It's a beautiful day. And the true beauty of it, if I may, is its groundlessness. You know, it's difficult after sitting for a long time and not talking too much, to think that, to think period, but to manufacture words which in

[01:37]

truth don't really refer to anything at all. So, I may lose you today. Try to stay with me, or pull me back if I get too far away. Tomorrow morning, see, already, it's ridiculous, okay, let's pretend, tomorrow I'm also going to be giving a talk in Palo Alto, and just before coming over here today, it suddenly became an enormous problem, because today I'm giving a talk around 10.15, it's going

[02:51]

to get really bizarre. Tomorrow I'm going to give a talk, I think, also around 10.15, but tomorrow is, I think, daylight saving time. We believe all these words. This is how we live our life, right? We hold on to these words, like good, bad, right, happy, sad, but anyway, I couldn't figure out when I was supposed to leave tomorrow for the talk, because we here at Zen Center

[04:00]

are not doing daylight saving time. So I couldn't remember. First of all, I had to go all the way back to my childhood, see, this is adult stuff we're talking about, to figure out if in the spring, which it is now, we spring ahead, I remembered, and then in the fall we fell back, which I think is correct in the conventional world. Therefore, if it's like nine o'clock here, I'm supposed to be there at nine, that means

[05:07]

I have to leave here our time at eight, I think, but given that they're going to be an hour before us, I think, I have to actually leave at seven, our time. I think that's right, isn't that right? Well, that was my preparation for the talk this morning. Good, that's over with. That was a talk about conventional designations. Now, for those of us who are going to do the intensive in the summer, please remind me

[06:11]

this, okay? Because it's going to be difficult to explain what a conventional designation is, and I think this was a very good example. A conventional designation is a word that we all agree on, that means, that describes a function that we kind of agree on, that's the word we're going to use for that function, but actually it doesn't refer to anything at all, we just make it up. Is that clear how we just did that? Is it? I see nods of heads, good. That's supposed to be very difficult to explain, but ... There it is. We're going to get somewhere, just hang in there with me. A long time ago, there was a young gentleman in his twenties, handsome fellow, I understand,

[07:18]

by the name of Siddhartha Gautama. He was gifted, religiously, spiritually gifted person, and he saw suffering and the pain in the world, and he wanted to address it for people, so that there would be less suffering. And, one day, after much effort, clear thinking, and an expansive heart, he understood that much of the pain in the world was dependent on, in a way, the way the mind naturally

[08:26]

works as human beings. Because, what we do naturally is grasp, and what we grasp at, fundamentally, is the idea, the word, the belief in the word of me. And so, he tried to explain how all that suffering is based on grasping, and that grasping was based on the idea of the separation, the ignorant idea of the separation of me from everything else. He called that way of thinking dependent, co-arising, in other words, everything that

[09:33]

happens can only happen depending on something else. I'm giving this talk because you're here, otherwise I wouldn't be doing this. I'd be sitting in the Zenda with many other people. The people who've been sitting in the Zenda over the past almost six days have been watching how they recreate, how we recreate, over and over and over again, our sense of self, desperately grasping onto it because we're afraid of this kind of groundlessness. So we grasp after whatever it is that our conditioning, our conditioned tendencies throw up—bliss, misery, doesn't matter—we will go for one side or the other side, we

[10:45]

don't really care, do we? So we ping-pong back and forth between grasping onto, I'm okay, and I'm not okay at all. And sometimes some people settle in, I'm not sure, but that's only a way of avoiding. So it's a kind of a grasping anyway. But at least, if I may, people who take time out from their lives every so often and stop and look, whether they sit or whether they walk quietly in the park or whatever, and

[11:46]

really look at who they are and what they do, this is a courageous thing, this takes a great deal of courage. So I applaud we, us, people who do it. Because what will we see ultimately? We will see this groundlessness, this empty field of beauty, and it can only be beautiful if it is empty. Because as soon as we hold to, grasp onto a self, we kill this magnificent, changing,

[12:53]

fluid, dynamic, energetic, colorful event that we are, that we have no words for. We can't, because it's huge, it's really, really big. And we think we can control it, what a mistake, can't do it. It's really big. And it has taken all of it, Jupiter, Mars, Neptune, dinosaurs, moths, did you know that it was a moth that got in the way of the first computer to shut it down?

[13:58]

Somebody won a million dollars on, do you want to win a million dollars? That show, that TV show, with that answer, just in case you have that opportunity, it was a moth, not a roach. Anyway, we are able to live in this life when we let go of grasping at ourself or at any idea, any view we have of what actually is happening. And if we don't let go of it, we die little bit by little bit by little bit. So we really need to look and study this habitual idea of who we are, that we recreate and rebuild

[15:00]

over and over and over again. So now I'm going to draw you a triangle, no, I have to say one more thing first, it's twenty, twenty-five to twelve on my watch, it's for tomorrow, I'm only following the big hand, I'm ignoring the small hand. So let me see if this works, because everything is dependent on everything else, that means there is no solid, individual, separate thing there, does that make sense from what I said? Do you understand that? Is that understandable? You see that, how that works? If there was a big solid separate thing, it couldn't change, it would be that way always

[16:07]

and if we, for example, if we looked at Blanche and Blanche was an ultimate permanent unchanging event, we would all have the same response to Blanche because it would be the same thing, she would be the same always, she would not change, she would be Blanche in big letters. But thank heavens she isn't that way, there is no ultimate thing that the word Blanche refers to, it's just a bunch of processes that are going on that we agree because she told us, because her parents told her, we agree to call Blanche just among us, but it refers to nothing, don't tell her though, just like three o'clock doesn't refer to

[17:14]

anything either, so do you understand that? Do you understand that? It's a lot, it's okay, it'll take a while. We call this absence of solid separate self thing, we call it, we call that everything is that way, that the characteristic of everything is that way, we call that characteristic emptiness, there I've said it, it's a very esoteric teaching, so I apologize to people who have come in here for the first time, but I'm talking about it because this is what I'm going to be talking about during the intensive and I love it and I have to start talking about it to see how good I am at it, because by the time it gets to the three-week intensive

[18:18]

boy it's going to be... All right, so now I'm going to draw you a picture, over here are dependently co-arisen apparent things and over here is emptiness and they can look at each other, can you see how they look at each other? All right, I'll tell you how they look at each other. Here are things that are dependent on everything else in order to seem to exist, that they exist that way means that they're empty, does that make sense? Does it? Yeah? Yes? It means that things are empty allows them to come up that way, do you get that part? See what I just said about Blanche? Because there's no ultimate Blanche she can be caused to appear by everything else.

[19:25]

Because I am not a solid independent Tia, because of that you can all come together and call me here so that I can talk. If I were a separate independent event I would still be home figuring out what time it's going to be tomorrow, but I couldn't, I had to come over here. You made me in that way because I'm not a solid separate thing, I am dependent on you in fact for my life, I'm dependent on everything, everything is actually me in that way. And one just has to be, you know, bleedingly grateful, do you know what I mean? Just so fundamentally grateful because it is only once and never again. So in order to walk well, or try anyway, in this life we have to understand how transparent

[20:38]

everything is so we don't grasp. Now I'm going to do one more part of the triangle. I hope this is all right. Dependent co-arising is here, emptiness is over here, they look at each other, right? And I've just given you the truth, okay? But guess what this truth is? It's just a word, these are just words, just like I started out with, remember? Conventional designation? These are just conventional designations and as soon as these conventional designations, as soon as you know them really deeply, okay, as soon as they're really clear, you can see that they themselves are also transparent and you have nothing to hold on to, thankfully.

[21:44]

Because then you have your life, but you see your life in a little bit different way. Like a yellow flower, even that's too much, but wow, that's great. So then when we get there, people think, well that's all very nice, you know, everything is now groundless and la-di-da and life, things just as they are, but how do I live my life? How does that have to do with anything? Well, I'm just going to tell you two more things, maybe.

[22:52]

The next part of this teaching is that there are two truths. One truth is the conventional truth, which is that it really is 10.15 and if I don't pay attention to it I'll be what we call late. And then, if I really hang on to a self, I will be bad. And depending on how neurotic I really am, excuse me, and I used to be very neurotic, I would, you know, really work that. I'm not just bad now for being late, I am ultimately bad as a person and I may not even deserve to live. And I don't mean to be funny, we do think this way.

[23:56]

And it's painful when we do. It really hurts and we have to pay attention to that pain. We can't just ignore it, that's real, it's there, that's the conventional side, okay? The side where things actually arise depending on other things, apparent things really do come up and we have to pay attention to them. But on the ultimate side, there is no 10.15. So, when we can intimately know both of these ways of... both of these attitudes, both of

[25:17]

these ways of digesting the world, then we can really try to be there at 10.15. But if we're late, we're just late and we just take care of the karma of being late. And that's all. Do you see now how important it is? It's really, really important for those people who are religious fanatics. For anybody else, it's, you know, so far out there, just don't even go. You know, really, it's the truth, it's only for religious fanatics. Everybody else is just fine the way they are, it's only people who think, you know, that there's some other way of being in the first place that have to go through all this stuff. And we do, we really do, but, you know, this doesn't... you can be a perfectly fine person

[26:18]

without paying any attention to anything that I talked about this morning whatsoever. It's just that some people can't quite settle with their life just the way it is. It's not quite enough just the way it is. I want to be awake. And I did, I do still, years and years and years and years. I struggled, as you know, I think, when my first introduction to Zen was very deluded. But anyway, it's another story. So I think that's all I have to say. Oh, I want to read something to you. This was one of the things when I first got introduced to Zen that I read, and I loved it. I loved it then, and I love it now.

[27:20]

And it's the third Ancestor's Trust in the Heart-Mind poem. Do you know it? It's really wonderful. And as I was sort of mulling this stuff over this morning, this phrase kept coming up to me as a kind of a kid's thing, you know, emptiness here, emptiness there. And I knew I had heard it somewhere. I couldn't figure it out. But it's at the end of this, so I'm going to read it to you. To come directly into harmony with this reality, just simply say, when doubt arise, not to. In this not to, nothing is separate, nothing is excluded. No matter when or where, enlightenment means entering this truth. And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space.

[28:21]

In it, a single thought is ten thousand years. Emptiness here, emptiness there. But the infinite universe stands always before your eyes. Infinitely large and infinitely small. No difference. For definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen. So too with being and non-being. Don't waste time in doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this. One thing, all things, move among and intermingle without distinction. To live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non-perfection. To live in this faith is the road to non-duality. Because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind. Words, the way is beyond language.

[29:25]

For in it, there is no yesterday, no tomorrow, and no today. So, it makes me cry. Please, those of us who are sitting, let's be gentle and patient with ourselves as we walk on this heroic path for the benefit of all being. So that, little by little, we can heal our own pain and suffering. And then move that out into the world.

[30:33]

Together we can do that. So, let's continue to make our best effort. Thank you.

[30:48]

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