a colloquial expression for the universe is the whole works. But in standard English, the whole works is a sentence. In standard English, the whole works is a sentence. The whole works. It means both those things.

[12:06]

It means everything, and it means everything works. And how does everything work? It works through everything. Everything works through each of you, And the way everything works is totally free of or lacks anybody's idea about how the whole works to make you and me. The whole does work to make you and me and unmake you and me and make you and me and unmake you and me. But even what I just said about making you and me and unmaking you and me, it's free of that story I just told about us. the freedom of it, that lack of any kind of story actually reaching it, that's the emptiness of you and me. That's emptiness of each thing. So the whole universe makes everything, and that making, which also added to that thing, makes everything else.

[13:08]

Everything makes each of you, and you make everything, and the whole universe makes you, and you make the whole universe. That interaction is empty of any idea I have about it, or you have about it. And your practice, your meditation practice, your Buddhist practice, or your non-Buddhist practice, whatever practice you have, your practice is also something that's made by conditions other than itself. And your practice is empty of your practice. The practice is void of your practice. Which means it's void of any idea you have of your practice. So another way to meditate on emptiness is, if you think your practice is good, fine. If you think your practice is bad, fine. But no matter what you think of your practice, your practice is your practice. And what you think about it never touches it.

[14:11]

What you think about is just the handle you use to get a hold of it. But you never get a hold of it with that handle. You just get an egg. That's my name I wrote on here. And the guy who wrote the thing first, he gave me that name. So there's another song which some of you have heard is called, How you gonna keep them down on the farm after they've seen Perry? So how you gonna keep them down on emptiness after they've seen the imaginary?

[15:14]

How can we encourage ourselves to meditate on emptiness and the pinnacle of rising after we've seen these nice things? That's the challenge of our practice. How do you keep meditating on emptiness? Well, part of it is, if you go to a Zen center, they chant the Heart Sutra and they keep saying, empty, empty, empty. But how do you, between recitations of the Heart Sutra, how are you going to be mindful of the teaching that whatever you see, whatever appears to you, is imaginary. And not only that, but this imaginary thing which is appearing to you isn't appearing to you as an imaginary thing. It's actually appearing to you, this imaginary thing is appearing to you as something which is external to your imagination. Okay?

[16:21]

It's just amazing, isn't it? That we have a mind that creates images which seem to be external from imaging. Images which seem to be not images but actually there, independent, external to imaging. So that's one teaching. The other teaching is that everything arises in dependence on things other than itself and its apparent independent things are imaginary and don't exist. The independence that you're seeing does not exist. Each of you does exist, but your independence doesn't exist at all. But you look like you have this thing which totally doesn't exist. And the other teaching is that actually the way you are really lacks That really lacks that. That really is totally non-existent.

[17:23]

It doesn't show and it doesn't apply to anything. How are you going to keep yourself on that teaching? How are we going to keep meditating on that? How are we going to encourage ourselves to keep listening to this teaching? That's an encouragement, right? What is it that creates suffering? Thinking that your imagination is reality creates suffering. Confusing the lovely, interdependent, fleeting events of your life with your imagination of them is a source of suffering. and also ignoring that in this wonderful flow of events there is a lack of all our ideas of it. That's another way to say that that creates suffering.

[18:23]

So that's an encouragement. Meditating on emptiness actually is something that you can do in some ways easier in daily life than practicing tranquility. It's hard to practice tranquility when you're talking to people. But you can actually sometimes do wisdom meditation in daily life more easily than you can do tranquility meditation. So this is a teaching you can carry with you as you move about in the world. You can learn to do that if you want to. But that question I hold up for you to consider how you can encourage yourself to study this teaching, which is the focus of perfect wisdom. Is there anything else you want to bring up tonight?

[19:31]

Yes, Jim? Not knowing is another thing. Yes. And I don't know. Speaking about, you know, Yes, so if you were with, you know, if you're in this, what we were referring to before, like this harmonious resonant vibration, where we're born moment by moment in the coming of all events. If you're in that space and feeling that space without making it into a knowable or without grasping the knowable version of it, in some sense you're appreciating, you're more intimate with it than when you have a knowable version of it.

[20:44]

So the whole story was a monk who had been studying with his teacher for a long time, and he was going to go on pilgrimage. So he went to his teacher and he said, I'm going to go on pilgrimage. And the teacher said, what's the point of going on pilgrimage? And he said, I don't know. And the teacher said, not knowing is most intimate. So if you're going, you know, you can do this around the house, right? Say, I'm going to the grocery store. What's the point of going to the grocery store? And you have this thing called growing the grocery store, right? But can you like realize that this, you have this idea about what going to the grocery store is, and based on that idea you could say, well, the reason for going to the grocery store is to get an avocado. That's okay. But to actually look at this grocery store situation and realize that it has this other dependent character which you don't really know.

[21:56]

And the way you do know it is by taking it as your imagination of it. So the process of going to the grocery store is actually kind of like a very complex interdependency. And if you look at it and you really wonder, you know, what the point of going is, in some sense you're getting closer to the experience of going to the grocery store than just taking it as your limited version. But once again you say, that's fine, but I need the avocado. So I got to, like, say it's to go get avocados. I can't, like, just sit here and not know what, you know, what the purpose of going to the grocery store is, because then I wouldn't leave. I'll just sit in the house. So in order to get the groceries, I got to like think, forget about that not knowing what shopping is. The point of shopping is to get avocados.

[22:58]

Okay, fine. That's the usefulness of that, to get the avocado. But it's not as intimate as sitting in the kitchen crying. Because you don't yet understand what shopping is. And you may say, well, so what? I don't want to sit in the kitchen crying. That's no fun. It actually might be fun. You try it. It doesn't mean you can't later just go get the avocado. Also, you might think, well, shopping isn't done in the kitchen. Shopping is what happens when you actually start parking outside the grocery store. When does the shopping actually start? Does it start when you step into the door of the grocery store? Is that when it starts?

[23:59]

When does it start? When does it start? Pardon? So that's your idea. See, that's Lydia's idea of when the shopping starts. She's sitting in her kitchen, and suddenly a desire for an avocado rises. That's when shopping starts for her. But somebody else would say, shopping starts when I actually see the avocados and touch them with their rice. That's when it starts. Because I want to get the avocado, but the shopping doesn't really start until I actually start touching the avocado. That's somebody else's idea of when the shopping starts. Somebody else says, well, for me, the shopping really kicks in when I start comparing the prices. Somebody else says the shopping really works when I pay for the avocado. Somebody else says the shopping really starts when I eat the avocado. Different people have different ideas of what shopping is. Nobody's idea, actually, nobody knows what shopping is, really.

[25:06]

But in order to buy, get the avocado, you may think, well, I'm just going to, like, forget about that and just decide this is what shopping is and I'm doing it. Fine. That's the imaginary nature of your life. And there's some usefulness in it, right? But there's another way that your shopping exists, and that is free of your ideas and that you can understands that clearly, this relieves all suffering. That's the Harsita says. Relieves all suffering. All things are empty, and realizing emptiness relieves all suffering. That's the deepest relief. And before the deepest relief comes a excellent, a wonderful relief, but not complete by meditating on the pinnacle rising. And that meditation sets up the stage for the meditation on emptiness.

[26:11]

And also that sets the stage for meditation on emptiness, and also if you continue to do that meditation, it protects you from becoming nihilistic as you start to see the absence of any idea you have about things, which means you stop seeing the thing. They stop appearing to you because you're actually letting go of your imagination. But you still don't become nihilistic because you have your feet firmly planted at the same time on meditating on dependent core rising. This is again, you know, teaching an old dog new tricks, balancing the imaginary way things appear with the fundamental, dependently co-arisen nature and the profound suchness and thoroughly established character of their absence.

[27:16]

of any imaginary element. How to balance those three is the art of wisdom meditation. And it's hard to get them balanced. And even if they're balanced for a moment, which is wonderful, then the thing that they're all based on, this dependently co-arising thing, everything changes, so you have to find it with the next dependent co-arising. You can't stagnate in this process and still stay aboard. So I am really grateful you seem to still be on your feet, so to speak. I think this has been very challenging, but you seem pretty perky and I really appreciate that you're hanging in there with this kind of like, you know, pretty worthless teaching.

[28:27]

And that's really great that you can be enthusiastic about teaching that you're not getting. And that's the best teaching, the teaching that you don't get, but that just sneaks in and takes over your life and frees you from suffering. So thank you very much. And we have a little bit more time to get it tomorrow.

[28:57]

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