This will probably, or this, I should say, this may be the last Dharma talk that I'll ever give. And it may be the last Dharma talk of this three-week intensive that we had at Green Gulch, which we're planning to conclude tomorrow. during this intensive and also for the past year there's been an emphasis on some wisdom teachings here at Green Gulch. Wisdom teachings which are intended to help people open to and demonstrated and awaken to and enter into wisdom, into Buddha's wisdom.

[01:06]

The main reason that Buddhas appear in the world is to help people become wise so that they can benefit the world. We may wish to be helpful and that's wonderful that we want to But in order to fulfill our intention to benefit the world and be of beneficial service, wisdom is necessary. So the Buddha came to help us be wise. In a sense, I didn't hear that the Buddha came to help people care for each other or love each other. because we do. The Buddha helped us, wants to come and help us be wise so that the obstructions to loving each other go away in the light of wisdom. One particular focus of these teachings is the teaching

[02:16]

to help people become wise with respect to the nature of phenomena. Because most of us without special education program are not wise with respect to the nature of phenomena, the character of phenomena. And so about the character of phenomena and in particular In studying, the Buddha has taught that all phenomena have three characteristics. You can also say that there are three types of phenomena that can be classed into these three types, and all phenomena have these three characteristics. The three characteristics are what are called the other dependent character, the independent character and the thoroughly established character.

[03:24]

The other dependent character is simply the fact that all things that exist exist in dependence on things other than themselves. All things come to exist through dependence on things other than themselves. They do not exist through themselves. Imputational character or the character of conceptual imputation is that which is imputed. The imputational character is that which is imputed to phenomena symbols in terms of a kind of own being or an essence and attributes whereby we can make conventional designations about phenomena.

[04:39]

And the third characteristic, a thoroughly established character, is that this imputation upon phenomena, the imputation of an essence whereby we can talk about things, actually never reaches the things. And the fact of the absence of the imputation on the other dependent character is the thoroughly established character. It takes a while to understand them, several years of study, but that's a definition of them. The other dependent character of the world and every single thing in the world

[05:54]

cannot be grasped. If you reach for a person, for the other dependent character of a person, or any being, or anything, you're reaching for that phenomena, but all that there's there is some total of things other than itself. So before you impute a packaging, before the mind imputes a packaging under the other dependent character of the world or anything in the world, all things are possible and inconceivable. All things are actually the coming together of many, many supportive conditions. And the thing appears through the support, but there's no core to the thing.

[06:59]

That's the basic character of all phenomena, this other dependent character. But if you can't grasp it, with your hands or your mind, then you can't name it. Then you can't own it or sell it or push it around. And also, I say you, but the other dependent character of everything is that it's not at all separate from you. Your awareness of it is part of what it is, so you can't separate yourself from it and put it out there to grasp. However, we have the ability with everything we experience to separate ourselves from everything we experience. We have the ability to separate ourselves from the world by means of this imputational character, by our mind superimposing upon something that's ungraspable a way to

[08:19]

Our mind imputes and superimposes upon something that's inconceivably vast, inconceivably beautiful, inconceivably wonderful, inconceivably interdependent and free and glorious, human itself, but ungraspable. Our mind imputes onto it a way to get a hold of it, and then we can talk about it. But actually, even though we impute something on it so we can get a hold of it, the imputation never reaches it. And the fact that the imputation never reaches it, the packaging never grasps it, never comprehends it, never really gets even the slightest foothold in it, that's the thoroughly established character. Recently someone said to me, how are you doing?

[09:24]

Somebody said to me. You know, we're having a very deep meeting and he says, how you doing? And I said, I said something like, I don't know if I said it that way, something like that. Great. And he understood my meaning. I didn't mean good. I was rather sick at the time. I meant great in the sense of very, very big. I meant great in the sense of vast. And I don't consider that exactly a compliment to me. That's a statement of my faith. I think I am great, and I think you are great. I think each of us is an ocean beyond anyone's comprehension, including the Buddha.

[10:26]

The Buddhas are those who know that all things are beyond grasp, are inconceivably vast and wonderful. And no one, nobody's mind can measure it. All day long, one can meditate and be mindful that she is great. that she has other dependent character beyond all description and . However, simultaneously with that, there can be a projection of a little version, a pint-sized version of her upon her by which she can talk about herself. We have to do this in order to talk, in order to live together. So it's kind of unavoidable, this imputation, so we can talk about things which are far beyond the imputation.

[11:32]

The analogy I use over and over is the analogy of what we are is like an ocean, but much, much bigger than any ocean that you can see. So is the ocean. And if you go out in the ocean, in a boat for example, or swimming, and you get away from the shore, and there's no islands around, and you look at the ocean, it will look like a circle of water. But the ocean is not a circle of water. That's just the way it looks. That's just the way your mind apprehends the ocean. There actually is no circle out in the ocean. And the way when you look at any phenomenon in the world,

[12:41]

The way it appears is not in the thing. The way it appears is only the way you imagine it so that you can get a hold of it and talk about it. What you imagine is based on the thing. If you go out in the ocean and see the circle of water, the circle of water is based on the ocean, but there's no circle of water in the ocean. When you look at someone and you see them some way as a beautiful man or woman, that image of a beautiful man or woman is in the person. But there's no beautiful man or woman in the person. There's nothing at all like that in the person. You might say, that's too bad. But also if you see the person as not beautiful, as ugly and cruel, there's no ugly and cruel person the way you see them.

[13:43]

That's just a way that your mind gets a hold of them. The absence of that is the thoroughly established, is the suchness of the phenomenon. So that's an introduction to these three. Now I'd just like to talk a little bit about different ways that these three relate. One way that they relate is the process of bondage and misery. And another way that they relate is the process of liberation from bondage and misery. Okay? First, how do they relate to each other such that a process of bondage and liberation works? Well, basically what happens, the way … Again, as I said, I'll say it again, the other dependent character is basically, you are intimate.

[14:49]

Whenever you meet any phenomena, you actually are intimate with this other dependent character. This other dependent character is that you're intimate with it. The other dependent character is actually that I'm intimate with you. But since I'm intimate with you, so intimate that I'm not separate, you can't actually make me into an object because we're creating each other. So in order to grasp me, with your eyes or your hands or your ears or your mind. You have to project, you have to know me through the image your mind casts upon me. So, the relationship between these, the other dependent, the dependently co-arisen nature of everything, nature of everything, the relationship between that and the imputational is that the imputational, when placed upon it, gives you a way to know it.

[15:49]

it makes it into an appearance that you can know. Okay? Then it's kind of useful. However, that usefulness gets used over and over so that you put a little packaging on the inconceivable thing that you're meeting and relating to so that you can and you can give it a name and then that tends to make you do it again and again and pretty soon you actually start to think and believe that the packaging you put in the thing is actually the thing. You strongly adhere to being the thing. You think the packaging actually reaches the basis So the packaging is based on something. It's based on this other dependent character.

[16:52]

It's not based on nothing, but it never reaches what it's based on. It has a source, it has a base, but it never reaches. But after using it that way for a while, you start to forget that you just put that on there so you could designate it and get a hold of it. And you start to think that the imputational character, that the image is the thing. And that is the source. It's to believe that what you think of things is what they are. Again, you can think about your own meditation practice. You can think, well, I have a pretty good meditation practice. as a way of like being able to talk about your meditation practice, that's okay. But if you believe that your meditation practice is a good meditation practice, then that will be the source of suffering. The idea good meditation practice doesn't reach anybody's meditation practice.

[17:58]

Yours. If you think your meditation practice is not too good or really bad, That's fine. You can talk about it at the coffee table. I have a really lousy meditation practice. How is yours? Great. And that person may say, mean great, like the idea of great actually applies to it rather than it's great because I really don't know anything about my meditation practice. That's why I say great. But no matter what you practice, your meditation practice is not touched by what you say, and it's not touched by what you think of it, so that you can say something about it. But if you think it is, then there is suffering. Even if you think, my meditation practice is good, that's fine.

[19:01]

What's the matter with that? My meditation practice is really good, really excellent, wonderful. I'm telling you to think that and to think that that actually applies to your meditation practice will be the source of suffering. And you might think, well, I can see why if my meditation practice was really poor, and I believed that that was really characterizing my meditation practice, I can see that that would be suffering. And you're right, it would be. But no matter what you think of your meditation practice, and no matter what you think of yourself, and no matter what you think of other people, even if it's extremely positive, if you think that's really what they are, you demean that person, you demean yourself, you demean that thing by believing. You deprecate, you diminish whatever anything is if you think that what you think of it is it.

[20:03]

Other than what you think it is, is just what you think it is. Which is all that, and that's all it is. What you think it is, is just what you think it is. And if not, it doesn't And I wouldn't say, however, it's got nothing to do with the thing. It's based on the thing. The thing is the support. That's why it's so nasty. Because everything is giving you support and offers and comes up to you and says, hey, I'm with you. And then you say, okay, I'm going to package you. I'm going to denigrate you, demean you, decrease you, diminish you so I can get a hold of you. And when you say, excuse me for doing that, I'll do it, but I won't believe that that's really what you are. I'll just do that so I can tell my friends about you. And then it might say, actually, okay.

[21:16]

You can decrease me so you can tell your friends. If you promise not to believe that this diminished version of me is me, I promise, I promise I won't forget that you actually are vast beyond all conception and description. And I'm just using description so I can tell my friends that I met you. Okay. Or, okay, fine, go ahead, have a ball. I don't forget what I told you. Do not believe that this description of me is me. It's not, right? Right. We do it over and over. We forget. We forget. And then the suffering starts. No matter if you stay This person is the most wonderful person. That sounds nice. That's no problem unless you believe that that statement that they're a wonderful person actually embraces them.

[22:19]

That doesn't get a hold of anything. It's a nice compliment. That's fine. But if you believe that that really reaches the person, it's a great insult to your relationship. And as a result, the world, you suffer. And then do things based on that suffering which are not good. All the while the third characteristic is not being utilized So the process of bondage is to mix the other dependent character and the character of conceptual imputation, to mix those together, for them to be the same, and forget about the third character, which is, I'm telling you, that the imputational character never touches the other dependent.

[23:33]

It never gets there. It never touches it the slightest bit. It emanates from it. but it never can go back to its source and get it. The other dependent, thoroughly established character is understanding that. But when you forget that, you suffer. So the origination of suffering of these two mixed together is the third, or getting out of touch with the third. The process of liberation is to somehow — and this is the course of meditation — to somehow adhering so strongly to the conceptual imputations, to the false superimpositions on things, And false superimposition means false in the sense that the superimposition, it's false to think that the superimposition is the way the thing is.

[24:39]

To put an appearance on something of existing in a way that it doesn't, in that sense it's false. To learn how to not strongly adhere to these things, to learn how to find the absence of conceptual superimpositions phenomena. As you loosen it up, the thoroughly established is known. And as you learn the thoroughly established and meditate on it, to liberation. Knowing that they're established is the gate to liberation. In other words, knowing that the superimpositions upon things is not in accordance with reality. That's the gate to liberation. In the Buddhist practice world, we have various methods and practices for loosening

[25:48]

this strong adherence to what we think about things as being them. For example, trained in Japan, born in Japan, and trained in Zen in Japan. And he was training with his teacher, and I think he had a number of other young monks there with him. And I think his teacher gave them some food to eat, and that was some pickles. And the boys looked at the pickles, and they noticed that the pickles were rotten. And they didn't want to eat the pickles because they thought the pickles were rotten.

[26:55]

And of course they thought that what they thought about the pickles was that this view of rotten pickles really characterized these vast other dependent phenomena called pickles. So they thought, well, we better not eat these pickles. But they knew that their teacher didn't like them not to eat the food he gave them, so they buried the pickles. They didn't just leave the pickles sitting on the dining room table for their teacher to come in and say, you didn't eat the pickles, boys. He knew that they would be asked to eat the pickles then. So they thought, we'll just bury the pickles. Then he'll think we ate the pickles and he won't make us eat them because they won't be there.

[27:58]

So the six or seven smart boys buried the pickles. And for some reason or other, their teacher went digging that day in the garden. Now, I don't mean to say that to you to make you think that he's supernatural powers. But anyway, just by chance, because of the wondrous working of the other dependent nature, the resonance of the enlightenment of the Buddhas with the practitioners. These boys were working hard at their practice. Teacher started digging and under the ground, but the pickles, so he took the pickles And he washed off the dirt and he gave them to the boys. And he said, you missed these pickles. You didn't eat them this morning. Now time to eat them. And then Suzuki, the boy, little boy Suzuki, ate the pickles.

[29:05]

And he said after that, he understood something he never understood before. And this was his teacher's way of helping him loosen up a little bit around his idea of rotten pickles. Another story, I don't know if that was true, that story he told, but anyway, I like it. And I tell it over as though it happened. But that story actually doesn't reach what happened. And if you think it did, and if your mind right now is trying to use that story to think to reach what happened, then the story's going to backfire on you. That story does not reach what happened.

[30:12]

there's a whole bunch of stories like this about what Buddhist teachers do to help their students loosen up on this strong adherence to their stories about what's happening as being what's happening. I will tell you more. and move on to something else. Again, the gate to liberation is to realize that phenomena do not exist in accordance to the false superimpositions that are the source of suffering. So to get started in this loosening up, we start not by going directly to the strong adherence and trying to pry the image away from the thing so the adherence won't be so strong.

[31:42]

We don't usually start that way. Usually you kind of like warm up to that. So these monks, these young boys, Suzuki Roshi, they had been living with the teacher for a while. He had been warming them up to that so that he could like pull pickles out of the ground. Main practice. But before that, there's a basic practice that we start with. So someone asked, and the basic practice is meditate on the other dependent character even though you can't see it. You can't see it because it's and inconceivable to be conceived of. So you hear the teaching of the dependent core arising. You hear the teaching that things are other dependent. And if you think about that, that will mean that you will not be able to see them. You only can see them as appearances through projecting images on them.

[32:44]

And then you see them and know them as those images. But you still can look at, everything you look at, every person you meet, you can realize this appearance, this image, which is an image of visual image, auditory image, taste image, touch image, mind image, this image is based on something which is beyond images. And that thing which is beyond images is something that does not make itself happen. It's something that exists in things other than itself, and it is not anything in addition to those dependencies. But you just meditate on that as much as possible with every experience. You look at the appearance. That's how you know something's based on what is there other-dependently. But you remember, even though this thing doesn't look other dependent, it's based on something which is its other dependence.

[33:52]

I was asked recently a question about this, about how to apply it. And so in this retreat we're having here at Green Gulch, the second to the last day of the retreat, in this retreat we have 90 people sitting. We started with . We started the retreat on January 6th or something, and we had in the valley 99 people on the wall. Actually, we had 99 people in the valley and 99 people on the wall. 99 people looking at the wall, and if one of those people should happen to fall, 89 people watching the wall. And then things got messy. A plague hit Green Gulch. And, you know, kind of devastating.

[35:06]

But anyway, we kept going with the practice period, and here we are, almost done in this kind of messy way. The plague hit, but it had a fairly rigorous schedule of meditations and work and classes. And some people, because there was quite a bit of sitting, some people had some physical difficulty sitting. So some people had some pain in their body while sitting. Some other people had pain in their body because of being sick. And other people had pain in their body because they got just all kinds of problems with their body. So people had pains with their bodies. And then also the classes were difficult, as you might imagine. So they had pains with the classes. They had stories about the classes like, these classes are really like a waste of time. And they thought that those ideas about the classes actually applied to the classes.

[36:10]

They forgot these classes are actually great. But in order to talk to each other at the table, the dining room table, they made various conventional designations based on imputing certain things to the classes. And they believed that and they suffered. So people were suffering a lot during this practice period. So somebody said, well, how do we apply the teaching, the beginning wisdom teaching, how do you apply the teaching that phenomena have an other dependent character to the phenomena of pain in the whatever? The legs, pain in the back, pain in the nose, pain in the sinuses, pain in the intellectual faculties, pain. How do you apply it to pain? How do you apply these teachings to illness? they could have also asked, how could you apply this teaching to pleasure and health?

[37:21]

But there wasn't any of that, so. But this teaching can be applied to pleasure and health. And also just to be clear with you, when there's pain, Okay? Pain is a dependently co-arisen phenomena. It has other dependent character. And the appearance of pain, or your idea of pain, is based on... But the pain is not your idea of the pain. We're not saying there's no pain. We're just saying the pain is great. The pain is much bigger than your hindsight version of the pain. It's not that it's much more painful. It's not more painful.

[38:24]

It's not less painful. It's just an ocean which you pintified so you can talk about. Illness, the illness you see, the illness that appears to you is based on illness. But that illness, that dependently co-arisen illness, is beautiful and wondrous beyond imagination. We're not saying that no pain and no illness. We're saying that your ideas about your pains and your illnesses don't ever scratch the surface of your pain and your illness. That's all. If you understand that, you will be inconceivably happy and free.

[39:27]

If you don't believe that and think that your little version of your pain and your illness is what your pain and illness are, you will suffer and cause trouble around here. And so will I. I can certainly see that. That when I believe what I think of my pain, and when I think, when I believe that what I think about my illness, is my pain and my illness, I'm in big trouble. As many of you know, about two and a half years ago I was riding a bicycle and somehow I got thrown very hard onto Houston cement. And when I hit the cement I said, It hurt. But I got over that. And then I decided to get up.

[40:30]

But somehow I couldn't move my leg. And the reason why I couldn't move my leg is because as I started to move, I got a message from my leg that that was not a good idea. A pain that wasn't really that intense, it was more like You move this, you're going to get a pain that's going to be intense. There's a pain waiting for you, which is like, you know, you have not seen this before, and you don't want to know it. So forget about moving. And I tried again, like, it was like, you know, kind of like, it was like, it was just this big whisper, like, go away. You can't even move a little tiny bit. Even though you have muscles there and you have arms, you could pull yourself around the block on your arms.

[41:34]

But if you did that, if you move this leg even a little bit, it's going to be like, you're going to be. And I didn't even try to test it. I could feel like, mm-mm, I'll wait here for a while, see what else happens. That little tip of the iceberg of pain that I felt, it was useful because, you know, I would have tried to get up. I would have tried to move. I would have. I would have like stood up and watched these two little swords of my broken femur go through my thigh muscles out into the world. You know, broken chunks of femur in there were sharp in the muscle. And if you moved them at all, they would start moving through and ripping the muscle and cutting arteries. And it would have been, well, I could have died in a short time.

[42:36]

That's why there's little nerves in there saying, do not move. And don't let anybody else move you either, please. Pain is a dependently coercive phenomenon. It's part of how things are working really nicely. But if we understand the pain, then we have a pain on top of a good pain. Illness helps us know that we should rest sometimes or whatever. these things are good. But the way we know them is not really them. And that's okay too because the way we know them is the way we tell people, I don't think I can get up. Would you call an ambulance?

[43:38]

But if I think that what I think of my leg is my leg, then I suffer in an unnecessary and much more harmful way. The Buddha got sick at the end of his life, really sick. But the Buddha And the Buddha thought about his sickness and he could talk about his sickness, but the Buddha didn't believe that what he thought about his sickness was his sickness. So he kept being the Buddha. If the Buddha had believed that what he thought his sickness was and how his sickness appeared to him was his sickness, then he would have been fired as Buddha. But he didn't believe After he was enlightened, he didn't believe that what he thought was happening was what was happening.

[44:45]

So even though he was sick, and even though he could see the appearance of his sickness, which was not reaching the sickness, and tell people about it, he could see dharma as usual. And he kept being the Buddha right through the sickness. And so there's a possibility that you too as you become sick and are in pain, that you can be a very happy, peaceful, enlightened being through this messy situation that you're probably going to get into pretty soon, especially if you come to Green Ocean. So there's the pain. And remember that that pain is based on something, based on an other dependent character, which is that this pain does not make itself happen.

[46:00]

Pain is produced by things other than itself. And then when you realize that this pain and this illness is existing in dependence on things other than itself, then you won't care too much about your pain, and you won't care too little about your pain, and you won't care too little about your illness. You'll care just the right amount. you'll care a lot, but not too much. You won't care too much, but you won't care little. You'll care wholeheartedly, but not too much. You'll care appropriately if you remember this teaching while you have pain and illness. And because you care just the right amount, the way you respond to the pain and the illness or the pleasure and the health.

[47:07]

You also won't care too much about your health because you remember this health does not make itself happen. It happens in dependence on other things. And things that depend on other things for their existence are not stable, are impermanent. This health is not worthy of confidence. I'm healthy now, but this health is not worthy of confidence. This health is unstable, changeable, impermanent. Therefore, when you see that and understand that you don't care too much about your health, and you won't care too little either, you'll care just the right amount about your health. And pleasure, which we don't have here, but pleasure is other-dependent for doesn't produce itself. It happens in dependence on things other than itself. Therefore, it can't keep itself going. It's unstable.

[48:11]

It's not worthy. Pleasure is not worthy of competence. If you think pleasure is worthy of competence, then you will care too much about pleasure. You are, unfortunately or fortunately, more unfortunately, I think, you are built To think that pleasure is worthy of confidence. It's part of the delusion system. To think that pleasure is worthy of confidence. But when you listen to this teaching, when you got pleasure, listen to the teaching, you kind of realize, pleasure? Great, thanks. Thank you very much. Yum, yum, yum. But not worthy of confidence. If you think it's worthy of confidence, then you will care too much about pleasure. Or you'll care too little. And when you care too much about pleasure or pain or health or illness, your responses to it will be unskillful, unkind, unhelpful, wrong, bad.

[49:17]

On the other hand, if you remember this teaching, really remember it, and really remember it, it will start sinking in, and then you will respond not too much or too little to your pain and your pleasure. They will respond well. Just like I did. When I broke my leg, I responded well. I didn't care too much or too little about it. I cared some, but not too much. And when an x-ray and they wanted to move my leg, I explained to them that I didn't really think I would be able to allow them to do that. Please don't move my leg. Please. Take it on that bent shape it's in. Because I won't be able to stand it if you start moving those shards around inside. And they did.

[50:21]

They took this lousy thing. But they could tell by the photograph that it was broken. So then they knocked me out and moved it. Here's another way, a poetic way, to apply the teaching of other dependent character, of dependent core rising to this messy situation of having a body that gets sick and has pain. This leaky, tumble-down grass hut opening for the moon.

[51:22]

Now I see it! All the while, it was reflected in the teardrops falling on my sleeve. This leaky, tumble-down grass hut leaves an opening for the moon. This leaky, tumbled-down grass hut leaves an opening for the moon. Now I see it. But all the while, it was reflected in the teardrops on our sleeves. When the master Dung Shan was about to die, one of his students came to him and said something like, You're unwell.

[52:41]

Is there someone who's not unwell? Dung Shan said, There is. His students said, Does she look after you? Dung Shan said, I look after her. The students said, How is it when you look after her? Dung Shan said, I see that there's no sickness. Do you understand? Want a hint? The one who's not sick is the other dependent character.

[53:49]

Even the other dependent character, when you're sick, when you're about to die, with your final sickness this time around, At that time, there's one who's not sick. You have a sickness, yes. But you also have an idea of sickness, yes. But your idea of sickness doesn't reach your sickness. So there's one of your sickness is not reached by any idea of your sickness. And you can say, does that one take care of me? Well, Tungshan said, no, I take care of it. How do you take care of it? I look at it and I see. The other dependent character of our life, constantly changing, constantly flowing, constantly wondrously alive and beautiful,

[54:59]

but there's no birth and no death therein. Birth and death do not reach it. However, when there's birth and death, it's the basis of birth and death. When you're dying, there's an other character of your dying that your idea of dying doesn't reach. When you're living, there's another dependent character of your living, and your ideas of living do not reach it. In the other dependent character, no words, no death reach. However, it's the basis for ideas of birth and death. Birth and death appear and disappear, and they're based on a way that we are where there's no birth and no death. However, in this thing, this way we are, beyond birth and death, it's also the support of birth and death. It offers the opportunity for birth and death.

[56:06]

It says, go right ahead. Say I'm birth. But remember, don't believe that. Tell people about me. Tell people that I'm death coming. Tell people that I'm birth coming. But don't... Just what you think. And you're not going to believe that's what I really am, right? No. When we remember this, even while we're crying over our, you know, wrecked house, wrecked body, wrecked mind, even while the teardrops are falling still, thoroughly established character, shining through and reflected in every teardrop. Our bad stories and good stories never reach their basis.

[57:07]

But we have to remember this teaching, otherwise we're going to slip, slip, slip back into What we think is happening is what's happening and then we will be trouble. Listen to this teaching, things will start listening up. This isn't the final teaching. The final teaching is coming up a little later. In order to be able to not at all fall for the appearance of things as being them, we have to actually see this thoroughly established character. We have to actually see that it's actually absent. That requires quite a bit more work, but it's 1120, and I don't know if you can stand to go on to learn all this, learn how to do that part. But you probably can, so I'll go on. I'll do the short version.

[58:51]

This other dependent character of the world, this other dependent character of all phenomena, is first and foremost a beautiful world. a beautiful world of impermanence. And everybody in this world, every being in this world is wondrous and beyond description or conception. And this wonder and beauty and joy of the other dependent character of the world is entirely due to its being free from any image of self or essence imputed to it.

[60:11]

that beauty is due to the world being free of our ideas of it. And when you see the absence of your ideas in the world, you see the beauty. But when you see the absence of your ideas of the world, beauty, you don't see any things. because you have to impute your ideas of self, of a package, onto the thing to be able to see it. But when we impute the self onto the thing, we kind of kill the beauty. So as we look at things and we start to come to the kind of threshold where we're starting to look but let the image drop away, let go of the image a little bit, and look at things letting go of the image of them,

[61:53]

we become a little bit afraid sometimes, especially the first few times you see this. You may become somewhat terrified because it's almost like there's nothing there. That in that almost nothing there that you will be destroyed. The beauty is the beauty is right there in that terror that you can still stand when you first start looking at things in the absence of superimpositions. Vilka said, something like, Du bist die eine Blume.

[63:09]

No, he didn't say that. He said, Who, if I cried, would hear me? The angelic orders. And even if one of them suddenly pressed against me, or pressed me against her heart. I should fade of her stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but the beginning of a terror we're still able to just bear. And why we adore it so is because it serenely disdains to destroy us.

[64:13]

Each single angel is terrible and so I keep down my heart and swallow the call note of the depth dark sobbing. So when you get to the threshold of letting go of believing that your image of the something is the something, and as the something starts to come to you, If you can stand that terror, then it will kill you. You're starting to open to beauty. You're starting to open to truth.

[65:17]

It's a little bit difficult. Because you can just slap that image back on there and you're okay again. Get those angels away. Get that beauty away. And then you're not afraid anymore. The beauty of the world is entirely due to its being free of self. But when the world becomes free of the projection of self, we have a little bit of a fright because we think we'll fall into the void or this big angel will gobble us up. But it won't. Beauty ends where people who believe in stress their self.

[66:23]

Beauty ends where people who believe in themselves stress that, put that on things and believe it. That covers the door to beauty. Pendently co-arisen world, which is the only world there is. But the thoroughly established character of that beautiful world is that it can never be comprehended with your grippers. You can never get it, never away from it. You can only distance yourself by packaging it and believing the packaging is it. You close the door on it, but you're still right in your face. is still pressed up against your true heart. The self-advocacy of beauty is the suicide of beauty.

[67:32]

The self-assertion of goodness ends up being evil. which is live backwards. True beauty is first the awareness, excuse me, true beauty is first the appreciation in the awareness that beauty is intrinsically not beautiful. and that's frightening. If you can stand the fright that beauty is intrinsically not beautiful and appreciate that, beauty comes alive. Intrinsically means beauty is that things don't matter.

[68:40]

Any independently existing beauty is simply a projection of our desire for self-assertion and independent power. In the struggle between our competing desires, only what profits me is beautiful. True beauty lies rather in the negation of beauty, in the negation of benefit, and in benefiting others wherein the self is given up. Only then is the world just as it is, replete with beauty. in order to stand this great transition where we actually open up to the world uncovered, undisguised by our images and meet it in its full wonder and beauty.

[70:00]

It's in order to be able to stand that shock of meeting without being able to grasp it, of meeting the great thing, of meeting the vastness with no way to get a hold of it, and just to be totally in great beauty, which you can't even see but are realizing. You need to warm up to it. by meditating on the other dependent in relationship to things while you still are projecting the images on them. Ready to be able to let go of the image. Once you enter this space where the image has dropped away, then you can come back where the image is upon the world again and not believe it is the world. So we have to go through a phase of the world kind of disappears.

[71:23]

But that's not the end. We have to come back then to where the world has appeared again. And after having been to the world of beauty, where the world has no longer had the superimpositions on it, And we can come back to the world where the world has superimpositions and not believe anymore that they characterize the world. So then we can talk to people about things and not forget that the projections by which things are packaged doesn't reach them. So there's many stories about this. I'll just tell one short one, and that is one of our ancestors' teacher, and his teacher said to him, what do you do with, how do you deal with birth and death that's right before you?

[72:31]

And he said, there's no birth and death right before me. So I told you earlier, when you see birth and death, that appearance of birth and death does not reach the birth and death which is its base. The birth and death is beyond the idea of birth and death. There's not really any birth and death in the basis of birth and death. This monk had gone far enough to be able to see no birth and death. Then his teacher said, how long have you been practicing? 20 years and you still think like this? In other words, he expected his monk to be able to come back and deal with the appearance of birth and death in a new way by saying what he didn't say, which was, Master, would you like some tea?

[73:58]

I had a vision that many years from now our tradition will be transmitted across the ocean. And the Zen students there will eat bananas. He didn't say that though, I'm saying that. He said he had been able of not seeing birth and death, but his teacher wanted him to go a step further. And he did go a step further, because then his teacher said, when you were with Bajong, what else did he teach you?

[75:10]

And then the ancestors said, well, one day the monks were assembled and he came into the hall with a big stick swinging it at us and we all ran away from him. When we got to the door he said, what is it? And then the teacher who was being told the story said, Thank you very much for telling me that story. Brother Baijiong, thanks to you. And then he woke up. I should have told you the names of all these people. I don't know if you could follow the story, could you? He woke up. He woke up. He saw. He could see. It isn't that there's no story. But he didn't believe the story anymore. He saw that you can tell the story again of birth and death and not fall for it.

[76:17]

So at the end I just wanted to say that in the beginning there was a river. The river became a road. And the road branched out to cover the whole world. And because the road was once a river, it was always hungry. Do you understand why I read that? You don't look like it. Do you? Is that clear? No. Originally, in the beginning, there is a river.

[77:35]

We can't walk on it. So we put a road on it. We project something on top of it. So we can, you know, walk over it rather than dive in and be carried away to happiness. The river is wonderful, but we want to put a road on it. So we do. And then we can use it. But because at the basis of all these usable images and words is a river, we're always hungry for the river, to go back to the river. We suffer because we've alienated ourself from the source.

[78:42]

by finding a way to use it. Those spirits are still mingling with the unborn right now.

[79:45]

The unborn is there moment by moment allowing us to put a road on it so it can be born and die. In the next moment, it offers itself again in its wondrous beauty to be capitalized on and negotiated over. It's happy to do that. It's never touched by it. And it's welcoming us to return and take a break from our packaging of it. Please come back anytime you want and immerse yourself in the great flowing beauty of the moment. Please come back anytime you want and immerse yourself in the great flowing, glorious, wonderful, loving beauty of this experience.

[81:12]

If you don't come now, we'll be here next month. Anytime you want to come, fine. If you want to leave, okay. We pray that you will not believe when you leave that where you go and what you think is where you came from. We pray that you will realize wisdom Old Man River, Old Man River, he must know something, but don't say nothing. He just keeps rolling, he keeps on rolling on.

[82:19]

He don't plant taters. He don't pick cotton. And them that plant some is soon forgotten. That old man river, she just keeps rolling along. You and me, we sweat and strain, body all wracked with pain. Tote that barge, lift that bale, get a little drunk and you land in jail. I get weary and sick of trying. I'm tired of living and scared of dying.

[83:30]

But old Mon River, it just keeps rolling along. In our intention.

[83:51]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_90.92