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Sesshin Day 9

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RA-02498
Summary: 

Winter Practice Period - Sesshin

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Speaker: Tenshin Roshi
Possible Title: Dharma talk #9 Session
Additional text: Winter Practice 2000-02/23, Master Y/3

Speaker: Tenshin Roshi
Additional text: 2/3

@AI-Vision_v003

Transcript: 

I am encouraged to see the Mahayana happening here in this valley. The way I see it is I see living beings being compassionate to themselves and to others. I even see people who are inspired to practice and realize supreme enlightenment in order to help all beings.

[01:04]

I see people who have that aspiration and I've even had the opportunity to witness the birth of that aspiration. Can you hear? Could you hear over there? You can hear that, right? You can hear the screeching, couldn't you? But you can't hear my voice. You can't hear my voice. It's low. Can you hear my voice now? No? You can't hear my voice? You can? Can you hear my voice over there? So I even got to see, in some cases, the birth of this aspiration.

[02:11]

In some cases people are thinking in such a way that, well, they think that they do not want to take on practices of realization. They think that and then they stop thinking that. And then they think they do want to take them on. They notice that they switch From thinking, no, no, I don't want to do that too. Yes, I do. It happens to people. It's actually a thought. Like, well, I think, yeah, I would like to be in this realization of Supreme Bodhi thing in order to help all people. So that has actually happened to some people. So that's going on here too. And the other thing is people are working on this kind of hard work of realization of ultimate truth.

[03:15]

So that's happening too. And that's very encouraging to me to see this. But I also want to apologize for my unskillfulness in discussing the study of ultimate truth, my unskillfulness in discussing meditation on emptiness. Some people who are trying to study emptiness, I think, have been somewhat upset by the way I've been teaching, and some people are not actually wanting to study emptiness, Which is fine, as I said before, some people are working on compassion. And as part of working on compassion, they're working on mental stabilization, calming the mind and body.

[04:23]

And that's part of the work of compassion. So the discussions about emptiness have been somewhat disturbing to some people. And some people are working on patience. and the discussions about emptiness have tried their patience, and so on. So I apologize for the unskillfulness of my teaching about emptiness, and about other things too, but that seems to be the one that's most upsetting. However, I will try to continue to teach the meditation on emptiness and I will try to become more skillful and learn how to do it in a way that's more useful to those who wish to study and meditate and realize emptiness.

[05:29]

In one particular case, I wanted to point out that when I was discussing the Buddha's delivery of the scripture called the characteristics of no-self, or the characteristics of selflessness, I quoted the line, you know, this is not me, this does not belong to me, this is not what I am, this is not myself. That's what it says in the scripture, but I didn't make it clear enough, I guess, that you don't actually look at the skandhas and say, this is not me, as a training exercise. When it says that in the scripture, that's more of a conclusion. and understanding that you come to by more like asking, you know, is this form me?

[06:34]

Is this form what I am? Does this form belong to me? Is this feeling me? Is this feeling, you know, mine? Is this what I am? And so the first part of the sutra is this kind of dialogue between the Buddha and the students, considering whether these different aggregates are the self, are what we are, belong to the self. And the conclusion of that dialogue, which may have taken a long time, but the summary... may have gone over it again and again but anyway the dialogue the conclusion the dialogue is no no these this form is not what i am this form uh this this feeling is not what i am this is not myself they come to this conclusion once you have this understanding then you apply this understanding this is not mine this is not what I am, to your experience, to your psychophysical experience.

[07:41]

But you don't necessarily say that. You could, but it's not like saying that like as a statement of denial. It's more like an understanding that you have. And then you apply that understanding to your experience. Applying that understanding to your experience of form, feelings, perceptions, formations in consciousness, then, the Buddha says, you become dispassionate towards the psychophysical experience. Becoming dispassionate, you become un-greedy. Becoming un-greedy, your heart becomes liberated in the midst of these experiences. I don't want you to think that the instruction of the Buddha is to reject your experiences as not yourself, but rather to work to come to understanding that yourself is not those experiences.

[08:50]

Have that understanding, but don't say that to yourself necessarily. See the difference? No? Well, do you see that I'm saying not to do that? Another thing I want to mention now before I forget is that I think in the past when we studied topics that are difficult, small groups have helped. And so I think it would be good if we had some small group discussions where people can bring up their questions among their peers and find out that they're not the only person at Tassajara who doesn't understand this stuff. As a matter of fact, often find out you understand much better than almost anyone. And I'm not sure exactly, you know, what direction to go from here. And so I thought maybe small groups could help see what areas or direction this study should go next.

[09:57]

To clarify what I just asked you if you understood, you know, the relationship between the self and the aggregates, this is what I would, you know, intend to look at over and over until it becomes clear. And so I, here goes. Ready? The Kajiyanagota Sutra says, Thus far kathayana there is right view. And the Buddha says, quote, everything exists, unquote. This kathayana is one extreme. Everything exists. But I understand what he means by that is everything inherently exists. And then he says, everything does not exist.

[11:11]

And what I think he means by that is everything does not exist even imputedly or even nominally or even conventionally. That's another extreme. Okay, so there are two extremes that he's talking about. One extreme is everything exists inherently. So the self, the I, the me, it exists inherently, objectively, on its own, self-sufficiently. That's one extreme. The other extreme is everything, including the self, doesn't exist at all. Not even conventionally. Not even nominally. Not even in name. That's the other extreme. So, not grasping either of these extremes, I teach

[12:24]

The Tathagata teaches the doctrine of the middle. So the middle is somehow not grasping the extreme that the person has or the I inherently exists or that the I doesn't exist at all, even conventionally. It's avoiding those two. Okay? Yes. I mean, to see the inherent existence of self as non-existent at all, like in this experience, you know, it's like, it's also often... So, did you say to see the inherently existing self as not existing at all?

[13:37]

That would be an extreme? That would be the second extreme? Yeah. To see the inherently existing self as not existing even nominally or even imputedly, that would be the extreme of saying it doesn't even exist imputedly. That would be extreme, right? Because it does exist nominally because you have the idea of an inherently existing self. So to have the idea of the first extreme and to say that there isn't even the idea or name of the first extreme that doesn't exist even imputedly that would be the second extreme. Okay? If you say that something doesn't exist, you've already imputed it.

[14:39]

So how could you do that? Right. Yeah, so if you name something, how could you say that it doesn't exist at all? Because you've at least named it. So you're overlooking the fact that you've nominally designated it. So the thing, that's the point, part of the point is that when we nominally designate something or when we impute something mentally, that creates something. That's not nothing. To think of something is not nothing. First of all, the actual thought is something. And actually, that's how things actually do exist, is by merely being designated. So you don't understand how it's possible to fall into the right stream.

[15:50]

Is that what you're saying? Okay, well, I'll try to point out to you next time you fall into it. Okay, so I was thinking that the first extreme is like a rejection of conventional truths. Or, yeah, the first extreme kind of rejects conventional truth, and the second extreme rejects ultimate truth. or put it the other way around, when you refute the first extreme, you realize conventional truth. And when you refute the second extreme, you realize conventional truth. And when you refute the first extreme, you realize ultimate truth. So, and I start with the second one because based on refuting the second extreme, you can refute the first extreme.

[16:58]

And it's not proper to refute the first extreme before you refute the second extreme. Now, David doesn't seem to have any problem with refuting the second. He can't even understand why anybody would even have the second extreme. So he doesn't even see the need to refute it. That means to refute the second extreme means to refute the extreme that things don't even exist conventionally. So I'm not here to say things do exist conventionally, but I would say the only way things exist is conventionally. They don't exist any other way. And conventionally means they exist by means of conceptual imputation. There's not any other way they exist than by conceptual imputation. It's the only way things exist. But to say that things don't exist at all is to say even by conceptual imputation, things don't exist.

[18:07]

So if you don't grasp that extreme, then you say, well, things do exist at least nominally, at least conventionally. at least by imputation or attribution. At least they exist that much. And when you become familiar with things existing conventionally, then you can start to work on realizing how things exist ultimately, which will involve refuting that things exist inherently. which will be involved in not just not grasping the second extreme, like staying away from it, but actually seeing it's impossible to grasp it. I don't know about that, but anyway, refuting it. Not just restraining yourself anymore, but being convinced that there's no such thing as a thing inherently existing.

[19:12]

Or... or the inherent existence of a thing. Now, when I asked people to see if they could find this false view of an inherently existing self, um a lot of people came back what they told me what they thought what they found actually what they described was uh this this nominally existing self i didn't ask people to find the uh um the lack I didn't, the lack of inherent existence, and I didn't ask people to find inherent existence.

[20:17]

If I asked people to find inherent existence, then they wouldn't be able to find it. So then if they really couldn't find it and they were sure they couldn't find it, then they would have found emptiness. But actually I wasn't asking for that yet. I was asking to find the view of the thing of inherent existence. I was asking you to find that. But almost no one found that. So far, almost no one has found this view of inherent existence. I mean, nobody's told me anyway. But people who have reported, what they have found is the conventional, the nominal, the imputed self, which is fine to find that The conventional self is based on and related to and imputed on the five aggregates, onto your body.

[21:27]

You have body-mind experience and then you impute or you name the body-mind experience, in some cases you name it, me or I or myself. And some people have found this. I guess, now that I mention it, maybe everybody can find it. But anyway, to report that is fine, but that wasn't what I was asking for. But that's important that you see, if you can, that you do think that the feeling, the perception, the consciousness, the... the form, you do think that that's you. You do think that. Okay? But then Buddha said in that scripture, is this form me? And the monk said no. So again, I think what it means there, is this form inherently me?

[22:36]

Or am I inherently this form? Rather than am I Nominally this form. Am I imputedly this form? Am I nominally this feeling? Am I imputedly this feeling? In other words, do I just say, this is my feeling. That was mine. Yeah, I had that. Did you have that feeling? Yep, that was one I had. And is that feeling me? Yeah, sort of. That's me. That's who I am. I'm having those feelings. And that formation, is that me? Yes. That's me. This is the nominal conventional self. Does that sound somewhat familiar? To some people it does anyway. That's what they reported, what they found. And again, if I'm to find that, I just want you to distinguish between that conventional self and this self which means the inherent existence. So, emptiness or lack of inherent existence in all the different kinds of Buddhist schools is self-emptiness.

[23:56]

But self-emptiness does not mean, in this context, that objects are empty of themselves. If objects were empty of themselves, then no object, even emptiness, would exist. Self-emptiness, at least in one school, one middle-weight school, self-emptiness specifically refers to the object's lack of its own inherent existence. That's the emptiness we find. We don't find the emptiness of itself. We find the emptiness of its own inherent existence. So if you, like, tell me, you know, you had the sense of yourself in this case, when this thing happened and that thing happened, that's not an inherently existing self, that's a self which is related to those experiences.

[25:11]

So, when... I would like to adopt this way of talking, that when we speak specifically of a self of a person, this self does not refer to the conventional self, the self of the person. It refers to the... When I say self of a person, I don't mean the conventionally existing person which is imputed in dependence upon the body-mind. I don't mean that. Once again, the self of the person is not the conventionally existing self of the person, which is that self of the person is imputed to the psychophysical situation.

[26:23]

It's dependent on the psychophysical situation. Don't mean that's not the self. That's just the conventional existing self. The self means the inherent existence. And person means this nominally imputed or nominally designated person. or nominally existent person, or dependently existent person. Okay? So you've got body-mind experience, and then there's a self that's imputed to that body-mind experience, independence on that body-mind experience. This is the conventional self, which you can identify by body-mind experiences, and also by karma, karmic patterns.

[27:24]

That's the person. The self of that person would be the inherent existence of that dependent thing. That conventional thing. which is already refuted, as soon as I said it, because it's an inherently existing thing that's dependent. Doesn't make sense, but anyway, that's what it would be. And there is this false view which sees a real, inherently existing self, an inherent existence of this thing that's imputed to the experience, of this person that's imputed to experience. OK, so now I see a whole bunch of hands. Now I accept all the hands. Yes, Ana? . Did you say that's the problem because we use I for both of those things?

[28:52]

Is that what you're saying? It may be part of the problem, but if I say I, I'm looking at myself, okay, and if I say I and what I mean by I is is an idea of a person that's being projected or ascribed or attributed to some kind of physical and mental event. If I use the I for that, that's the conventionally existent, nominally designated person. Now, if I use I also for the concept, that that person inherently exists, then that would be kind of confusing.

[29:52]

Maybe, I don't know, is it confusing now? Didn't we just clear that confusion up? Yeah, we're... Say it again. You can have the view. No, it's not that the... You can have the view that the inherent self... It's not so much the inherent self. He got a self, a conventional self. All right? Do you have that in view? It's not exactly that that's an inherent self. That's not an inherent self. That's a conventional self. It's not an inherent self. You're now looking at an imputed self. You see it's imputed. It's a conventional self.

[30:53]

It's not the inherent self. But you can project onto that inherent existence. And that's the false you. Yeah, you said that before. That's right. We're not saying that the false view does not exist. We're not saying that the consciousness which looks at this conventional self and the conventional self is a self, a dependent self. a self that depends on some experience. If it didn't have an experience, there would be no place to designate it. So it's a self that is nominally imputed onto our experience. The false view is to imagine that that self inherently exists. That's the false view. And we don't say that that false... It would be an extreme to say that the aggregates don't exist at all, even nominally, because they do too.

[32:01]

We're talking about the self now, but the same would apply to the aggregates. We'll do that later. It would be an extreme to say that the aggregates don't even exist nominally or imputedly. It would be a mistake to say that the self... which is imputed to the aggregates, but that doesn't exist even imputedly. That would be an extreme. And it would be an extreme to say that the misconception, the false view, that that nominally existent conventional self does not exist. Excuse me, that the view that that nominally existent self has inherent nature, it would be an extreme to say that that view does not exist. Okay? Is that your point? You mean you'd do that? Now, would you explain to David how you did that later? He can't figure out how you could possibly do that.

[33:03]

Anyway, the conception... Looking at this self, at this poor little conventional self that some of us have been able to identify, that's not the false view of inherent existence. That's a conventional truth of a self that's been imputed on the skandhas. Then the view that that inherently exists, that view, that concept, that also should not be said to be not existent at all. There is such a phenomena as imagining that this cell inherently exists. There is such an imagination. Okay? However, that does not not exist at all. It has a conventional existence. However, it doesn't inherently exist either. The idea of inherent existence doesn't inherently exist either. Okay? nor is it totally non-existent.

[34:08]

The idea of inherent existence exists as much as emptiness does. The idea of inherent existence, the idea... of lack of inherent existence, the idea of a self, the idea of the self which applies to the skandhas, the idea of all the skandhas, and also the experience of all those things, each of them, they have the same existential status, namely they all exist simply nominally, simply by mental imputation, including emptiness. Okay? Okay? And so maybe she can explain to you later how to be a nihilist. So I don't know who is next. But Deirdre has not asked a question for a while. Deirdre? I'm going to just start and work this way. Deirdre? There's a story about a what?

[35:11]

Boy who is sweeping, yeah. Yes. Yes. You mean when there's the hearing of, hey, you? It seems like... the turning of the head to hey you was the turning of the head of a being who had this view of a nominally existent conventional self. And then when the teacher says, what is it? Or what's Buddha? Then he looked for some inherent existence and was totally lost. Anything else over here on this side?

[36:16]

Noah? Now you said why do we manifest emptiness differently and when phrasing the question that way it sounds like there's an emptiness that's not associated already with something. some form, the way you put the question. But there's no such emptiness the way your question seems to be pointing. So we have this idea of emptiness manifesting something, but actually emptiness doesn't manifest something. People talk about that sometimes. And I won't get into that right now, but people talk about emptiness, something coming from emptiness. But actually emptiness is something that's always tied to some manifestation. Some phenomena which has appeared due to mental imputation, because it appears through mental imputation, it lacks inherent existence.

[37:29]

As soon as something is created, arises through mental imputation, it's immediately empty of inherent existence because it depends on mental imputation. So emptiness goes already with some manifestation. So to say, why do emptiness manifest differently, it's because there's different forms which are empty. But actually, an emptiness doesn't manifest differently. It's always the same. All the emptinesses are the same, except they're different in terms of what they're the emptiness of. That's the difference between the emptinesses. So in some sense, the difference between the emptiness is due to the mind, which imputes different things. Aside from mental imputation, there would be no things which were empty. How does the mind know different things?

[38:35]

The mind... Well, first of all, the mind can know its imputations. So the mind knows things through its imputations, but its imputations are also how the thing arises. And that's part of what it means to observe the arising of something as it comes to be, is to notice how it comes to be through mental imputation. If you notice how it comes to be through mental imputation, that seeing relieves you of the, what do you call it, the false view that this thing inherently exists. Because this thing doesn't come to exist by its own inherent nature, it comes to exist by mental imputation. Jane? The imagining of inherent self, yeah?

[39:38]

Yeah. So she said the imagination and then the imputation of that image of inherent existence upon this dependently arisen conventional self, isn't that what we do which causes suffering all the time? Yes. Mm-hmm. And parenthetically, which we're not going to study right now, we also impute the conception of inherent existence upon things which aren't persons, which aren't conventionally designated persons, like the skandhas and like other people. We do it on them too. Usually, the study of emptiness starts with looking at the projection of inherent existence upon the person, upon this conventionally existent person. And then you move to the more subtle projection of inherent existence upon things that are not people.

[40:52]

Is there any other questions over here? What? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Except that when we look at a conventional person, when we look at ourselves conventionally, we don't usually, we don't appreciate the dependent core arising. But in fact, the designation is dependent on some base, like some feeling or something. So it is dependently co-arisen, but so is everything else. Even the imagination of inherent existence dependently co-arises. But the self, which is clearly not being imagined yet as inherently existent, but just as something associated with such and such a pattern, that's what I would like to call the person.

[41:53]

And the self of that person would be the inherent existence of that person. So one of those hindrances that are wiped away, one of the hindrances is due to seeing a self of persons. The other hindrance is due to seeing the self of phenomena. So first we're going to try to see how there's no self of the person, how there's no inherent existence of this conventional person, conventionally existent person. Was somebody else over there? Alex? Okay, so he's going to try to tell us of a view, see if he's identified the false view of inherent existence, or the false view of a truly existent self.

[42:55]

Okay. What did you just tell me about there? What was that you just told me about? That was a conventional, conventionally existent person that you told us about? Okay. Okay. So what was the appearance of inherent existence? I didn't hear about that. How did it look inherently existent? I didn't hear about that. No, I'm talking about yourself. You weren't talking about yourself sitting in the room? Yeah. So that self sitting in the room, that's a lot of people have that view, right? That's a kind of conventional thing that's going on here.

[43:57]

And that's just, that's the nominal existence. Okay, so that's fine. So let's hear about the view of inherent existence that you think you can see now. What I'm noticing is that when I'm sitting in Zazen and practicing, I can keep this nominally existing convention of self and being pretty much continuously. And I take on the fact that it's continually arising and existing, and yet it seems to have a continuity of being. Uh-huh. Yeah. And a lot of people have told me that. That in the Zendo, they don't sense this belief in inherent existence functioning so strongly.

[45:08]

But then in work situations, like somebody gave the example of in the kitchen, somebody used an area of the counter which was designated as belonging to him, himself. And then he got kind of upset about that. But the belief in inherent existence has still not been shown. But the effects of the belief in inherent existence have been shown because if you only have a view of a conventionally existing person who has the name Alex, for example, and who has a certain seating area or work area, if that's all you think is this is just like... conventionally set up that this is my work area and it's conventionally set up that this work area is associated with this body. If that's all you've got, then if somebody else uses that area, you maybe just would say, I think this area belongs to this conventionally designated person. And then if they're also operating at that level, they say, oh, well, fine.

[46:10]

Or let's change the designations or something. And you all work it out nicely. But if you get inflamed, then it's maybe because something else is going on besides this conventionally designated person. But you haven't yet mentioned, you haven't yet seen, or you haven't yet told me about the view of inherent existence. But the heat around some of those events that happen outside the zendo, and sometimes in the zendo, during meals or something, if you don't get what you want, or or somebody takes your Zafu or something, the heat around those events is coming from this belief in inherent existence of this person. It just seems like when you say this, you identify the self as inherent existence of the being. When I say self of a person, okay, in that diagram, in that designation, then self means inherent existence of the conventionally existing person or the conventionally existing self or I. Yeah.

[47:27]

I wouldn't, by the way, I wouldn't work on that. I wouldn't act like that was something you had to think about. That should be quite natural. Yeah. It's probably better, actually, to not be focusing on that person that way, but be focusing on the aggregates. And then notice how that person arises quite naturally from being aware of the aggregates. Okay, fine. Anyway, you're taking up a lot of time here, so are you going to tell me or not what the view is? Yeah, but you didn't tell me what it is. What is it? Something more. Yeah, it's something more, right.

[48:28]

But what is it? What is this something more? So we already, it is something more. You've got like aggregates and then you've got the imputation of a person to the aggregates or a name to the aggregates. Like this is like Alex aggregates. You got that? So the view of inherent existence of this person would be something more. It'd be something added to the situation. What is that? That I haven't heard about yet. So I see your hands, but you're after these people over here. So coming over here, Vicky. I'd like to continue. I don't know if that was clear. Was that clear to anybody besides Alex? Because it doesn't look like it was clear to him. No, it wasn't? This is hard. It's very subtle. This thing is very subtle. It's a false view, but it's a subtle false view. Almost nobody has found it so far. I haven't heard. Yes? Yes? It's not an inherent view of self.

[49:39]

No, it's not a view of an inherent self. It's a view of an inherent existence of X. Yeah, what is that view? That you want to... Right. Do you have any sense of it? I have a feeling of it because I've been lucky or unlucky enough to be in a situation in which I've been examined for a long time. So the situation, as it says in the book, the falsity proves for not being recognized. So that's come in handy, huh? Great. Zen Center is so helpful. Thanks a lot. So my question is, for now, it's

[50:46]

The feeling I'm trying to stick with is the moment of division, the moment of wanting to ignore, to turn away from the Can you hear what she's saying? Huh? No? That's too bad. No. So, for instance, if somebody continually thinks that I'm my twin sister for hundreds of years or doesn't recognize me or falsely accuses me of something and that goes on for a long time, I can see that there's a moment at which suddenly that person is another person.

[52:05]

And I'm, you know, it's like the moment where I say, hey, but wait, is... For me, it's that moment where I attain some sort of significance that I didn't have before. Mm-hmm. You attain it or you notice that you think you have it? I turn into a solid... A solid self. The self becomes solid. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Against the way things are. Mm-hmm. So, you're saying that maybe one way to get a sense of this imagination of an inherently existing person is when this conventionally designated person becomes, seems to be very solid. Mm-hmm.

[53:06]

Appears to be very solid. Yeah, but there's like a, but there's like a turning away. Yeah. turning to one side and reflecting. I want to grab onto that. I want to continue in that feeling of solidity. You want to grab onto the feeling of solidity? Yes. So that's what I've been thinking of in my experience as the belief in an inherent existence. In your experience, the belief in inherent existence is the belief in the solidity of this person? Yes. But what I'm thinking of as the false you is that then I appear different than also the person or the world that you see at that time.

[54:07]

Leave it in the middle of my question. By the way, if anybody else wants to leave in the middle of her question. If you're uncomfortable and need to go to the bathroom or anything, go ahead. Okay. Well, that's pretty good. the sense of solidity of this nominally, this conventional existence, some sense of solidity of it. And that sense of solidity then can, that attitude, that false view of inherent existence can be put onto every other conventional existent thing too. It's like suddenly the people leaving become people who are ignoring it. or other kinds of feelings.

[55:16]

But those are not the feeling of inherent existence. Those are... Those are elaborations. Those are what we call outflows that come from this view. So again, noticing those kinds of things, if you can find the focus of those, which in this case would be the self, but not just the self, but maybe the solidity of the self, which is actually, in this case, not so much the solidity of the self, but also the purity and brilliance of the self, because the self is, you know, bringing up an inherently good point. So how could they leave, you know? So there's something incongruous about them leaving during the middle of this perfect question. Right? It's a moment of protest. Yeah. Helen? . You're saying that a view of inherent existence sounds more like it's learned?

[56:50]

A sense. Okay. Or you can also say innate view if you want to. Would you say it louder? Mm-hmm. What I was saying was, I was asking for the view

[57:51]

or the sense of inherent existence to be expressed. That's what I was asking for. And what I was hearing was, is a nominally or conventionally existing person being reported? I was not hearing the skandhas being reported. Yes. I know. I understand. But that's not what's reported. What's reported is the sense of self of these body-mind experiences. That's what people were telling me. Because that's what the self is. The self is not the aggregates. That's not what people mean by the self. They mean the imputation or name of the aggregates as a person. And that's what people were telling me. And that's fine. That's the conventional self. Pardon?

[59:02]

No, they are seeing. Well, I don't know if they're... Maybe they're lying to me. They might be lying to me, but what they're telling me, what they're describing, is a view of the conventional self. That's what I see. Pardon? Yes. What you just said is something that is not yet clear to me. Maybe you've verified that. But what I'm just saying anyway is what people are reporting to me sounds like the conventionally existing self. And they mention the aggregates sometimes in order to let me know what self they're talking about. But they're not really talking about the aggregates. They're talking about this idea of a person which most people would agree with, goes with such and such a situation. Like, you know, cabin three.

[60:06]

There's a person who lives in cabin three or a person who sits two seats down from the tenzo. These kinds of body-mind experiences are used to identify this person. So that's what I've been hearing about. But what Vicki said was one of the first examples of where she got close to specifying what the actual idea, view of the inherent existence was, namely a solidity added on to this conventional person. The solidity, the thing added on to, and the thing added on to is not just another skanda to identify it, another piece of psychophysical data to specify it, to use as a base for designation. But this thing called solidity or objectivity or whatever, these are the signs of the view of inherent existence.

[61:11]

And this thing is something I'd like to flesh out more and more, what that looks like. Yes? Yes? No, being falsely accused isn't a sign of the experience. It's just that being falsely accused tends to provoke this sense of this pure, unadulterated, non-dependent identity. This inherent existence does not like to be falsely accused. This inherent existence does not like to be associated with certain things. Because it's unassociatable. It's all solid, and it does not like any implication that it can be dented. So the falsely accusing tends to bring this thing out in the open. So we're holding this view, but when we get falsely accused, it comes out.

[62:16]

And then it starts functioning in the form of anger and so on and so forth. So you don't see the view without experiencing it? No, you might see it without, but being falsely accused is one thing that often surfaces this view, this false view of inherent existence. Without being falsely accused, yeah. Without being falsely accused? No, you do have an experience like you have an experience of, you know, it's Tuesday and I'm here on Tuesday. Or, you know, there's a seat here in the zendo and there's a body on the seat and this is me. Okay, there's some experience which is the basis for coming up with the person. And that person is a conventionally existing person. But we add on to that conventionally existing person the idea that this is a... We don't need to just add on to it. It appears like this person is really there. It's just imputed, but then it looks like it's really there.

[63:20]

And plus, we also believe that it's truly existent on its own, solidly, substantially. So there's some basis for where we put this delusion, and we put the delusion sometimes on the person, and there's some basis for where the person gets put on the skandhas. But the view doesn't get put on the skandhas in the case of the self or the person. The view gets put on the person, which is based on the skandhas. But you can also put the view on the skandhas instead of the person. You can look at the person, but put it on the skandhas Or you can look at the person and put it on the person. But you can't look at the person without using the skandhas to find the person. So you use the skandhas to find the person and then you put it on the person so that's the self of the person. But you can also look at the skandhas associated with the person and that's the self of the skandhas. I will say that many times. You have to learn how to do this.

[64:22]

You have to learn how to tell whether you're looking at the person in the skandhas or the skandhas in the person. If you're looking at the person in the skandhas, then you're looking, even if you're looking at the person in the skandhas, you're looking at the conventional existence of the skandhas, or whether you're looking at the skandhas in the person. Excuse me. The person in the skandhas or the skandhas in the person are whether you're looking at the self of the, the inherent existence of the self of the person or the inherent existence of the self of the skandhas. And self of the skandhas, inherent existence of the self of the skandhas is redundant. Self of the skandhas equals inherent existence of the skandhas. Self of the person equals inherent existence of the person. Yes? How do you tell what? The sense of solidity, I think, was her sense.

[65:32]

That was the sense of inherent existence, the sense of solidity. Okay, that's one kind of sense that it could be, a sense of substantialness. Yes? Yes? Everything bad comes from the belief in it, from that belief. And everything good comes from Zazen. Yes? You? Yes, uh-huh. I would like to bring a brief sound, but very quiet.

[66:34]

possible perspectives. Uh-huh. Yes, go ahead. And to get to what I said in the beginning, let's take two sentences that are syntactically the same, like, I have... Yes. I have... Yes. So, I would say, first, I... is... an existing self. Or, in other words... The syntax of the sentence reflects the mind's ability to split itself into self here and object over there. It's personal. Oh, I thought there... The first sentence is, oh, object over there. Oh, I see. You're saying the Cadillac's over there rather than I have a headache, which is over here. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[67:39]

But the Cadillac's five skandhas too. Sure. Go ahead. So it seems to me that there's this sense of a solidified totally separate and eternal thing. Yeah. So. Yeah. But this is happening to it. Um... Well, uh... Seems like you're squishing the two together in your presentation.

[68:40]

You're squishing the... You're pushing together the conventionally existent self with the belief in an inherently existing self. You kind of got them together there. When you first told the story, I heard two examples of a conventionally existing self. both based on a self that's designated in relationship to the five skandhas. And then you started talking about the inherently existing self, but you made it sound like you made it the same as the conventionally existing self, the way you said it. Because a conventionally existing self can still say, You know, that there's this and that. There's me and those things. It can still do that. Those things are the basis for me. That's how I identify myself.

[69:43]

I'm here in dependence on those things. Or depending on those things, I specify myself. That's a regular self, regular conventional self. But you can add to that this view or this conception that this self that we've just talked about is solid, independent of other things, and in particular independent of designation, independent of imputation. You can have that. But those are two different things. And it sounds like you have a sense of both of them, but the way you talked, you squished them together there in that sentence. Yes? Emmanuel? Since yesterday, I have had the sense, it seems to me that perhaps this is what I've been looking for as far as this apparently existing self.

[70:50]

I exist. Uh-huh. That seems to me that perhaps that's... Yeah, that's kind of it. Yes? Speaking of confusion, by the way, just a second, speaking of confusion, if you get really confused and you get really upset, please don't get involved in this stuff. If you get too upset, you're not going to even be able to follow these discussions, right? So, it's not exactly turn it out, but put more energy into not getting involved in these words you're hearing. If you get too confused. So I'm just saying, many people are telling me they're getting really confused and getting upset. So I'm saying, well, maybe just practice calm abiding for a while until you can get sort of like reasonably calm. You're going to get a little upset.

[71:53]

You can't be super calm and enter into these conversations. You have to give up a little bit of your calm in order to do this. But you should be somewhat calm, otherwise you won't even be able to follow the conversation. So I'm just saying to those of you who are getting really upset, don't get involved in these discussions. You know, get less involved than you are. Calm down. When you're feeling better, then you'll naturally want to come and play again. Yes? As I've been practicing something, I have found that... I have switched modes from a kind of plotting and planning way of being to a more intuitive way of being. Uh-huh. [...] Well, I don't know if you could hear what she just said.

[73:03]

Could you hear what she said? She's observed that she seems to be, she used to behave more planning, plotting kind of, spending her, she noticed those kinds of psychophysical events and now she notices more of an intuitive kind of process going on that seems to be happening more, which she feels okay about. Right? That's, And and in this new more intuitive way of being she knows she has more of a feeling of being solid yourself being solid If you trust that way more Okay, so you trust that way more. So the way I would hear this is she's reviewing her old five skandhas and she has a new set of five skandhas and she trusts the new five skandhas more than the old five skandhas.

[74:04]

So I don't hear anything about self or inherent existence so far in your description. Which is fine. You just described psychophysical events and you said you trust this new pattern of psychophysical functioning more than the old one. So is that something that you suggest that I also let go of? Would I suggest you let go of it? Definitely. Yeah, I don't trust one set of five skandhas over another set of five skandhas because that's, you know, you do, but don't. But, you know, if you do, you shouldn't pretend like you don't. And if you do, then you probably, you are, the conventional you is the person who trusts these more than those. What I'm asking you to look for is the belief that this person who trusts this stuff more than that stuff inherently exists.

[75:08]

Yes, yes. Yeah? Does this sound anything like a view of an inherently existing self? I believe that I am permanent, that I can be annihilated. You believe that you are permanent and can be annihilated. Does that sound like a view of an inherently existing self? Yes. It does. Is that true? That sounds like a view of an inherently existing self. A view that this little, poor little... conventionally existent person, which arises in relationship, independence on the five skandhas, the view that that's impermanent, that that's permanent, that's the view of an inherent existence. Inherent existence is a permanent self. Inherently existing person is a permanently existing person. And if you can also see that you would be annihilated, that would go with it.

[76:17]

Because you're sort of taking into account that this person might change, which turns into annihilation. When a permanent thing gets changed, it's annihilated. Well, fear of annihilation or pride at permanence. Either one. But anyway, yeah, I think it all comes from that. That's the point. That's why it's good to get that in view. Get that, get that, become aware of that view. Become aware of that false view of a permanent self. Pardon? No, not, before you examine it, become more familiar with it. See if you can like, uh, gently stay kind of aware of it consistently for a while.

[77:25]

Then when you feel comfortably like it's not going to run away or you're not going to destroy it if you look at it carefully, then we start to examine it. But that sounds pretty good. Was there any other people over there? Oh, Sonia. Dispositions, yes. Yeah. Is chaitanya the same thing? Is chaitanya disposition? Basically, yeah. Sometimes you might translate chaitanya as the dispositions. It's the pattern of the dispositions. At a given moment, how you're disposed, that's chaitanya. So what I'm thinking now is that the inherent... Oh, you're going to put the belief in inherent existence over in the dispositions, Skanda?

[78:38]

I mean, into the... Yeah, it is... Huh? The dispositions I would put in, well, it's got to be a skanda, doesn't it? You have something that's not a skanda, an experience that's not a skanda? So, where are you going to put dispositions in form? No. You're going to put it in formations, right? Right? Dispositions would go on formations. It wouldn't go on consciousness, would it? It wouldn't go on feelings and it wouldn't go on perceptions. So you put it probably, I don't want to force you into that category, but you probably put it in the fourth skanda, which is dispositions or formations. Put dispositions in dispositions. Pardon? Isn't what the heart is going to see? No, it's the busiest. It's the most hectic because it's got so much going on.

[79:42]

But I think consciousness is the hardest to see. It's the most subtle. Consciousness. I think consciousness is the hardest skanda to see because consciousness can't see itself. Consciousness is kind of inferential because you can't look directly at it. Consciousness can't look at itself. But anyway, it's all hard. And if you'd like to try to put, if you wanted to say that you're going to put this view of inherent existence in the fourth skanda, we can try that for a while, see if that makes sense. I think, you know, probably it's more like it's the fifth skanda influenced by certain attitudes and concepts of the fourth skanda. And then when you're aware of it, then the thing becomes the third skanda. Because you're now... But still it's being held in the fourth skandha because you're enabled to, in order to generate this concept as your own, the concept of inherent existence, you must have had the disposition to be able to do that.

[80:43]

So the disposition is part of the way this view comes up, but the view really is the fifth skandha. It's a view, it's a consciousness that is connected to the imagination of some inherently existing thing. And then at the time you become aware that you hold this view, then there's a concept of the view out there which even the pure consciousness could be aware of. Does that make sense? Let's see, is it 12 yet? No, it's early, it's only an hour and a half. Over here, yes? Yesterday I was in the steam room You were? Yeah. Uh-huh. You were in the steam room. There was a you in the steam room. No. Because at that moment... At that moment, you are in the room. Ah, that's an extreme... There it is, David.

[81:44]

There it is. He wasn't... That's how... Tell him how you did that. He can't figure out... He can't figure out how you could be in the steam room, you know, without... You are in the sense pleasures at that moment. So there's no comment. Is that it? Yeah. So there's no comment? No comment. You just said you were in a sense pleasures. I wasn't especially conscious of it. I wasn't especially conscious of it. Then I went out. Yeah. It was cold. It was rainy. Yeah. And then I made comments. Oh my God, it's cold. I want ice. Right. Right. In the steel room. Right. So this is... Here it is. This is an example of a person who went from one extreme to the other in one foot. Right. But David still doesn't understand how you could be that way in the steam room. You understand how I was outside, right? But he doesn't get how you did that. Tell him how to do that. He needs to learn how to. May I continue? May you continue? Sure. And I thought, well, I said I at that moment.

[82:51]

So I was, there was suffering. And there was thinking, imagination. And maybe thinking of the existence of the self out of these five scholars. Oh, I should be somewhere else. Even I said, my God. Yeah, my God, I should get back in the steam room. At that moment, I didn't accept to exist with the cold. You understand? He did not accept existing with the cold. I was just thinking of something. And I thought that humans, you know, the first humans appeared by abstraction. And when the first guy died, or the first human, that's not possible. There must be something else. The first word, the first abstract was a sign or a next or abstraction. And you follow me?

[83:51]

I don't know. I was okay when you were back in the deck there. That all made sense to me. Yeah, you're going a little far here, I think. I think it would be better to stay with the original thing. It's getting out of scale for me. Okay, your conclusion? Any human, any being is living by lack and dislike. Any being is led by like and dislike. And dislike and dislike is common to all of us. This is maybe that kind of clearance. That's what we believe. This is ours. That's in all of us. That's the second. I understood. When you said like and dislike, we share that, because like and dislike is a body-mind experience. Yeah, it's part of the five skandhas.

[84:57]

Okay, I got that part. Now, is that anything more? The ground of the self is like and dislike. So, if I could be technical, he's saying the ground of the self is the second skanda. And I think that the second skanda is very important for forming the self. That's true. The self? Yeah, it's very important. Yeah, right. Yes, that's right. That's an important point of Buddhist psychology is that the second skanda is very powerful. That's why that second skanda gets to have only one dharma in it. feeling. Some people say, how come that skanda gets only one dharma? It gets to be a whole skanda all by itself. Whereas like the third skanda has infinite number of concepts and the fourth skanda has, well, like 64 different dharmas in it. And it's partly because that feeling skanda is so powerful in forming the self.

[86:00]

But the self that is powerful in forming is the conventional self. Okay? So, but you're feeling that the problem you had of moving from one room to the other, in both cases, there was a possibility of a conventional self arising in relationship to the second skanda of feeling. In both cases. But in one case, the self did not arise and was said he didn't have a self in... Now, he said he didn't. He said he didn't. The self was not there at all. It wasn't even nominally there. You have to study with this guy to find out how to do this. In the steam room, the nominal, conventional self did not exist at all. Okay? Really, it did. But there was the view that it didn't. Then we came out on the deck and a nominally conventional existence self also arose in relationship to a different second skanda.

[87:09]

But in this case, somehow the conditions were such that what was imagined is an inherently existing self. So he felt the suffering there. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the great virtues. People say, what's his business about nihilism? How could anyone get into imagining things don't exist at all, not even nominally? And the reason for it is because he was more comfortable with not having a self. That's the great advantage of nihilism. Nobody's around here. There's nobody here. I'm cool. Go ahead, hit me. Nobody's here. So the strength of that extreme, it has something going for it. It's something that is not the natural thing. It's more like what makes possible amazing feats of asceticism, of skepticism. You can set yourself on fire and do demonstrations and stuff like that with the aid of that view.

[88:15]

But some people don't know how to do that one, so they should study with... Olivier, he can teach him how to do this wonderful thing of grasping that extreme. Now, the other extreme, which he also is capable of, most other people already know how to do, so you can study with almost any on that one, but just ask him later how to do it. You couldn't, even when he told you, you couldn't figure out how he possibly did it. It's a trick that he can teach you. Huh? What? The problem you have is what? Right. You do not, because you have just grasped the extreme of the food doesn't even nominally exist. Things do not exist at all. You just don't know how to do that. Like I say, he'll teach you.

[89:17]

Go to the steam room with him. It's like, you know, this is like the magician conjuring up, instead of a horse, conjuring up no person. Learn that one, if you want to. But it's an extreme view, you know? It's just like the other extreme view, which is more fundamental. This extreme view is not innate, right? It's just a consequence of the innate one. The innate one is to imagine inherent existence. But once you can do that one, you can do this other one, which is quite handy. And it's not as painful in certain ways. But it just postpones the pain. When you come back from a nihilist vacation, you know, some people go off on retreats and really they go into nihilism for a week. When they come back and it switches back to the other side, they become very irritable. Let's see. It's getting late though, right?

[90:17]

This is not, we're never going to end all these questions, so. But was there some, did you have some problem, Jeremy, with what Emmanuel said? Okay, good, good. You made some noise though. What was that about? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, Vicky did it too. Yeah. Well, I'm not saying it's the first time that I heard someone say that they were doing it. Everybody's doing it all the time. But to articulate, to be aware of the view, it's the first time I really heard it. Why did you do it and think that I said you did it? Yeah. I think actually some other people did it too.

[91:19]

Like one person did it, the way she did it was, she was telling me about finding this belief in the inherently existing self, but the self she told me about was the conventionally existing self. She told me about this certain pattern of behavior, one that was painful, and then there's a self that was involved in that. But I said, that sounded like the conventional existence itself. And then she told me about this others thing, this judge that criticizes that thing. I'm in charge of justice here. I'm in charge of the precepts. So that judge is... You can't accuse a judge. So the judge comes out. when you falsely accuse. Now, if you're rightly accused, then the judge might say, oh, yeah, okay. Brian? So, you keep calling it a view or a belief.

[92:27]

Or a consciousness? Or a conception? None of which sound like activity. Process. Conception doesn't sound like a process to you? It is. It sounds like to be a process of conception. Well, in order for the conception to arise, there's a process too. But anyway, you have a problem, you want it to be a process. Well, not that I want it to be a process, it's just that I feel like... It is a process. It is a process. Yeah, because it's not an... The view is also not an inherently existing thing. It's part of a process. It's a whole... The human, or the living being... through the processes of mind and body, creates this conception, or there is a conceiving, and the result of the conceiving, the product of the conceiving is a conception. And this conception is of this amazing thing. And this conception, this conceiving process is innate, and the product of it is innate.

[93:30]

or the abilities to do it anyway are innate. There has to be some social stimulation in order to pull it off, but there's a process of conception and then there's a fruit of that, which is a dynamic concept of inherent existence. Which is the thing that we have an actual experience of? You can have an actual experience of that conception. The thing that the conception is about, there's no such thing. at all. It's just a conception of something that doesn't exist at all. It's a totally non-existent thing. But the conception doesn't inherently exist or truly exist. It just conventionally exists. Like, for example, the conception of a conventionally existent person. That conventionally exists. But that person arises in relationship to some, you know, psychophysical events. Otherwise you have no place to talk about where where it is or where it starts or where it ends or how it's different from other things.

[94:35]

Does that make sense? Yeah, you're looking for something you're doing continuously. My reaction to that is that it's not enough that I want to drop the belief, that I want to just continue with an activity. It's activity itself. I think you want to drop the belief or be not taken in by the belief. That's part of what you want to do. Okay? But also we actually want to stop even the process eventually. we'd like to actually eventually stop even producing the appearance of inherent existence, stop producing it eventually, but first of all, stop believing the concept that that appearance is actually true.

[95:43]

So there's the conventionally existing person, then there's the appearance that it's actually there solidly, And there's a process that imagines that, and then there's the belief that that's true. And as a matter of fact, there's a belief that that's what's really true, because that really seems solid. So we want to not fall for that belief, first of all, see the emptiness of that view, and then finally, not even have the appearance which that thing's observing to even arise. Is that just like, I mean, it seems dropping the view. It's just like sort of a medical thing. If you convince yourself, okay, this isn't really happening. It is, yeah. So then the work of, you know, okay, how's the subtle process happening? Where can I get in there and, like, discontinue it? Or when can I just completely let go of it? Or how can I watch it arise and cease? That seems to be the... the work that needs to be done more than just dropping some bleep.

[96:50]

I don't understand that way of talking. Dropping, well, maybe, I don't like the word, use the word destroy. But you actually, they often speak of destroying that belief, destroying that concept. So, the concept, anyway, can be eliminated Can it? That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it can be. I can stop committing myself to it at any moment. It can be eliminated. Wow. It can be eliminated, like not happen anymore. But even though that concept doesn't happen, the appearance may still occur. Just like, for example, they often use the example of seeing a rope and imagining it to be a snake.

[97:54]

Okay? You can stop imagining it to be a snake. You can eliminate that thought. However, As long as the snake, as long as the rope still appears, you're in danger of thinking it's a snake again. Even though you looked at a rope before and then looked more carefully and found out it wasn't a snake and never did it again, you're always in danger that someday you would think it was a snake again. But it's possible that you never think that the thought of it as being a snake never arises again. But you're always in danger. So to be sure that it won't arise again, the way you can make sure it will never arise again is to eliminate the snake. The rope. Eliminate the rope, which is the appearance upon which you imputed snake. Huh?

[98:59]

Huh? It's very much like being an arhat. Buddha, by the way, in case you didn't know, was an arhat. Did you know he was an arhat? He's the first arhat. Arhat number one, Buddha. And then he made those other guys arhats too. So being arhat is pretty hot stuff. Don't worry about it. But the thing about bodhisattvas need to be arhats. We pay our respects to arhats. But arhats actually have the idea of attaining nirvana and then checking out. Bodhisattvas attain nirvana and then return to the world where there's appearances. So they live dangerously. But it is possible to be an arhat. And bodhisattvas should know how. They just shouldn't get hung up on it. They should visit arhat land and then out of the joy of liberation plus the joy of their bodhisattva practice, come back into the world where appearances are now appearing again.

[100:00]

Leslie? How do you... Oh, she says, how do you eliminate it, especially the innate one? The innate one is the one you want to eliminate. You do it by, first of all, bringing into view... There's different methods, but anyway, the method I'm starting with is bring it into view, then convince yourself that in order to be true, it must be inherently the same as the five skandhas or inherently different. Convince yourself of that and then look to see if it is. Right. And you actually then eliminate it. You see that there's nothing to it. That it's just totally a dream. Even though it's innate, it can be refuted.

[101:03]

This is the way you can actually inferentially realize emptiness and your mind changes. Pardon? It goes out. It's not destroyed. It goes out. It goes out. It's destroyed anyway. You're free of it. But this isn't the end of the story. Because your body still has the possibility of generating this again. In order to actually eliminate even the appearance upon which you'd be able to imagine that, you need to then take that into your samadhi and make your mind incapable of imagining anything but emptiness. And that's attaining nirvana. But for bodhisattvas, even after attainment, we still come back into the realm where the body could generate the appearance again. But it is possible to eliminate it, and that's the first way, the quickest way, and it's a way that actually could happen quite soon, if you can practice this way, is to actually do these three steps.

[102:09]

get it in view, become familiar with it so you can steadily be aware of it, convince yourself that there's no alternative other than these two, and then look to see which one it is. And there's really basically two alternatives, but there's subtleties by which you can deepen your conviction that neither one are satisfied. And that actually disabuses you. You're no longer taken in by that conception. It drops. That's the realization of emptiness. Is it fair to ask whether I've done that? It's not fair to ask whether I've done it. No, it's not. Because it says in chapter 15 that there's no person that does this. Is the conventional me done that? No, of course not. The conventional person doesn't do that.

[103:11]

Has it happened to you, to the conventional me? Has what? Has it happened to the conventional me? No, it hasn't happened to the conventional me. I feel kind of satisfied with that, or I feel like I would be satisfied with just being free of it, even if it continues to exist. You'd be satisfied to be the magician. Well, that's very nice. But some people have had this thing happen to them called bodhicitta. And they are not satisfied with just being a magician. They're grateful to even be in the audience and even be one of the regular sentient beings who's falling for the whole show. But they actually accept their scale, they're actually heading towards being the Buddha.

[104:17]

So, if you have not had this arise in you, that you actually feel that you would like to shoot for Buddha, that's okay. There you go. Well, that's... Pardon. Pardon. Part of this process is having a little talk with Buddha. It's because I do not, you do not, the person does not make this happen to them, that they want to do this. Somehow Buddha gets in communication with us and we feel it's possible and we want to. And being convinced that it's possible, you can say, well, that's implied there, I guess. Somehow you've been touched by Buddha enough so that you feel like Buddha is possible. Somehow you have some kind of like, something happened there, and you aspire to something which, to some extent, the aspiration means that you must think that it's possible.

[105:29]

Why would you aspire to something you didn't think was possible? So when the aspiration arises, you have been touched by the Buddha. The Buddha has... come into you and made you, made this aspiration arise in you. But I don't make this aspiration arise. Buddha comes sort of, like I said last year, you know, this aspiration does not come from the side of the sentient beings. It comes from Buddha. And then when Buddha takes over your body, You become a servant of this process and you're not impatient and grumbling that you haven't yet attained Buddhahood, but you're not going to be satisfied by going part way. At a certain point you say, this isn't good enough. I want to go all the way. That's what I want. And I really do. Then bodhicitta has happened. But it's not just that you want to go all the way. You want to go all the way for the benefit of others.

[106:30]

So what you're saying is you feel satisfied by going quite a ways for others. Well, that's great. Yeah, you... Well, that, you know, and that's when it happens. When somehow you're open to a lot of other stuff, like open to pain, open to all kinds of frustrations. So that's why it happens. People are sitting there and open to... Open to my talks, you know? Open to all that happens when I unskillfully teach. You have to open to that, then you can also open to Buddha. My talks aren't Buddha, but if you're close to my talks, you might be close to Buddha. Sorry. Now, if you've already opened to Buddha before, then maybe you can close to my talks and stay in touch with Buddha. So, yeah, it might be all right. But anyway, honesty is really appreciated.

[107:32]

Thank you. And I think there's a few other people that have not, you know, really, they're practicing compassion, but they do not yet feel this aspiration. I mean, because it really seems like a big deal. But I kind of feel like, well, let's try to set it up for the big deal. But it's getting late, you know, and your hands are still up and What's the pain level now? Are you pretty uncomfortable? Huh? Nah? Nah. Little self-mortification over there. Okay, yes? It's not exactly where nothing happens, but nothing happens in nirvana, right? No coming, no going, no increase, no decrease. Nothing exists is something that's happening.

[108:33]

Let's see. Well, I guess that's about it for now. Yes? The belief in what? The inherent existence of self? Yes. The inherent existence of the person. Yes. Yes. Yes. I think that's an artifact of that belief, but that's not the belief. But those kinds of things, those kinds of behaviors are the behaviors of someone who's still holding that belief.

[109:48]

Because when you hold that belief, then you're tied into birth and death. So you want to do something to fight birth and death. If you don't have that belief, you're not afraid of dying, and you don't need any memorials. Yes? Would you suggest being in this box here of annihilation of self? Would I? Yeah. I think that'd be good. I would suggest not getting involved in all that stuff, but stay close, but not get involved. Stay close means, you know, don't go towards it or away from it. Just be upright with it. And if that extreme grasping is happening, I would suggest you do that.

[110:56]

You have to stay close and uninvolved with it. And the same with the other one. If we can stay close to them and not get involved with them, we can start to move away from grasping them by examining them. Nihilism can be analyzed just like eternalism can be analyzed. Okay, is that enough for now? What? Do you see owl? Oh, do I see owl? I thought you said my grandson's name. Maceo. Yes, Maceo? My little ass, Maceo. Yeah? In Vicky's example, the tempter... I think it is the belief, but it might not be the best one to look for. I think there's better ones.

[111:57]

For example, I think the best one is that you don't think that this sense You do not think that this person is just merely imputed to the five aggregates. And you don't think that the five aggregates are merely imputed. But start with the person. So the sense of solidity is this person is not just imputed by conception. So what I'm going to recommend is that one. to try to see how you can see what you're saying, basically, is this thing is not just a mental imputation. It's more than that. But it's the same as the solidity, but it's showing in what way you think it's solid. It's solid because it's not just mental projection.

[112:59]

It's really over there on its own. It's solid like it's over there free of your mental imputation of it. I guess the thing about the sense of... where it's kind of more abstract when you get into a whole leaf or a view. And it doesn't really... It's like sort of an intellectual kind of view. It doesn't hold up very well. It seems like a crazy view, actually. This is all intellectual stuff, though, but anyway... It might be... If you can work with that, fine. But what I'm talking about is actually a view, an attitude, a view. It is an intellectual thing. It is a consciousness. And if you want to work with a physical feeling, if you think it's a physical feeling, that's fine. But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about a false view. And isn't it true that if you get very, very close to that view...

[114:04]

Yes. Pardon? Yes. Right. It won't hold up. Well, the view, the view will be discredited. saying, look steadily at the view, but if you actually look locally and steadily, you're in a class. That's right. Well, if you look closely and steadily, but in certain ways, it won't last means you'll stop seeing it. So that's part of staying close to it, which you're asking about, is you have to learn how to watch it in such a way that you don't blow it out of your awareness. Well, it seems like... It could disappear just from lack of attention.

[115:05]

It won't disappear from lack of attention. You just stop paying attention to it. But it can also appear... That doesn't disappear. That's just you get distracted. It can disappear, however, from looking at it too hard. So you've got to tell the difference between looking at it too intensely and blowing it away, getting distracted from it, and looking at it and examining it and refuting it. Because you can look at it intensely, it can go away, but then it's still determining your misery and hooking you into misery. Oh, did you refute it? Did you refute it? It seems easy before you did it. Thinking about it, it's not easy. It's relatively, compared to the next step, it's relatively easy. It is, if you want to say it's easy, fine. It is doable, which is great.

[116:05]

If you want to call it easy, fine. If you want to call it hard, fine. Okay? Yeah. Yeah. Excuse me. I got the message. You think it sounds easy. Fine. Okay? Are you trying to convince me that it's easy? I think, excuse me, it seems like you think when you find something easy, you think it's worthless. Close parentheses. What? Say it again. Well, if you have an easier way to do it, then tell us about it. But, you know, we'll have to have a different class for you to give that presentation. But you can give another method that's simpler. A simpler method would be better.

[117:07]

Okay? A simpler way to talk about it. Yes. Yes. Good. That's what I'm talking about, my unskillfulness. When I first start talking about it, it sounds very distant and complicated and maybe even difficult. Then you listen to it more and it maybe sounds to be easier. And I hope it gets to sound really easy and that you do it and it really is easy. That would be fine with me. But I'm just saying that there's a difference between looking at it and having it disappear than looking at it and being disabused of it, of just not being convinced by it anymore. And if that's starting to sound easier and easier to do, fine. That's OK.

[118:11]

Maybe it's starting to make sense to you more. OK? Is that OK? All right. Can we stop now?

[118:23]

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