In talking with you the last three mornings I have and also in talking to you individually I have spoken of the kind of presence that bodhisattvas enter in order to realize perfect wisdom and apply that wisdom to the contemplation of the arising and disintegration of the world. In the scripture, just before it describes this ground of presence, it mentions that the bodhisattvas have already realized the fifth ground, which is the ground of perfection of concentration.

[01:38]

I didn't read that to you, but I'll recite that to you. But as my eyes pass over it, there is a little question in my mind, and that is, you're talking to people about a kind of presence that's in some sense predicated by the perfection of concentration. And I wonder if the people who are listening have realized the perfection of concentration. And if you are suggesting to them this kind of presence, is this ahead of schedule? Then I think, how will I ever be sure that everybody at this moment has realized the imperturbable

[02:43]

concentration. It's pretty hard for me. And if I have to wait until everybody does that, I'll never be able to discuss the dependent core rising of the world with a group of people. And individuals don't want to talk to me about it either, so I'll have to talk to myself about it forever. I don't want to do that. Then I think, well, what I'm doing is I'm talking to the part of you which has realized the perfection of concentration. I'm talking to your bones or something. Or I'm talking to the most settled bodhisattvas who are living in the center of every atom of your body. And if there's somebody around here who doesn't think they're completely settled and totally imperturbable and firm and bright and clear

[03:48]

Well, they're welcome to listen in too if they want to, but this teaching may be ahead of schedule for you. But let the innumerable bodhisattvas who live in your body listen to the wonderful teaching of the perfection of wisdom. Maybe you can feel them... cheering inside your cells to hear about this presence which can contemplate the formation and deterioration of the world just as it's coming to be. No more, no less. And I've been temporarily invaded but not possessed by a theory of Zen practice.

[04:50]

Someone told me that in Tibetan Buddhism, which I know I visited some Tibetan Zeners, that they always tell the people to make themselves comfortable, to sit in a comfortable way. And Dogen Zenji said that Zen practice of the Soto school is the comfortable way. But somehow in these long sittings, people experience some discomfort. Now we always tell them, well, please make yourself comfortable with your discomfort. Most people are uncomfortable enough. So we say, please relax and be comfortable with your discomfort. But still people feel, these then sittings still are much harder than those ones where they let you take coffee breaks during the periods.

[05:54]

And not only are you allowed to, but a lot of other people are doing it, so you're not the only one. So I sometimes feel kind of bad, like we're kind of offering a practice or a discipline which is, I don't know, uncomfortable. I don't like that. I'm feeling like we're causing people discomfort by this schedule or something. by this instruction, you know, to cross your legs. And someone also told me that when the Tibetan teachers are reading these Indian meditation texts, you know, which say, first you place your left foot on your right thigh, and your right foot on your left thigh, or the reverse, and sit up straight and stuff like that, they read these texts, but their legs aren't crossed when they're reading them, and they're leaning over. So, whereas in Sotasen, we're kind of in a sense, literal-minded. So the person sometimes who's reading the text about crossing the legs has their legs crossed right in that posture and is sitting up straight.

[06:59]

So it's a different, in a way it looks different. And so I wonder about that. But then I thought, that some of the Tibetan teachers, some of the greatest Tibetan teachers, are very careful before they bring up the teaching of emptiness and the teaching of dependent core arising, by which you realize the emptiness of everything. And I think, well, gee, but in the Zen school, we're not so careful about that. We tell people about it as soon as they come to the door, right away we say emptiness, right in their face. As a matter of fact, Zen is sometimes called the school of emptiness. or the school of nothingness. And like, you know, in the room where I do interviews, right above my head, there's this little piece of calligraphy which says, Isai Shoku.

[08:05]

Everything's empty. All things are empty. By Sunil Kiroshi's calligraphy. Right there, advertised. Not cautious at all. Suzuki Roshi was a very gentle, kind person, but he boldly tells people that everything's empty. Where's the careful side to prepare people for this teaching which could be misunderstood or something basically misunderstood? And then becomes like an improperly handled snake, right? Did you read that this morning about that snake? Improperly handled snake? By the way, in that chapter 24, the first seven verses are the opponent's misinterpretation of emptiness. The first seven verses are not Narghajuna presenting our understanding. He's presenting the people who grab emptiness in an improper way.

[09:10]

That's the way they see it in those first... So are verses. Anyway, I thought, so how do we prepare people and where's the kind of context in which this teaching is presented? And I thought, oh, it's presented in the context of Zen practice where we're very careful of everything. We kind of teach the background of dependent core rising by teaching very much care of every little thing. And I think they do that in Tibetan Buddhism too, but Zen is, especially Japanese Zen, is very particular about the way things are done. And also this cross-legged sitting and what comes up there is a good context in which to think about emptiness. If you misunderstand emptiness with your legs crossed like this after a long time, you get feedback that that is not going to work.

[10:11]

Like, for example, you think, well, emptiness means, when they say there is no suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, you know? Well, what they mean by no suffering is obviously not literal. It doesn't mean like no suffering, like suffering, there isn't any suffering, like it doesn't exist. Because it does exist. Whereas if you're really comfortable, you might think, hey, suffering doesn't exist. I see. It means it doesn't exist. I don't have any, and there isn't any. That's what it means. But by sitting cross-legged in this way, or even sitting in a chair with various other agonies, you have a context in which to look at this teaching of no suffering from another, you know, in that context. So you're less likely to sort of lift off the ground and start floating in mid-air and then misunderstand emptiness.

[11:14]

So maybe that's why or maybe that's how it is that in Zen we can present the teachings of emptiness a little earlier, like right away. to people because they have a context which is so clearly showing them that the ordinary world is right here and it's as existent as it is for anybody else. But the teaching is saying, you know, that pain doesn't exist or not exist. That it's an extreme to say pain exists. And it's certainly an extreme to say pain doesn't exist. And if you had to choose which extreme, choose the extreme that it does exist, which is the extreme most people I know choose when they practice Zen. There are some people who actually choose the other extreme that it doesn't exist. That would be my second choice in terms of choosing extremes.

[12:29]

But the best way, I think, is to choose the middle path, which doesn't put pain in existence or non-existence, but just says, pain conventionally exists. According to, it dependently co-arises. When there are certain conditions present, then you have pain. It seems to exist. However, it doesn't really exist, because as soon as you take away those conditions, it's gone. So it has a kind of dependent, tentative, conjured up in substantial existence it's a little phantom that we care about a lot that appears when there are certain conditions but it's not really there because take away just a little bit of those conditions just like one of the conditions or two of them and it's gone not only that but if you meditate on pain and see how it's dependent on conditions, without it going away at all, it loses its substantial rock-like solidity and becomes something which is an opportunity to realize the ultimate mode in which

[13:57]

pain exists and the ultimate mode in which pain exists is the emptiness of pain or pain's emptiness when you can experience the emptiness of pain then you're liberated from pain if you make the pain non-existent you're not liberated from it because as soon as it comes back if you believe it exists you're To some extent, according to certain conditions, you're enslaved by it. But you're really enslaved by the pain, you're enslaved by your extreme view of the pain. If you have the extreme view that pain doesn't exist, you're enslaved by that. If you have the extreme view that it really does exist, you're enslaved by that. If you have the middle view, you're free of pain. And when the conditions are right and it appears in your knee, in your heart, in your back, in your relatives, wherever it appears, you can see how it appears, and you're free of it, even though it does have conventional existence.

[15:13]

Now, when you realize the emptiness of anything, you can take that realization, that little light of mind, and you can let it shine wherever you want it to. Like you can take it, if you realize the emptiness of apples, you can take your realization of emptiness of apples and turn it towards pain. And look at pain in the same way you looked at apples, and then you realize the emptiness of pain. But for some reason it seems to be working out that people are paying more attention to pain than they are to apples. Or they're ignoring pain more than they're ignoring apples. Or maybe they're not. I don't know. Anyway, usually the first thing to have your insight about emptiness, the first thing where it happens is usually on pain.

[16:29]

on suffering and then once you have some insight you can turn it to many other kinds of suffering and many other kinds of things that you think are real actually exist I have been coming to concentrate in my discussion of the various links of causation on the seventh stage, the seventh link, which is the link of feeling, where the issue of feeling or sensation is predominant. And as I said yesterday, even a Buddha is still, can be experiencing that level of causation of having sensation.

[17:44]

It's just that an awakened person doesn't give rise to craving and desire in relationship to pain and pleasure. In the face of pleasure, the awakened person is just present with it, doesn't yearn for more of it, or doesn't yearn to possess it, or get something from it, or run away from it, or sit on it, and so on. In other words, the awakened person doesn't approach it or run away from it. You might walk around it, that's okay, in a kind of satellite relationship. Circunambulate it without kind of like even occasionally leaning in a little closer just to see how that would feel.

[18:47]

Just trusting pure presence with the pleasure as the Buddha way. And same with pain. Just walk around it and become intimate with it. In this way, becoming intimate with pain and pleasure, being present with pain and pleasure, one gradually settles into the presence of Prajnaparamita. entering into the equality of the signlessness of pain and pleasure and apples and insults the signlessness of all these things is the same as you walk around your experience respectfully

[20:15]

as you would walk around the Buddha enter into the primal purity of the pain the equality of the primal purity of the pain and the primal purity of pleasure and the primal purity of neutral sensation This is called this kind of walking around experience and entering into the equality of the primal purity of whatever experience you're having is called immobile sitting. It's called renouncing worldly affairs. It's a complete simplicity.

[21:18]

costing nothing less than everything. You don't abandon the experience that you're walking around. You don't possess it. You don't reject it. You don't manipulate it. You abandon all meddling with what's happening. You're close to what's happening. You're intimate with what's happening, but you don't do anything with it. And you realize in this way that everybody, every person you meet in this way is the same. Or you enter through the sameness of all beings. There's something the same about everybody. Each person has their own little good points, attractive points, and repulsive points. But you don't ignore the attractive and repulsive points.

[22:23]

You just stay upright and present with them. And you kind of orient towards what's the same, what's the primal purity of each person I meet. I enter the awareness of the equality of the primal purity of all beings. In this way, I don't lean towards or away from beings. Sometimes Shakyamuni Buddha is described like that. He's kind of, what do they call it, nonpartisan, or another word. Anyway, just operate with people, not leaning into the attractive ones, even though you're practically always doing that. But just stop, just before you start leaning into it, you feel that impulse, you just sort of like, straighten up there, boy. In this case, it's not too difficult not to reject. But you might sort of say, it's so hard not to lean into, I think I'll lean back into rejection.

[23:32]

Get away, attractive thing. Who's drawing me into a heavy leaning forward? No. Just be upright there. See if you can stand and sit with that that attraction without leaning into it or leaning away from it. Of course it's difficult to balance there. Like holding magnets just a little bit away from each other. And repulsive things, repulsive beings or repulsive aspects of beings It's hard just to stay there, right there, not leaning back, not trying to leave town. This is where the Buddha would be. This is what bodhisattvas vow to do. Bodhisattvas don't vow to stick their head into repulsive areas.

[24:36]

They just are there, and when repulsiveness comes to visit, they just keep sitting there. Hello, repulsive experience. Hello. Don't do the opposite of what you're, don't be what you call counter-phobic, and do the opposite of what your thing is. Just sit upright like the Buddha. Someone said that, you know, they have all these movies out now and books about people dying and going down those tunnels towards the light. They've recently discovered that we are actually, what do you call it, I think we're being colonized by aliens, actually. And what they did is they programmed us to go towards the light so that as we're dying, we go towards the light, and then that's actually back into their spaceships. So they say, now, actually, when you're dying, you shouldn't go towards the light because that's your program to do that.

[25:43]

but when they told me that I said well you also shouldn't go towards the darkness because that would be a reaction to your programming so actually when the light comes when the great light comes you know and that attractive tunnel starts manifesting out there and all those people down there waving you know come on don't be rigid don't run away Just sit down in the tunnel and just be present and upright and enter into the primal, into the equality of the signlessness of light and darkness. In that way, when they turn the lights off and on on you, you won't be like a puppet jumping around from birth to death like that. But we're programmed, you know, to lean towards certain things, right?

[26:54]

And lean away from other things. So it's very hard for us to, like, without being stiff, to, you know, to not go with our programming. That's why circumambulation is nice, you see. You know what I mean? Because you're being drawn towards this thing. But if you go into an orbit, You see? The force of the attraction is balanced by the orbital energy. So it isn't that you just sit there all the time and go, I'm not going to go in there. You go into orbit. And that way you can keep some energy up while you're circumambulating the phenomena. So you keep your distance without resisting. And also you recognize the attraction because that's what's making you orbit. So in that way you balance through the orbital relationship with things, circling around a phenomena in an upright way, deepening, deepening, deepening your presence, feeling more and more deeply the pain or the pleasure.

[28:12]

When you get really present in that way you can feel that this sensation you're having arises in dependence on sense basis. Or the six sense doors. The six doors that sense arrives. It arrives on six doors. It pops out and is born in these six ways. So now you're not just walking around the pain or walking around the pleasure, you're walking around now the base of the pain and the pleasure, the base of sensation. You're back in the link before that. You find out you're walking, you're circumemulating a sphere of sensation, a sphere of sensitivity, a sphere of sensing capacities,

[29:25]

And as you walk around and become more intimate with these sensing capacities, you realize that something's inside there that they're dependent on. What are they dependent on? Name and form. A personality. A person. A self is inside there. And the self And dependent on that self, these sense bases originate. They provide a surface around this self by which the self can end itself and by which the other can start. And it's sensitive to where it ends. It's very sensitive to where it ends. It's very sensitive to that. It's very concerned. Where do I end? And where does the other start? The meaning of the sensation field comes from that sense of self.

[30:42]

Its import has to do with that it arises from a sense of person. But also the person is developed mutually by its limits. Needs these limits, these limits need it. So the feeling, the senses and the person are very closely related. They're all mutually dependent on each other. And the person that's implicated here, that's being revealed, is the one that you care about. It's the one that's got the sense stuff around it. It's not a theoretical person. It's one that's got all kinds of nerves all the way around it. Anyway, it's that one.

[31:45]

So if you can be present with your pain, you can find this person that you're so concerned about or that there is this big concern about. And so much concern, in one sense, so much concern because this person is nerve-encased, sense-encased. So everything that happens to this person creates this big sensation. And everything that doesn't happen to this person creates a sensation. These nerves go off when things don't happen, too. so this person is surrounded by this constantly vibrating sensations in six dimensions if you can be intimate and present with that sensation and the basis of it then you start to get a really good sense of this person this person is the thing the ultimate thing

[32:52]

in terms of things, this is the thing we're here to study in Buddhism. It's the study of that. And now, if you can be present and intimate with this sensation, you can be present and intimate with this self. Now it turns out this self is, not only is it dependent on sensation too, to define it, and to make sure it's still there, and sensation too, but it's also dependent on something before itself, called consciousness. And behind that consciousness, of course, is karmic formations and dispositions, and behind that is ignorance. Ignorance primarily of what? ignorance about the self.

[33:55]

Without ignorance, we wouldn't have been able to make this thing up in the first place. We wouldn't have been able to make it into a thing. We needed ignorance to come up with the self in the first place. Once we got the self, it actually is a good deal that we made this sense encasement around it. That's a good deal because that's a way we can find out where it is. This thing we made up out of ignorance, if it wasn't included in this sense field, it'll be hard for us to go back and find out the main product of our ignorance. But it turns out it's all worked out really nicely. It's totally vulnerable, this self, to this sensing equipment around it by which it keeps track of where it is and where it isn't and whether things are going well for it or not but in order to find it and then find how it arises out of consciousness which is dependent on karmic formations which are born of ignorance this whole mass of ignorance and karma and bondage and illusion and grasping and

[35:07]

we have to like tune in some place and you can just tune into the self if you want to and if you can get in there straight on go ahead jump right into that stage but you might be dreaming that it's a self rather than find out the actual sensing self or sense self or pain and pleasure self that's why it's particularly good to tune in to your feelings and your body because the sense is very closely related to the body because the body happens to be the place where the sense equipment's installed. I can't believe how well we got this all worked out. But it is difficult to tune into it because that means tuning into pain and pleasure, which is hard for us because we have these habits of leaning into or leaning back from them. So we don't usually tune into that we usually go in and rather than tuning in we go in and push and shove on it which puts us back in a sense into the karmic formations dimension where we're messing with things again and then by messing with things we throw our consciousness into this reactive form which gives rise to more self and so on so it just round and around buzz buzz buzz rather than

[36:34]

by being present, settling into any particular stage and seeing his dependent core arising and becoming free. So pick your stage. Sensation is particularly good. By settling in presence with the sensation, you start to feel the previous link, the previous link, And the previous link before the previous link is the self, the real existential feeling self, the one that's the best one to get to know. And if you can become intimate with that one, not only do you become free of pain by the emptiness of pain, but you now become free of self by the emptiness of the self. And it's the real one, the one that's got feeling. So if you become intimate with the self and become free of the self, but it's not the self has the pain around it and some people have that one you know they actually have a kind of a liberation from the self of the self that they're tuning in that doesn't have feeling ever heard about those people but when you put them you know you know about that well like you have a self that doesn't have that doesn't have nerves all around it right like you know i'm a man or i'm a buddhist or i'm a democrat or something like that

[37:56]

And then people start pushing on that, and you drop that self. But when they come up and stick a needle into you or start cutting into your flesh, then that's not the self that you dropped. So some people are very detached, but when it comes to physical pain somehow, the self hasn't been dropped. see that's why it's particularly useful to work with your body first because your your sensing self is connected there your body in a sense is a deeper part of your mind than the mental part of your mind so if you can mentally become free of your of yourself and have no attachment to your mental idea of yourself That's good, but how about having no attachment to your physical idea of yourself?

[38:58]

Well, you can access that just by, you know, your actual physical sensations, not actual physical sensations, but your sense of your actual physical sensations, which is close enough. I feel like you're pretty settled now in your sensations. And I'm kind of sorry that this is a five-day sitting because I feel like if we had several more days, We go really deeply into this causation business, this dependent core rising.

[40:19]

And I'm talking to people who are like here in their bodies now, so it's not too abstract. You can check all this stuff out with your body experience right away. So I'm kind of a little bit sorry that it's only one more day. The Tamsaka Sutra has ten different ways of looking at dependent core rising. Each one would certainly be worth a day's discussion. But... Not going to happen. Not going to happen, this time looks like. And I was talking about, you know, particularly in the opportunity of sensation, if you can be present with it, you can see that it's dependent on the sense basis and how they're dependent on the personality, and that way work yourself back to the sense-surrounded personality.

[42:25]

and see what that's dependent on and so on but also you can go in the other direction is when you feel when you're present with your sensation and you feel the the compulsion the disposition the obsession to grasp in that field of sensation when you feel the strong habit to grasp the pleasure and reject the pain, then you're also seeing the next link, which is you're also seeing your next life, your next birth, is brought in at that point of grasping. And as you may have heard, sometimes when they talk about the Four Noble Truths, the truth of universal In one sense, when you're feeling your pain and pleasure and you're present with it, you can feel that leaning forward into your next birth, into that thirst, that desire, which will cause grasping and pull you into further existences.

[43:36]

If you stay upright, you can not fall into that, but you can see where that could go. Similarly, you don't lean back. from it either, which is also throw you into it. Leaning backwards or forward will throw you into the next stage. If you don't, then you'll understand the previous stage. So you understand both directions that way, if you stay upright and present in your sensations. Sometimes when I feel pain in some part of my body or mind, I put a little guy a little guy sitting upright, right in that spot. I just take this little thing, it's about half an inch to three-quarters of an inch tall, a little sitting figure. I just place it right in the middle of the pain in my thigh, or my hip, or my knee, or my heart, or my philosophy.

[44:43]

Just put this little guy sitting right in there, in the middle of that pain. And things calm down. But it's hard for me to keep my eye on that guy. Very hard to not get kind of spun off into the surrounding billows and flames. I find that works better for pain than walking around it. But walking around is the same attitude. You can try either jumping in the middle or walk around. Right now, I'm taking that little guy and I'm putting him up in the middle of the field, which is the field of... I see this very pleasant thing, very attractive thing.

[46:23]

It's kind of like a Buddha land. And all of you people are sitting in it, and I'm there with you. And we're studying dependent core rising more We're really understanding all the subtleties of it, and we're discussing chapter 24 of the fundamental verses on the Middle Way. And there's some wonderful, we're having all kinds of wonderful discussion groups and parties discussing various wonderful verses in that chapter. And everybody's so happy, and I'm particularly happy, because I got to open the door and let everybody in. I'm so attracted to that world, but I'm not leaning into it. I'm just sitting upright at the gate, looking over into the promised land.

[47:28]

But I can't go in now. Time to stop and give up. Okay? Yes. May our intentions

[47:51]

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