Good evening. Nice to see you all getting to be familiar faces and names. So I'm going to ring the bell and we can sit for a few minutes and then I'll resume talking about Nagarjuna and the middle way. Good evening again.

[06:17]

It's amazing how much you can get done in a few minutes of not doing anything. I was just thinking about how this all started with you all, with some of you all who were here when this all started. Someone asked a question about the five Scottinas, as I recall. And I said, oh. You want to know about the five skandhas when we look at the Heart Sutra. So then we looked at the Heart Sutra and there's the five skandhas are empty of inherent existence. And as a result, it relieves all suffering. The realization of the emptiness of five skandhas is the relief of all suffering. So it says in the Heart Sutra. So that bears a little explanation, I think, for most of us. But we chant it every day anyway, whether we understand it or not. That's really part of our liturgy is to chant the Heart Sutra. No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no Buddha. That kind of language. So it's interesting to come full circle because now I've been taught, we went from the Heart Sutra to, where we go to?

[07:27]

Oh, now to the transmission of light. So how that realization of emptiness resulted in the awakening of Shakyamuni Buddha when he saw the morning star. Non-dual realization, not separate. that the object of observation and the subject observing are not separate from one another, whether it's something heard or something seen or something tasted, our very existence is constantly connected to whatever we're experiencing, even though sometimes we imagine it's outside of our self. So there's the problem that the Buddha saw. We imagine a separate self. That's the cause of our suffering. So most of these teachings are about a corrective, how to correct that impression, which is so powerful. You know, we're all born with a conviction about ourself, and we're taught to have a lot of, you know, stories about ourself and be able to tell those stories. If someone asks you for your resume, you know, you've got one. So this is part of our conditioning. So then we were looking at the transmission of light.

[08:29]

We looked at Chakyamuni Buddha and his transmission to Mahakashapa, beginning of the Zen story, and then Ananda. And now we jumped ahead to Nagarjuna. Nagarjuna is the kind of, he's the essential teacher of this emptiness teaching, by which Abhagokiteshara tells us we will be relieved of all suffering if we understand the emptiness of the five skandhas. So Nagarjuna's task in life, second century A.C.E., was to help us to understand what it means to be empty of inherent existence. And he got a lot of pushback. and his effort to explain that in his own day. So this document we've been looking at, the fundamental teaching of the middle way, which is attributed to Nagarjuna, is basically his argument against the opponents of the emptiness teaching, who are saying, you can't just have empty, empty, emptying. If there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no suffering, no cause, no path, which is what Harshitur says, well, then we don't have any Buddhism.

[09:33]

We don't have any triple treasures. We don't have any sangha. And we're lost. We're just lost and wandering around in this nothing, like the big nothing. So Nagarjuna is pressed. Fortunately, he was up to the task to explain to us how emptiness is not nothing. In fact, au contraire. It's the opposite of nothing without being something. So that's where... This wonderful trick of language becomes so key. So I wanted to just kind of keep going, plowing on through the chapter 24. I ended last week with verse 18, which is the kind of the philosophical heart of Nagarjuna's masterwork is this chapter, this verse 18. So I've actually made a couple of little screen shares to show you, hoping that might be of help. We'll see how that goes. And we'll see if we can get through the second half of chapter 24. And after that, we're not going to look at Nagarjuna anymore, I promise.

[10:35]

I thought we should move on to the mind-only teachings, which are actually much more accessible. And you can, you know, there's lots of diagrams you can draw because there's all kinds of somethings running around in the mind-only. Although at the end of the mind-only, they go back to the nothing part too, or the emptiness part. But they give you a nice long ride before they do that. So last week I read up until verse 18 of chapter 24. And as you know, this is, well, I don't know if you know, but anyway, this school that Nagarjuna founded is called the Majamaka or middle way school. So his teaching is the Mula Majamaka Karika. So Mula means the wisdom of the middle way versus on the... teaching of the middle way, the wisdom of the middle way. That's what that all means, that long Sanskrit name. And the Majamaka school basically is the middle way school. And as I've said before, the two middle way school and the mind only school are both considered equally important in the Zen school as far as the underpinnings, foundational, the philosophical underpinnings of answers that you get from these funny Zen masters.

[11:54]

They're coming from one or the other and they're juggling these two. And if you get this, if you're going too far in the emptiness side, they'll throw some mind only at you. And it'll bring you back using one of the others of these as techniques, as understandings. Not just random. Sounds kind of random sometimes, but it's not just random. So Nagarjuna elaborates on this familiar refrain about emptiness. which I was just mentioning from the Heart Sutra. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. You all remember that. Form, meaning form as in one of the five skandhas, the first of the five skandhas is form. That's this, the body, that which can be hit. That's how it's defined. Something that can be hit is a form. So form is the stand-in for the five skandhas. So form is Feeling, perception, impulses, and consciousness are the five skandhas. And he's just listing one of them to start. Form is emptiness.

[12:56]

Emptiness is form. The same is true of feelings, perceptions, impulses, consciousness. Okay, so all five skandhas are empty. And now, Nagarjuna does an interesting thing, which is challenging, but really important. So as most things are, which are really important, tend to be kind of challenging. So this, in verse 18, he does this. He takes form and emptiness. So we've got those two polar distinctions. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Even though they kind of look like opposites, they kind of balance out each other. They need each other to make sense. And he's adding two more constructs. To this formula, making what I mentioned last week is like a diamond shape. And I actually made a little image of that for you all. See if I can make it work. So he writes this verse. And I can get this to happen.

[13:59]

I hope will be helpful. Okay. Let's see. Almost there. All right, here we go. Now I need to do something like screen share. Yeah, there we go. Screen share. Share. Okay, now I... I think you can probably see everything I've got on my screen, which is not necessary, but at least you can see over here, you can see this green kind of baseball diamond, right? Yeah? Okay, great. So this is Nagarjuna's formula for teaching emptiness.

[15:03]

So I'm going to walk you through this, okay? So at the top of this little diagram... We have, I have to, okay, here we go. We have, number one is the middle way. Well, the middle way, as we've talked about before, is the Buddha's enlightened vision of reality. When he looked at the star, he saw that the star was not outside of himself. So that's, number one is the non-dual nature of reality called the middle way, right? Non-dual meaning there's no self and other, Dual would be self and other. Non-dual, self and other are co-arising, which is exactly what this little formula says. So the middle way is the non-dual nature of reality. Buddha looking at the morning star. It's also called the truth. This is the truth. The middle way is the truth. It's the ultimate truth. Now, Nagarjuna goes on to explain in this diagram...

[16:09]

that in this non-dual universe, number one, each element in the non-dual universe is dependently co-arisen. That's over here. So number one, non-dual universe, every element of the non-dual universe is dependently co-arisen. That's where you get form. We do see forms. We don't want to say, well, I don't see anything. There's just a non-dual universe. He saw the star. However, the main important thing to remember is The star, he did not experience the star as separate. That's a much different plane of our experience than just he understood it wasn't separate. He experienced it as not separate. He didn't say anything about that at the time. He just knew. This is a spiritual thing that happened to him. So number two, Nagarjuna explains in the non-dual universe, each and every element, number two, is dependently co-arisen. arises in dependence on pretty much everything else.

[17:13]

You know, we can name, and there's lots of exercises where you hold up a particular object and you name all the ways that it comes into being. You know, oxygen and the sunshine and the grasses and the flowers to get a cow. You have all those things, right? So everything is dependently co-arisen. It has a story. It doesn't just appear out of nowhere. There's a story and there's connections to everything. So that's form, is dependent co-arising. And therefore, because it's dependently co-arisen, it's not independent. It's empty of, number three, inherent, independent existence. Okay? And that's the ultimate truth of the middle way. Of the middle way, you have the ultimate truth and the relative truth. So these are the two truths that Nagarjuna illuminates. about non-dual nature of the universe. So it's not that there's nothing, there is something, but how is that something?

[18:16]

What is that something? How do we treat that something? What is the nature of that something, this form? What's its nature? It's dependently co-arisen, meaning it's empty of independent existence. So these are kind of equivalents, right? And then here's the kicker, okay? So form is emptiness, emptiness is form. And I just explained that to you, just as Nagarjuna has just explained this. This is an explanation. It can't exist without being explained. There's no way that this little diagram could have appeared here without Nagarjuna explaining the non-dual nature of reality and without me now explaining what Nagarjuna said before. And now I'm using English, right? Even more possible for you to understand. So words and language is the fourth dependency. So this is a four-way dependency here.

[19:18]

To get the middle way, the non-dual nature of reality, you need form, dependent core rising, which means it's empty of independent existence. It's basically manifest by virtue of all of these causes and conditions. That's how you understand form. You understand anything at all because you're hearing it in language. So that's a dependency. This number four is really important. So his verse 18, which is succinctly said by Nagarjuna, we state that whatever is dependently co-arisen, that is explained to be emptiness. Whatever is dependently co-arisen, that is explained to be emptiness. That explanation, being a conventional designation, is itself the middle way. Okay.

[20:21]

So I'm going to stop sharing now. So you got that? Just remember the green diamond. I think that part, just start with that. And eventually you can try filling in the four points. You know, start with the middle way at the top, non-dual nature of the universe. Form an emptiness. Emptiness is form. You put those on either side. And then the horse you're riding, language. So what's so important about what Nagarjuna has done here is to give us the horse we're riding, which is the one we all forget. This is just totally classic human forgetting about we're just talking. We just said it. It's what we say matters, but it's not more than that. It's nominal, what's going on here. Anyway, this is a very important point. So all of what I just said, what's most important about it, and that comes away from these teachings of Nagarjuna and of Zen, is that the phenomenal world, the world of objects, of common sense, of language, and for the Buddha,

[21:37]

of all of our mistaken illusions about the nature of reality, as though it really is solid, as though I really am here, and as though that really is my car, all of these ways we think, which is substantializing ourselves and objects, opposite of what I just told you, the world of illusions is the only world we have. We don't have another world. We are dreamers. This is a dream world, and we are good at it. And so we have to work with the dream. We have to work within the dream. Use the language of dreaming in order to wake up. It's like our birthday. Surprise! So this is the only world that we have to work with. And therefore, it's really consequential to the extreme that we get that understanding right. We need to get it right. We need to actually understand what's going on here and not just keep guessing. you know, projecting my guesses about what you're thinking on you.

[22:39]

You know, this happens like one of our favorite hobbies. I know what you're thinking. Oh, no, you don't. You have no idea. So there's a number of books. There's a series of books. One of them is called Taking the Relative Truth Seriously. Taking the Relative Truth Seriously. I think Dharma students really want to take the ultimate truth seriously. They would like to actually just go and kind of live there. Just get out of here. This is a really irritating place. In fact, the early Buddhists really were motivated by the idea they could get out of here. They could get out of samsara, go to nirvana, and not have to pay for their parking tickets or whatever it was. No consequences. You get out of trouble, out of dodge, right? So it's appealing, I mean, on some level, but I think we're being convinced that by these great masters, that is not the way. That is not the way to freedom. And actually, that's just hiding under the bed. And something is going to find you there.

[23:42]

You know, you can't hide under the bed terribly long. So the job of the wisdom teachings is to get our human understanding corrected before we run out of time and soil and air and water and all the other things that we're running out of because we got it wrong. We're in an upside down world. We're consumers. We're like bread mold. And you know what happens to bread mold after they eat all the bread? Well, that's right. No more bread mold. So Buddha's saying he gave his lion's roar, you know, like, watch out. You're going the wrong way. You humans are going the wrong way. You have the opposite understanding of what's going on in the world. And it's causing you terrible pain. It's not just, you know, to criticize us or shake a finger. It's like you're hurting yourselves. What you're doing is really hurting yourselves. So the main points that I wanted to recap today before, if we have time, finishing to read the chapter 24.

[24:43]

It's not so essential because it's mostly he's recapping his criticism against the opponents. Like you just don't understand this. And as a result, you're the ones who are saying there's no possibility of liberation or four noble truths or the three treasures and so on. So it's really kind of just a recap of that. So it's not so important if we don't get to it. But I did want to go through the major points that he's making in this chapter, which I think are really important. So first of all, we know he's set up this straw man. He set up the opponent in his own writing. He writes, the opponent says, and then he writes all the things the opponent says to him. And the opponent for Nagarjuna is a substantialist or an essentialist, somebody who is holding that there has to be something there. Kind of like, you know, some religions hold that there's a soul. And when you die, your soul doesn't die. Your soul goes to heaven or something like that. I've heard that story. I heard that when I was a kid. So there are belief systems in which there is a substantial existent core to our being.

[25:46]

We don't just vanish. We go on kind of like we are, only kind of ethereal form of that. So his opponent is holding to some kind of substantialist position, either around a Buddhist concept, or around some kind of Brahmanical concept like transcendentalism. So his argument is basically to demolish any form of grasping at an intrinsically existent anything. No intrinsically essentially existing anything. No things like that. There are no things like that without it being nothing. It's just no things, but they're not nothing. They do have existence, but that's where the tricky part comes in. So by the end of chapter 24, Nagarjuna has gone through the objections that the substantialists have raised about his teaching of emptiness, or the teaching of emptiness, not his, it's the Heart Sutra, it's the Prajnaparamita, which he's received, as you recall, from the dragon king under the water.

[26:53]

Nagarjuna was given these texts. They are texts written by the Buddha. It's the story. So these teachings of emptiness are based on the non-dual nature of reality. There are no substantially existing objects. There is no soul, no person, no ears, no eyes, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no cause of suffering, no cessation of suffering, no path, as we know from the Heart Sutra. No, no, no. Meaning no substantial, existent, separate, independent thing. Okay. So Nagarjuna begins his argument by refuting the notion that emptiness means nothingness. As soon as you think of emptiness as nothingness, his whole house of cards falls down. It's no help to think of it as being a nothing. The opponent wins.

[27:54]

If that's the truth of emptiness, then Nagarjuna has lost the match. So he says this is a common error. It's made when encountering the emptiness teachings, and it's made by Buddhists as well as by the Brahmanical folks who have the idea of a soul. It's also done by Buddhists who are saying, well, there is this self, and there are things you can do that are good, and there's things you can do that are bad, and those are real things, real bad things, and those are real good things. They exist. Good and evil exist, and you need to avoid evil, and you need to do good. But actually, if they don't really exist, we've got a moral problem And that's one of the moral problems is one of the problems that the middle way teachings ran into in the Buddhist history. And we talked about that a little bit, too. So many Buddhists mistake emptiness for nothing, for freedom from restrictions like good and evil, that they started to become kind of bad boys, bad monks. So they had to bring them back down again, which is where the mind only teachings are.

[28:59]

Let's come back here and think a little bit deeper. about conventional reality, taking the conventional, the relative truth seriously. So that's the sort of the point that keeps being remade. Once one's exposed to the emptiness teachings, that doesn't mean you get to just run around or not go to the Zendo in the morning or whatever, you know, the rules still apply and, but you have to understand in what way. So they're not just rules for the sake of rules. So, Nagarjuna begins to explain to his opponent what the purpose of the emptiness teachings is. And he's basically talked about that in an earlier chapter of these verses, chapter 18, about the self. He's talking about the self. If you ever feel like you want to read through the whole middle way verses, they're really quite amazing. But you have to kind of keep referring to commentaries. Like the Dalai Lama's is really great. I've been enjoying going through those again and again.

[30:02]

So in chapter 18, Nagarjuna says karma, karma is our actions and the result of our actions, and afflictions arise from conceptualizations, concepts. It's a very, very important point. Karma and afflictions arise from conceptualizations and the elaborations of those conceptualizations. This is the Imaginarium, and our karma and our afflictions arise from within our imagination. That's the location for all our troubles, close to home. Elaborations are identified as fundamental ignorance, which in turn, it lies at the very root of our samsaric state, our endless circling, our endless suffering. Our life is a creation of our mind, as the Buddha said in the Dhammapada.

[31:05]

What you are today comes from your thoughts of yesterday, your memories, and your present thoughts. Build your life of tomorrow, your plans. Your life is a creation of your mind. So this is a pretty big point. And I think it's one that's good to remind yourself of. You know, every once in a while, just take a hold of your head. Oh, yeah. There it is. Right here. So then Nagarjuna says, only by meditation on the emptiness of inherent existence in all things, including thoughts, which is free of those elaborations, when you stop elaborating on your concepts, like a pebble in a stream, We do that, right? We elaborate. Which is free of elaboration. Only by meditation on the emptiness of inherent existence in all things, which is free of elaborations, can we find our way to liberation.

[32:06]

Apart from insight into emptiness, there's really no other alternative for dispelling the root cause of suffering. That being the delusion grasping at the true existence of things. illusion that there are things you can get a hold of and that they have substance and they're permanent and they're going to make you happy is the source root source of our suffering and it's all about me me getting a hold of things right it's the selfish wish to get or to get rid of well it's all in relationship to me and that's a the most important point keep bringing it home keep bringing it back to yourself turn the light around What am I thinking? What am I believing? What am I elaborating? Exaggerating. You know, oftentimes exaggerating. So the Dalai Lama goes on to explain in his book called The Middle Way. I think I showed you that.

[33:08]

It's wonderful. Very, very good. Very, very good book. That afflictions that cause suffering, such as jealousy, hatred, lust, pride, attachment, and so on, are not afflictions due to their own characteristics. You know, jealousy isn't like something that attacks you or hatred or lust. It's not something coming at you. It's not the characteristics of these qualities of our minds that are the problem. There's a common denominator that the afflictions all share. And that common denominator, I have another question, screen share to show you is almost there just about

[34:16]

is the king and the queen in the middle there is the self, the grasping self in the center who is observing these objects, right? So the common denominator of our afflictions is the self. I don't like spiders. I love dogs. And I'm not sure about being on time. I love ice cream. Love money. Go back to school. Whatever. New car. The common denominator is this response to objects by the self. It's the self. It's like put a pin right there. That's where it is. All the troubles of our lives are around self-belief, self-clinging, self-love. This will be a really major theme of the mind-only teachings. There's a... aspect of our mind called manas, meaning the lover.

[35:28]

And this is a little prelude to manas teaching. So the lover, we're born loving ourselves. We mistake our own processes, mental processes as the self. Well, there must be someone here because she's thinking and she's feeling and she's eating and she's dancing and she's buying a new car. So she assumed to be an existent object or thing. Solidarity, singularity is me, and me is the one who's doing all this afflicting on her existence. Okay. So as I said, oh, that's my original. So given that grasping of self is the root of all of our afflictions that lead to suffering, then this insight into emptiness of the self, as well as of the objects, is the only antidote.

[36:31]

So in order to truly understand, and thereby begin to apply the antidote to our suffering, we have to, first of all, have this conceptual understanding of emptiness. So which is what Nagarjuna is doing? He's giving us a conceptual understanding of emptiness. It's like physics. Do you get it? Can you get it? There's a formula here, that green diamond shape. That's the formula giving us a conceptual understanding of what's the true nature of reality. And Nagarjuna is laying it all out for us. So we got to kind of, first of all, put it into our imaginarium. Add it with all the other stuff. We're going to put in this template of understanding, wisdom teachings. Like a set of glasses that we can look through and check it out for ourselves. So this text is offering us that kind of conceptual understanding.

[37:35]

However, as the Dalai Lama points out, one must then leave the domain of concepts of language wherein one might be grasping at the concept of emptiness. Oh, I get it. I got it. I understand it. Oh, I understand that. I can write a story about that. So now we've just got another thing that we've got a hold of. We've got this concept of emptiness and we can tell people about it. We can think about it, but we're stuck in concepts. We're stuck in one of the four corners. We're down there in conceptual designation and we've reified that. So now we've got an understanding. People get understandings of things, don't they? They become professors. things it's amazing and then they tell other people so this is one thing you know you have to be keep keep an eye on this guy because this guy's very tricky they're always wanting to grab there they go over there all of these beings that run around in my head are wanting to get a hold of things feelings objects thoughts possessive possessive

[38:43]

There's a precept against possessiveness because that's so much how we are. We're built to get a hold of things. We've got these grabbers, right? And we have a mental grabber. It's the strongest of them all. So we grab at the concept of emptiness rather than the actual experience of the non-separation of the self and the object. Of the non-separation with the spider. No wonder you're scared of the spider. Yeah? You are the spider. You are the car. You are the ice cream. Whatever you're connected to is making your life. It's creating your life. Dependently co-arising. That's what form is. It's dependent co-arising. You and the spider dependently co-arise. You and the ice cream. You and the car. You and the money. It's all dependently co-arising. As was the case of the Buddha with the morning star. Dependently co-arising. Co-existing. co-produced, without an agent of production.

[39:46]

I did that. I got enlightened. As soon as you hear that, you kind of know you got a little, oh, yeah, really? Tell me more about that. So finally, as the Buddha taught in a sutra called Questions to the Naga King, so the Naga King was this wonderful king who gave Nagarjuna the Prajnaparamita text. Buddha says, that which has arisen in dependence on others, is unborn. The unborn nature of all things. We chant that. The unborn nature of all being. It's one of our little chants we do regularly at Zen Zone. It's very catchy. The unborn nature of all being. The unborn nature of all being. It sounds funny. We were born. Weren't we born? I was born. I had a birthday. But I didn't just appear out of nowhere. The ultimate proof of emptiness is that the baby just doesn't pop in from nowhere. You know, the baby didn't arise in the world autonomously as a self-enclosed or independent being.

[40:52]

Even though it kind of looks like that, you just cut the cord and there you got a baby, right? Call it Fred, whatever you want to do. And all of a sudden you're sending that little guy off on the road to independence from others and go west, young man, right? Go west. Make your fortune by yourself. You know, this kind of archaic way of training humans into being individuals is just such a bad idea. So in the final analysis, Nagarjuna says, the ultimate proof of emptiness is that all things exist only through dependent origination. All things exist only by one possible way, dependent origination. That's the only way. No other way. And that the meaning of emptiness is dependent origination, dependent core rising. That's what it means. Emptiness form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. That's what it means.

[41:55]

Emptiness means dependently core risen. Dependently core risen means emptiness. Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. So this is really important because we don't think of forms as being independently co-arisen, as being empty. We think of them as being solid. So this is to break up the set. This is a lesson. It's a life lesson. So everything is all together. Ultimately, all things come into being as a result of all things. Everything depends on everything for its existence. You take off... Take planet Earth out of the formula and throw it away. And what have you got? Oops. You know, everything depends on everything for its existence. For the distance we are from the sun. Oh, my God. It's amazing. How did that happen? Just right. It's called the sweet spot or something. It's just the right place. Not too hot, not too cold, although we're kind of messing with that.

[42:57]

So, you know, the fact that there is life on Earth is dependently core risen. You know, all came up together. And it depends, still dependence, independence. We're totally independent on survival, on one another, and on the entirety of this little tiny little ball, pale blue dot, as it's been called. And this is why the Buddha said at the moment of his awakening, if you remember back to chapter one of the transmission of light, I and all beings on earth attain enlightenment at the same time. He said that when he woke up. I and all beings on earth attain enlightenment at the same time. All together now. No separate self. No separate earth. Everything here is of, and there's this concept, I think, of Gaia. You know, it's like the living sphere, the living being. Earth itself is this little fuzzy layer swarming around on top. You know, it's the living being. And then there's one more thing.

[43:59]

So remember, again, the green... diamond. So we have non-dual form and emptiness. And then there's the one at the bottom, the horse. So not satisfied with explaining the meaning of emptiness, the Dalai Lama, as did Nagarjuna before him, restates that dependent origination must be taken one step further. In that, here's a quote, the identity of a thing of a thing, a single thing, can only be conceived in dependence on conceptions, concepts. The identity of a thing can only be conceived in dependence, here's another dependency, on concepts, thoughts, ideas, words, language. So we're back to the horse that we're riding, the horse of language, conventional designation. So there's your bottom point of the four point square. Non-dual, form, emptiness, emptiness form, dependent on language.

[45:08]

The whole house of cards depends on I just said so. There's the bell. I just said so, and therefore, I just said so. And that's it. That's all you got. And then there goes the bell, and it all just washes away. So all objects are dependent on nominal. Nominal means named. existence. And even this existence on the basis of designation can only be posited within a relative framework. So even language itself is based on a convention. You know, humans got together around the campfire and pointed at things and agreed on what to call them in many different languages, as we know. And so we got all these different names for things. I don't know. I couldn't say what this is in Hungarian. I have no idea. Sometimes I try to think in Hungarian, knowing I don't know any, just to see what it would be like not to have any words that I could use for objects.

[46:12]

And it gets kind of weird. If you can't name things, I don't know the name of that. So someone else was talking about playing with the word flower and the flower. It's like it's good to play with that to make sure you're not just automatically, you know, presuming that, you know, the names of things and that those names actually apply to something. You know, we're kind of trying to peel off our normal way of thinking, our conventional way of thinking about the world. So. Everything is in a relative framework. There is no thing that possesses independent status, not the finger and not the moon that it's pointing at. Neither one of those is independent. Words are not independent and the moon is not independent. So fingers in the moon, same status. Empty form. Designations. Language. So it's important to remind ourselves, as Nagarjuna does, not to deny this robust reality of our conventional experience.

[47:23]

He's not trying to say, well, therefore, forget about it. Because it's just convention, and it's just language, it's just nominal, what we're all playing with here, doesn't mean it's less important. In fact, it means it's supremely important, what we say. What we do with what we say. Our word. Give our word. You know, vow. Taking vows, which is something those of us in the Buddhist camp do quite a lot. Give your word. Vow means word. I give my word. I promise. Because words have import. They matter. They turn into form. It's the conventional designations. Form and emptiness and words are all hooked in. So this world runs on keeping your word or not, as we know. It can run backwards if you don't keep your word, if you lie, if you deceive others. It gets very confusing, a lot of harm. So there's this gap that appears because there's no underlying reality.

[48:31]

There's just these conventions. So this gap between our perception of reality as having independent status objects having independence that's how we think no one's denying that my conventional sense of reality at this very moment is that i'm here in my house with a whole bunch of stuff and i know the names of almost all of it i used to i mean i do have names for my things so this is my house of things and that's my conventional world so my perception of reality is they're all separate and they're put in places you know sorted and so on And reality itself, in which these things are not separate, they are interdependent, and they are all dependent, as with the crown and the objects, on my perception of them and my relationship to them. They make my life. We're interdependent, me and my stuff, me and my shadow, me and everything. We belong together. We belong to each other.

[49:32]

So this gap between my perception of reality and reality My knowledge of reality is non-dual. What in Zen is called the hair's breadth deviation. The hair's breadth distance is as different as heaven from earth. This hair's breadth distance is as different as heaven from earth. And heaven and earth, what connects heaven and earth is the top of my head and the bottom of my feet. That's the hair's breadth difference that exists between heaven and earth is me. You know, I'm the one blocking this connection, creating the gap. The way I think and how I behave is where this gap between heaven and earth is taking place. So this is the place where Nagarjuna then presents the two truths about reality, the conventional and the ultimate form and emptiness. So if you may recall from verses eight, nine and ten. The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based entirely on the two truths, the truth of worldly convention and the ultimate truth.

[50:42]

Those who do not understand this distinction between these two truths do not understand the Buddha's profound teaching. Without a basis in the conventional truth, language, riding the horse, without the horse, the truth of the ultimate cannot be taught, can't say it, can't explain it, can't draw it. Can't tell anybody. Without understanding the ultimate truth, emptiness. Nothing really there the way we think. Freedom. Liberation. Close the gap. Non-dual. The ultimate truth, liberation cannot be attained. So these are two dependencies as well. The ultimate truth and the relative truth are dependent on one another. One side's illuminated. The other side is dark. It's very hard for us humans to see both sides. We might get a glimpse of the ultimate truth of that place where there's no words or words can't reach it.

[51:44]

There's a bit of silence or a bit of quiet, you know, a little break in the train of thought. Very nice. And then it closes up again. The train recouples and off it goes back down the track. But that's exactly the experience we want to watch for is that decoupling. of language of of the train of thought take a break every now and then just so you know that that's what's happening that's the liberation that's both of those knowing that is liberation because then you're not victim you it's your train you're driving that train and you're taking care of it you know you're the conductor you're the passengers You're the engineer. So Nagarjuna goes on to support the necessity of getting the conventional truth right. As in the Zen saying, the elbow does not bend backwards. There are laws.

[52:45]

It's not just any old thing. Conventional truth doesn't mean whatever I think is true. It doesn't make pink elephants because I just thought about one. Conventional truth is based on an agreement between me and other humans. You know, sometimes we check people. Do you know who the president of the United States is? We'll ask somebody that. That was a bad example. But anyway, so, you know, we try to check people's sanity by asking them questions that they ought to know, right? So this is one way we have conventions about what is so. And then if people are really out of agreement, then they're kind of out of the tribe. You know, they get... over here I read sort of this really fascinating study about shaman women in Korea and I don't know I just found this little book somebody had it and it was saying that in in the tribal areas of Korea in the mountains which is not uncommon for apparently for women at a certain age a certain percentage of I guess women maybe men too but this was about women

[53:57]

they become like kind of mad. I don't know what to call it technically, but they kind of lose their perspective and they start to have very weird ideations. So in the tribal people, what they do, if someone goes into that kind of dissociative state or whatever, I don't know what the technical term, they build a special little hut for them and give them beautiful clothes and wonderful food. And they put them in the hut. And then they leave them there. And if they can figure their way out of this labyrinth, they become the shaman for the tribe. And if they can't, then they chase them away. So I thought, oh, that's kind of like humans do that, don't they? Well, I'm sorry. You don't know how to work within this structure. So then you're put in some kind of marginal status. Chased away. So the elbow doesn't bend backwards.

[55:00]

There are laws. There are certain truths that we hold to be self-evident. And so we say. And then we try to kind of hold ourselves to what those meanings are. So from verse 20 onward, Nagarjuna continues to refute the opponent, the realist, the substantialist, the essentialist's objections, culminating in the final verse, verse 38. in which he says, if there is intrinsic existence, essential existence, the whole world will be non-arising, non-disintegrating, and will last for all eternity, devoid of varying states. If there is intrinsic existence, if things really do exist as substantial existent things, the whole world will be non-arising, because stuff's already here. Can't arise if it's already here. Non-disintegrating, where can it go if it's already here? And will last for all eternity, devoid of varying states.

[56:05]

I don't know if any of you are old enough, some of you are, to have read Kurt Vonnegut. Probably some of you are. But there was one of his little stories, Ice Nine, where there's this, Ice Nine is this drop of something. If it gets in the water, all the water is going to turn to ice in the whole world. which will be the end of, you know, right? So it's like a super weapon, this Ice Nine. I thought, oh, it's like Ice Nine. Everything is going to just be forever. So that's his final, you know, volley against the opponents. That's the world you're talking about. Nothing changes. The flowers in heaven can't ripe, they can't blossom, and the fruit can't fall. It's just stuck in paradise forever. Like a nightmare. And then he summarizes that only those who see that the true meaning of emptiness is dependent origination will comprehend the true nature of suffering and therefore be able to maintain coherently the teaching of the four noble truths.

[57:10]

So his very last verse, verse 40, whoever sees dependent origination sees the truth of suffering, its origin and its cessation. and the path to the cessation of suffering. So that's the Four Noble Truths, which basically Nagarjuna is upholding big time. Through his whole argument, he's basically coming back around. The very first thing he does in his text is to pay homage to the Buddha. I think I want to read that to you because it's so beautiful. Nagarjuna, his dedication, I can't pronounce that word. Dedicatory? Verse. I prostrate to the perfect Buddha, the best of teachers, who taught that whatever is dependently arisen is unceasing, unborn, unannihilated, not permanent, not coming, not going, without distinction, without identity, and free from conceptual construction.

[58:22]

So I prostrate to the perfect Buddha. He starts with his, this is the Buddha's teaching, as he understands it, and as I think we've come to understand it, certainly in the Zen school, is in this very same way. Empty of inherent existence. So, wow, okay. So, please share with me anything you'd like, if you have any... Thoughts or questions or... Ki, hi. Hi Fu, thank you so much for the talk. You're welcome. Nice to see you. Nice to see you too. I had a question that came up that I just wanted to clarify in regards to the soul or a spirit or something like that. My question is, what is it then that connects all of the past lives?

[59:27]

What is it that makes that connection in samsara? And is the problem when using the word soul, the thinking that it's not a process, it's not fluid, and it's just this thing that's passing on, where it should really be a flow, like you said, a process. So I'm just wondering, what is it that connects the past lives? Yeah. Well, certainly one of the things that connects them is the belief in them. So, you know, I want to ask Aiken Roshi, Robert, Robert Aiken, who was a teacher in Hawaii. I think he's passed on now. But I said, so what about reincarnation? And He said, he's a Zen teacher. He said, I don't buy it. So that was one answer, right? So then now the Dalai Lama, you're not going to go two pages in the Tibetan literature without hearing about future lives.

[60:30]

I mean, their teaching is, why would you waste your time in this one little lifetime when you have so many thousands of lifetimes to care for in order to become a Buddha? You're going to have to, you know, really work hard for a very long time. So there's... There are teachings around reincarnation. Of course, he's a reincarnated, right? So that's a very standard in the Tibetan Buddhist teaching. However, I think what's not different, I mean, they're basically teaching emptiness as well. So it's a good story. And the story is based on the teachings of karma, that the influence of your life, it's like something that you've done here has an impact, has an influence. And that influence is what's left of you. And then that influence has an influence. And that influence has an influence. So you want to have some good influences in this life on other people. You know, sometimes we say, like right now, Mel Weitzman is really getting very close, I think, we think, to the end of his life.

[61:34]

We're all very holding him very dear. He's been here. He's in his 90s now. Such a wonderful teacher. The influence of his life, I was just looking at the list of his deshi, his Dharma-transmitted descendants. There's like 45 names on there. That's amazing for that one little guy in his years of teaching to have left 45 teachers as his inheritance, as his offering to the world. That's pretty great. Look at Shakyamuni Buddha. We're still in his domain. So it's the influence of those lives and what they've offered to others. I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg is showing up as having had this wonderful influence on the lives of all of us and so on. So, you know, people have a big presence and then they have an impact on how we think, how we create our societies, how we, you know, and so on. So I think it's like that, like, what are you going to leave of yourself?

[62:40]

I think this one is an awful lot of trouble. I don't know if I'd want to have another one right away anyway. And another way to think about it, too, is like, how many lifetimes have you gone through since you were in third grade? Quite a few, you know? I mean, oh, my gosh. And they're not over yet. Hopefully there's going to be a few more up ahead. So each one of those has its own narrative, its own circling around. confusion and trying to become clear and trying to do good and then not caring about that and, you know, whatever. You just kind of keep going around until you arrive at some place where you're, you know, kind of done. You're still young. You got a ways to go. I know you have lots to do. Montaigne.

[63:49]

Can you hear me, Sue? Yes, I can. Thank you. I did a few of your one-day retreats. I'll come to your talk, so we've met. I really want to thank you because all my practice has been in the Therobatan tradition, and I really... wanted to understand the breadth of buddhism of dharma and the mahayana practice and these fundamental texts and history uh the way you're presenting them it's very important to me and i i really appreciate it because it's given me a a window into a deeper understanding of dharma i think um i really appreciate it Thank you. Thank you. Nice to see you. I remember. Yeah. Yeah.

[64:59]

Hi. Lisa. Hey, Lisa. Hello. Good evening. Good evening. So I got stuck. I started reading the commentary on Nagarjuna, Garfield's commentary. And I hit chapter one. and smack you know now he's writing for philosophers but the chapter one is about conditions and causes and how does dependent co-arising impact how you think about causes yeah that's a big one I think Garfield does a pretty good job. You have to go over it a few times. Oh, many times. I mean, a few, I mean like 30 or something. I think what he's getting at is the same point that Nagarjan is making about everything, every chapter, is that there's no cause like a billiard ball, like a thing that caused a thing.

[66:05]

It's more like there are conditions under which things happen, but basically the main thing is that we explain it. That's the main cause. It's explicable. That we pin meaning on it. Yeah. Well, there's patterns. There seem to be patterns in that we have really relied on patterns in nature and, you know, so do banana slugs. I mean... Everything's relying on patterns in order to survive living beings. Right. So we have these incredibly elaborated spider webs of thinking around patterns. And we've even made some of our own. Yeah. So I think they're talking about this conventional designation that you really won't find the cause because the cause would have a cause and the cause would have a cause. And it was infinite regress. Yes. Yeah. So there's no first cause. So don't even bother going all the way back there. Just realize that things are dependently co-arisen based on this amazement of how did that come to be?

[67:11]

Well, I don't know. But, you know, maybe we can make a story up about this part over here and it'll be useful to us. And we sure did, didn't we? Kind of lots of stories. So I think they're really talking about substantializing causes, as if there's an actual thing that made another thing. You know, I think again and again, he's really just taking away this essence. Like there is a cause. The cause has a cause, and the cause has a cause of a cause of a cause. So I think I told you about the Zen master said, someone asked me about the first cause, and I... wrote that question on a biscuit and tried to feed it to my pig, but my pig wouldn't eat it. So, you know, there's some place for science and for philosophy and so on, you know, like it's just turtles all the way down. But what's that turtle riding on?

[68:12]

A bigger turtle. Well, what about that one? A bigger turtle. It's just turtles all the way down. So at some point, our ability to rationalize, to explain, is so feeble that we have to stop doing that and deal with the present, what's presenting to our eyes, the resultants. Okay. It's the practical application versus the theoretical. I think so. I think Zen is really about... Sweeping, cooking, watering the plants. You know, being kind to your neighbors. Okay. Yeah. Our tradition is called the dumb younger brother tradition. The older brother. No, the dumb older brother. Soto Zen is the dumb older brother. Rinzai Zen is the smart younger brother.

[69:13]

So we're just this kind of like... kind of nice, you know, just being, being nice to the neighbors and stuff like that. That's Zika Roshi talked about that. We're not the bright ones. So we're just, you know, trying to get along. But then we also try to read Nagarjuna if we can, right? Right, yeah. Yeah. I'm only on try number three, so I've got many to go. You go, girl. When you get through the book, we'll have to talk again. I will have started over about that time. The Dalai Lama's is quite good, too. I found it actually more accessible than Jay Garfield's because, like you said, Jay's talking to scholars. So he's kind of using that talk. The copy of the Dalai Lama's book that I found... It's not the same one. I think it's a different version. Does he does the middle way have go through every chapter or did he just?

[70:19]

No, no. He just goes through the self, the two important ones. He goes through. Yeah, this one. Yeah, I don't have that one. He goes through, I think, two of the chapters, the self, chapter 18 and chapter 24. The one that I've been going through, too, which is the one. That's the big one. The rest of Nagarja. And then, yeah, if you read Garfield and then the Dalai Lama, I think you'll get the heart of the matter is in the Dalai Lama's book. Well, it's a spiral. Yeah. I'm impressed. Really. That's great. That's great. Well, thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. Okay. All right. You all take care. Have a wonderful weekend, if you can, if you have the opportunity.

[71:21]

I think the weather's gone awfully nice. So if you'd like to turn your microphones on and say goodbye, you're welcome to do that. Thank you. [...] You're welcome. You're welcome. You're welcome. Bye, everybody. Bye, guys. Thank you so much. You're welcome. You're welcome. Thank you. Thank you, Fu. Good night. Good night, Lisa.

[71:51]

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