Direct perception is actually experiencing an impermanent phenomena before you overlay it with concepts. So other dependent phenomena relate to other dependent phenomena in this direct way, and if you have a living being relating to another living being, or a living being relating to a so-called non-living being, the impact between them, the actual impression that the object has on the consciousness, is an impermanent phenomena, is an other dependent phenomena, which is directly known. But, it's known without being able to identify it. So moment by moment, you and I supposedly are having direct sensory experiences of impermanent

[01:06]

other dependent phenomena. Moment by moment that's happening, but we can't identify them, but they're our life, basically. I keep having this idea that when direct perception happens, it's mechanical, I guess it's mechanical. Mechanical? Yeah, it's mechanical like a mortal psyche making love, mechanical. It's a blissful mechanism. It's called life. It's called energy flowing without obstruction, which is going on all the time, but we get distracted from it because of packaging it and grasping it. So underneath the superficial grasping where all this misery occurs is this huge organic ocean of interrelationship where we're grooving with each other all the time. But, because we want to know it, we exiles ourselves from it.

[02:13]

In the morning, we eat up the unknown and exile ourselves from this organic mechanistic blissland. But we do get to know it and go to business school. Yes? I was thinking about Helen Keller. Yeah. She had a sense of touch, she had a sense of taste, a sense of smell. But according to her story, there was not a world, there was sensation, she used to say later. It was not until her teacher took her finger and there was a little water, I think they were drinking water or washing water, and with her finger, W-E-T, that the world, I think this is what we're saying, that the world came into focus, what we call a conventional

[03:14]

world, because there was now a symbol, W-E-T. For her, at least, that brought her into, not out of bliss state, into a narrow state, but into a state of great happiness. For her, the word, in the beginning was the word, but for her, I don't know where you put that. Well, I would say that she already was packaging the world of bliss by imputing essences to it before she had words to put on it, so that's why she was miserable. And when she could put words on it, then she could join the conventional world where she had some friends. But she was already, she wouldn't have been able to come into the world of conventional designation if she hadn't been imputing already. So she was in like a limbo between the dependent co-arising and the ordinary conventional world,

[04:20]

which is worse, because then you can't hear the teachings. So that's worse. Anybody who's halfway between is worse. So that's how I would understand her story. So when you watch children, they can impute language structures to things before they have the words to go on them, and they're dying to get those words on them, but they can't do it yet. But for a short period of time, it's okay, because they get so much affection, and they can see it and hear it. But the language structure is based on this imputation, which she was doing, I would say, which made it possible, once she got the word, she could put it right on there, and it started to work, because she had this language ability. Yeah, I don't think she would dispute that there was a separate substance before the language came in. Yeah, right. So it was part of her liberation to be able to come into the realm of language in where she can hear human wisdom, and then she developed really nicely, so that's how I would see the story. Yes? You think it's time to end?

[05:23]

Today, you're wrong. But you can leave if you want to. Yes? A couple of days ago, I went to a rosary for a friend that passed away, and there was a prayer by St. Francis of Assisi, and it warmed my heart, and I was wondering if you could read it shortly. Sure. Do you have reading glasses there for me? This is kind of small writing here. Do you like my new reading glasses? Buddha, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury, pardon. Where there is discord, unity.

[06:27]

Where there is doubt, faith. Where there is error, truth. Where there is despair, hope. Where there is sadness, joy. Where there is darkness, light. O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Thank you. You're welcome. Who? Pardon? St. Francis, right. St. Francis.

[07:28]

I've been sitting here uncomfortable trying to figure out why this teaching is uncomfortable. And I'm wondering if the light suddenly, when she gives a lamp, is that why this teaching seems to be like that, lighting a lamp, and a differentiation of self and phenomenon, which is uncomfortable, I think. That there's, you know, I found it more uncomfortable to consider non-duality of subject and object than nothing more soothing as a teaching than studies phenomenon, which is, and I'm wondering if this staging of those, by putting it in this methodically originated, it's kind of brought on that way, and it's really being asked to look at something that's a fantasy.

[08:36]

You say, did you say you're being asked to look at something that's a fantasy? Yeah, a fantasy of self and others. You're being... I don't quite understand what you're saying. Well, my understanding of co-arising, as a subject of self, my understanding of co-arising is the object of my perception, of so-called perception. Okay, so the self, so-called self, that I imagine... Yes? Yes? Uh-huh.

[09:53]

Uh-huh. Uh-huh. I'm being asked to take that self and observe this other. No, I'm not telling you to take the self and observe the self. I'm saying, the teaching is, these objects you're looking at, observe them, which you're already doing anyway. The teaching is not asking you to ask that question. Yes. Yes. But right now, I'm just saying, just work with what's happening to you. And just remember that whatever is appearing is impermanent. Not remember, but hear this teaching and you'll understand that whatever you're experiencing is impermanent. You're not being asked to look at yourself right now, but if your self pops up, look at it. Like Bernard's saying, when you're doing the form, suddenly there's a self there. I'm not saying go look for the self, but maybe when you're doing a form, suddenly there's

[10:59]

a self appears doing the form. Okay, then apply this to that. Huh? Well, you may find that. But I'm not saying to look for it. I'm just saying when you see it in a superficial way, not when you look for it. We're going to look for it later. Now we're just dealing with the appearance of the self, if it happens. But I'm not sending you to look for it. I'm saying if it pops up there, just be present with it without touching it. Bring this teaching to bear on this self. If something that's not the self appears, then face not the self and apply this teaching to it. Later, we're going to look for the self and we're going to find the absence of it. And then you're going to be one happy camper. Cedar? Oh, it was Sala? That was Sala, wow. Oh, and Fu's hand was Cedar's hand, okay.

[12:01]

And Sala's hand was Cedar's hand. That's nice. Wow. Kind of like, what do you call it, marionettes or something. Yes? Yes. The three stooges. Hey, wait a minute, it's Sala's turn. Okay. Right view isn't the teaching about this. Right view is understanding this. This teaching is being given to help us develop right view. And right view of what? Right view of what's happening. We have some work to do in that department.

[13:04]

Yes? Yeah. He flew away. Yes. What does what look like? It looks like getting up in the morning, get up in the morning and go to the Zendo and sit, that's what it looks like. And then there's Kinhin. And then there's Zazen.

[14:07]

And then there's service. That's what it looks like. And it looks like you're there. It doesn't look like Psyche and Eros. It looks like you sitting there in your cushion, that's what it looks like. Well, that's what it looks like. When you go to the Zendo and you think that what's happening is what you think what's happening, that's just Psyche. That's right. It's Psyche who can't see Eros anymore because she knows Eros. Because you know love now, you can't really see him. But you know, huh? You have to know it before you can not see it, right? You have to know before you exile yourself.

[15:10]

You exile yourself by knowing. You exile yourself by grasping. That's how you exile yourself from dependent co-arising. Of course it's really still there, otherwise you wouldn't be exiled. You're only exiled for something that means something to you. Something that means a lot to you. You already do know dependent co-arising. You already do know dependent co-arising. And how do you know dependent co-arising John Wilcox? Yeah. You're going around wrong. You know it by grasping the other dependent as being the invitation. That's how you know it. That's how you know it. That's how you know love. You know love by grasping it as what you think it is. You come into the zendo, what you think is happening, that's how you know dependent co-arising zendo. By taking it for the invitation, that's how you know.

[16:13]

That's what the sutra says. That's how you know. And what does it look like for you to get over your psyche? It looks like you coming to the zendo and sitting there thinking that this is what's happening. And here in teachings we're saying, John, there's another dependent character to what's going on here. There's an eros aspect here too, which you actually are isolated from because you have converted it into a knowable thing. And you will work with that year after year until little by little, together with all your friends, you achieve reunion. So one of the things she has to do is she had to go through a pile, a big pile of sesame seeds mixed with what? Huh? I didn't hear that. Salt. Yeah. Yeah, sesame seed mixed with salt.

[17:16]

She was supposed to separate the sesame seeds and the salt. Not grind them together, separate them. So that's what you have to do, that kind of stuff. You have to come in here day after day and separate. But of course she couldn't do it. She collapsed. And then the ants came and helped her. So you come in here and you try to do it day after day, year after year, and you won't be able to. But finally you will collapse, you'll give up, you'll surrender to the practice, and the ants will come and save you. And then there's two more, but we'll go into them later. The isolation is... No, the isolation is not an illusion. The isolation is created by believing in illusion. The isolation is a conventionally existing unhappiness.

[18:17]

You're not really isolated. You're not really isolated. You're right, the isolation is an illusion. The exile is an illusion. But the experience of the exile is based on the delusion that the thing is what you think it is. When you look at somebody and you believe how they appear to you, you exile yourself from them. You're not really exiled, but because you see them and believe that you actually feel exiled, you feel unhappy. So our practice is to overcome this belief which produces the conventionally existing feeling of exile and unhappiness. So we're starting by meditating on what we exiled ourselves from. The nature that we've exiled ourselves from. Even though we're not quite back there yet, we're starting to re-initiate ourselves back home.

[19:20]

And now it's getting close to time to take a break before service. Can we stop now? Is that okay?

[19:29]

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