In the midst of our various difficulties, we have sat together for one day, and now on our second day of practice, and we have chanted in service the sixth chapter of the Samadhi Nirmacana Sutra called the Questions of Gunakata. Some of you have read this chapter twice now, some of you have read it many times. As you may remember, the chapter starts out with the Bodhisattva Gunakata questioning the Bhagavan. The Bhagavan is one of the epithets of the Buddha. The Bodhisattva says,

[01:04]

Bhagavan, when you say, Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the character of phenomena, Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the character of phenomena, Bhagavan, just how are Bodhisattvas wise with respect to the character of phenomena? For what reason does the Tathagata designate Bodhisattvas as being wise with respect to the character of phenomena? Bodhisattvas are fundamentally beings of compassion, but in order to realize their

[02:11]

heart of compassion, they develop wisdom and become wise with respect to the character of phenomena. The Bhagavan then replies to the Bodhisattva Gunakata and says that he has asked this question in order to benefit many beings, in order to bring happiness to many beings out of sympathy for the world, for the sake of the welfare benefit and happiness of many beings. Of course, the Buddha thinks that's a very good intention

[03:22]

for asking the question, and then he says to the Bodhisattva Gunakata, please listen well and I will describe to you how Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the character of phenomena. This Bodhisattva asked this question in order to benefit many beings. Now, there are some questions you might ask in order to benefit one being. For example, where are the band-aids for this person who has a cut? Where is the food for this hungry person? But this question is asked for the benefit of many beings. What's the relationship between this question and the benefit, welfare, and happiness of many beings? If someone wants

[04:37]

to work for the benefit, welfare, and happiness of many beings out of sympathy for the world, how does this question relate to that? Anybody? Pardon? The understanding of the character of phenomena would lead to liberation, and how does that work? How would the understanding of phenomena lead to liberation from suffering? How does that lead to liberation from suffering? One step you could add in there. Well, there wouldn't be any grasping and there wouldn't

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be any affliction, but how does this particular teaching relate to liberation from suffering? I noticed meditating on it before, and I realized that if I missed even one moment of awareness, it was hindering me from falling in. That's true, what Frederick says is true, what Jackie says is true, but there's a simple link between being wise with respect to phenomena and liberation from suffering. What is that link? Pardon? How does seeing things as they really are

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connected with liberation from suffering? Yes, you're not caught by them, that's right, but you're missing one more thing. What? Pardon? All this is true, but the thing I'm looking for is that … Yeah, right. So, because many beings are not wise with respect to the character of phenomena, if bodhisattvas are wise with respect to phenomena, then they can help other beings to be wise with respect to phenomena, then the root of suffering melts away, because people suffer because they are not wise with respect to phenomena. When you are wise with respect

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to phenomena, then there is no more clinging, then you are paying attention to what's happening, and so all those things do happen, but this particular teaching right now is focusing on phenomena which people are not, which beings are not wise about. So we want to find out how beings can be wise with respect to the character of phenomena, because beings who are not wise suffer based on that lack of wisdom. So, because bodhisattvas are primarily concerned with the happiness of many beings, they want to understand, be wise with respect to phenomena, so they can help beings be wise with respect to phenomena. And Buddhas too

[09:02]

primarily want beings to become wise. Now, beings who don't have compassion, of course, will have trouble becoming wise, because without being kind to ourselves and others, it's hard to develop wisdom, because wisdom grows, this kind of wisdom, Buddha's wisdom, grows out of compassion. So, of course, Buddhas want beings to be compassionate too. But further than just being compassionate, they want beings to understand and be wise as to the character of phenomena. So Buddha gives teachings about the character of phenomena. So the bodhisattvas

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say, how are they wise with the character of phenomena? So the first thing the Buddha does is tell them about the character of phenomena, and he's presented it in this threefold way in this Sutra. Now, as you may have noticed, there are other Sutras, very important Sutras, which present the character of phenomena in a onefold way, or a manifold way. But in particular, the Heart Sutra seems to present the character of phenomena as having one character, emptiness, which is true, they do have that character. But in this Sutra, that character is one of three. The thoroughly established character of phenomena is emptiness. In this

[11:14]

Sutra we've been told of two other characters to help us understand phenomena wisely. In this Sutra we will be able to see, perhaps, that in order to understand the one character of phenomena that is taught in the Heart Sutra and the other Perfect Wisdom Sutras, we come to understand how we need to understand these other two characters in order to understand emptiness, or in order to understand the thoroughly established character. And actually this chapter tells you, in brief, about how that goes. So first the Buddha tells what the three characters are, then gives some examples, then tells you how they're usually known, then tells you what happens when you learn more about them, and then tells you what happens

[12:23]

after you learn more about them. So, the three characters are, as translated here, the imputational character, the other dependent character, and the thoroughly established character. And then the Buddha says, what is the imputational character of phenomena? It is that which is imputed. It's something imputed to phenomena, as names and symbols, in terms of own being, or essences, and attributes. Something's imputed, something's superimposed on phenomena,

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as names. But it isn't really the names that are imputed, something's imputed with the names, or as the names, in terms of essences and attributes. That's the imputational character. Something's imputed to phenomena which aren't in the phenomena. Something's superimposed on them which actually isn't in them. And phenomena do have this character of having something superimposed over them. This creates the world, this superimposition. This superimposition and then believing it creates the world of birth and death, of suffering.

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Gunakara, what is the other dependent or the other powered character of phenomena? It is simply the dependent origination of phenomena. Here's the principle. Because this exists, that arises. Because this is produced, that is produced. This is the basic principle. Because this exists, you arise. Because all these dharmas exist, you arise. Because all these dharmas are produced, you're produced. That's your other dependent character. The way the existence of all dharmas is something that you depend on moment by moment, that's your other dependent character. This other dependent character is hidden from us usually

[15:57]

by the superimposition of essences and attributes upon it. It's hidden by the superimposition upon it of things that don't actually exist. But the superimposition does happen, the superimposing happens. And what is the thoroughly established character? Actually, at this point he just said, it's the suchness of phenomena, it's the way they really are. He doesn't tell us right at this point the way they really are, he tells us later. And the way things are actually is that other dependent phenomena, like us, like all our experiences, actually do not have anything superimposed on them. The superimposition doesn't really exist on

[17:00]

them, it's just imagined to exist on them. There's actually an absence of the superimposition in the way things are happening. Through diligence and proper mental application onto this suchness, onto this emptiness of phenomena, the Bodhisattvas progress towards Buddhahood, towards perfect enlightenment. And then the Buddha says, for example, the imputational character, and another translation of imputational character is the characteristic of grasping or clinging to

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what is merely imagined. So there's a characteristic of our experience of clinging to what is merely imagined, to what is merely imagined, clinging to something that doesn't exist at all, in essence, or a self of everything we see. We impute a self onto each thing we see, we impute a self onto each thing we think, we impute a self onto each thing we hear, and so on, and we cling to it. That pattern is like the defects of clouded vision in the eyes of a person with clouded vision. And the other dependent character is like the appearance of the

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manifestations of the clouded vision in such a person. Manifestations that appear like a net of hairs, or as insects, or as sesame seeds, or as a blue manifestation, or a yellow manifestation, or a red manifestation, or a white manifestation. So we look at, we perceive things, and we have a defect of vision of laying this essence on things. Things being the other dependent things. Other dependent things are actually what the things are, because everything really is an other dependent character, really everything is an other-powered phenomena. If something doesn't arise by this dependent co-origination, it doesn't exist. So everything that exists for us is one of these other dependent characters. Then the clouded vision going over this other

[20:12]

dependent character, then the other dependent character looks like something. Like if you had some kind of fuzzy stuff in your vision, you look at the world and you think it's a net of hairs, or you think it's insects. Now if you looked really at nothing at all with clouded vision, you'd see, oh, those are just lines in my eyes, or those are just specks in my eyes, like in Catch-22, the guy who says, you know, that he couldn't see because he had flies in his eyes. He knew he had flies in his eyes, but when you have clouded vision you think there's flies all over the people. So there is something out there you're looking at, but with this clouded vision it looks not the way it really is. This clouded vision is based on the other dependent.

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And the thoroughly established is the absence of these vision defects, you know, visual phenomena. And then another example is a very clear crystal as an example of the other dependent. And then having colors in

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here, colors which you impute to the crystal, and when you impute colors to the crystal, the crystal looks like, for example, if you impute red to the crystal, the crystal might look like a ruby. There's no ruby there, there is a crystal, but you can't see the crystal because of the red in your eyes. Now it is true you have red in your eyes, that's true. But the red is then applied to the clear crystal and now you have something which is not there, called a ruby. There is something that you're imputing, so you impute this to something and then you get something which isn't there. And what is there is almost impossible. You can barely see it because it's very, very clear. The other dependent character is very, very

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clear in a way, or very, very bright. The way each moment arises, how it's dependent on things other than itself, how each thing you experience is other-powered is very, very bright, very, very clear. Plus, I say it that way, but I don't mean it's what I'm saying it is. It's brighter than that. Plus, we overlay it with something which makes it very clear. It becomes this nice clear thing that we've imputed to it, so we can talk about it. Actually, I don't think I actually read the whole definition of the imputational. Yeah,

[24:34]

I didn't. The imputational is that which is imputed, and I'll say now, to the other dependent character of phenomena, as a name or a symbol in terms of own being and attributes in order to subsequently make conventional designations. So we do this in order to be able to talk about phenomena. So in a way, we do this in order to be human, human beings as part of our human destiny, which is considered to be a very good destiny, comes with this challenge. You have to talk. Well, we've got a nice thing in our mind which provides a way to talk, namely, we impute essences and attributes to things in terms of names, or we impute essences and

[25:36]

attributes so we can use names to talk about things. But the price is that we overlay phenomena and obscure them in order to talk about them. We put selves on things in order to talk about them. The thoroughly established character is that there really is an absence of this imputation of self on phenomena. So when you're looking at the thoroughly established character, at that moment it's kind of hard to talk about things, because you see no basis to put the

[26:44]

words on, because we put the words on the self, or on the essence of things. Then the Buddha tells the Bodhisattva how, well I'll read this first, just like this example of imposing colors upon a clear crystal makes the clear crystal look like things that it isn't, in the same way, since the other dependent character is thoroughly established. That doesn't work. Gunarkar, you should see that the other dependent character is like that

[27:47]

very clear crystal. A clear crystal is not thoroughly established as having the character of a precious substance like a sapphire or a ruby. It's without those characters. In the same way, you can see that since the other dependent character is not thoroughly established as being the imputational character, it is the thoroughly established character that is not established as being the imputational character. That everything is not established, is thoroughly not established as being the self. Now, when Bodhisattvas know the imputational character

[28:55]

as it really is, you know the characterless phenomena. When you know the imputational character, you know that phenomena lack an essence in terms of character, because this character they have depends on words and symbols, and this character that they have, which is imputed to them, does not come to exist by way of its own character. When you see the way the imputational is, you see that phenomena actually are characterless, lack an essence of character. You understand characterless phenomena. When you know the other dependent

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character as it really is, you know the afflicted character of phenomena as they really are. The way you know the other dependent character is by taking it as what's imputed upon it. That's not what's imputed upon it, of course, it's basically not what's imputed, what's imputed is not really in it, it's just imagined to be on top of it. But the other part is that this imputation does happen, even though it doesn't really register in it. When you understand that, you understand the nature of affliction. But, and then one more thing is, when you

[31:09]

know the thoroughly established character as it really is, you know the purified character of phenomena. So when you know the process of mere conceptual clinging, you know the characterless phenomena. When you know the other dependent, you know the afflicted. In other words, you understand that the other dependent is afflicted by superimposition. Right now, you understand then, maybe, that the things are happening, phenomena are happening, they have this other dependent character, but the other dependent character is afflicted by this superimposition. Or, you are afflicted in your view of things because of this superimposition.

[32:15]

When you know the thoroughly established character, you understand how the other dependent character actually is free of this superimposition. And understanding that, you understand the purified character or the purifying potential of all phenomena. So when you understand the imputation, you understand that it really doesn't have character, that the things that are imputed are not really there. When you understand the other dependent, you understand how the imputation is the way we know it and the way we are afflicted. And when you understand the thoroughly established, you understand in a way that purifies this process. Then it goes on to say, when Bodhisattvas know the phenomena as they really are, with

[33:31]

respect to the other dependent character, they completely abandon the afflicted character. When Bodhisattvas know the characterless phenomena as they are with respect to the other dependent phenomena, they completely abandon the afflicted character. When you know the process of mere conception and clinging to it as it really is, when you know that as it really is, you know it's characterless. When you know the characterlessness of it, then you abandon the afflicted character, which is the way the other dependent is, when the superimposition is imagined as being it. So when you understand the superimposition as it really is, the afflicted

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process is abandoned. And when you abandon the afflicted process, then you know the purified character. When you abandon the afflicted process, you know the thoroughly established purified character. This is how Bodhisattvas are wise with respect to the character phenomena. So they hear about these three kinds of character from the Buddha, they study the three kinds of character, and when they know each one, they know that the first character is characterless, the second character is afflicted, and the third character is purified or purifying. When they understand the first character as characterless, they abandon the afflicted

[35:36]

character of the second one and realize the purifying or purified character, which is the third one. This is how Bodhisattvas are wise and this is how beings become free of suffering, through wisdom. However, although I said it in this order, because that's the way it is in the Sutra, the actual initiation into this process of meditation, the actual initiation is not through studying the imputational first and realizing that it's a characterless situation. It's not by studying the imputational or the mere conceptual grasping that you start, whereby you realize the lack of own being or the lack of essence in terms of character. You start with the other dependent. You start by meditating on the other-powered nature

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of your experience, which is currently being overlaid by a self, which means that when you look at your experience now, until you understand and become disabused of the process of conceptual clinging, you're actually observing an afflicted other dependent, which you have some sense of in your daily life and in the stories we hear of the world. There is plenty of affliction of these wonderful other dependent phenomena all over the planet. Many things are arising and ceasing in affliction. We start by meditating on the other dependent, the other-powered character. That's the initiation. And again, we have the information now that

[37:48]

other dependent phenomena are accompanied by a superimposition which we are currently somewhat confused about. We tend to know the other dependent phenomena as adhering to it as the imputational. That's the way we know it. We know the imputational by depending on words and phrases. We know the other dependent through this lens of conceptual clinging. So, since that's the way we know it, we hear the teaching which says it's actually beyond our conceptual clinging which is going on right now. So, the initiation meditation is somehow

[38:58]

to train our awareness while looking at something or listening to something, to be aware that something has an other dependent character which is beyond, which we tend to say is more. But the real ... we tend to be more than what we think, but I don't like more so much because more is actually still a little bit limiting. It's more in the sense that it could be more or it could be less. So, the bigger picture is that it could be a smaller picture, like someone could be doing something and people are doing things, people are functioning, but we superimpose a self upon them or upon their activity and we ... you know, the big

[40:03]

picture is that they could be doing something much more simple than we think. We could be over-complicating it or under-complicating it. Anyway, our thoughts about them are just our way to be able to talk about what they're doing. And there is some relationship, because our talk is based on what they're doing. We wouldn't be saying what we're saying about people if they weren't actually there. One time when I was first meditating I was looking down at my foot, my bare foot, and I actually ... I realized I could see through my skin. I could actually see what was under the skin. Usually I thought I was looking at the skin,

[41:09]

but I actually saw the muscles and bones under the skin, but through the skin. If I peel the skin off my foot, the foot would look different, but I realized that I could actually see the muscles and bones the way the muscles and bones looked through the skin. So, the way that the muscles and skin are is not the way they look through the skin, but still you can see them through the skin, and as a matter of fact that's the way you like to see them. But you can actually see them through the skin because if you peel the skin away and put it on the table, it wouldn't look like it does when it's on the muscle. And when the muscle dies, the skin looks different. It looks gray. If you take the skin and put it on a beach ball, then you see the beach ball through the skin, and that will look like

[42:17]

a different foot than the foot when the skin's on top of muscle and bone. So, you actually can see the way things are through your imaginations of ways that they aren't, and if that is the way we do see things usually, but they aren't actually that way. But the way they are is not totally unrelated to the way we imagine they are because our imagination is with respect to the way they are. And so we can talk about them, and it is useful, and you can that way get your lunch, and so on, by saying, May I have lunch? When you see people doing this thing called making lunch. But the superimposition of essences upon the lunch-making is superimposing

[43:19]

something that's not there at all, and that is what makes lunch afflictive. But if you understand that process, then you understand how lunch is afflictive. When you understand that process, you understand the characterless, the lack of essence in terms of what you're imagining, and then you abandon the affliction. So once again we start with meditating on this afflicted situation of the confused, other-dependent character, while remembering the teaching that although I can't see the other-dependent character, there is such a character, and this character to me, who is still involved in imaginative clinging, or who is still involved in clinging to my imagination of things, for me the way phenomena

[44:19]

are, is hidden, and is a mystery. Each person I meet is a mystery. Each person I meet is the unknown, which I do not accept, because I don't know how to deal with it. But I have my handy little imputation machine, and I just zap a little imputation on top of it, a nice little essence, packaging the unknown so I can talk to it, or about it, or with it, so I can grab it or run away from it, because I know which direction it is. But if it's a mystery, it might not really be in front of me, so I don't know which way to run to or from. Very inconvenient. Yes, mystery? Good. The teaching is about phenomena.

[45:35]

Phenomena exist prior to communication. Prior? Yes, and it's also a suggestion that phenomena have created communication. I can't tell if it's that meaning. Can we just put prior in parentheses for the present? So, something arises. Yes, something arises. We're saying, if you've got a phenomena, a phenomena is something that you're aware of. What could we handle that for later too? That question outside? Something's happening for you. You're experiencing something. Well, I'm just saying, first of all, you're experiencing

[46:43]

something. Start with that, okay? Alright? Things you experience are called phenomena for you. So, the example here is that something's happening which is like a very clear crystal. And the way things are actually happening is like a very clear crystal, but simultaneously with their arising, as soon as they arise, I would say, as soon as they arise, along with our experience of them, we imagine something. Now, it's also possible to say that the way it works is that something arises, we have an experience of it, a direct experience, and then, a moment later, we project this imputation on top of it. So, the experience, the original

[47:48]

experience, the original phenomena has passed, and now we imagine that this thing has a self. So, whether you want to get into the priorness or the immediacy of it, what I'm saying is that when something is presented to us, and everything that's presented to us is a dependent co-arising, that's the other dependent character. Everything that arises for us, everything that exists for us, exists through the power of things other than itself. But those things that are presented to us, we then imagine that they exist the way they appear, and the way they appear is overlaid by this imputation. So, the imputation does contribute to them appearing in a way that they don't. So, they're actually happening

[48:51]

in one way, and simultaneously with that, this imagination creates the impression of them happening in another way. So, the imputation does contribute to the creation of our experience. The imputation does contribute to the creation of our suffering. So, whether it's that things arise without imputation, and then in the next moment we put the imputation on them, or whether it's that things arise and appear in a way that they're not, and then in the next moment we actually agree to the way they appear, there can be some debate. But anyway, there is that subtlety to be worked out, but I think everyone is in accord, the

[49:55]

different schools of Buddhism are in accord with that there is an imputation of a false appearance upon things, that we overlay an appearance that is not the way they actually exist. That's the main school of thought. All the different Buddhists agree that things are created, and that they're created by conditions other than themselves. So, as it says in this sutra you're reading now, because this arises, this exists. Because this is produced, that's produced. And then it says, for example, when ignorance arises, there's karmic formations. It doesn't say karmic formations make karmic formations happen. It says, based on ignorance, depending on ignorance, karmic formations arise. Based on karmic formations, dualistic consciousness arises, and so on. It doesn't say each one of these things make

[50:55]

themselves, it says based on something else, these things arise. So, that's the basic teaching of Buddhism, everything that exists arises, and everything that arises ceases, with the exception of suchness. Suchness doesn't really arise. But all phenomena have this other dependent character, namely they arise, and everything that arises ceases. And they arise not by their own power, but through the power of things other than themselves. They depend on things other than themselves. And the way things actually depend on something other than themselves is very bright and dazzling and wonderful, but it's like, hey, give me a break, let's put it into a little conceptual package, so we can talk about it, so we can

[52:02]

sell radiance at the corner grocery store. But all the Buddhists agree, phenomena independently co-arise. There is some disagreement about some subtleties there. Important distinctions, but all the Buddhists accept that basic teaching of dependent co-arising. Yes? What I wanted to mention is that there must be at one point, if these things have all the basics of a clear crystal, or suchness, or emptiness, where do they get the color then from? I mean, we're very clear in the future that we have gold or whatever, but if that gold has all these other clear crystals in the basis, I just wonder at which point

[53:03]

this color or illusion can evolve, if everything is clear. Well, now, if I tell you a story about this, okay, which I can do, this is now going to be like a conceptual thing to overlay the process by which the imputation arose, so you and I can have a story about how the imputation arose, rather than the way it really arose, which there's no words for. But one way to talk about it is that these defects in vision arise from past situations of, for example, human beings putting words on things, because of long times of human playing with words and matching them to objects, that karmic activity has now created a tendency to impute some basis to things upon which these words

[54:10]

can be affixed. So because of the past history of human evolution, of matching words to objects, now our mind is already structured in such a way as to do this. Because of this process, the birth of the self has arisen. That's a story that you can now impute to that process by which this self-imputation habit has arisen. So we can say because of past karma, we have a tendency to, you know, because of past karma based on, you could say, belief in a self, we now naturally, automatically project self onto things at birth. We just come right into the world and innately project the appearance on things that they're out there separate from us. And so then the story of how did we get in that, how did humans

[55:20]

get built in such a way as to project that, and so that's one story I just told. But other beings also do this kind of projection in a similar way, except they do not have the ability to as yet affix words to these objects. So it's also possible, but that's not a good story I told, that there's some other structure of life such that beings project onto objects an appearance, that their minds and bodies project an appearance on objects that they're out there separate from them. But this is not clear exactly how well developed that projection of separateness on objects is in other animals, but it's very strong in humans, and it's there at birth. It's pre-verbal, even though it sets up the potential

[56:22]

for language. Because once we project this essence to things, then we can use words to talk about them. But we're projecting something on them that they don't have, and we believe that they do, and that's a source of suffering. And also, then once we're suffering, it's a source of finding a difficult way to relate to things in a skillful way, because even if we address, oh, now we're suffering, even if I understand my suffering is due to my misconception of things, still it's hard to even practice in the midst of these misconceptions. But we're doing the best we can for now. Was there another comment over there? I don't know who was first. Yes? Yeah, he put his self on the lunch. He can put his self on you and put his self on your

[57:42]

lunch. When you're looking at yourself, when you're looking at Lin, Lin's got his self, and then Lin's lunch has got his self, and so you can do both. You can do it on everything. Yeah, really not. I mean, once you start doing it with one thing, you do it with everything. Not from your not having it, no. It comes from an imagination that you have it. Once you imagine it, we don't usually selectively do that. We don't like, okay, he's got his self, but he doesn't. If you took a break from it, you'd think, hey, I think I prefer the break from the other one. Then you might say, well, actually I prefer the other one because then I might not be able to get my lunch. So anyway, you can say, may I have lunch, you can say that, and they bring you lunch. You know, or Diana can say, can we have lunch now? And then the service will bring lunch. Right? It works. But the thing

[58:46]

is, we have trouble now. What we do is, first of all, we put the self on the lunch so we can put the word lunch on it. We feel funny about calling something lunch if it doesn't have the self of lunch. You know, like saying, okay, I point to Lisa and I say, would you bring me the lunch? And I'm pointing to her. People don't know what I'm talking about. Right? It doesn't work very well. So you've got to agree. What are the characteristics of lunch? Okay? And then we say, okay, now she doesn't have the characteristics of lunch, but some other things do. And not only that, but they really are lunch. I mean, lunch is lunch. In other words, there's a self to the lunch. That's wrong, but it's not wrong that lunch is the reference to the word lunch. You know, when they bring lunch. If they don't bring lunch, if they bring dinner, you say, this is funny, this is leftovers, not supposed to have those at lunch. This isn't lunch. But you could conceivably do that without

[59:52]

having projected the self onto lunch, but it's hard. Much easier just to have self of lunch on lunch, and then say, I want lunch, and they bring lunch. Well, the affliction is that you really think there is something in the lunch that justifies the word lunch. I'm not done yet. You know? And then you like, for example, you don't notice, you can't see what the lunch actually is. You cut yourself off from the way the lunch is. You limit yourself greatly. You, or the mind, starts to deal with lunch in very small terms. So if they bring lunch, you relate to it in small terms, and if they

[61:01]

don't bring lunch, you relate to it in small terms. I mean, small means in terms of your projection of it being out there on its own. And if you relate to it in small terms, then you can like, be greedy about lunch, or hate the lunch. Like, this is just, you know, you call it a lousy lunch, and you really think, this is actually a lousy lunch, rather than this is a mystery. This is radiance. You can say that, but the question is, if you think there's actually something over

[62:03]

here, you know, that there's actually the talks right there, and that's where the self of the talk is, and it's a bore. If you think that, then you might hate the talk and try to hurt the talker, which would be very painful for one and all, or for some and all. But if you understand that even though you say lousy lunch for some reason, that that thing happens, that that makes the other dependent character, that shows you the other dependent character of the lunch turns into an afflicted phenomena, then suddenly lunch becomes an affliction, because you actually adhere to the lunch as being a lousy lunch. And same with a good lunch. If there's a good lunch, you know, then you can get greedy, or you might get very angry if someone tried to take your lunch. I was in an airplane going to

[63:10]

give a Buddhist retreat someplace, and my assistant ordered me a low-fat lunch. And so, anyway, they're bringing these lunches, you know, and they came up to me, you know, and they gave this woman across the aisle a low-fat lunch. It was a low-fat lunch. I thought, hmm, she's getting a low-fat lunch too, and then they didn't give me a low-fat lunch, they gave me a high-fat lunch. Which, you know, sometimes I don't mind those high-fat lunches that much. But this was a high-fat lunch which almost nobody in the airplane wanted to eat. Even the people who love fat, you know, people were like offering me their lunches, which I almost never did. Some people said, hey, you look hungry, you want to eat? People were offering me these high-fat lunches. The high-fat lunch was almost like, it was

[64:16]

a mystery, it was so bad you almost couldn't even define it. They said it was a hamburger, but, you know, as Jackie Mojana says sometimes, you know, a hamburger sometimes can be really good or a good hamburger is really something, something like that. Anyway, almost no one would be so sure that this was a hamburger. This was like Bodhisattva had manifested on the airplane to push everybody into meditating on the other dependent. But anyway, across the aisle was a very simple low-fat lunch and it looked really delicious. It really looked healthy, you know, really nice, delicious low-fat lunch. And this lady didn't say, I didn't order this lovely lunch, give me one of those unbelievably obnoxious high-fat ones. She sat there and ate it and I said to the guy, I said, I ordered a low-fat lunch. He

[65:16]

said, yeah, so what? Something like that, or yeah, sure. Anyway, I sat there and watched that lady eat my lunch, or I should say, eat her lunch, this delicious lunch. Okay, now what if I didn't put the self on that delicious lunch? Things would have been different. Everybody would have been safer. There was some affliction, not in her for the time being, but what if I tried to get my lunch from her? That's my lunch. You can have it, but it's my lunch. Enjoy it. The afflictive emotions, the painful emotions arise from this misconception being

[66:23]

applied to things. Greed, hate and delusion arise from this misconception. That's where greed, hate and delusion come from. Without this superimposition of this imputation onto other dependent phenomena, without that greed, hate, delusion do not arise. Other emotions arise, like diligence, mindfulness. These kinds of emotions arise in response. Skillful behavior arises more and more in response to these things as we become somewhat loosening the belief in the self, in the essence that's being put on things, which they still look that way, but we're training ourselves to hear the teaching that things actually have a character which is beyond the self which we're projecting onto them and ourselves,

[67:24]

and also the separation between ourselves and this low-fat lunch across the aisle. That's where the affliction arises, that's where the unpleasant emotions arise, and then the unskillful behaviors, the unskillful karma which arises based on these afflictive, pain-generating emotions. These emotions then, when enacted, cause more suffering, plus they tend to also project more opportunities for this projection of self and more opportunities for believing it. This teaching is trying to reverse this process, starting with the teaching of the other dependent, which can be applied to everything. I just heard over in the yoga room we're studying this similar kind of teaching, and in the yoga room there's a dance studio downstairs, and I guess last week or something they're playing a certain kind of music

[68:27]

quite loudly, and one person told me that he actually applied this teaching to the sound of this music, and he said that when he looks, tries to see the bigger picture, or see the other dependent nature of phenomena, that doesn't work for him so much, so he tried to hear the other dependent nature of this music, he tried to listen sort of to the silence behind the noise, and he said that in the silence behind the noise, in what was beyond his impression of the music, he found some strength there in the silence behind the way the music appeared to him, and he found that it affected his posture, and he started to

[69:28]

feel quite a bit better than when he was like believing that that music was out there and feeling afflicted by the music. So, you might try different modalities of trying to be aware of this other dependent nature, which all phenomena have according to this teaching. Every phenomena has this basic dependently co-arisen nature, or the nature that it dependently co-arises. Everything that exists has this nature, and that nature is beyond what we think it is. It's beyond the way we see it is, which again, when we see something, we interpret the way that it appears with our thinking, when we hear it, we interpret it through our thinking, when we taste it, we interpret it through our thinking, and when

[70:31]

we think it or feel it, we interpret it through our thinking. So, you might remember it's beyond your seeing, it's beyond your hearing, it's beyond your thinking, it's beyond your feeling, but in some ways it might be easier for you to feel how it's beyond your thinking than to think how it's beyond your thinking, or to imagine how it's beyond your tasting rather than to taste how it's beyond your tasting. Be open to the creative possibilities of opening to the bigger picture about what's happening, and that's a way to get ready for further study in this process of becoming wise, like a Bodhisattva is wise, about the character phenomena. Cedar?

[71:36]

Well, why don't we deal with that? Does that work to deal with that? Pardon? What did you say? Yeah, I can see how you feel that. So, the other dependent character is like a very clear crystal, but also it is the manifestation, you could also say, it is the manifestation of the ruby. So, the other dependent character really is a clear crystal, but also when the ruby manifests, it is the manifestation of the ruby is based on the clear crystal. So, you take the clear crystal and mix it with clouded vision and you get a ruby. So,

[73:15]

in that way, the other dependent is manifested. So, the other dependent, the way things are actually happening is manifesting in our life, but the way it's manifesting is kind of a false appearance. So, that way of putting it is kind of, in some sense, is more positive in the sense that it says, see, the other dependent is really here as these appearances, but these appearances are not the way it would be without this superimposition. So, it appears as clouded vision because of these defects in vision. So, like you have lines or specks in your eyes and you put that out there and you get these things which aren't specks or lines, they're like matted hair or insects. So, the other dependent is now manifesting as insects because you have these spots in your eyes, but actually the other dependent

[74:20]

really doesn't have these spots over it, so it really isn't insects, but it's something. And sometimes you can say, bring me the insects and people will bring you insects, you know, but in that case, what we're talking about the problem there is that you're using the dependent and you're using the imputational in order to get yourself the insects, which works, but the real problem here we're talking about is not the correspondence between the word insect and whatever these animals are that the word insect properly applies to. We're talking about the superimposition of an essence under the insects and that's not there. However, we do that and that's what makes us hate insects or love insects or be confused about insects. That and the insects really do not have our projection of self

[75:24]

upon them. There is nothing about what we're thinking is in the insects that justifies the word insect being applied to them. Yeah, right. Well, saying it's a lousy lunch and then thinking that there really is something about the lunch that, you know, there's actually a lousy lunch essence to the lousy lunch.

[76:24]

The lunch has this little thing, this self, this lousy lunch self. If you think that, then you're afflicted by that thought. And usually we do do that. When we say lousy lunch, you check it out, folks. You see, check when you say lousy lunch, do you think that there's actually something about the lunch that justifies the word lousy rather than you're just using the word lousy lunch to refer to this thing? Probably you can find if you study that you actually have put a self of lousy lunch. There's something in the lunch that the word lousy lunch refers to. The word lousy lunch does refer to this lunch. You do mean that. And there may be some confusion. People may say, you know, what do you mean lousy lunch? You say, well, how about just the lunch? You say, okay. You may have some confusion, but you can switch to another word and then they'll bring you the lunch. But even then you still think it's a lousy lunch, really. Or you still

[77:30]

think it's a lunch. But even while you still do this and even while you still are experiencing affliction and, you know, hatred and so on or whatever, because of this projection of self under the lunch, under the other dependent character which you refer to as lunch, you still could hear this teaching simultaneously. Because this teaching is a teaching about the other dependent and the other dependent, we've already been told, when you know the other dependent you know the afflicted character. So part of studying the other dependent would be to come to understand that this thing is really beyond my ideas, but because I grasp it as having a self corresponding to my ideas, there's an affliction process here. And so even while you're still experiencing the affliction due to your projection of self on the phenomena, you still can learn about the other dependent character, because part

[78:32]

of learning about it is that it is the basis of an afflictive process. What's actually happening is supporting suffering, in the sense that what's actually happening allows itself to be projected upon in a way that is a source of suffering. You could, especially now after this conversation, that can be like an in-house joke at Green Gulch, not during Seshin, but after Seshin you guys can sit around at lunch and say, this is a lousy lunch, right? And you can say it at a time when either you think it's a good lunch or you think, well it's not necessarily a good lunch, but it's not a lousy lunch,

[79:34]

but I'm just going to say it's a lousy lunch as a kind of meditation joke. Well, I ate enough of it to tell you this story, and I ate enough of it so that when people offered me more I didn't take it, which is very unusual. People could tell, I think, that I was hungry, these tiny little things. I did not accept the donations that were offered to me of more of this stuff. Now, if that lady had offered me some of those low-fat lunches I would have taken them, but I didn't want that other thing which they called a hamburger. But anyway, if you're really meditating in such a way that you understand the characterless phenomena and you understand the afflicted phenomena and the purified phenomena, then you can go to lunch and you can say, this is a lousy lunch, but of course you wouldn't

[80:38]

mean it as like really, you know, characterizing the lunch. You wouldn't talk that way anymore, probably. You'd probably more like to say, you know, I'm grateful for this lunch, I'm grateful to be here with you to have lunch, but you probably wouldn't like going around thinking, you know, this is a lousy lunch. You might think it's a lunch, you know, but you wouldn't, you know, you wouldn't any... Actually, to take this, is that you would know that it appears to be a lunch, but you would also understand that the imputation of self to this lunch was an illusion that had no character. You could understand that and still call it lunch. So the Buddha can say, lunchtime, without projecting, without believing the self of the lunch. And Buddha might even make a joke saying, lousy lunchtime,

[81:44]

just to like, you know, I don't know what, draw any non-believers out of the woodwork. Question from the audience Well, in this case, it's like, you know, maybe you might say, well, is there actually a red there, you know, and so I think the image is maybe of, I don't know what, having a piece

[82:49]

of red cloth, a piece of red cloth, and you put the piece of red cloth on, you put the clear crystal on top of it, or you put the red cloth over the clear crystal, I don't know what. Anyway, maybe it's better to put the red cloth under the clear crystal, because if you put it over, you might just think it was a red cloth with something under it. But if you put the red under the crystal, then the crystal might look like a ruby, right? So, in this example, I would see the red cloth as the idea of a self. The red cloth is the idea that something exists on its own, and then you take that idea of something existing on its own, and then you apply it to something, anything that's arising, and then the thing looks different than it would look without the superimposition of this self. Now there's something there which was not there before, which really doesn't exist, namely a ruby,

[83:54]

or a lunch that has a self. Well, the red, one way to interpret this is the red is the imagination of a self. And you can say, well, where does the imagination of self come? And you can also say, well, where did the red cloth come? So, the imagination of a self is a dependently co-arisen phenomena, just like a red cloth is a dependently co-arisen phenomena. So, imagining a self is a dependently co-arisen phenomena. The self that's being imagined is not a dependently co-arisen phenomena, that doesn't exist at all. But when we superimpose the self upon things, then we have a different phenomena. The phenomena appears differently to us, it appears to be out there on its own. And then when we believe that, we suffer.

[84:56]

So, the cloth is a dependently co-arisen phenomena, and you can take that cloth and put it with a clear crystal, which is actually the example of dependently co-arising, and then you have something appearing which isn't really there. Same way, you have a dependently co-arisen image of something that doesn't exist, like a self, you superimpose that or put it behind something that doesn't have a self, and the thing now looks like it has a self. It appears in a way it doesn't exist. However, the trick and the complexity of the situation is that now that it appears that way, it's easier to talk about. And so now when we talk about things, usually you can notice that you do that, that your mind does the superimposition while you talk about things. And I think you can find that, that you're doing that. Because again, when people start to move things around, contradictory to the way you use the words,

[86:02]

you react to it not just like there's a playful moving words around here, but like something is actually getting really moved around here, something more significant, like a self is getting tampered with. And then that tampers with the self you got over on this side, so you start to feel anxious because you're starting to go through a change here, and self doesn't go with change. So as you start to break up the self pattern, you start to open up to how changeable things are, and as you start to open up how changeable things are, you start relating to them more appropriately, because actually the other dependent character is constantly changing. Putting self into things contradicts change. Opening up to that illusion and hearing the teaching of the clear crystal, other dependent, opens you up to change. So mystery, remembering that everything actually has this mysterious quality and has

[87:06]

this changeable quality, is a balancing meditation to our view of things as being limited by the self which you project and their permanence. Joe? Do you still have a question? to not eat the lunch, because if you eat enough lunch, you might conclude that that

[88:23]

is part of the definition that you bring to the part of the self that you eat enough lunch, that you get to eat, and therefore, if you recognize that after you eat it, lunch is beyond that definition, you might conclude not to eat, because there is something that you're not enough, and therefore, you still eat, not to eat lunch. Someone used it, often times, when it comes to lunch, people feel like, well, there's some flexibility about lunch, I could miss lunch, I could meditate on lunch, and if the but then I would say that, I basically would say that if I've served lunch, if I call it a lousy lunch and believe that it really is, it actually has essence of lousy lunchness,

[89:28]

if I do that, whether I eat the lunch or not, I'm eroding the process of wisdom and compassion. So, it is possible, I believe, for a free person to eat or not eat lunch. Causes and conditions can come together such that an enlightened person would eat lunch or not eat lunch. Does that make sense? The enlightened person, the enlightened being, understands, is wise with respect to phenomena, and their eating of the lunch is that they do not, they understand that this imputation of lousy lunch is characterless, they understand that. Therefore, they understand the afflicted nature of phenomena, namely, they understand that if they thought that there was a character, there was an essence corresponding to lousy lunch, that would be affliction of the lunch,

[90:32]

or of the lunch experience. They understand that. Because they understand that, they abandon the afflicted character of lunch, which it has, in the sense that it is the way that the lunch is confused with the essence of lousy lunch. Are you following this, Joe? That afflicted character is there, you know, even if you're not caught by the confusion between truly, essentially lousy lunch projection, even if you're not caught by it, that is, that would be, in this case, the afflicted character. If that was applied and confused, that would be how that particular lunch would be for you, an afflicted experience. Somebody else would say it in German. For that person, the German word applied to the lunch with an essence, in terms of an essence, then they would have an afflicted experience with the lunch. The Bodhisattva realizes that this projection is essenceless, is characterless.

[91:40]

They know that if they saw it as having a character of an essence, that that would be affliction. They understand that, so they abandon the afflicted character of lunch. And so there they are, they abandon the afflicted character of lunch, therefore they realize the purified character of lunch. So now there they are, with the lunch, which for some reason or other has co-arisen with the word lousy lunch. But the person who is sitting there is now experiencing the purified experience of this lunch. Now we get to what? Do they eat or not? Maybe they do, maybe they don't, but they have experienced abandonment of the afflicted character, realization of the purified character, and understanding of the characterless nature of the phenomena of lunch. Now we have a Bodhisattva who is wise with respect to phenomena of lunch.

[92:42]

That's what's important. Now whether they eat or not, we'll see. But we have now wisdom, it's really a wisdom lunch. That's what we're concerned about. If we don't have wisdom, then whether you eat lunch or not, we got suffering. When we don't have wisdom and the Bodhisattva has not realized what she needs to realize for the welfare, happiness and benefit of beings. So now you have to have another lunch and see if you can practice the teaching with this lunch until there's wisdom at the lunch. So, a more severe example is if someone is suffering or you see someone being cruel to a child, people say, well then, if you see someone is being cruel to a child and you think, you know, that there's an essence to the cruelty to the child, then what should I do?

[93:40]

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