Good evening, everyone. Welcome. So we'll start with a few minutes of sitting and then I'll begin talking about Nagarjuna and the Middle Way teaching. Hello again.

[07:36]

So Nagarjuna. So some of you may have just joined for the first time. I don't know. But I've been going through a book called The Transmission of Light, which is a text by a descendant of Dogen, third generation from Dogen, by the name of Keizan, Japanese master, who is considered the co-founder of Soto Zen. So he and Dogen together are our Soto Zen ancestors. And Kezon's book is quite a wonderful set of stories about 53 enlightened teachers in our lineage. And he tells the story about how each one of them at the moment they became enlightened or awakened and what happened and what was the conversation they were having and in each case with their own teacher. So this is the transmission part. So Shakyamuni Buddha to Mahakashapa to Ananda. And then I skipped ahead a few generations, and I'm talking about Nagarjuna, who's the 15th chapter in this book.

[08:46]

Nagarjuna really stands out in history, in Zen history, as probably our major philosopher. His teaching, the school of Nagarjuna's teaching, is called the Middle Way School or Majamaka. in Sanskrit. And along with the mind-only school, those two are the foundational teachings for Zen. So sometimes you get a little mind-only, sometimes you get some emptiness teachings. So these are the two primary tools that a Zen student would have to help them understand what the Buddha was talking about. What is the nature of reality? What is the nature of the self? What's going on here? So all of these kind of major questions that each of us has as you know, living creatures, living beings, humans on the planet. So last week I mentioned that there are three stages of the Buddha's teaching on the true nature of reality, teachings which were given dependent on the readiness of his disciples to receive them.

[09:50]

So, you know, whether we're ready or not, here they are. The first set of teachings are for beginners, basically. Although beginners can go on for quite a while. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind is the name of Suzuki Roshi's wonderful book that initiated many of us to Zen. And so this is called the stage of no analysis. We're not analyzing things. We're not really looking deeply into reality. We're just basically dealing with the suffering that's in our face and the longings in our heart and so on. And there's a wish to become free. I mean, that's there, this wish. to find this relief of suffering you know the medicine for our suffering so the stage of no analysis as to the true nature of reality is was called the first turning of the wheel is the kind of the basic instruction on do good avoid evil purify your mind and you know the idea of in this first teaching was that there is a self and that the self is the problem

[10:54]

and that this self, when it does good things, has good results, and when it does bad things, there are bad results, lifetime after lifetime after lifetime. So this is called the wheel of birth and death. And in those days, in these days, many people believe in reincarnation, that you come back, and depending upon what you did the last time, you're going to come back either in an upper level or in the lower levels of existence. So this was pretty much profoundly believed. by many people in the world. And, you know, as I said, to this very day, there are many people who believe in that, that you'll come back, maybe you'll come back the next time in a little better shape. I remember hearing some teaching that a really, a really kind man will come back, no, really kind dog will come back as a wealthy man, as a good man. So there's kind of these, you know, little folk tales about that. So, you know, and then eventually, if you practice, through these lifetimes you will be free you will escape the wheel and you will exit existence altogether that's called nirvana blown out gone okay so this is through the realization of selflessness that this self doesn't really isn't really existent once you realize that you're free okay this is the first turning of the wheel in the second stage that the buddha taught it's called slight analysis

[12:20]

and in this case the buddha said actually that the phenomena such as the self don't truly exist never did never will no such thing right so we've been flailing around this kind of ghost machine it goes to the machine but it's not really there it doesn't exist it's just bothering us somehow you know this belief we have in ourself so this was the second turning of the wheel for more advanced students Students who already grounded themselves had confidence in the teachings of the laws of karma, the law of cause and effect, that if they did good, good would happen. If they did evil, evil would happen and so on. That as a result, they had renounced karmic existence, worldly existence, striving after wealth or fame or whatever it is that we strive after. They had renounced that. They were monastics for the most part, monks, nuns. And then this stage, the second stage, the Buddha reversed this teaching in order to detach these advanced students from clinging to themselves as free.

[13:28]

So now they have the problem of the no-self-self. So they're attached to that. So this is called the golden chain of nirvana. So the emptiness teachings basically say that these things that I taught you about, they don't really exist. So now you're kind of in free fall at this point. And that's kind of what a lot of people go through when they're studying the emptiness teachings. Because there's a tendency in the emptiness teachings to lean into nihilism. Then there's nothing. There's nothing. If there's not something, then there's nothing. So that's one of the dangers. There's kind of a thin line one needs to walk at the razor's edge in understanding emptiness that doesn't fall into nihilism. The other problem is falling into eternalism. Some eternal... soul or presence that goes on and on and on forever, never ending life. So at this stage, the Buddha's teaching phenomena are empty of inherent existence. They don't exist inherently.

[14:31]

There's no essence there. There's no thing there. There's no substance there. It's just processes kind of passing through, like water flowing downstream. That's really the nature of our experience. If we look at our experience, we can see the kind of flowy quality of it. Where were you a half hour ago? Where'd it go? Where are you going to be a half hour from now? It's not even here. So we are actually flowing through, but we're so used to it, river travel, that we hardly notice that it's a flow. We actually substantiate ourselves and our actions. And I did this and I had breakfast. Yeah, but where is it now? Where is it now? Can't find it. Can't find the present. So this is part of the assignment of our study is try to find it. Try to find that substantial self or substantial anything. That's really the homework that we're all trying to do. And you may discover there's no there there. Somebody once said, I think it was Gertrude Stein said that about poor Oakland.

[15:33]

And I think Oakland now has a big sign that says there. I remember seeing that. No, that's clever. There is a there there, as a matter of fact. So then there's the third stage of analysis. This is called thorough analysis. And in the thorough analysis, the true nature of reality transcends both this notion of existence and the notion of non-existence. It's something that transcends both of those dualistic propositions. This is a subtle variation on the emptiness teaching. It's a little deeper dig into understanding reality. And that's what Nagarjuna is doing. He's digging really deep. He's the guy who took the teachings from under the sea, from the Nagas, from the dragons. So he's got that mind of deep water, deep dive. So some of these teachings focus on freeing the mind from clinging to things as real stuff. It's very popular in our Western commercial societies with stuff.

[16:35]

There's a wonderful Toyota ad years ago that I wish I'd saved. young man sitting on the tailgate of his Toyota pickup truck, and he's got every imaginable device, bicycles and scuba gear and, you know, all that stuff, skateboards and whatever. And it says, you know, Joe understands that in order to be one with everything, he needs to have one of everything. Toyota. And I thought that was a very good summary of our problem. You know, got to have one of everything. So one side of the teachings frees us from this obsession with clinging to things as real. And other teachings aim at freeing the mind from clinging to ideas, views, beliefs, concepts as real. This is the war that's going on right now that we're all very aware of. We have a big cultural war about ideas. Sometimes it gets expressed in really violent behavior.

[17:39]

That's how crazy we are. Our beliefs lead us to create terrible problems for one another, terrible harm. So in order to really help us, these teachings are to help us to understand how reality is actually beyond all of our concepts of what it might be. It's beyond all of our concepts of what it might be. There's a saying in Zen that not knowing is nearest. Not knowing is nearest. So what is it that's actually appearing before our eyes? What is this? You can say that, but here it is. It's still here. Right before my very eyes. In the teaching of the Middle Way, dependent core rising, that things arise dependent on all other things, on other things, everything you can think of is born from causes, what's called causes and conditions. Nothing just pops into existence without any... predecessors without any ancestors without any parents or you know evolution or any of those things and those concepts of how this came to be problem is we don't see all those concepts are gone just like breakfast so all the causes and conditions that bring this into being aren't visible so i just think this is independent where am i my parents aren't around they're long gone so then i get to be here as an independent

[19:06]

But that's not how reality works. Everything in reality is entirely created by each moment in dependence on so many other things, like oxygen, which right now is kind of full of smoke, and water, and food, and friends, and shelter, and safety, and you name it. The gravity, all those things are required for us to be appearing right now together. Computers. Oh my God. Where'd they come from? I have no idea. So magical appearances. So dependent core rising. Dependent core rising. That's one really major concept. Maybe, you know, kind of hold that one up. Right? Reb used to initial DCA. DCA, dependent core rising. Big concept, very important concept. And so dependent core rising, things that appear are explained. as the union between the appearance and the emptiness, the freedom by which these things come into being.

[20:13]

So they appear, they appear because they're dependently co-arisen. They're empty of existing on their own. This is very tricky, but I'll keep saying it over and over again, for myself too. So thereby freeing the middle way from the two extremes of there's nothing, nihilism, and eternalism or realism that there is something. There's something here. I feel it. So these are the two extremes that we are taught to avoid when we enter on the middle way. The middle way is between the extremes of there is something and there isn't something. You fall into either extreme and you're in error. So there's this poem I read to you last week by Milarepa, the Tibetan lord of yogis. While we look with our eyes and it seems that things come and go, when we analyze with our intelligence, we cannot find any coming or going at all. Therefore, know that coming and going are like dreams and water moons.

[21:20]

Poets have a much easier time with this material. I think they usually have a way of helping us to feel it. Not think about it quite so much. And then the question, what about compassion? That's the bodhisattva's vow. Although I see this life as but a dream, I cultivate compassion for sentient beings who do not realize this as yet. So our compassion is for the dreamers. When you realize, when you come out of your dream, then you want to help those who are still dreaming. That's the motive. Help them to wake up. So the true nature of reality transcends all conceptual fabrications, concepts, everything you're making up, your Imaginarium, all that stuff that you're making up. True reality transcends all conceptual fabrications. It's open, it's spacious, and best of all, it's relaxed, it's utterly content. And this is true freedom, true freedom.

[22:24]

So basically Nagarjuna will deny his masterwork you know chapter after chapter that it is possible to assert anything from an ultimate standpoint any assertion he just tears him out he's a deconstructionist of the first order you know you put something there and he just pulls it right out and that can't possibly be and he uses this amazing logic in order to prove to his opponent that Nope, not that. No eyes, no ears, no nose. You know this language from the Heart Sutra. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue. That's what Nagarjuna was using as his primary text was the Prajnaparamita. No mind, no Buddha. Not knowing is nearest. And he will argue that all truth is relative truth and conventional truth, the mundane truth, the truth that we're already really good at. That's the only truth that really there really is. All truth is relative truth. So this is a big assertion that he's making here.

[23:29]

And he has lots of opponents that try to take him down. So his masterwork, the fundamental wisdom of the Middle Way, is exactly this amazing mind game that he plays with his opponents. And 2000, you know, he was a second century of the Common Era, you know, his teaching has held this long and he's still holding forth and this amazement, this mind, whoever he was, Nagarjuna. So this week I'm going to read through the most famous chapter of his masterwork, chapter 24, called Examination of the Four Noble Truths. with particular emphasis on one verse, verse 18. It's only four lines, and it is kind of like the radiant core of his entire work, his entire opus, is this verse 18, which, as I mentioned again last week, Dr. Garfield, the translator of this text, says is the most extensively quoted and commented upon verse in all of Mahayana philosophy.

[24:36]

So we'll get to that in a sec. In his introduction to his commentary on Nagarjuna's text, Dr. Garfield has a few things to say that I found very helpful for my own effort at connecting to this material. First thing he said is that the central topic of the text is emptiness. This is the Buddhist technical term for the lack of independent existence and is also called inherent existence or essence. So those are all interchangeable terms that you'll read or see or hear. Sometimes it's confusing. You hear emptiness and then people use different terms and it seems like they're different things. But actually, emptiness is referring to this lack of an essence or a substance at the core of our existence. No thing. There's nothing, no thing there. Not nothing, but no thing. No reified core. Nothing you could find.

[25:38]

You keep digging, you won't find it. just like the astrophysicists and the quantum physicists are discovering the further they go out, the further they go in, they're just getting amazed. Like, you won't believe this, you know, like, and it's true. It's like, oh my God, you know, a mere thread from which we all hang. So in this text, Nagarjuna analyzes phenomena Phenomena mean basically things, things, phenomena. Things that we see or smell or taste, these are phenomena. Thinking is also considered a phenomena in Buddhism. So it's not just the material things, but it's also these conceptual things. These are all phenomena. So he analyzes things and he analyzes processes, you know, how things move around. So, you know, for example, this bell that I rang earlier is a thing and the ringing of the bell is process that I did.

[26:49]

So the action that things take. So things and processes is what he's talking about. So these things appear to be independent. That's how they appear. Look, this thing looks like it's a real thing. And it's actually my thing, you know, and I can think like that. This is my thing. So we've got double thing going on. There's the me and then there's the thing. So there's substantiating of these two. It's very common. That's what we do. We do that all the time. It's very easy to do that, right? And Nagarjuna relentlessly argues that they cannot exist in the way that they appear. You know, we have to analyze objects in order to understand reality. We have to think about it. We have to use the thorn of thinking to take out the thorn of thinking. They do not exist as independent entities. No matter how they look, they don't exist that way.

[27:50]

So on one hand... Objects do not exist in the way that we think they do. And why does that matter? It matters because the way we think is the source of all of our difficulties throughout the world and throughout our lives. So getting in tune with our thinking, really paying attention to our thinking is the primary invitation of Zen practice. Turn the light around. Look at this. Look at this thing. This thinking thing. I'm singing. I'm just thinking about things. So there's the one hand, objects do not exist in the way we think they do. And on the other hand, although they lack some inherent existence, some stickiness to them, phenomena and processes do exist as mere conventional designations. So this is his big explosion. So we can kind of get it. They don't exist.

[28:51]

as things but they do exist not that they don't exist they do exist how as conventional designations conventional designations are words language talking thinking thinking so the word bell and the words i am ringing the bell they do exist in those in that way that's the existence of things is through language So more importantly for us, there's the word I and there's the word mine. You know, that's where we get in trouble. My bell. Not your bell. Possessiveness. So in Zen, we use this phrase fingers pointing at the moon as a metaphor for words, language, giving apparent independent existence to objects that they endeavor to designate. You know, bell. Hold up the bell.

[29:52]

Bell. I pull it out of reality as if I could. I separate it from reality by naming it. So this is important to hold. And that's one of the reasons this verse 18 is so significant, because he brings in this conventional designations as the kind of linchpin to the middle way teaching. Now, I don't know, Lisa, are you here today? I hope you are. Where are you? Lisa, there you are in your chair. Great. Because you, thank you. You really caught me with that question last week. I thought about it all week. I was going, I got to answer Lisa better than I did. I really want to come back with a better response. Correct me if I'm wrong. I think this is what you asked. You know, what is all of this stuff that I'm talking about right now have to do with Azen or sitting? You know, is that right? Is that pretty close? Okay. Yeah. Very good question. It's like, and I'm going to try. to do better.

[30:53]

And the way I'm going to try to do better is by quoting the Dalai Lama about that very thing. You always go a little higher, you know, go upstairs and ask the boss, excuse me, but what does Zazen have to do with all this stuff? So he said, in order to understand the Buddhist enlightenment, which I presume we all would like to understand, let's just assume that, that experience that he had, we have to start with an understanding of the two truths. The conventional or worldly truth, that's the one, the bell, that's my bell, and that's the moon, and so on and so forth. And I'm doing a lot of conventional right now and talking. This is all conventional truth. And the ultimate truth. We have to understand the relationship between those two truths in order to understand the Buddhist teaching. And this is exactly what Nagarjuna is talking about, the two truths. That's another one of the things that he's... quite famous for, is highlighting and emphasizing the teaching of the two truths.

[31:55]

So the worldly truth, the finger pointing at the moon, is the finger pointing at the ultimate truth. The worldly truth, the bell, is pointing at the ultimate truth. Which is not the same as the word bell. I don't need this thing. that I still have in my hand in order to conjure up in you a bell or a moon. I can say moon. I can say riding my horse across the beach at sunset. I can say all kinds of stuff that we are not experiencing right now. So this is the trick of language. It's amazing. It's amazing. And it's an invention of the humankind, of humankind. There's a wonderful book. Maybe some of you have read it. I just totally delighted me years ago when I read called Sapiens. And what's his name? Yuval?

[32:57]

Where is it? What is his name? I've got it here somewhere. Yeah. Oh, well, I'll find it. I'll get to it. Anyway. this this invention of language uh which is not that old it's like i know 70 80 90 000 years ago we went past grunting and pointing at like bright lights in the sky and we came up with like moon again at least in english and ocean and tree and food and, you know, practical things to begin with. And then after a while, we got really sophisticated. And as Yuval points out, we began to create abstract notions of things that weren't even there. Like I'm riding my horse on the beach at sunset. Or God is, we are the chosen of God, you know.

[33:59]

I mean, people assert that kind of thing, right? We are chosen of God or God loves us best or, you know, we're the monkey people and that's the monkey God and so on and so forth. So people made up all this stuff and then they fight over it. You know, God loves me best. No, God loves me best. So we have this incredible gift of conjuration of imagination and language, which is basically taken over. It's taken control. I remember one of the things that he said in the book, again, it's called sapiens. He said that, you know, a single hunter-gatherer, one single hunter-gatherer could make an arrowhead and a spear. It takes a million individuals to make an atomic bomb. And the only way they can do that is because of language. So each one of them has a little, somebody has the map. And then there's this department over here. And there's the uranium miners over here.

[35:00]

And there's this over here. And everyone's following instructions in language and can put together. That's just one example of what we put together using language. Skyscrapers and rockets to the moon. And we're going to go to Mars. And oh, my God. Because we can create these things abstractly with our minds. No one of us can do it. None of us can make an atomic bomb or a rocket to the moon. we're still stuck making one spear, you know, or maybe we can knit a sweater. I mean, that's kind of where we're still back there, right, as individuals. But as the collective, we have this incredible empowerment, this kind of a deal with the devil, as I think we're beginning to see. So the worldly truth, the finger pointing at the moon, as I said, is pointing at ultimate reality, the truth the Buddha awakened to in the immediacy of seeing the star. It's like not knowing his nearest.

[36:00]

He wasn't thinking about that star, as far as we know. He was looking at it, unmediated by notions, projections, preferences. Oh, I like that star. That's a great star. Apparently he wasn't doing that. He just saw it. so this is unmediated by language by words words not getting in the way like flies you know word words can be just like flies buzzing around in our heads so for example right now all of you could have have a very similar experience to the buddha by simply turning your attention onto your breath onto your next inhalation and i thought you could try that for a couple of breaths maybe four or five just pay attention to your inhalation to your direct experience of bringing air into your body and then exhaling. Not knowing is nearest.

[37:23]

We forget. So we can always touch in. Anytime you want to touch base with reality. Take a breath. Take another one. I suggest to people oftentimes, just take five breaths. If you're getting really upset, things are getting out of control. Just stop and take five breaths. It's transformative. It's amazing. So simple. But we forget. That's the hard part, is remembering. So when the Buddha awoke from the dream that we still dream, he saw the ultimate reality of things just as they are. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale. Just like that. Just like a baby. The Dalai Lama goes on to say that the only way to study the ultimate truth is by studying the conventional truth in order to see how it has come to dominate our lives and what we call the world.

[38:23]

So we're studying the conventional truth. When we're sitting, Lisa, back to you. When we're sitting, we're studying this conventional truth, which I would have no doubt is coming up in your head while you're sitting there. And if your head's anything like mine, stuff is coming up all the time. Language, words, images. So we study that. That's the entry door. That's the Dharma. Those are Dharma doors into understanding reality. Each one of those thoughts, each of those images, you know, as we sit in, our Zendo is like an old, for those of you who have been to Green Gulch, it's a big old barn. It was a hay barn. It's a wonderful space. And I have a seat, and a very nice seat these days at the head of the room, and I get to face out into the barn. Most of my years at Green Gulch, I've been facing the wall like a good Zen student. And now I get to face out into the room, and I get to see everybody sitting, and I get to see the barn. And it's a wonderful image for the mind. You know, like there's a koan collection called the vacant hall collection.

[39:28]

So I sometimes I think of that to myself, oh, the vacant hall collection and into the vacant hall comes all this stuff, you know, just. flying through, like my memories and some sound in the room. And then a pine cone will hit the roof. I don't know if you've ever been sitting in the Gringo Zendo when something hits the roof there, but it's a real shock, you know, it's like, boom, you know. So all of these things, and then the birds start singing when the light comes up. And, you know, that's the vacant hall into which all kinds of things can come because there's no... substantive, there's nothing there all the time. There's a room. Emptiness means there's space for things to arrive. If things were set, if they were essential, if they really existed, there'd be no space. I don't know if you remember Kurt Vonnegut wrote a story called Ice Nine. And Ice Nine is like everything freezes. There's no more movement. There's no more, nothing else is going to happen now. It's all frozen. If it wasn't empty, it would be frozen.

[40:29]

So, one of the ways to experience emptiness is to experience your own awareness as things come flying through, as a vacant hall. Spacious. Space. So, and still, motivated by compassion for the world of suffering beings, the Buddha did his work in the conventional world. He used language. He spoke. He talked. He said things. In order to guide people in the direction of awakening, you know, to this great mystery of things as they are. Things as they are. Direct experience. Also known as sheer reality. A reality that can only be found right here in the midst of shifting appearances. Inhale, exhale. You do it all the time. Right in the middle of all that stuff going on, right? phone's ringing, and the kids are screaming, and the water's boiling, and there you are breathing.

[41:31]

The more you can attend to that, the more you'll find yourself on a path, a pathway. So Zazen, among many other astonishing things that we could try to say about it, is what Reb called a reality viewing station. Now we each have our own front row seat to view reality. So words and teachings are like that 100-foot pole that we climb in order to get a better view of reality, of the surrounding landscape, to better understand where we are. We use words and language to try and understand ourselves. The more, the better. Now, who we are and how we got here. And then as the koan asks, then what? You get to the top of the pole. What do you do then? It's a call. You get to answer. So practice is by design intended to transform the whole of the person.

[42:40]

Our posture, the speed with which we speak or act, our conditioned habits, our views, our beliefs, our attitudes, our moods. It's designed to transform all of that. Our body, speech, and mind. Those are the three aspects of training. Zen training is about training the body, you know, sit up straight, go posture correction going on there. Your speech, careful, careful what you say, careful how you're toned, careful about your emotions when you speak, you know, check out, check out what's going on before you send it out there. And your mind, well, that's mostly watch it. You know, there's not a lot of control going on with the mind. In fact, I would propose there's none. It's just on its own. It's like a little, kind of a big baby, just running around, trying to get attention. Look at me, look at me. Nagarjuna is for sure the teacher of our mind.

[43:43]

He's really focusing on intellect, you know, honing our intellect. And zazen helps us to learn how to sit long enough for those teachings to occur, come to our minds, and to bake into our perceptions of ourselves and of the world. It takes a while, a lot of repetition. Go over it again, and I go over it again, and go over it again. So only when we have untangled our intellectual misconceptions, our conventional views of the world, can we begin to refine our our understanding toward this direct and trans-conceptual insight called awakening, not caught by concepts, not stuck in views or opinions or emotions. You know, one of the terms that Dalai Lama uses, emotionalized conceptualizations. He calls those that are not neurotic, something like are pathological emotions, greed, hate and delusion.

[44:44]

Emotionalized conceptualization. The concepts are bad enough, but when you add feelings to your concepts, as we all know, big stuff starts to happen. I got really mad at my community last night. Some of you might have been there. I was really mad when I found out people were not being careful with their masks, that they were doing stuff like talking to each other in the dining room without their masks on. And I felt my anger just came up, you know, and I was like, I love these people. I was getting really angry like a parent watching a kid run out in the street. What? You're doing what? Yeah. So and then I noticed that and then I had to let I had to breathe. I was breathing anyway, but I had to pay attention to I was breathing and I calmed down and I said, well, we're in this together, guys. You got to do this for each other. Can't make you. Can't force you, but I can, you know, really ask you, I can beg you, please, please don't do this, you know.

[45:52]

Don't be careless. Tremendous harm can come from our carelessness. So the place in the time where, as Dogen teaches, mind and objects merge in realization and go beyond enlightenment, in which each moment of zazen is equally wholeness of practice, and wholeness of realization. So this is that moment when everything comes together. Like, just this is it. Just this is it. You can try that one anytime throughout the day. Just pause. Just this is it. Just this is it. Yeah, just this is it. The whole of it. Each moment that mind and objects merge in realization and go beyond enlightenment. That's even beyond enlightenment. That's because it's you. Enlightenment is a concept. Nagarjuna says that too. Enlightenment is just another concept you've got running around in your head. The actual lived experience, mind and objects merging in realization, goes beyond enlightenment, in which each and every moment of zazen, each and every moment of your life, is equally wholeness of practice and equally wholeness of realization.

[47:07]

This is the stage of practice called no more learning. No more learning. And meanwhile, while we're still in the stage of learning, you know, I'm certainly in this stage of learning. I enjoy learning. I want to learn. It can be really beneficial. And we'll continue for a while in that way, as Nagarjuna helps us to endeavor to find the right attitude or the right direction for our learning. And as Nagarjuna argues, and as the Buddha himself argued, taking things, especially ourselves, as inherently existent is the root delusion that lies at the base of all human suffering. So this is the big one. Number one, the root of all the taking ourselves and things as inherently existent, as independently existent is the root delusion that lies at the base of all human suffering.

[48:09]

A delusion that is enshrined in common sense, and in much of human language. So, you know, to me, this is a very helpful locator. Like, where's the problem? Where's the problem? I can't find it. I must have left it somewhere. It's my files, maybe. You know, where's the problem? The problem is that we take ourselves and objects to be inherently existent. And it's embedded in our language. So we look at language. We look at thinking. We look at the way we use our minds to impute characteristics. On ourselves and on the world. I'm not very good at this. I'm not very good at that. We've repeated some of these things so often we think they're true. I'm just not that bright. I don't know. And you're definitely not that bright. So we're doing this thing in all directions. We're creating all this noise about things that are really not existent in the way that we're naming them. We're just naming things. That's it. We're very good at it.

[49:10]

So to withdraw that talent we have is quite a request. It's really hard for people to tell them, just be quiet. Just sit there and be quiet. I think I may have mentioned to you the fifth grader that... I was teaching some fifth graders Zazen, which is always very funny because they really are squirmy. And just to get them to sit down and try to hold still is something. And I usually have them sit for maybe five minutes, you know, which is excruciating for a lot of them. So, you know, I had this class of fifth graders and they were doing pretty good, you know, mostly not too comfortable, obviously, except for one boy. And afterward, I said, well, how was that? And he raised his hand and he said, I really like that. No one has ever asked me not to do anything before. I really love to see that kid now he's probably in his 20s, you know, like 30s, maybe like, how'd you did you keep going? Did you keep going with your wonderful insight?

[50:13]

You know, with your experience of not doing anything, just for a while, you know, for five minutes. Delusion is enshrined in common sense and in much of human language. And yet, as Nagarjuna goes on to say, it is impossible to speak coherently of reality independent of the conventions of language. So even though that's our hook, we can't really talk about freedom without using the conventions of language. This thorn to take out the thorn. So, you know, we're committed, but we want to use it skillfully. We want to use it in a way that actually is a benefit. to our understanding of ourselves and the world. Endeavouring to uproot that delusion is the goal of all Dharma discourse. It's why the Buddha spoke, and it's what he said when he did speak, and it's what we study. So beginning with this delusional self, itself, beginning with turning the light of our awareness around, towards our self and our own thoughts, that the observer is then being observed.

[51:21]

For those of you who watched the David Baum film, he says that. I thought this was a great quote. The observer is being observed. Wonderful. It's kind of thrilling. So as we read through this chapter of Nagarjuna's master work, which clearly I'm not going to get to this evening, even though I had great hopes. I always have this ambition like, well, it'll be easy. I'll just say that and then I'll go right to there. But that's not going to happen. So next week. As we read through the chapter of Nagarjuna's masterwork, we can see how his development of the two truths as a vehicle of understanding the Buddhist teaching is considered to be his greatest philosophical contribution. This is the touchstone of his teaching. All through chapter 24, and even though this chapter on the face of it is about the four novel truths, it's really about the nature of emptiness itself and the relationship between emptiness and conventional reality, the two truths.

[52:22]

So that's what he's talking about. And I think he does a really good job. It's actually one of the best chapters of this text. And I think you'll see when we read it that it's accessible, amazingly so. And that one verse that I mentioned too is considered to be the philosophical heart of this entire project of his work. So in the first six verses, of chapter 24, Nagarjuna is presented with a challenge by an opponent who's criticizing the doctrine of emptiness and is charging Nagarjuna with nihilism as if empty in his teaching means nothing. So that's kind of the exciting opening. It's like a theater piece. Like you can see Nagarjuna is there and this opponent is there and he's saying, your teaching is leading the students to nothing. You're basically doing away with the Four Noble Truths and with the Buddha and with the Sangha.

[53:24]

He's just hammering at him for the first six verses of this chapter, which is quite amazing. And then Nagarjuna responds, au contraire. It's you who are teaching people the wrong thing. If you don't understand emptiness, you don't understand the Buddha's teaching. You don't understand the wisdom. So in the next eight verses, Nagarjuna counters his opponent and charging that he's the one who misunderstands the middle way. So I will stop there because I see that we're running out of time. But if you have a chance to look at these verses, I'm sure most of you don't have this book, but if you did, it's probably online. You could probably look up. Oh, goodness. Oh, you are Heather. You get extra credit. So this is it. The Fundamental Wisdom of the Middle Way by Jay Garfield. His commentary is really fun to slog through.

[54:26]

It does take some slogging, but it's really good. He does a nice job. There's another book, which I also found really helpful. This is the Middle Way by His Holiness, the Dalai Lama. And in many ways, it's more, you know, His Holiness is not a scholar exactly. So he's offering as a teacher, he's offering the value of these teachings from the point of view of someone who's a practitioner. Garfield's a practitioner too, but not in the same way. He's mostly a practitioner of philosophy, university teaching, and so on. But these two books together are very, very valuable. So we'll start with chapter 24 next time. And I know there's... five minutes left of the hour, and I'm more than happy, as I always am, to stay a little longer if you'd like to bring up some questions this evening. And if you know about the blue hand and all of that, I hope, or just wave if you'd like to say something.

[55:31]

And you can unmute yourself. Michael. Can you unmute yourself, Michael? Oh, thank you. Very sweet. Where's Michael? Oh, same to you. Nice to meet you. I see so many names of people I... I can't say I know you. That would be inappropriate. But, you know, I have ideas. I have feelings. I have feelings for you. Good ones. Okay. No little blue. Oh, there's a blue hand. Heather, good, good, good. Thank you. Let me unmute you. Can you unmute? Yeah, good. Hi.

[56:32]

Hi. I have a copy of this book because Dave Rutschman gave it to me after I had been practicing for maybe six months. And I remember another friend of ours, when he found out that David had given me a copy, was like, you can't give somebody that book, you know, when they've only been practicing for a while. He said something like, it's too dry and dense. And David said, well, that's how her mind works. A compliment, to be sure. I think, yeah, I took it that way. And I did really like it. But I put it away for, yeah, like 15 years. So I'm really glad to be revisiting it. But also, I have this super hyper dog.

[57:37]

And every time I sit here and we listen to your voice, he does this. It's the most remarkable thing. I think he just feels at peace in a way that he does not otherwise. And I just find that so very interesting. What's his or her name? His real name is Richard. The dog? The dog's name is Richard. Yeah, the dog's name is Richard. Hey, Richard. Yeah, Richard. But we usually call him dude or little dude. Sweet. Nice to see you, Heather. It's really nice to see you. Thank you very much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Someone said, I love that family. And I think they were talking about... You three. Hi, Bill. Hi, Fu.

[58:39]

Thank you very much for your speaking tonight and every night. You're welcome. So rich with little twists and tweaks of the brain. But I had three little things I wanted to say. One, when I was preteen, I picked up a flower and I started saying flower. And boy, I suddenly couldn't connect the sound I was making with the object I was looking at. I've always remembered that. It just really blew my mind that by making that noise, people would know I was talking about this thing. And then another aspect of that was Have you ever been presented with an object that you have no idea what it is or what it does and you don't know the word for it and it just kind of confounds the brain?

[59:43]

You're just like really wanting to know what this thing is called and what it does and just to make some kind of sense of it. Yeah. And then the third thing is... A few years ago, I spent probably three or four days with the idea of dependent origination by almost everything that I dealt with and looked at. I would think, okay, this used to be in the ground, or before that it was in a meteor, and now it's a thing that we call table. And in two months, it's probably going to be crushed in some trash pile somewhere. And I would do this with everything over and over and over again. And eventually something started to become.

[60:43]

And I need to go back to that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. These are all wonderful ways to kind of untrain the mind, you know. We've been so programmed. All those years of school, all that elementary education, everything they did to us, you know, was to get us to line up with meaning and language. And, you know, the history we were taught, it's like, I'm shocked at how much I wasn't taught. Like, what? It was propaganda. It's amazing. And so to unlearn so much learning is really important. And I think, you know, we're seeing that about racism, too. We have to uncondition ourselves from things we've been told to assume to be so about everything. It's just crazy. So I presume I'm crazy. And I have lots of evidence. And then I really want to make that useful.

[61:47]

You know, make it loosen up some of this stuff so that it actually can function in a more awesome way. I like the word awesome. It's awesome. What's going on here? If you're not in awe, you're distracted. So I think that's the play of the mind is, you know, just basically one of the reasons Zazen is tolerable is because you have this thing to play with. It's like, who can sit there for 40 minutes if you didn't have a mind to play with, you know? So, and then you get to do a whole week and that's really a treat. Oh my God. So yes, please keep on keeping on. It's wonderful. Lisa. I'm trying to unmute you. Ah, there we go. There, I found it. Thank you. Thank you so much. So I was listening to you and you're continuing.

[62:54]

I was thinking about, you know, the five breaths. So there's a, you know, the study seems like a concept that, you know, it's a conceptual framework. But then the zazen helps you bring that framework in, you know, and make it a part of, well, I'm a cell biologist, so every cell. But then, you know, as I was thinking about those breaths, It's, at least I get, you know, I get half breath of a direct experience, and then those words set in. You know, the, oh, look, I was just doing this. Hey, look. And, you know, the self just comes slamming right back in. Yeah. I mean, it was, but the conceptual teaching gives you the framework for seeing what's happening. Yes. Yes. Yes, because otherwise you look down the wrong corridors.

[63:56]

I mean, you're a scientist too, right? You want to get some help from the ancestors, those who went before you. Don't go there. We already went there. There's nothing there. Go here. We don't know what's here, but we know it's not there. So we kind of get these little links and little clues as we go along, little breadcrumbs into the forest, into the woods. And Yeah, and then, you know, the breath is always omnipresent for us as long as we live. We have that presence, that touchstone of air, of taking in air and body, the body-breath connection there. And yes, the mind, it's like, I was thinking when you said that, it's kind of like a bull with a red cape, you know. The mind is like this bull. It's just like, not this time you're not going to get me in. So we have to keep... trying to work it out, make some deals, you'll never get rid of it. You know, it's just, at one time I had a vision of myself as a very old woman, kind of like my grandma got very old and cranky.

[65:06]

And I saw myself like that, you know, standing out on the porch, looking to see who's coming, who is this? You know, and I just thought, she's never gonna die. I mean, this old crank is never going down. She's gonna be there all the way to the end. So I gotta make friends with this. I've got to make friends with these tendencies of mind, not try to get rid of them, but befriend them. Befriend our crankiness and our confusion and so on. I think friendliness is a much better approach to liberation. As the Dalai Lama said, my favorite thing. Our religion is kindness. Be kind. Starting with yourself. Exactly. And it just radiates out to everything you touch. Yeah. Thanks for your question. That was really good. Well, thank you for your answer. You make me think about that. Yeah, that was good.

[66:08]

It was really fun to come across some things I thought might work to help me understand that as well. Okay. Anybody else want to... Hey, Margie. Hi, Margie, I'm Fu. Hi, Fu, I'm Margie. Margie, thank you. It's a spelling that's, you know, it's just a word. All your life. Just wanted to say how... I just wanted to put in a word for poetry. as as i i don't understand it maybe it's the poverty of words but so often even if it's not poetry if it's jane hirshfield that's good i just feel moved out of the relative reality out of conventional reality and i'm i'm i'm a writer myself and i

[67:19]

I do wonder how that happens. It happens around for me also around visual beauty to put a word on it, put two words on it. And there's just something that happens inside me because of that, that feels so transporting. I don't, I don't, it's a mystery to me how it works, but I love that it works. Totally. I have a book for all of you. This is my new favorite book. Can you read it? Yeah. The First Free Women. It's the poetry of the first nuns. So this is thousands of years ago. These women were the first free women because they were no longer wives or property of their fathers who were being sold. their husbands or property of their children or prostitutes or servants or slaves which is what they all were who cut off their hair and ran into the forest and practiced the buddha way that was just step one so that's the beginner's course these poems are when they woke up and they're stunning my partner and i were reading them and crying

[68:43]

at the recognition of that extraordinary moment when someone embodied as a woman would actually be free of all of that stuff. Like one of them said, when are you going to get tired of comparing your hair to somebody else's and your clothes to somebody else's and your figure to something? It's like, whoa, this is 2000 years ago. And it was so contemporary and it's so alive in our identity and how we need to free ourselves from our identity. So anyway, beautiful, beautiful book of the translator. It's not a loose translation, like Hinton does with Chinese poetry. I don't know if you know David Hinton, but he does this beautiful work with Chinese poetry, this really his poetry, English poetry, that allows us to access the feelings of what might have been the Chinese poet's words. But this man, Matty Weingast, who was totally inspired by the Terragatta, by the poems of the nuns, that he made a great effort to be as true as he could to the sentiment of each one.

[69:49]

You know, and every one of them is, you know, Jack Kornfield's the first one to say, this is a great book. And then Sylvia Borstein and every one of the Theravadan teachers is, Vipassana teachers is in the foreword of the book. And I love that translation in this case isn't about word for word, it's about sense for sense. or intention for intention because of the limitation of language. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But he really, I mean, the fact we had such an emotional response was, you know, and both of us are pretty hardcore. We don't cry very much. It was like, whoa, this guy really came up with a penetrating use of language in that way that you're pointing to. Very powerful. Yeah, Nagarjun is not like that. He's kind of like, you know, it's more like dry, barren.

[70:49]

Like Heather was saying. The salt flats. But there's something really amazing. When the stars are out at night on the salt flats, you can really see a long way. Okay, well, thank you all for your coming. I really, really love that you come, and I will be back myself, I hope, given all the factors that are imploding at once. May we all stay healthy and well and safe. I hope you're all safe where you are. And, yeah, thank you again. Feel free to unmute yourselves if you'd like to say goodbye. Thank you so much, Fu. You're welcome. Thank you, Fu. Thank you. Thank you. Hi, Angela. Nice to see you. Nice to see you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Hi, Guy. Lynn. Heather. Bye, Lisa.

[71:53]

Bye. Good night. Paul and Kate. Bye. Thank you. You're welcome. Everything's good? Everything's good. Okay. Close call. Yes. The best kind. Bye bye.

[72:18]

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