So the place of starting for me is that the opportunity which life provides for defilement and entrenchment and bondage is a good place to focus for release. It may turn out that the way to locate the place of limitation and defilement is the

[01:03]

place where you're having an experience right now. And in particular, even within the experience, maybe the focal point of the experience being where you feel affliction, pain, the dispositions, these heavy inclinations towards certain ways of coping, these floods, these influxes, these outflows, these turbulences, these agitations were fraudulence and violence and shamelessness and remorselessness and deceitfulness and

[02:08]

stupidity and lack of competence and sluggishness and indolence and forgetfulness and distraction, inattentiveness and worry and sloth, where these things are raining down in a basically uncomfortable rain, not a warm rain necessarily. And then in that place to find the mind of winter that doesn't cry out in the freezing sleet, to develop or you could say to find the mind of a furnace where this stuff has a chance to melt like snowflakes in a furnace. And the place to find this mind is right in the middle of that, what seems to be maybe

[03:09]

a storm, a storm of our imagination, a storm of concepts, a storm of birth and death, a storm of sickness, but who knows, it might not be a storm, it might be a falcon or it might be a great song, but for now it's definitely just a bad storm and it's stuck in that and that's why we want to go someplace else, but if we can sit in the middle of this storm and let it rage away, it's not a promise exactly, just a fact that the storm will reveal itself to you, not so much that it is really a song or really is a falcon, it will reveal

[04:14]

itself to you that it's a mystery, it's a mystery, it's life. But we have to, I'm afraid, enter the center of this and sit there and let this stuff rain down on us, snow on us, tear us to shreds, in other words be devoted to uprightness. So there are times come when everything that appears to us, you know, a person's hand, a person's clothes, the way he lifts his sleeve, the way he turns the doorknob, the way he

[05:23]

takes his glasses off or puts them on, the way she blinks, the way she chews, the way she clears her throat, the way she pops a cough drop in her mouth, it really, really annoys us, we want to smash her for the way she puts a cough drop in her mouth. Or the way she doesn't put a cough drop in her mouth, or the way she borrows a cough drop, or the way she gives a cough drop, no matter what she does, whatever it is, whatever concept appears, for some reason or other, all these obsessions come up and surround it, but they don't say, hey, this is an innocent bystander here, this is a person holding her hand up, and now we're surrounding her and coloring her, the most obnoxious color, but you can't see the color we're painting it, you just hate her, you're just totally

[06:31]

disgusted with her, and you can tell yourself, which is fine to do, it's not so bad that she cleared her throat, I mean, that's not that obnoxious, probably there's something else happening here besides the way she's clearing her throat, or the way she's chanting, or the way she smacks her lips, probably something else is going on, why would it bother me so much that she just went ... But if you surround that sound with the right mental formations, which are being brought up from the unconscious, delivered by alaya, and which might always come up whenever that sound is made, and you just sit there, you gradually realize

[07:39]

that basically no matter what this person does, no matter what anybody does, pretty much under the sort of setup of this particular half an hour or whatever, you're going to hate it, because it's surrounded by obnoxious effluvia from your own mind, which you can't see but surround everything you're aware of. The imagination is producing images moment by moment, for all practical purposes non-stop, and the dispositions are coming up around those images pretty much non-stop, and sometimes the dispositions are really heavy, and to some extent I would say that it often works

[08:42]

that they're heaviest when you have been for some time not noticing that they're functioning around your experience, and then they have to get heavier to bring your attention back to paying attention to the concept, and that the concept is not coming to you purely, but it's always coming with its stuff, and therefore it's not that things are that way, that you're perceiving them. So, again, I quote that poem, you know, this stuff is coming, this stuff is coming for the one who sits listening in the snow, who sits listening in the snow, and nothing in

[09:51]

himself beholds the dharma that is not there, and the dharma that is. So this stuff is going to rain down on us until we're just the one who sits in that rain, who sits in that snow and listens, and if we can just sit there and listen, then we become and nothing herself beholds. You become and nothing yourself beholding, just clear awareness, and then you can see and understand the dharma that is not there, and the dharma that is.

[10:52]

In other words, you can see the dependently co-arisen that is, and the independently existing dharma, which is about what isn't, and you can tell what is from what isn't, but the price of this vision is to sit in the middle of that pain. So Kosan's been reading a book and he's asked me to relate what I read in that book to what we've been studying here, and I'm not going to introduce the language of that book, but I'll just give him a cue, and the cue is, I would basically read soul for dependent co-arising, but I won't keep saying soul to these people. You translate if you want to. You hear both soul and dependent co-arising at the same time, okay? So, in this book, this guy talks about, which may sound familiar to you, it's not what to

[12:10]

do about pain, but what to do with it, not what to do about pain, but what to do with it, not how to get rid of pain, but how to dance with it. Like Jung says, the thing about neurosis is how to use it, not how to get rid of it. How do you use your sickness? How do you use this sickness? This sickness is useful to show you where to work. It points. There's something right in the middle of this illness. There's an image, always, in the middle of this illness. Here's, you know, smacking of the lips. So last night, you know, there was noise in the Zen dorm. People were making noise with their bowls.

[13:12]

Now, earlier in the day, I may or may not have heard that noise, but if I had, that noise would have been surrounded by affliction and dispositions, and I think my attitude would have been, let's get rid of that sound and everybody that's associated with that sound. Let's get out of this valley full of blankety-blank blank-blanks who make sounds like that with their bowls. So at a time like that, generally speaking, shut up, rib. You have nothing to say. You haven't got to your seat yet. You can't talk until you get your seat. You can't get your seat when you can sit in the middle of the experience of people making noise with their bowls in a Zen dorm, surrounded by afflictions, and you find your place there and you sit still there.

[14:14]

Then the afflictions, they melt in the furnace of that presence, and you start to gradually see just the noise, just the noise and the people. And you can see, who knows, maybe they all had really good excuses, maybe it's just a coincidence that at this time or during this meal, mindful people just all happen to make some noise for some reason, who knows? It can happen. There are times like that, and it's not because of inattention, but anyway, let's just check it out. Once you have your seat and you hear that sound and you can tell, you can tell the difference between the image itself and what it deserves and all the afflictions that accompany it because

[15:18]

of your own past karma, or sometimes it happens that the images come up and the dispositions are not that heavy, are not that heavy, it's almost just an image. Either way, if you take your place with that image and deal with it as a dependently co-arisen thing, in other words, it's not what you try to do about it, it's what you try to do with it. It's not what you try to do about the noise, but what you try to do with the noise. So I asked you, I said, please try to not make noise with your bowls. That's what I, in the evening, did with it. That's how I worked with it. In the morning I might have tried to do something about it, but I didn't even notice it in the morning because there was so much around my own self, I couldn't, at that time, although

[16:23]

I could have, I didn't think about other people's noise. So I sat all day yesterday, as you may have noticed, because I was working on this. I didn't want to have doksan because I didn't have a seat to talk to you yesterday. If you came to see me in doksan before I got to my seat, I would have been giving you all that stuff, positive or negative, around what I saw before me in your face. That's not about you, it's about me, but before I get to my seat I think it's about you. When I get to my seat, it's me, and when it's me, it's not me, it's just dispositions. Then I'm not there anymore, I'm just sitting, and the stuff dies away. The, you know, dependently co-arisen pain, dependently co-arisen whatever, in other words,

[17:32]

the image surrounded by certain feelings give rise to dependently co-arisen disgust, dependently co-arisen pain. This kind of stuff is the medium through which the world is regenerated. So I tested last night and I said, please, and you responded. Seeing the world through dependent co-arising in order to come to the dependently co-arisen world. See the world through dependent co-arising in order to come to the dependently co-arisen world. But you can't see the world through dependent co-arising until you take up your place, your

[18:41]

seat. If you can take up your seat and stand the obnoxiousness of your seat, then you can start seeing dependent co-arising, because dependent co-arising happens at your seat, not a little bit away from your seat, not far away from your seat, but at your seat. That's where you feel pain, that's where the pain, your pain dependently co-arises, so you have to get there and sit still. Then what will be revealed to you is not pain, or good or bad, but dependently co-arisen pain in good and bad. In other words, what will be revealed to you is constantly dependently co-arisen things. In other words, a mystery will be revealed to you, which can take any form. And now it's taking this form, and this form is testing you to see if you can stay there

[19:47]

now with it and have continual revelation of life in its dependently co-arisen vitality, or dependently co-arising vitality. If we go, if we practice like this, ongoingly, seeing the world, seeing pain, seeing sickness, seeing disgust, with the awareness of the world dependently co-arising, then the world, then this dependently co-arisen world is revitalized and regenerated. The world is dependently co-arising right now, completely vitally and regenerating itself,

[20:54]

but unless we see it that way, we don't understand that it's being revitalized and regenerated. Our seeing it that way is part of what makes it, is what makes it real in this world. So again, I talked to you about the docility of dependently co-arisen things. Things that arise, when you see things arising dependently, co-dependently, they teach you, but also, not you teach them, but your vision of their dependent co-arising teaches them. So really they don't exactly even teach you, they just teach, and you're there. You're not really anything, but they're revealing the dharma that isn't there, and the dharma that is.

[21:57]

They're teaching you, they're revealing the nature of the world, but also you, witnessing that, you being there, teaches all things. So the world gets regenerated while you do too. So in the morning, before I took my seat, the world was dead. When I took my seat, the world was disgusting. And painful. And embarrassing. And I couldn't do anything, really, I mean I could have, but I didn't. I knew that whatever I did would be simply an action of a person who wasn't at his seat. So I knew I shouldn't really, I should minimize my activity, and I should not respond in all the ways I was going to respond from that disgust. Not really going to, but the impulse there to crush you all, for whatever you did, wouldn't have been helpful.

[22:59]

Now, if the impulse to crush ever comes from the dependently coercion vision, then once in a while, in the history of Zen, there's the stories of when it was helpful. It happens once in a while that being mean is really helpful. That it's such a thing as a meanness that comes from the vision of codependent arising. Once in a while, but usually it's not that way, usually you're in awe. And once in a while, a meanness can come from awe, but usually what comes from awe is gratitude and respect and appreciation. And even out of that appreciation, the willingness to ask people to do something. Since you respect them so much, you ask them to do something. You ask them to, you know, live out there what you appreciate. So, I proposed to you that the medium of transformation,

[24:05]

the medium of regeneration of yourself and the entire world, is codependently arisen events in the world, inside your body and outside. Codependently arisen events in the world, defilement, and so on. Then, from that position, your awareness becomes the, what do you call it, the self-fulfilling samadhi. At such a time, at such a place,

[25:11]

all beings in the ten directions and the six realms, including the three lower realms, all at once obtain pure body and mind and realize the state of great emancipation. And manifest the original face. At this time, all things realize correct awakening. Myriad objects partake of the Buddha body and sitting upright under the kingly Bodhisattva Bodhi tree, you immediately leap beyond the boundaries of awakening. Leap beyond the boundaries of personal awakening. At this moment, you turn the unsurpassably great Dharma wheel and expound the profound wisdom, ultimate and unconditioned. And the door is open. The Dharma wheel, ultimate and unconditioned, the Dharma wheel which is free of all human involvement, all human action. Which is free of all karma. Sonia. Sonia. Free of all karma.

[26:14]

Free of all karma does not mean no karma. It means free of a person. There's no person there in the turning of the Dharma wheel. Nothing in herself beholds the Dharma that is and the Dharma that is not there. Because such broad awakening resonates back to you and helps you inconceivably, inconceivably, in Zazen you unmistakably drop away body and mind, cutting off various defiled thoughts from the past and realize the essential Buddha Dharma. Because grass, trees, earth, walls, tiles, pebbles all engage in Buddha activity, those who receive the benefit of wind and water caused by them are inconceivably helped by Buddha's guidance. Splendid and unthinkable and awaken intimately to themselves. When you tune into this dependent co-arising, you see the docility

[27:24]

of earth, grass, trees, walls, tiles and all human faces. You are helped. You are taught by all those things. Those who receive the wind and water, the wind and fire benefits spread by Buddha's guidance, seeing this, seeing dependent co-arising, seeing what's happening to you as dependently co-arisen is called receiving Buddha's guidance. The way Buddha guides us is that what's appearing to you, to your imagination right now, okay? Buddha's guidance is around that imagination and also the afflictions and dispositions are around that imagination. Mara's guidance and Buddha's guidance are both surrounding everything that's happening to you.

[28:28]

Mara's guidance is the way you feel about this thing that's happening is a proof of why you should smash it. The dispositions are proving that the lousy feeling you have about whatever you're looking at is why it really is bad. That's Mara's guidance. Buddha's guidance is the fact that this thing is surrounded by these dispositions is why you feel so bad about it. And actually this thing is the point at which you're being taught and delivered Buddha's guidance. This thing is the mystery of awakening. This is the vitality and life of the world being revealed to you because this thing couldn't possibly by itself be this way. It wouldn't upset you that much unless a lot more was going on.

[29:38]

In other words, unless you're receiving Buddha's guidance. That's where the pivot turns towards defilement, entrenchment and karmic bondage or towards freedom, right there, on the concept that you're experiencing. All those things, you know. All those friends, greed, diligence, non-violence, pride, enmity, malice, avarice, hypocrisy, fraudulence, these are all mere concept. When we think of them, they're just concept, they're just our imagination functioning on this thing right now. Which way does it turn? Like I was talking to somebody recently. And this person was talking about another person. I let her. And she was talking about the characteristics of this other person.

[30:39]

Maybe I could tell you the characteristics of this person. One person was attributing to the other person the possession of the characteristic of denial. And if you like, you think of somebody and you say, well, do they have this characteristic of denial? And you think about it. And you think, well, first of all, you think, well, you've got the person, right? And then, how are you going to like, give them to the habit that they have denial? You know, sort of like laminate it into their personality. How are you going to do that? So, first of all, basically, you're going to have to come up with another concept, right? You're going to talk to this person, you're going to talk to me and prove it to me. You're going to come up with another concept. Now, actually, I might already have done the same myself, so you don't have to work that hard. for, you know, maybe I don't know this person very well. Or maybe I haven't seen this side of this person.

[31:45]

So, you tell me. You tell me something about the person, some little image of what the person does, you know? And then this image, this feeling of denial starts to tune in a little bit. You use the other concept, which for, you know, temporarily, you're going to let that be real, right? And substantial, just for fun. But maybe even not make it substantial. Just use a concept to now describe this other thing, which we're going to try to make real. And at first, you know, I feel like, well, yeah, I can. Then give me another one. And I say, oh, yeah. Use another one. Oh, yeah. And then a third one. Oh, yeah. So, you see, that's Mara's guidance. Every new element you bring in proves more that this really is, there really is such a thing as denial to be looked at. And that also you can associate it with this person because you use this person for examples, maybe. The very, what Buddha's guidance is,

[32:48]

the very reasons by which, or through which you established the reality of this person's denial is exactly the same reasons why this denial is non-existent. To use the reasons for establishing it as the reasons for its emptiness is Buddha's guidance. It's exactly the same things, though. Now, you could use different excuses. You could use different causes to establish the emptiness of the denial and then use another set of causes and characteristics to establish the substantial thing of it. But, you know, either ways. You can do it. The best way, I think, is to realize that use the same ones. The same reasons why there isn't enough food being served are exactly the reasons why the idea, the concept, isn't enough, is empty. And if you get more and more reasons about to prove the reality of not enough,

[33:50]

the more you use and the clearer and more positive the case that it isn't enough, the more you have material to show that it's empty. Because all you've got to do is take away each one of those little characteristics and you notice that every time you take away one it's less substantial. So its substantiality is totally due to all those causes, all those characteristics. And you can experiment with that and watch, put something up there, just put one up there and go, put two up, three, four, you know, you can watch yourself. That's Mara's guidance. What do you call it? An airtight case. But when you have that feeling of, oh yeah, then you can also just take them away and feel how each time you take one away it feels a little flimsier, a little flimsier, until finally there's no case left. And you realize that besides all this stuff there's no case. There's no such thing. It only is dependent on these arguments,

[34:53]

these other concepts, these dispositions and so on. The thing about dispositions is often you don't know what they are. But they're just like something that you can build up. They're actually, unconsciously, building up a case for why it's totally obnoxious. You know, sometimes somebody's saliva is totally obnoxious. Sometimes you don't mind. Yes? What if it's not a problem for you, this so-called denial? What if it's not a problem? Then it's not a problem. But what if you can describe it in that way? She said, what if it's not a problem if she wants it to be a problem? No, like you heard, like when the noise of the bowls wasn't a problem for you, you still heard the sound. The sound didn't go away. I don't know if I did, but you say that, I don't know if I did. You didn't hear the sound later? Hmm? You didn't hear the sound later?

[35:55]

Later, later after when? I heard the sound at dinner. And at dinner, I had already taken my seat so I could talk. So at that time, would it have been possible to see denial? Denial is the sound, is parallel to the sound of the bowls, right? That's what I'm asking. So, just stay with the sound of the bowls in this case, okay? So, what do you want to know about the sound of the bowls? Did you hear it? When? At dinner? When you had taken your seat? Yeah, that's why I talked. I was talking about at the moment I heard the sound of the bowls and I spoke about the sound of the bowls from my seat. So, at that time, could you have also seen someone's denial? Yes. I could have seen their denial. What? That's all I wanted to know. Right.

[36:56]

So, a sound, when you hear a sound, that's a concept. Okay? Then you have zendo, another concept. Then you have mindfulness, another concept. Put zendo, sound and mindfulness together and you might have something to say. But, question is, are you taking your seat from, are you speaking from your seat? And your seat is, each one of those things may have dispositions around it. And also, the conjunction of them is another concept. Zendo, mindfulness, sound of bowls. Those three make a concept too. There may be dispositions around it. But if you sit in the middle of dispositions, the dispositions just fulfill themselves and, and by fulfilling themselves they give you a feeling at that time in regard to this image. If you're watching the dispositions fulfill themselves in relationship to this image, then you're watching, you're meditating on, you're in the medium of dependent co-arising.

[37:57]

And then you're in the medium of this zendo, this practice here, being regenerated. Then you can talk about a form to the people and they can go, oh yeah, okay, let's play. So they do. Now they could also throw their bowls around the room, who knows? But you did it the way you did it, which was the way you did it and which was beautiful. That's all. And also the serving was beautiful last night. The servers were beautiful. They, I don't know, if they were any better than they were at lunch or breakfast. Who knows? I'm not comparing, I'm just saying they were beautiful. They're beautiful in the co-dependently arisen dinner, in the co-dependently arisen serving, because the servers, their serving, the images that are coming to me of their serving are docile images. They're images which are teaching me and which I can teach back to. The servers teach me,

[38:59]

I can teach the servers. The servers invigorate me, inspire me, I can inspire back. The grass walls, tiles and pebbles inspire me, I can inspire them back. Not I can inspire them back, and not me really, but in me not being anything of myself, just a person at his seat, dependently co-arising with all things, then all things teach me. And me being taught by all things teaches all things. Me, not nothing in myself, me just something that's taught, teaches others. And I can speak, sometimes. Even when I can't speak, my not speaking teaches others too. My not being at my seat also teaches others. They see me sitting in a zendo, they wonder what's the matter with them. Why isn't he doing Dzogchen? Maybe he's got something to work on.

[40:00]

Maybe he needs to sit there in his putrescence a little bit. He's hungering down for the winter. He's digging in for the mind of snow. He's looking desperately for the mind of snow so he doesn't cry out in this blizzard. Help, help! That isn't so bad actually, but you're the cause of this blizzard. Okay. So let me just see, we have enough of this wall tiles and pebbles? No, a little bit more here. Okay, I give up. Okay, questions? It seems to me the case of the zendo

[41:02]

that there's always a teaching of misleading. And I hear lots of noise. In the zendo also I'm misled and I start to be less mindful and I make noise also. When you hear noise, you're being misled? I mean, I also become less mindful and when you ask us to be mindful to that and also it's in our teaching or it's not misleading anymore and I become more mindful to that. When you hear noise in the zendo and then you notice that you become less mindful and you observe that, then you're observing dependent co-arising and you're being taught. When there's noise in the zendo and you get noisy, when there's inattention in the zendo and you're inattentive but you don't notice that, then you're under Mara's instruction and you can say it's their fault and stuff like that. But when you observe that noise makes me like this, then you're starting to see

[42:04]

that I am something to do with that. But also, if I'm something to do with that, that's something to do with me, and so on. Then you enter into that and then that kind of awareness teaches you. It's the awareness that teaches you. So it's awareness of dependent co-arising which brings you into the world of dependent co-arising. It's that kind of awareness which takes you into the place where the world is made and then by joining the place where the world is made, you make the world. By finding the place where the world is born and generated, you regenerate the world. So, yes. And you can do that in any situation. The key is you have to enter the situation and it's hard to enter obnoxious situations which already have been determined at that moment as obnoxious. And then, again, if you have been inattentive for a while, sometimes you get a big batch of obnoxiousness

[43:04]

which is what snaps you out of it. Just one moment is not enough. You sometimes need like hours to snap you back in to the meditation practice. But then again, that's the world helping you. That's the world saying, that's the grasses and the trees and the walls and the pebbles and the people saying, help this person. Snap them out of it. Get them back to their seat. And if we don't get it, they just turn up the volume. Eventually we get it. Yeah. And we die. There are all these situations of acting from our afflictions and then noticing outflows and then working with that. One thing I've been wondering about is situations that where there's an experience of flow or of merging with an object. States in Zazen, for example, where everything just appears and there doesn't seem to be any problem.

[44:09]

Or, for example, in music where there doesn't seem to be any performer anymore if you're a performer, but it just occurs. And then you might notice it while it's happening, but you also might notice it when that's broken down. And so I'm wondering about the relationship between this experience of merging and state of mere concept. And also wondering about the auspiciousness of merging and the violation of it and the interaction of senses and feels and merging and the whole story. The tape ended right after you stopped your question. That was very nice. It was an excellent question. And it was also an excellent question. Thank you. Next. So, I will respond to the question. Let's see if I can remember it now.

[45:11]

One is, just to quote a text for you. Merging is auspicious, do not violate it. Naturally real, that's my name, Ten Shin, yet inconceivable. Alright. Don't violate that merging. Merging with principle is still not enlightenment. Enlightenment is not violating the merging. Merging, you could say, in this text, is when there's just mere concept. That's it, you know, there's just mere concept. Legs, biceps, neck, feet, gravity, woman, man, music, that's it. Concept, concept, concept. There's dispositions flying all the room, but they don't touch it. There's such concentration on mere concept that none of these dispositions cut it.

[46:12]

They're coming up, they're unloading from past karma, but they can't cling at this time because there's total concentration on leg. In this position, and there's no distraction. There is a mind of winter, which is not crying out, trying to blame somebody for the pain in the leg, or whatever. There is merging, it's auspicious. Don't violate it. It's naturally real, but it's inconceivable. If you conceive it, you violate it. That's called bringing mere concept up before yourself and looking at it. Then you violate that, and the dancer loses it, or the musician loses it, or it turns into music as somebody's idea, rather than music which has completely transcended music. And nobody knows what it is anymore because a concept of music was just a concept of music for a moment. There were just the notes, there was just the sound,

[47:15]

there was just the scene, there was just the heard, there was just the imagined, and that's it. And there was nothing more. And that was not violated. There was just dependently co-arisen experience. It was merging undefiled. But merging by itself isn't enough. You have to not defile it. So Nanyuan goes to the Sixth Patriarch and the Sixth Patriarch says, What is it that has thus come? What's happening? What is this that's happening? What is this concept here? And he says, To say it's this would miss. And the Patriarch says, Does that mean there's no transformation and no practice? He said, I don't say there's no transformation, no realization and no practice, just that you can't defile it. There is transformation.

[48:21]

There is merging. Except I can't say there is. So he didn't say there is. He didn't say there is transformation and he said, I don't say there isn't. I don't say there isn't. I don't say there is. I don't say there's this moment. I don't say there's merging. I don't say there isn't merging. That's not what I do. I just don't defile merging. If there's merging, okay, I don't defile it, if there's not merging, I don't defile that either. It's the non-defilement that counts. If you're non-defile, non-defile, there'll be merging, but sometimes as soon as there's merging, then you take the merging and make it conceivable. It's naturally that way, it naturally occurs by causes and conditions, it's brought to you by the whole universe, that's the natural part. It happens moment by moment, but if you conceive it, you defile it. And we do conceive it, so we defile it, but again, that's dependent co-arising, so you can recover it from that too. Bodhi mind sees, oh, there's a conception, now we lost it. Just like I mentioned to you before, when you're balanced, there's no way, you're not

[49:23]

thinking about how you're balanced anymore, that's when all the causes and conditions go away. Or like I was saying the other day, encouragement can be doubt. Encouragement can be the instruction of Mara, depending on how you look at it. I guess you don't understand that? Yeah? Like Wendy's example, you know? So, if you look at a concept and all this junk happens around it, I say, try to let your mind terminate in mere concept, in other words, try to just sit with the concept that's appearing moment by moment. Try to be with your imagination as it's manifesting right now. Take your seat in this moment of imagination, in this image, this image of pain, this image

[50:30]

of sickness, this image of tightness, this image of disgust, this image of repulsiveness, this image of projecting whatever, take your seat there. And I say, when you do that, it doesn't mean that you won't be harassed by lots of turbulence, you will. As a matter of fact, you might feel it even more then. And Wendy said, I don't know what words she used, but somehow there might have been, I felt like there was a but, there can be joy there too, and encouragement, all kinds of encouragement can be around there too. The choruses of encouragement can happen too while you're taking your seat. You hear the thunderous voice of thousands of years of practitioners encouraging you to take your seat. Everyone in the Zen Dojo is quietly applauding you for settling at your place. It's just that there's not a but there, it's an and. Don't let the encouragement distract you either, in other words. But people let encouragement distract themselves just like they let the discouragement distract

[51:33]

themselves. Distract yourself means to do it because of the encouragement, it's the same as to not do it because of the discouragement, but if you do it because of the encouragement, it's the same as not doing it because of the discouragement, same. You don't do it for anything. To do it for anything is not mere concept, it's a gaining idea. You're still a little off center. You don't dance for anything, you don't sing for anything. You have to sing, and you have to dance, and you have to sing just like this, and dance just like this, and that's it, and you're not expecting anything more. Now encouragement is basically what we're here for. We're here to encourage ourselves and others, but if you use encouragement in this dualistic way, encouragement is doubt. It shows you don't really trust the practice if you use encouragement that way. And if you use encouragement that way, this is Mara saying, Mara can look to you and say,

[52:36]

if you practice, you're going to get all these good things. It sounds like Mara, doesn't it? You usually expect Mara to say, if you practice, you're going to lose all these good things. You're going to lose fame, you're going to lose health, you're going to catch cold, you're going to get old, you're not going to have retirement policy, what's going to happen to you? You're going to lose love. If you practice, you're going to lose it. And then you say, okay, I heard that one before, but I'm just sitting here, I'm going to sit just like Buddha. Buddha didn't move when Buddha heard that stuff, so I'm not going to either. Then Mara says, okay, you're going to get a lot out of that. You're going to be just like Buddha. I will? Yeah. Haven't you heard the story of Buddha? Buddha did this, you're going to get a lot out of this. I am? Wow, oh boy, now I'm really going to do it. And so you really do it, and you really do it, and you get there, and you sit still,

[53:36]

and you just became a disciple of Mara. And when you come out of your meditation, you have really attained something. And this kills the world, this kills the world. Because this is not dependent co-arising anymore, this is you doing karma as usual, but a very high quality one with choruses of Maras telling you that you're doing just what Buddha did. And in fact, it's very close to what Buddha did, very close, except nobody was telling Buddha that this would work. He didn't know what was going to happen. He was just scared shitless. And somehow, he had the faith of Buddha nature, which is, don't make any deals, sit for no reason, just let the mind terminate in mere concept, and your disciple Vasubandhu will explain later. I must be completely bewildered, because I thought it was the Buddha.

[54:44]

Stop there. You don't need any reason. Okay, let's see. I think the next person was ... was it you? Who's next? You see, it was Blot and Blot. Maybe it's Albert next. Okay, go ahead. I'm interested in the selection process. I sit there for a month without hearing the Densho belt. It sounds so beautiful to me, and it's a few feet away. And then in the morning, I really hear the Densho belt. You sit there and listen to us knock our spoons against our bowls week after week, and then in the morning you say, ah, what brings ... given that there are like a hundred things that we hear or see on some level in every moment, what brings a specific one to mind consciousness?

[55:50]

I hate to say this, but karma. Yeah. In other words, it's brought to you by your past karma. That's how it would determine the pattern. But we also have all these dispositions that are whirling. The dispositions are what brought ... Right, right. But so why ... why? How is it that a given disposition and a given sensory perception are the ones that meet in a given moment? Is this just chance? The cause and effect. It happens by the law of cause and effect. If you want to ... the Buddhists studied that, and then they understood how it happened. It's just cause and effect. That's how it happens. Both the material things that happen to you are cause and effect, but the material things that happen to us are not personal cause and effect. The material things that happen to us are the cause and effect of all of our karma. Our dispositions are our personal take on that presentation. So by group and individual karma, we get ... the material world is presented to us, the colors

[56:59]

and sounds and so on are presented to us, and then our dispositions are our own personal karma. Put the two together and that's our take on the moment. And the proposal is cause and effect is the way all that works. Once one is released entirely, one actually gets a totalistic vision of the whole thing, you know, in the way that a Buddha understands, namely, simply the way it's happening. That's it. There may be other answers, but really that's my ... I think really the most core answer that I have to that. Yes? Can you say that again? The material world that's presented to us is based on all our causes and conditions? All our karma. The world, the physical world, is created by group karma.

[58:00]

The physical world, which is called the pajama loka, which means ... You see pajamas? Containers. It sounds ... I like to say it so it sounds like pajama, but it's a bajama. B-H. B-H-A-J-M-A-A. J-J-A-M-A. Pajama loka. The pajama world. The container world. It's the physical world that contains living beings, and inside that is called the sattva loka. Or sattva kya. The world of being. The beings create the physical world is a proposal of Buddhism. We make the physical world together. We made the electromagnetic ... Life made electromagnetic radiation. But life also arose from electromagnetic radiation and chemical reactions and so on. So they're totally codependently arisen.

[59:02]

Life and the physical world make each other. Which came first? They're simultaneous. Life and ... It all happens at once. But the individual gives rise to the ... Can account for ... Basically the individual karma can account almost completely, as far as I know, for the dispositions with which we frame every presentation of the container world which comes to us. And the patterns of the container world, about what's, you know, what's loud and what's not so loud, which then stimulate one sense organs more stronger than the other, relative to also our pattern of what we've done with our sense organs in the past. Anyway, the intensity of the external world has something to do with it, so that if a real blast goes off, we'll almost all hear it. So that's, you know ... And that's our group karma, that we all turn to a really loud blast.

[60:04]

But quieter things, some of us hear it and some of us don't. And generally speaking, there's a pattern where we, the sense organs, do orient towards the loud, the more intense physical stimulation. But what determines which physical sensations, which physical inputs are going to be loudest, is group karma. We're not in control of that, but we contribute to it. Also, we're not in control of the disposition unloading on us, but we contribute to it. We're the main stockholder in that program. So again, as I mentioned the other day, the Buddhist path is one where, while we still have not yet been able to tune into dependent co-arising, we do our best to take our seat in the midst of this unloading of our past karma in the form of these dispositions which frame every experience.

[61:08]

And at some point we get to the place where we are listening in the snow, nothing in ourselves, and beholding. In other words, where we actually have a moment of forgetting the self, and then this stuff keeps unloading. The past karma dispositions keep framing the experiences, but we keep getting Buddha's instruction about these experiences. Buddha's instruction about these experiences. And then the experience fulfills itself without then putting something back in the bank to cover the exhaustion of that karma. Every time this stuff presents itself to us and we see it as dependent co-arising, every time we are taught by it, we teach. We teach dependent co-arising, and by teaching dependent co-arising and being taught dependent co-arising, we don't create more dispositions.

[62:14]

But we have to live through periodic unloadings of little or great amount of affliction around our experience. And something about fun too, I think, I was talking in the kitchen yesterday or a couple of days ago about how practice is to demonstrate for yourself and others how you do in the midst of these afflictions. But sometimes these afflictions are very pleasant, they're not really afflictions, they're not afflictions. It's a very pleasant scene, and you have to practice there too. So some people actually are very skillful, have really good meditation skills for planning lawn parties and tea parties. And they do very well under very pleasant circumstances. They really have the courage to work creatively with very pleasant situations. And some other people are really good at working in really negative situations, and they feel less skillful and uncomfortable in really pleasant situations.

[63:19]

They don't know how to provide, what do you call it, ceremonies for very pleasant situations as well as some other people do. But all kinds of situations are the result of dispositions. Some people have dispositions about things which are positive, where they think it's really cute the way she smacks her lips, you know. And then they can plan a lawn party in that context, very skillfully. But in either case, you have to be watching for the dependent co-arising of it, so that you're using this opportunity to be taught, to have the mystery unfold, and using this opportunity to teach, to let this awareness teach the world. So I think she was next and then Salwa. She being Wendy. As you were talking about what I said, what I remembered saying was that something also arises and not that but something else arises.

[64:26]

And what I was trying to express when I said that was sort of my confusion, that at the same time that there's this fear and this pain or anxiety, that there's something else that arises that seems to meet it. And what I was trying to express as my doubt was the confusion that that would also arise. Like, you know, sometimes I'll go into the Zen Dojo with all kinds of, you know, anxiety or something of all kinds of things. And then I'll sit down and I'll be so comfortable. But how can this be, you know? And that's what I was trying to express, that my doubt was just the confusion that that comfortableness could meet, that anxiety. And so my doubt wasn't an expression of, you know, not having any fear, you know, and because this thing comes up. But this, this, this, the other, another feeling that, that, that, that it would, that there was this meeting. And I couldn't, it was hard to understand.

[65:30]

I don't know if I can say it. I was surprised. Yeah, you're surprised. Well, could you say you were surprised by dependent co-arising unfolding that way? Mm-hmm, yes. Yeah, rather than sitting down and feeling more pain, you know, and having rah, rah, rah. Instead, I sit down and I'm so totally comfortable. And that was the... Could this be, could this be a, you know, could you be in denial? You know, could you be kidding yourself? Or could this actually be what you're supposed to be meditating on? Mm-hmm. Pleasant, you know, warm, relaxed feeling. Could that, could it be that I, that I can watch how this happens? Even though I was kind of expecting something else? Yeah. Stella? I, I, I still, I don't quite get, even though I hear the words and I understand about how you work with the pleasant dispositions.

[66:33]

How you work with them? Yeah. Same way, exactly the same way. It's just that, it's just that somehow I guess we feel more encouraged to work with the pain because we have such a bad feeling about pain that we're willing to hear a better story. We're willing to hear that pain, that working with the pain might be the medium for regeneration of our life and the life of all those around us. Right, exactly, right. So, but when you hear, tell people who are in pleasure, pleasant situation, that working with that in a dependently co-arisen way will be, regenerate their life. They say, that sounds nice, but they won't, that's, you know, they might not go any further than that. They might not want to pick it up and figure out how to now actually change what is quite a pleasant experience like breastfeeding into an opportunity to meditate on dependent co-arisen. Rather than just sit back and relax and have a beer and go off into sleepy land with the baby.

[67:41]

But if the baby is biting on you and someone says, I have a meditation practice for you, and the baby is keeping you up all night, I have a meditation practice for you where you can turn this misery perhaps, not even turn it, but where you can see this misery as the way the world is revitalized. And, you know, first of all by not running away from it and also without even not trying to encourage yourself to be here. Just flat out have this pain and have no techniques or anything. So you flat out have the pleasure also. Yeah, but most people don't flat out have the pleasure, they go to sleep usually in pleasure, most people do. Because you go to sleep in pleasure, it doesn't seem that bad, right? I mean, first of all you're having a good time, then you go to sleep too, have dreams about it, and that often works. And if you wake up and you're in misery, you don't necessarily understand since you weren't causally conditioning meditating yourself into the sleep from the pleasantness.

[68:46]

You don't necessarily notice that the misery you come out with has something to do with your sleep. Not so much directly that the sleep caused the misery, but that your inability to handle the misery was because you weren't taking care of the sleeping and the pleasure which led to the sleep. But if you go to sleep meditating and you wake up in pain, you say, oh, now we got pain, now we're going to do this. Your confidence about the opportunity for vitalizing the world is the same in the two situations. But if you aren't meditating in pleasure, then when pain hits you, you're often shocked. But fortunately, if you've received some teaching, even though you're shocked and surprised that you're in such a state, you often have a chance to remember, oh yeah, I know what to do. So pleasure is a situation where sometimes you go to sleep, and that's why some people, some Buddhist meditators, stay away from pleasure because they don't know how to stay awake in pleasure. Whereas some other people who actually forget about how good they are working with pain, they're good working with pleasure, they stay awake.

[69:54]

They work with pleasure and stay awake. And sometimes they're not as good with pain because they're so skillful with pleasure. They actually have to have been trained with how to deal with pleasant situations. Maybe they had a friend who taught how to breastfeed and stay awake, and that they really appreciated that, and they know how to do that. And they can also have friends who taught them how to have a wholesome lawn party rather than a lawn party where everybody just indulges themselves in the substantiality of things. So the point is, in any situation, that no presentation of the circumstances and no dispositions that arise around the image put you to sleep. Because again, if Mara can't get you by making it horrible, then Mara will get you the other way. The test was on both sides, remember? The most delicious and comfortable, and the most horrible and painful and frightening.

[70:55]

The most seductive and the most horrific. They both happen, they're both part of what we have to learn to deal with. And some people, in Zen anyway, for a lot of people their story was, they first did the bone crushing, freezing cold, not much food, not much sleep, pain in the knees, frightening master, leaving home, you know, confrontation with death at every corner. That was the original part of their practice. And then they left the monastery, go to the capital, and all these ladies come by smelling this way, you know, and they weren't used to it. And these colorful clothing, and these beautiful, and this food, and then they go back to the monastery, for more training. And then they come back to the capital again, and this time, they can handle it.

[71:57]

They can handle the, I mean, just imagine how good the Japanese were in the Nara period, imagine how beautiful things were then. I mean, boy, it would have been hard to stay awake. I mean, or in Tang dynasty, you know, those pavilions, you know, and the poetry, and the music, and all the special wines, and teas, and flowers, and silks, and gardens, and birds, and those little lanterns along the way, you know. Who wouldn't go to sleep there? Well, who has a mind of winter there, when everything's thawing in the snow, you know. But, you know, to hold on to something is not going to work, you know. Like, I mean, one time I went to a birth class, actually. I spent the afternoon at a conference on Yogacara Buddhism, of all things, with these scholars from all over the country, and there were some women in the room too, who were really going toe-to-toe with these guys.

[73:04]

And it was like, you know, Porcupine City. You know, it was like, all day, you know, it was wonderful. All this kind of like, precision of thinking, you know, and combative, snotty talk. Anyway, it was a really great experience, and I enjoyed trying to keep up with it. Then I left Berkeley, and went to Green Gulch, and then rode with Rusa to Point Reyes, for our birth class. And I go in this room, and there's all these women who are kind of going, hmmm. They're just oozing all over the floor, you know. And yet, they're talking too, right? They're talking about, you know, well, when the baby comes, you know, you got to do this, and your husband's helped them do this, and you know, okay. You know, it's a big deal, right? Oh, sure it is.

[74:04]

I mean, they know it's a big deal, but they got the hormones to make it, so they're going to get through this. They're going to adapt, you know. And on the way home, we're driving home, you know, and I was making a few comments about the state of mind in there, you know. I still had a little bit of that Berkeley Yogachara discussion thing, you know. And I really realized that I was a little out of touch with that room. But they were a little out of touch with Berkeley too. What's the mind which sort of like goes with this yielding, opening, you know, birth giving, making room for it. And also, it is precisely this. How do you balance those two? This is the Buddha mind. It's both of these things. And to balance them, when they're balanced, there's no sign that they're balanced. Nobody says, okay, they're balanced. That's when all the signs are taken away. Nobody knows, you know. It is like Mara. Mara seems to disappear, but when he disappeared, Buddha didn't say, well, Mara disappeared.

[75:09]

Mara did leave. That's when mere concept dawns. But then you don't say, hey, Mara left. Guess what that is when you say Mara left? We're gone now, you're safe, you can come out. You can make one real thing. Mara's finally gone. And you are the Buddha, so get up and go do it, boy. Teach those sentient beings. No, that's not terminating a mere concept. Well, next. Next question. And others.

[76:18]

Those creepers for leaning. Yeah, it's very important. It's one of the essential elements in the discipline. There's a discipline here. When you're honest about not being willing, it's okay. Well, when you're honest about not being willing, you're willing to be honest. And that's one of the things you have to be. That's not the whole story. You also have to be flexible. But really being flexible is part of being honest too. I'm honestly this, but then also changes. So you have to honestly like, no, I've changed. I honestly have changed. Well, there's flexibility there in going from admitting this to admitting that. I'm actually miserable. I'm actually happy. I'm actually a girl.

[77:20]

I'm actually a boy. You know. I'm actually a. Well, actually, I'm not a boy. I just actually, I think I'm a boy. No, I don't think I'm a boy. No, I think I'm a falcon. Yes. Well, I, I have a sense that I understand on some level, but then I run into a. Into a situation like, for example, this morning, I come into my house. And Tyo has turned on the kerosene here. And it smells like in a truck garage where they let, you know, the trucks just running all the time. And I immediately feel kind of I'm getting a headache and I feel nauseated. And then, so then how, you know, then how do I apply this codependent arising? How do I. Because what I notice is I either think, oh. Well, let's kill Tyo. This is. You have, you have, you have experience.

[78:27]

You come in, you smell the fumes. OK. And so as soon as that happens. Dispositions come up around that, you know, obsessions come up around that right away. You don't wait. So there they are. And so you, you can maybe notice the difference between the way you would feel about those, that thing and the way I would feel. I mean, you can't. But anyway, I would, you know, that other people would feel differently. Like Tyo, he feels differently. So it's partly also that you have different concepts too. Right. But still, there's different dispositions around the different concepts. And some people's dispositions are like yours. So you need to take your seat there. Now, in the meantime, before you take the seat, or as you are trying to take your seat, you might do various things. All of which are the things which a person who's not in her seat does. Right. So, yes. But how do I, I mean, how do I take the seat?

[79:28]

I mean. There's no, there's no way. There's no way you take the seat. OK. So one way to take the seat is to go outside the house. And stand outside and say, OK. I went in the house and I immediately noticed that I wasn't taking my seat. Because I was getting really upset with Tyo. Poor guy. He's just in a house with a kerosene heater on. Why do I now have this problem with him? Well, because when I smelled that stuff, then all these dispositions came up. And I didn't want to, like, act from that, not being present with those dispositions. So now I'm outside in the rain. Trying to take my seat. Trying to take my seat. So now I'm just not here. But now the fumes aren't so bad out here, so it's easier to take my seat. So now I'm going to take my seat. You stand out in the rain or go someplace. Stand in the snow until you take your place. And go back in the room. And see how it is.

[80:32]

Maybe you just walk in the room. And you continue to take your seat as the fumes come. Maybe you can. And maybe you, from your seat, moment by moment, you go over and maybe you open the windows. Or maybe you turn the heater off. Or maybe you don't. Maybe you knock on the door and say, Tyo, would you come outside? I'd like to talk to you. I don't know what you do. But what I'm suggesting to you is this wonderful, amazing thing. And that is that the regeneration and vitalization of your life and his life and all of our lives here come from you taking your seat and watching how this works. So take your seat and then watch how these dispositions are coming up around your imageries. Always imagining what's coming up around. Take your seat and pretty soon, even though the dispositions are still coming, you're enjoying how they codependently produce this particular take on this concept. So like both of us, you and I now, are thinking of cabin 14, kerosene heater.

[81:35]

We're thinking that we have the concept. Now, as we get closer to it, depending on whether we consider it to be cabin 14, my house or not, then you have a different concept from me. So I might say to you, well, I'll put my on the house too. And I start to be more like you. I say, yeah, I know what you mean. It's because my house, I am upset. If I'm just visiting, I know I can leave soon. It's not so bad. You know, you might just take away my and see what that does. Anyway, you're studying dependent co-arising. So when I put my in, you take my off or whatever. We watch how that changes the situation. But you don't have to play like that if you don't want to, although it's all right. And I sometimes do. You don't have to play like that. You can just leave it be and watch how it works. Switching from not watching how it works to watching how it works is what changes life. Changes death into life. Changes life which is dead and unvitalized into life which is creative all the time. This is what we're looking for, I propose.

[82:37]

This is what all these other things we're interested in are just substitutes for. This world of dependent co-arising where life is being vitalized and death is being deathified. This is the world we're driving for. This is the world of our awakened mind. But before you can have that world unfold to you, you have to be where it unfolds. And it unfolds in the middle of what's happening. And what's happening is sometimes that we're imagining misery. And anything we imagine, misery, pain, suffering, anything we're imagining is a perfectly good opportunity. Anger, lust, anything like that. Violence, deceitfulness, intelligence, stupidity, fraudulence, honesty, whatever you're imagining is an opportunity to revitalize your life.

[83:41]

And revitalize the life of others. Everything is an opportunity for that. Once we enter into the dependent co-arising of the thing, it's actual vital origination. But you have to settle into the concept and the horrendous things that are happening or the pleasant things that are happening around it in order to watch the actual, not theoretical, dependent co-arising. It's the actual, moment by moment appearing, dependently co-arisen, docile thing that we're looking for. And you have to be in your place to actually taste it. That's the first hard work is to get there. Second hard work is to watch the causes and conditions. So, during Sashi I will go over this again and again. First of all, you have to be one-pointed. One-pointed on pain, one-pointed on pleasure. It just turns out that in the Buddhist path, the place where you break through and you cut the belief in self is usually meditation on pain.

[84:48]

I don't know why it is, but it's not meditation on pleasure. It isn't that they thought one of the characteristics of all created things is pleasure. Buddha didn't say that. He said characteristics of conditioned things is that they're painful, impermanent and not self. He didn't say pleasureful. And meditating on pain is where we... See, the dependent co-arising of pain is where we break loose of suffering. We don't seem to have that much of a problem with pleasure. So, the breakthrough just happens to be on that. So, pain is very important in that way. And we have plenty of it, so it seems like a good thing. Okay. Is that enough for today? Thank you for your attention. Were you able to breathe today?

[85:50]

Was that enough air? So, we have to remember... The hard thing is as you're going into a stupor of lack of oxygen... Somebody has to remember to open the door. Galen gave me this article on making steel. And it's similar, it has some parallels to making an Arhat. At the end of the steel making process, they have this thing which is called an oxygen dagger? Oxygen lance. The last part of the process of purifying the steel is a real intense lance of oxygen. Pure intense oxygen is projected into the point to burn up the last impurities. So, there's a last bringing of opportunity to intensify the feeling and burn that oxygen off.

[86:55]

And burn those impurities off. So, it's not necessarily a bad sign when you get occasional big chunks of defilement plunking down on you. Because the bigger the chunk, the more work is done that day. So, the nice thing about our Sashins is that by sitting still, we get some pretty big chunks come to us. And in one week, you can burn off. It takes many, many years of selfishness. But it requires bringing oxygen to it. And the impurities, they come. They come and say, eat us up, burn us off. To bring the oxygen to it. What's the oxygen? Oxygen is your willingness to sit at that place. If you sit there, the oxygen will come to that place. You'll draw it in. You'll burn off this stuff.

[87:57]

But it's not pleasant stuff. And it's not easy to sit there. So, that's the nice thing about the Sashin. The hard thing about the Sashin. May our intention equate, penetrate, agree, and place with the true merit of this way. Okay. Let's see, is this working? Hello? It's working. Is this one working? This one is working. Okay. Now, did I say at the end of class that the oxygen lance is sitting still?

[88:57]

I don't know. What I really mean is that the sitting still offers up the impurities, gives the impurities a chance to have a place to manifest. And the oxygen lance is the study of dependent co-arising. Please amend previous understandings. Goodbye and good luck.

[89:22]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ