Someone asked me to say some encouraging words about the practice of tranquility, the practice of giving up discursive thought which comes to fruit as ease and calm, flexibility, buoyancy, brightness, and so on. And I'm happy to, again, say, please practice tranquility and all other forms of compassion that are appropriate now and during the rest of your life. The person also asked me if I would give some details about the practice of tranquility,

[01:02]

but actually, if I do that, then I feel that I will not have time to go on with the wisdom teachings. So I have given many, many talks and suggested in many, many ways how to practice tranquility and you can refer to those tapes, but I do encourage that practice, and please do it as much as you would like during this retreat, and it's very good. This is called Settle into a Steady, Immobile, Tranquil Sitting Position. And then, we can go on from there, when you've taken good care of the body and mind situation to practice non-thinking, and finally, thinking of not thinking. The teachings of wisdom need to be brought out, I feel, so please excuse me for continuing

[02:14]

with this line of study, because I feel it is, we need this, we need wisdom, not just compassion. Okay? One translation of the Samyukta Nirmalachana Sutra says in Chapter 6, Gunakara, independence upon names that are connected to signs, the imputational character is known. Independence upon names connected to signs, the character of conceptual grasping.

[03:21]

The character of conceptual grasping is known. Independence upon strongly adhering to the other dependent character as being the imputational character, the other dependent character is known. Independence upon an absence of strong adherence to the other dependent character, as being the imputational character, the thoroughly established character is known. Now bringing the teachings of Soto Zen together with the teachings of the Sutra, let me rephrase it by saying, independence on strongly adhering to the other dependent character of sitting,

[04:28]

as being the imputational character of sitting, the other dependent character of sitting is known. Thus, sitting appears in the world of conventional designation, and may be identified. Independence upon an absence of strong adherence to the other dependent character of sitting, as being the imputational character of sitting, the thoroughly established character of sitting is known. In this way, there is the realization of the thoroughly established character of sitting Buddha,

[05:37]

there is the realization of the sitting Buddha, there is the realization that the sitting Buddha is empty of sitting Buddha. I added in sitting Buddha, we can go through this again, just by, instead of saying sitting, we can say sitting Buddha. Independence upon strongly adhering to the other dependent character of sitting Buddha, as being the imputational character of sitting Buddha, the other dependent character of sitting Buddha is known. Thus, the sitting Buddha appears in the world of conventional designation, and is identified.

[06:40]

Thus, the sitting Buddha appears in the conventional world, thus the sitting Buddha exists conventionally. And that's the only way the sitting Buddha exists. And that's the only way the other dependent exists. Anything, sitting, standing, Buddha, you, me, a color, anything that exists dependently co-arises. Anything that doesn't dependently co-arise doesn't exist. However, however, however, even though anything that exists exists dependently, anything that exists is a dependent co-arising.

[07:44]

Dependent co-arising is not sufficient for something to exist. We have to mention one more thing for something to exist. What is that? The imputational. Dependently co-arisen things, dependently co-arisen phenomena, like a sitting Buddha, are not established without conventional designation. They do not exist without conventional designation. The other dependent character of phenomena exists because of a conventional designation. Before that, it does not fall into the category of existence or non-existence. Whatever dependently co-arises is verbally established.

[08:57]

If there is a dependently co-arisen sitting, but its existence depends on designation. There is a dependently co-arisen practice of the Buddha way, but its existence depends on verbal designation. Its existence can only be a conventional existence. It doesn't exist some other way, and conventional existence depends on being identified. We don't have things conventionally existing that we can't identify. That's an unusual kind of existence. In conventional existence, we have something which has arisen in dependence on a verbal designation. It has an identity. So, this identity which it has is nothing more, nothing in addition to a word.

[10:20]

Its existence is nothing more than being the referent of a word. And apart from this conventional designation, the thing has no identity. The Buddha apart from conventional designation, the sitting Buddha apart from conventional designation, your practice, my practice, the practice apart from some kind of designation, it doesn't have an identity. That does not mean it doesn't exist. That does not mean it doesn't exist. It does not mean it doesn't exist. However, it also doesn't exist. Not yet. It doesn't exist until it's designated. Then it exists.

[11:22]

But only in dependence on the convention. Take away the conventional designation, sitting doesn't exist. Excuse me, hasn't been brought into existence yet. However, it also doesn't not exist. Because there is something dependently co-arising. It just hasn't fallen into the category of existence until you impute something onto it so you can designate it. And then it comes into the world of conventional existence. And there's no other world for things to exist in. In emptiness, there aren't any sitting Buddhas, or eyeballs, or colors, or suffering, or freedom. To say that a sitting Buddha, or a sitting Andrea, Andrea,

[12:25]

has an identity which is merely a verbal fact, is to say that this person is empty. Now, one of the things that I'm really encouraged by is that we've been studying this sutra long enough, and the nature of the sutra is such that people are actually now coming to Doksan and talking about the teaching. This is the Golden Age of Zen. It says that independence upon strong adherence to the other dependent,

[13:41]

as being the imputational, the other dependent is known. And it's known mixed in with, then, the imputational. And then, the other dependent, because it's mixed in with the imputational, can be designated and identified and can exist in the conventional world. But I think people feel, well, don't we know the other dependent without mixing it in? Don't we have some access to the other dependent without mixing it in with the imputational? Yes, we do. The other dependent actually is not mixed in, is not really mixed with the imputational. The imputational is superimposed on it, but doesn't mix with it. It never really mixes. But our mind mixes it. And actually, it looks like the other dependent is the imputational.

[14:47]

We put an essence over, this essence covering over the imputational with our creative imagination, with our conceptual mind. We put images over the other dependent. Then, with that image, it looks like it's out there on its own, like it has an essence. And then we can use words to designate it, and then it comes into existence in the conventional world. We can know it, we can know its identity. But when we do that, we can't see both, usually. We see them as though they're mixed, or as though they're one. They're confused. So we can't see the other dependent the way it is without that mixing. However, we do see it actually, it's just that the way we see it, we can't identify it.

[15:51]

So, for example, you can see a color, but without mixing it, or without interpreting it through the imputational, you can't identify it. But you are like responding to it. You can see a person with a combination of many colors and shapes. You can be aware of it, and when you're aware of it, you change in that relationship, in that experience. If something happens, something is happening, but you don't know what it is, Mr. Jones. But it doesn't mean it's not happening, it is happening, but it's more, compared to conceptually knowing it, compared to the way you know it, when you adhere to it as the imputational, it's sort of like unconscious, but it actually is a conscious experience. So, for example, you could, I don't know, I could go beep, and so the beep happened, I guess,

[17:01]

but everybody immediately covered that beep with a concept of it, so now you can identify the beep, and it exists in the world. And I could, every time I said beep, I could give you, I don't know what, a massage, and then, huh, what? Give a massage, and then, so there would be an association between those two, and maybe it's a good massage, so you relax, and then sometime, that sound, that beep could happen, but you might not actually notice it sometime. In other words, it wouldn't exist for you, you wouldn't identify it, you wouldn't put the imputational over it, you wouldn't know it happened. But, you might still relax when you heard the beep, because it did register on you, and usually when you hear that beep,

[18:04]

it went with the massage, so your body, like, put those two together, but it didn't exist for you. So, colors do happen, but the way colors, the experience of colors do happen, but we barely know them. And then, this is very fast that that happens, then very quickly, we have a conceptual version of it, which we do know. The Other Dependent is happening, the Other Dependent Character does happen, but it doesn't exist, without verbal designation. And, Sitting Buddha does exist, but only in dependence on verbal designation.

[19:09]

But, if you grasp the verbal designation, or the mark of sitting, you do not reach its principle, and its principle is the absence of adhering to the sitting, to the Other Dependent Character of the sitting, as the mark. That's the principle of it. So, in the process of sitting, in the process of being able to actually experience and identify the existence of a sitting practice, that is dependent on strongly adhering to the sitting practice as being your idea about it. And your idea about it, such that you can make a verbal designation, but part of your idea about it is wrong, because you mistake it for your idea about it, and it's not your idea about it, but your idea about it is based on it and superimposed on it.

[20:22]

So, you're mistaken about what it is, but that's the only way you can identify it. If you can get the view, if you can find the vision of the absence of your dream, of your imputation about the sitting, on the sitting, on the Other Dependent Character of the sitting, then you realize the suchness of the sitting. In order to have sitting exist, we must grasp, we must cling, we must attach to the image of sitting. In order for the sitting, which is not the image of sitting, to come into existence for us. Otherwise, we don't have any sitting. We can't find any sitting.

[21:26]

But you found sitting. The sitting you found, you found under the auspices of adhering to that sitting as your image of the sitting. So, you got sitting. Now, can you find the view of the absence of the way you got sitting? If you can find the absence of the mark which you grasped in order to get the sitting, which you had to grasp in order to be sitting, in order for sitting to exist, if you can find that absence, then right while you're sitting, right while in the existence of the sitting, which depends on grasping, there can also be the view of the absence of the grasping of the mark of sitting. Then you can tell the difference between the way the sitting appears in its pre-digested

[22:32]

or pre-categorized and, in a sense, pre-existent form. You can tell the difference between the way the sitting actually appears in this world, excuse me, not in this world, appears before this world has arisen. Because it does have an appearance before identification. You can tell the difference between its mere appearance and its appearance as being existent. And identifiable, and identified. You can tell the difference between those, you can see them as different, and then you can see the absence of the imputation in the other dependent, and then you see the suchness of the sitting, and then you realize the suchness of sitting, the suchness of sitting Buddha. It's working with this, and actually they translate these two characters as concerted, concentrated effort,

[23:33]

but actually I think the two characters mean gung-fu, I mean not mean gung-fu, the two characters are gung-fu. In this gung-fu, which means really working with, you're working with what's happening, you're working with trying to get a hold of what's happening so it can exist for you, which is your natural thing, and you're working with understanding that you are, in order for anything to exist, you have to tamper with it, with your conception, and you have tampered, and things do exist for you, and you can find them, but in this confused way. And it doesn't reach what the sitting actually is, and at the same time, what the sitting actually is, is right there, at the same time, because really the mixing is not really happening. They are two different things. The other dependent is not the same as the imputational.

[24:37]

They're just confused. So... What do you say? Yes? When you see the absence of conceptual grasping, um... Pardon? Isn't what an imputational character? When you see the absence of grasping, is that another imputational? Yes.

[25:45]

The appearance of an essence could be observed without believing that this essence applies to the mere appearance of the other dependent. So the imputation is there, but one does not agree with it anymore. So, and that makes it possible, that you're not strongly adhering to this imputation of essence upon what's happening. You're in the absence of the imputation being adhered to as the other dependent. But the imputation is still available, but not believed in. It still may look like things have essences.

[27:35]

This potential of essence projection is still there, but you don't go for it. So you can tell the difference between simple appearance and the belief that the appearance is out there on its own as an essence, as a independent existence. So, part of the way you get the view of the absence is by being very familiar with the presence of the imputation. And then you, by not adhering to the imputation, by not adhering to the imputation of essences to things, you are able to see the absence of the thing you're not adhering to anymore. And then you experience the absence.

[28:38]

Now, I often use the example, like right now, nobody in the room has a hat on, as far as I can tell. When I look at you without your hat on, there is a difference between seeing you without a hat, seeing you without a hat, and seeing the absence of a hat. Pardon? There's a difference between seeing you without a hat and seeing the absence of your hat, or absence of a hat. So Jackie said, it's still imputing. It's only imputing if you want that seeing to exist.

[29:47]

The seeing of you without your hat, and the seeing the absence of your hat, those seeings are dependent co-arisings too, otherwise they don't exist. But that only has to be an imputation if I want to identify the seeing. The actual event of seeing, the actual just appearance of the seeing, the arising of the seeing of suchness, or the arising of the seeing of other dependent. So seeing the other dependent, the way it actually happens is to see you without a hat. To see the suchness is to see the absence of the hat. But that seeing does not itself need to be mixed up with imputation unless I want it to exist. But the only way for it to exist is through imputation.

[30:50]

And understanding that also is good. The hat has to be there in the first place. The imagination of the hat has to be there for the hat to exist. Or in this case, to see the absence of the hat. The imagination of the hat has to be there in the first place to see the absence of the hat. Well actually, the hat has to be there first. The first thing is the hat. The first thing is the Buddha. The first thing is the person sitting. The first thing is the practice. The first thing is the color. That's the first thing. The first thing is dependent co-arising. That's how things happen in the first place, by this process of dependent co-arising. That's how everything happens. Now we got stuff happening, okay? way, but in order to bring things into existence we need to precipitate them with imagination

[31:59]

and imagination also has dependently co-arose. Before there was the dependent co-arising of imagination there was dependent co-arising, but there was no existence. Before there was imagination there was no existence in the universe, but there was a dependent co-arising of imagination and then there was a dependent co-arising of imagining an essence and then there was a dependent co-arising of mixing the essence with dependent co-arising, mixing the projection of the illusion of essence with dependent co-arising and boop, we got a conventional world and we could talk about it. That's us, humans. So in order to have anything exist you have to impute something to it. Before imputation things are not in the category of existence or non-existence. It isn't that before there was existence there was non-existence, it just wasn't an issue. Now it's an issue, a big one.

[33:04]

So, I'm just using the hat and the person as an example of like you without your hat means you without your essence. So seeing you without your essence is different than seeing the absence of your essence. When I see the absence of your essence, I'm not then I don't see anything identifiable. I can't identify you in the absence of your essence. In the absence of that confusion I can't identify you. You're still there, fortunately for you, even though I'm doing this meditation, you don't evaporate. However, I can't identify you and you wouldn't be able to identify yourself either without this confusion, without strongly adhering to how you are with how you imagine you are. That's how you ordinarily know things. You actually do know things prior to that, but you don't

[34:13]

know them in terms of existence and non-existence. You know them more simply, kind of like salivating and relaxing or tensing up. That's how you know things. You do. That's your direct sense perception. However, that's not good enough, so we impute things, we impute essences onto what's happening, so then we have a conventional world, so we can have a Zen center and seating assignments and bodies and stuff, so we can practice. But then as we start to practice we hear the news that if you grasp the form of the practice, which you have to do, you won't have a practice without grasping it, but if you do grasp it, you don't get the essence. In order to get the essence, you have to stop grasping, but when you stop grasping, where's the sitting? You can't find it anymore. So what you do is you get to your sitting place by grasping, and then when you get there, you stop grasping and you don't have your

[35:18]

sitting anymore, but you're okay because you're at your place. So although you lose any recognizable, identifiable, existing sitting, you actually start to open up to the suchness of the sitting, and you start to realize what the Buddha sitting really means, and working with this is dropping off body and mind. Get the picture? It's seeming to me. Okay, you haven't asked a question for a while, go ahead. A positive spin? I thought it was giving a negative spin, but if you want to give it a positive spin, go ahead. What's positive about the way I'm using it?

[36:22]

Yes. Okay. I don't know if the Madhyamaka would agree with that. What is the Madhyamaka being asked about? I think the Madhyamaka sees emptiness as an absence. No, the Madhyamaka sees absence as that you can't tell that there's no adherence in anything, there's no self in any phenomena whatsoever. But it seems to do with what the old charmer

[37:47]

is saying, and although that is true, we agree, we want it to be absent in a more positive way. That absence is clinging, that absence is dependent of designating, that process. Once you see through that process, you're a positive spin on the process itself, rather than simply a negation of anything adhering whatsoever. So, what is the positive spin on the absence of the imputational? What's the positive spin on that, that you would give to it? I think what I'm trying to articulate here is that what makes this distinct in the Madhyamaka position is that absence is an experience that actually arises as a dependent coalescence

[38:50]

phenomenon. But once it has arisen as such, can be identified as such, and that is the release. But I'm not sure what I'm saying is that, and actually I've got something to say to the contrary, that that can be proved, that the Madhyamaka position can't prove that. Except the conditional designation. Yeah? Well, people often do that when you teach the Madhyamaka position, the ancient teachings, the ancient Christian teachings, as far as the parameda, that they seem a little nihilistic. But this seems to be a more positive feeling. Well, that's good. We don't want nihilism around here, do we? No. Well, I don't want it. I think it's not good to be nihilistic. Well, people switch between being nihilists and realists, depending on, you know,

[40:00]

where they think the prophet is. So, anyway, if you reify the absence of the imputational in the other dependent, then you make the other dependent, then you have a nihilistic version of the other dependent. Yeah, what about the other way? If you reify the other dependent, then you make emptiness nihilistic. But the absence of the imputational in the other dependent, it's not just the absence of the imputational,

[41:02]

it's not just the absence of imagining essences that we're talking about, it's the absence of imagining essences about what is happening. Because the absence is based on something happening, there's something there happening. But we don't want to reify this absence, because that'll kill the something that's happening. Then it'll be like nothing at all, because again, when you see, like the difference between looking at somebody and not seeing their essence, when you look at somebody and don't see their essence, you still get to look at them, right? Now, of course, if you don't see their essence, then can you identify them? No, you can't identify them, you got to put an essence on them,

[42:04]

so you can put a conventional designation on them, that's how you identify them. So when you look at people without overlaying them with an essence and attributes, so they can be the object of a conventional designation, you're looking at them, but you can't identify them. So it's kind of like, it's almost like you can't quite see anything there. So you got to be careful, but that's not quite it, because still when you look at somebody, it's different than actually looking at the fact, not just looking at the person without the essence, but actually look at the lack or absence of the essence. When you look at that, then you really can't see the person. So then you're likely to think, there's no person there at all. This is the beginning of the entering into the meditation on suchness, and it's a little bit difficult there, which I haven't mentioned too much, but this is a point at which people get sometimes really terrified, and really feel like tremendously alone, potentially abandoned,

[43:06]

all kinds of adjustment problems occur at this point, which aren't mentioned in the Sutra. That's why you need a teacher to hold your hand through this very difficult transition. When you stop, when you start looking at the lack of essence, when you actually see the lack of essence, then you don't see the identifiable person anymore. You don't see people, you don't see yourself. But it's not that there's nothing there, because this absence is the absence about something happening. It's just that the way things are happening doesn't actually happen in this extreme way of existence and non-existence. The way things happen is in a middle way, and the middle way is ungraspable, but realizable. But at first, when you first start seeing the middle way things are, which is when you start to see the absence of essences,

[44:08]

you're looking at the absence now, that's difficult, that you might turn that into that there's nothing there. So, with the attribution of essences, then it's like something's there. Take away the essences, and it might flip over to something's not there. So, can we take away the essences, see the absence of the essence without flipping from existence, nice conventional world, to no world. Because it isn't that there's no world, it's just that there is no world, but there is things happening which aren't yet a world. And we can make it a world any time we want to by just zapping some conceptual clinging on top of it. When you see the absence of the conceptual clinging, you're still looking at what's really happening, and it's very nice, it's just that you can't identify anything, and then you can slip into like there's nothing there at all.

[45:11]

So, we don't refute or reject that something's happening. Something is appearing, something is happening to us. We are alive. Well, like Jane said that, she said, I think something like, when you see the absence of the imputational, does that mean the imputational is not present? Is that what you said, that was your question? Huh? Absence of the imputational doesn't mean the imputational isn't there. It doesn't mean that the conventional world is evaporated.

[46:15]

It's just for you, for the moment, you're looking at how the imputational isn't applied to what's happening. Events are still arising, it's just that you're seeing that the imputation and the event, you can see the difference, because you know what the imputation looks like. Usually people don't understand the imputation, so when it gets applied to things, they mix them. Now you can see the difference. When you see the difference, then you can see, oh, this is the imputation, this is the other dependent. You look over at the other dependent, and then you look to the fact that you don't see, you know what the imputational looks like now. You look over at the other dependent and you don't see the imputational. You actually then look at the absence of the imputational, but the imputational is still available, so you can get the world back anytime you want to. Just get confused again. Absence of belief?

[47:35]

Belief that there's an attitude of belief where it's actually starting to realize that there are consequences of beliefs, and whatever causes the belief, there's a consequence of belief that this conceptualization, and that the fact that this conceptualization has never been successful, has never been successful, and that the imputational is not the absence of the imputational. Something like that. Yeah, that could be a fruitful line of inquiry. A fruitful line of inquiry, that could be. How's it going so far? Who? The answer is, of course, so I guess I don't understand your question.

[48:52]

That's the definition of it. Now, you can find... Yeah, but that is the imputational character. That's what it says. You can know the imputational character in dependence on... What does it say? In dependence on... In dependence upon names that are connected to signs, the imputational character is known. So you look at the names that are connected to the signs, and there you can find the imputation of essences. Around names that are connected to signs, there you can find, you can identify, that there's some imputation of essences there. Right, so the key, a little different than, you can't find them, they actually are...

[49:55]

No, you can find them. Pardon? They're in the imagination. They're in the imagination, right. You can find them in the imagination. Yeah. But they get applied to things that are happening. When they get applied, they get confused. And then you think you can find them. There's no problem finding these essences. People don't have that problem. People find essences... blah, blah, blah. People find essences everywhere. No problem. But actually, what we have to do is learn how to not find essences where they used to be found. So the essences are really in the imputational, and that's overlaid upon the other dependent. It's that the imputational is absent in the other dependent, not that the imputational is absent in the imputational. So there is the imagination of things that don't exist, and that gets overlaid on things that can exist. Or everything that does exist,

[50:59]

its existence depends on this overlay. Prior to that overlay, it's not established. But still happening, just not established in an identifiable, conventional way. So the way things are happening is free of existence and non-existence. That's the middle way. Because things depend on other things, they do exist, but they exist in this other dependent way. But this other dependent way is not identifiable without the superimposition of conventional designations. And so the absence of the imputational upon the other dependent... It's not the absence of the imputational, like there's no imputational. It's just that it's separate, it's set aside. It's absent in the other dependent, not absent from the planet or from the mind.

[52:02]

Now, once you can see the two, and it's not the same, then you can also then look at not just the other dependent without the imputational, but the absence of the imputational in the other dependent. Then you see the suchness. When you see the suchness, you no longer fall for the imputational. You don't agree with it anymore. And then you can have a material, you can have a conventional world which depends on this imputation without believing it. But in order to wean yourself of believing the imputational, you have to spend a little time looking at the absence of it in the other dependent. And that's a tricky part because at that point it looks like you can't quite see anything there. Because the usual way you see things is they have this overlay and then you can nicely identify them.

[53:04]

Yes? I kind of missed what you said. You said, Sage experiences all phenomena within himself and then you said something else? Well, yes, right. Okay, that's right. ... Right.

[54:11]

That's the imputation. The imputation is the own being on the thing. The thing doesn't have an own being but we put it on there. Now, if you look at the thing without the own being then you can't identify it. You got the thing. Nice. Hey, hi. But you don't know who you're talking to. You can't identify it and therefore it doesn't exist. In order to get it into the world of existence, to flip it over into the category of existence, the conventional world, in the conventional world things exist and don't exist. In the world of dependent co-arising things exist in a middle way, which is free of the extremes of existence and non-existence. But in order to get things over from that middle way over into the existence way, you got to do some imputation on them, which we're good at. ... Well, the Buddha can see things both ways simultaneously.

[55:18]

Other people have to switch back and forth. So, on one side you see things confused and then they look like they exist. The other way, you see them not confused. In other words, one way of looking, you confuse what's happening or how things are happening, you confuse the dependent co-arising of things or you confuse a dependently co-arisen thing with a thing that has an essence. A thing that has an essence doesn't dependently co-arise. If it has an essence, it can't arise and cease. So you confuse something that doesn't arise and cease, an essentially existing thing, an independent thing, you confuse independent things with dependent things, and then you get a world, a conventional world. And you got to make that confusion in order to make conventional designations, to get a world. So, the yogi can see that,

[56:21]

can see that confusion and have a world, but the yogi can also look and see that these two things are separate. And he can stop believing that the independence really belongs on the dependence and seeing that separation, and then even looking at the lack of this projection of independence upon dependent existence. They look at that lack and then they, you know, are cleansed of this habit. But then they can go back to the conventional world where there has to be this confusion and function there, but that's different. And prior to this vision which you're diligently working towards, this vision of suchness or phenomena, prior to that, you can start meditating on the other dependent, and even prior to this cleansing of the vision of suchness, you can still start to welcome the teaching of the other dependent,

[57:23]

and it starts to transform the way you relate to this confusion. The conventional world still has this confusion, but while you're confusing the other dependent character with the imputational character and getting a conventional world and seeing things in this conventional way, you remind yourself that there is a character here which is beyond this appearance of existence. And you start to lighten up on your view of the conventional world. And your behavior starts changing and you get more and more ready to study the imputational. And as you study the imputational you gradually stop adhering so strongly to it as really being characterizing and the same as the other dependent. And then you can start to open up to suchness. So like that poem,

[58:25]

whatever is happening, bodies and minds, day and night, how wondrous strange, rather than how wondrous familiar. I know what day and night are. Sure you do, but how about noticing how strange they are. How about remembering that there's something about them that's not just the way you make them accessible. It's not that they're not there, that wouldn't be so strange, that there is no day and night. It's that they're there, but in this dependent way which is very difficult to see because you're overlaying it. How wondrous strange, but still, welcome. As a stranger, welcome it. Welcome this other dependent. Welcome it. Because you remember that there's more in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy, no matter what you dream. Your dreams never really grasp the way things actually are happening.

[59:29]

You can tell yourself that this is the beginning of entering this meditation. I'm preparing you for studying the other dependent, studying the imputational, studying the process of conceptual clinging and finding out what it is, how it works, so you can actually find out that it's not the same as the other dependent. And when you see that, you can then stop, give up your strong adherence. And when you give up your strong adherence, you can see the absence. When you see the absence, you see suchness of, for example, sitting. But in order to practice this on your sitting, you must have an existing sitting, which you do have. But remember that the sitting you have, which you can find, and you can identify, and you must identify in order to have it, doesn't reach the principle of the sitting, because of the grasping. But you have to grasp it.

[60:31]

Again, like the Woody Allen joke of the guy who goes to the psychiatrist and says, my brother thinks he's a chicken. And the psychiatrist says, you should tell him he's not a chicken. And the guy says, but I need the eggs. So you think that you're a Zen student, and really the Buddha says, you should tell this guy that he's not a Zen student. But if I don't tell myself I'm a Zen student, I wouldn't be able to get in the Zen-do. And I need to get in the Zen-do to find out that there's no Zen-do. You can't find out there's no Zen-do, you can't find out that there's no sitting. Sitting is empty of sitting. You are empty of you. But you can't exist without imputing you on top of you. That's normal. Yes? I'm calling on people that haven't been called on yet.

[61:34]

Yes? Your experience of... Yes? Potential... Okay. Yes? Yes? Uh-huh.

[62:36]

Well, excuse me, but there are two ways of perceiving, or there are two ways of knowing, basically. There's direct perception, and there's direct cognition, and conceptual cognition. These are the two basic ways. So, we are directly, all the time we're directly experiencing the other dependent. We're in touch with dependent co-arising all the time. We're in touch with the principle of it, but you can't know the principle of dependent co-arising initially. You can't, in the realm of direct perception, you can't learn about the teaching of dependent co-arising. However, you are perceiving things that are dependently co-arising. You're actually perceiving dependent co-arising without knowing you're perceiving dependent co-arising. You're just perceiving things, like colors, that are dependently co-arising. Excuse me.

[64:08]

But then the other way of knowing things is to know them, not directly, but through images. That's conceptual cognition. And now what you say was conceptual cognition. You say raise it to a level, but that's... Anyway, it's in a sense raise it to a level because the conceptual is operating on the perceptual. So first there's percepts and then there's concepts. So first we get that something happens, we directly experience it, and anything you experience must be a dependent co-arising. There's nothing to experience that aren't dependent co-arisings. However, they don't exactly exist for you yet at the level of direct perception. You're not into existence there because existence requires conception. But it is happening and it's actually happening in a middle way

[65:10]

and you don't know it. But you're fine. Who cares if you know? You also don't know it in an extreme way. You're just perceiving it. But then, in order to have it exist in the conventional world, in order to identify it, we then have a concept of it. But when we do that, in order to put a concept on it, we also bring with this part about this that doesn't exist an essence. And that's the problem. But it's possible to get over that through quite a bit of work. Yes? It seems to me, my belief is

[66:11]

that there's a shift in the body-mind, a shape that gets created in the rocking off of attributes or essences and the realization of the lack of them that the realization has an effect that goes beyond understanding. It's there and available in moment after moment or in subsequent moments that isn't based on our grasping. But it's available. You know, I couldn't quite follow it. I'm asking what you say is the difference between understanding and realization. I... I would...

[67:12]

I don't really feel ready to use those words differently. To me, realization and understanding are synonyms. Really something different. Yeah, that's why I didn't get what you mean by the difference between realization and understanding. Well, realization doesn't necessarily make sense. So, trying to understand something is trying to make it make sense in the way we usually make things make sense which is within an essence and with attributes, etc. But realization doesn't necessarily have attributes. Realization doesn't have attributes. It's kind of noble. It sounds to me like what you mean by understanding is being able to identify something. Right. But I hear a lot of questions about identifying the lack of

[68:13]

becomes this understanding which then is an indication that maybe there's something else besides that kind of... Well, we sort of addressed that and I forgot who brought it up, but anyway, it's possible to... I think it was when Jane was talking or somebody... and Frederick said that's an imputation, but it's possible to have a vision of suchness but not yet have that vision of suchness be something in the conventional world. It's just a vision of suchness, but it has not yet been identified as a vision of suchness. Just like you can have a vision of a blue, but it has not yet been converted, it has not been given a conventional designation yet, but yet it's possible to find out that the person did see the blue color because you can tell by what they did

[69:14]

when they saw the blue or they saw the red light because they suddenly stopped their car, even though they didn't experience... they didn't think... For them, the red light didn't exist in the conventional world. In their conventional world, there was no red light, but the car stopped. But the car stopping was not the conventional world. That's what I was saying about the visualization has an effect. It has an effect that is different than the effect of understanding. There could be a non-conceptual realization that has an effect and yet it has not yet been converted into something by conventional designation. It's not yet a conventional existing thing yet. So in that sense, it doesn't exist, even though it had an effect. And the effect doesn't exist

[70:15]

yet either. But the effect could exist by making a conventional designation of it and the cause or the condition of the vision could exist by making a conventional designation of it. But the vision and the transformation that the vision gave rise to, the dependently co-arisen vision and the dependently co-arisen transformation based on the vision, actually exist in a middle way between existence and non-existence. And this middle way that exists is that the way all the words we use to make this thing happen are all there is to this thing. There's nothing more to the thing than that. See what time is it? About time to start, don't you think? Laughter So, in one sense,

[71:34]

I'm sorry we can't go on with all your questions, but it... maybe we'll have another opportunity sometime to talk more about this. I... I don't know, but I'm willing, if I'm here, to continue discussing this with people. And... But we... Maybe we should take a little break pretty soon. Don't you think? Is that okay? I just wanted to say one other thing, if I may. And that is... The world will little note nor long remember the Mr. Reb. But I hope that the world does remember the Mr. Re. Okay? Laughter May our intention

[72:38]

equally... Laughter I vow to save them. Delusions are implausible. I vow to heal them. My body is helpless. I vow to nurture them. Through those ways most impossible. I vow to become the Mr. Re.

[73:28]

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