This podcast is offered by the San Francisco Zen Center on the web at www.sfzc.org. Our public programs are made possible by donations from people like you. Oh, hi. I have a sister who was born... Well, she was born blind, but she was blind at the incubator. And... I remember, she's older than I am, I remember asking her, when I was young, is it dark? Is it fine? She said, no. It's like, she said, try to imagine, imagine trying to look at the world and figure out. Yeah, I've still been trying to figure that out. So I wanted to just briefly review the first three kinds of knowledge, which I think are really important to help frame, like,

[01:00]

how we get confused, some of the main ways you get confused. I also wanted to add something that I felt really helpful. I was quite moved by some of the things you all said last night. I was moved by what I said. You know, there's suffering. And we want to say, we want to do something. I want to just, you know, stop it. You know, don't suffer. And knowing that, I do it for myself, Okay. But it was, and we're aware of it, and we have to, to somehow address suffering in others, and frustrated. What do we do? So I really was grateful. This morning I read an additional component to these three ways of knowing. So the first way of knowing is this mundane knowing, or the usual way we know things, also called worldly knowing. The darkness of delusion.

[02:01]

This is delusional knowing. That's how we were born delusional. We were trained to be delusional and we're very good at it. So this is our upside down views. Concerning itself, my stuff, permanent objects, people out there, external objects, external beings. And that this is true. And that if I can just get that all to work well, then we'll all be happy. by manipulating the world just the right way, I'll be happy and maybe the others will be happy or at least I'll be happy. So this is the iron chain of delusion. Now, along with this kind of delusion, there's a type of compassion, sort of sentimental compassion. And sentimental compassion is characterized by dualistic thinking. So there really is somebody out there who's really something. And you know what it is and you're somehow responsible and so on. So there's this separation that's going on. And I think we all know there's a danger to that kind of passion.

[03:07]

I've met a number of social workers in my life. In fact, Margaret Camino was the head social worker at San Francisco General for 20 years. And she was working with homeless states who were drug addicts. a pretty, pretty challenging population. And to survive as someone who's trying to benefit people who are in a really just life, you have to find some way to do that. And as I said, a lot of the social workers in the early years of their training are so learned that from China, so one of the things they found is that that's healthy. You come to your home and you talk There's some wonderful people, there's some footsteps that they get, there's just that. And over time, as one of them said, gee, I realized that I could be pregnant. And I could be, I could have a request that every time I got results, they would have changed.

[04:10]

But what did change, they would have saved me. That was it. I think there's something about how we really need to study and learn for our own sake. It's actually the first part of her life she tried to... So this is the term of life analysis. How do we practice? So this kind of compassion, which is focusing mainly on them as suffering beings.

[05:16]

There's another saying that I learned as a parent of a disabled child, anything you do for your child that they do for themselves cripples them. And I read that line and it's just like somebody hitting the hammer. You know, I was doing everything I could to make Sabrina's life easier. You know, she'd just sit here. It was really a shock for her when I started saying that I didn't tell her. And I was like, what? So I worked that out with a client, and she's a pretty beautiful woman now. And I'm really grateful for having had some people know about that. So the focus of this type is wishing them to be free of something. like your project. The super mundane, the next time it goes, super mundane, is when the light is shown into the delusion.

[06:24]

You see all life's not this. You see there's not a singularity for itself. You see that you're at the closet, and you see that there is suffering. Your upside down views have turned right side up, have right view of suffering. It's real. It's self, it's impermanent, and suffering. to the three marks of existence in this second term, super mundane. And this is kind of upsetting. You want to get out of there so it's motivated and you actually, it generates compassion and it realises the truth of existence. But this is terrible. I want to do something about this. So right view arouses the passion for the suffering world and you want to get out of here. It arouses the desire for extinction. and it arouses the desire to practice. And, fortunately, it has a good consequence if you're still clinging. You're still self-agnostic, the self that wants to get out of the self. It's still a problem, but it was important. But it is off to the path.

[07:25]

It's the only place to practice. It's at the supermanage. Okay, the kind of compassion in that realm The focus of compassion is now on the source of the cause of suffering rather than on the suffering person. What's causing their suffering? As the Dalai Dalai said, don't look for blame for the causes. What is causing it? What can I do about the causes? How can we address causes? How can we be able to do the causes? So it's much more of a positive thinking. It's not such as them or you're causing their suffering. It's like, we're the causes of suffering. So how can we be able to do the cause of suffering? will end it. So we're basically focusing on the shark and the second half. We're looking for cause, we're looking for ways that we can actually address suffering and what's causing it. So the wish here is to be free of self-playing and to wish others to be free of self-playing.

[08:30]

So really to wish for liberation is the compassion of the Supermanian people. The third kind of knowing, Dr. Karmusa, which is what we're talking about today, of the truth, Buddha's knowing, is that suffering is an illusion. All five sondas are empty of inherent existence. There is no suffering. There's no suffering. It's pretty hard to jump to that. Kind of cold. People say that Karmusa is an illusion. Well, it's basically that seeing the techniques are an illusion. And that one seeing is that there's tremendous freedom in seeing that. And there's a real nature of neo-wism. And that's what's the fraught part of the question of Arnita, the lift of the un-wisdom, is the no part. Well, then, my father, nobody's out there, there's no suffering. You know, I've got me.

[09:31]

And I'm not going to be. So the Dharma said, well, that the target of the Bodhisattva vow is suffering itself. Not who's. And not taking it personally. There's no person. There is suffering. And that whatever we can do to alleviate suffering is our endless effort. You need to make some bad, you need to make some bad, you need to change your clothes, you need to go to the store, you need to put out a fire. Whatever it is, do that. That's who you are. Your Bodhisattva. And it's not personal. It's not like my suffering or your suffering. So no matter what the teaching is, the purpose of the teaching is for us to mix it up with and work it out inside of normal. Look at this. As you've never found in St.

[10:31]

Samson Street, Light moving, there's a movie. What's moving? The mind. The mind is moving. So this is true for all of us. This is our mind. It's moving. To turn the light around, bring this all back internally. And that's how you're seeing the world is what you're calling the world. So that's the first step for us to get open to awakening. Oh, that's my idea. I'm having right there. About whatever. So this is a big step and that's the access channel to the realization of the ultimate truth is through a teaching called the Buddha. The Dalai Lama was asked, like, where should someone start who is seeking to understand the Buddhist teaching? And he said, it's best to start

[11:33]

when you study the truth, conventional truth and the ultimate truth. It would be best to lead people into Dharma to exposure to philosophical reasoning and analysis of the nature of reality. Hmm, how about that? That's... Yeah, okay, so I think for all of us, we have an experience that, as you talk about, focus on, or not focus on, of their being the doubleness to the world. I really appreciate the way the Egyptians drew their gods. You know, they have the head of the sun and the body of the person or the head of a bird. And I thought, well, that's absolutely how we experience it. You know, the god, the awareness of of the human is all this, this magnificence of everything about this.

[12:36]

Then you look down, it's all very well. So we have this human reality, we're embodied as these kind of tiny peoples, and then we have this amazing ungraspability of the universe. Like, that was a tricky answer. So, this level, this dual citizenship, I think, is something we're always trying to learn about. God? Who is it, mom? This is actually very funny, by the way. That is, yeah. Okay, so the ultimate truth, now, is the six. That's normal. The challenge for us as yogis is to try and eliminate the factors of reestation, things that may turn into real things, without destroying confidence in persons, in karma, in ethics, and fascism.

[13:58]

This is absurd. we have to walk. You know, there's nothing, but if you go that way, then there's no rules, there's no foreman, why should I, you know, I should be careful about the odds. So this is really the challenge that we teach. Where we don't care, and we're not going to do that. So the new hero of the mock-ups, the Bodhisattva, in her wisdom, she sees no means. In her compassion, she does to say, the piece of the wings of the bird, the wings of the bird, everything the Buddha taught was one of those two things. Either your wisdom, your understanding, or your very purpose. Wisdom is at the field of wisdom.

[14:58]

That's a big mistake. It's quite cool. Fashion is different. But if they're tall, they can't help. We've seen the colors, sort of. All right. It's true. [...] And there's the evolution around these concepts. The history, whoops, history.

[16:00]

starting with just Buddha called himself Ni, and then they said, what do you mean, Ni? One was definitive truth, and one was the kind of truth that needs an explanation. So this is the first turning of understanding of the relative male dhukki. And that was elaborated in the avidharma into something called sandritti satya and parimarthasatya. So the ultimate truth in the avidharma was the dharma's They were real. They were all they choose. They lasted over time. They had existence. They existed. And that's how you practice. It looks like sorting them out. The relative. Not be broken into parts. Used to be. When I was taught. Whatever that was. Chemistry or something. No longer so. Analytically. and given names was the relative few.

[17:04]

Second journey, Project Parmita, we have the cup is empty. On analysis, the yellow cup is empty, meaning there's nothing in it. Not only that, it's my cup. And in the ultimate analysis of the cup, when it's analyzed, So, uh, the ultimate truth is there isn't anything there. So, it all can be taken. Without.

[18:04]

Done. Nagarjuna basically is an entity we're talking about. So, I've looked up once again, ontology, psychology, and psychology. So this entity, called B-12, is just the... in terms of ontology, in terms of being. In terms of epistemology, the theories of knowledge, how we know is common. There are two truths. So one entity and two truths. So we're talking about two different things.

[19:09]

One of them is about how we know something and the other is about the something. It says relative truth That's relative. You're making that up. So it's true. And true. To the extent that it works or functions effectively in the world. For example, pen and paper. So, if you like borrow your pen, I want to write something. We don't have to

[20:10]

works well, it's effective, so on, then it's productive. That is, they are empty of own being, they have no inherent existence. It's realized by an awakened mind. The awakened mind realizes the ultimate truth about direct perception of emptiness, not this conceptual knowing, but you know it. You know it. Your guts know it. So, for example, a world, but no map, and not even a world. Does that make sense? So a world is language, or it's attributing something to this ungraspable thing we're standing on. So a world, but no map, no language, and no attributions. And so that's how the Garcher made it. I'm going to give you a little more of the purchase.

[21:28]

Wait. What are you doing? Yeah, according to you. I don't know what it's like. Yeah, hello. Does that, does that? Yeah, good. Thank you, Tanya. So, um. Okay, Nagarjuna. I think Nagarjuna, I've always thought it was pretty daunting. Don't you? Right? He was... Yeah, well, I brought the book. This is the book, Fundamental Wisdom of the Little Way.

[22:29]

It's his big work, the Willamajana Kukarikas. And... Because he suggested this book, The Son of Wisdom, by Demphol Tso Chum Jampso. And he does a wonderful job of decode what's going on with the gardener. And basically, the project is just being the same. People have very sensual, consistent things that assume are true, like motion, and our senses, and conditions, causes and conditions. Every chapter says that it's kind of exterminating things that we count, elements of existence, or level two, is the Apoca. So using the same fact, So basically, what he's doing is, we are so good at me grabbing, grabbing onto something.

[23:33]

Well, that's not true. It may not be a thing, but it's true. I thought, so they know that you can't find motion either. How do they move from where? Do they go to where? So it just keeps taking a void, whatever you want to put. place that we're going to reify or grab a hold of. So basically, it's an exercise reading Nagarjuna if you can stand it. If you go through each of these chapters, kind of get the drill, what he's going to do is kind of deconstruct this. And then he uses this technique. After a while, what he's saying, you can go to bed almost like you're now learning how to play the game. You're learning how to not get caught by reifying the game. So it really is a practice that takes patience. So what you're reading from what is considered the most kind of the core chapter of his major work,

[24:49]

This is chapter 24. This is about the relationship. The Buddha's teaching of the Dharma is based on two truths. A truth at worldly convention and an ultimate truth, an empty cup analysis. Those who do not understand the distinction drawn between these two truths do not understand the rules of profound truth. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, practice the super-mundane, the second category after mundane truth, without foundation in the conventional truth, the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate truth, liberation cannot be achieved. By a misperception of emptiness, a person of little understanding is destroyed.

[26:17]

like a snake incorrectly seized, or like a spell incorrectly achieved. And for that reason, that the Dharma is deep and difficult to understand and to learn, the Buddhist mind is spared of being able to teach it. For whom emptiness is clear, everything becomes clear. For whom emptiness is not clear, nothing becomes clear. If you perceive the existence of all things in terms of their essence, their own being, then this perception of all things will be without the perception of causes. Effects and cause, agent and action, condition and arising and cease and their effects will be rendered impossible. This next verse is considered, I actually asked my teacher to calligraph this because when I finally said that this was really fixed.

[27:26]

So, yeah. I was like, oh my God. This is illiquid, so I have illiquid. Whatever. And that Note that it afflicts everything. Everything. Whatever. Whatever. Is to panic or risk. That's explained. To the emptiness. That. Being. A proportional destination. Is itself. In the way. So. What. What can be, it's because I did Camping University here for a decade or more, and I got the no, no, no part. But the part I was completely overlooking was the conventional thing, the relative truth.

[28:28]

The thing you're pointing at them, like, I don't even notice the projections, or the way language is creating the world. I just basically figured it out. Oh, no that, no that, no that. But it was an amazing... I'm like, oh my god, I forgot about the thinking, how it should be, all the ways in which I'm creating the world without the focus of my study or my practice. I think that is a spiritual idea. You know, just jumping into this, you know, empty there with the sword. I thought, sorry, I got into trouble. So... This is considered by scholars and people that write about these things to be the heart of Nagarjuna's insight. And I just put a little base all the time with little way, non-duality at the top, little way. Little way, avoid the extremes. First sermon the Buddha gave was avoid the extremes.

[29:30]

Realistic. So little way, avoid the extremes. Little way, emptiness. Anything that is dependently co-orism, so whatever you have, copy. Empty. Separate existence. Doesn't exist by itself. That's what empty means. Empty. Any separate existence. Okay, so you have is and isn't. Get away. Isn't, isn't. Reconciled by that being a conventional designation. What I just said. You can't get out of it. You can't get out of it. You said it. He spoke it. Conventional designation. That's the little way. He says, something that is not dependently arisen, such a thing does not exist.

[30:34]

Therefore, a non-empty thing does not exist. Whoever sees dependent arising also sees suffering, and its arising, and its cessation, as well as the path. 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.

[31:35]

from conceptual construction. So, it is, it's, it will actually, uh, so one of the ways of understanding what Gargi is saying is don't get multiple trees without touching. They're not separate. It's just the cup. You don't get to pull out the emptiness of the cup or pull out the cup from the emptiness. I mean, Laura, you were asking. Thank you. Laura. Basically, completely inquired. It's the example of the white shell. Yeah, white shell. It's a characteristic of all of our characters.

[32:41]

So, we can self-separate alpha truth from relative truth except by alpha. Oh yeah, alpha truth and relative truth are separate. Nothing to it. We can't lie to it. So, you know, also, okay, it's simple to the kind of language that, you know, what he says about, it's true to the extent that it works on this effect in the world, but also true to reality. Not just any old thing we do. So, the only way that we can separate each other's words and lots of others are you. We tend to forget we're using language and concepts to talk about things that we easily describe outside of ourselves and outside of the present moment.

[33:42]

This is the great invention of the Omosi. Something that doesn't exist. It's not here. Just name it. Red. You can name all kinds of things. What? Huh? It's the sky. It's the sky. Spring. Yeah. So we write novels about things about fear. And this is what we're so good at, we're so used to it. This is our greatest invention, and it's our greatest... We're lost in it. Nagarjuna says, you're like a woman who's mounted her horse, is dependent on language, words, and concepts, and forgotten a horse that she's used on, moved into the world, a world of her own creation. So this is the biggest thing. Our own concepts. We're going to ride the world on the horse of our horse.

[34:44]

One of the temptations that occurs very naturally in studying the two truths is to understand them either as identical or as entirely different. Or rather, it looks great like that. So, simple. Yeah, right. Another temptation is to consider the ultimate truth as superior in all ways to the relative truth. That is, the relative truth is less true. However, the most important points that we need to try to grapple with as practitioners is how to take the conventional truth seriously. And the reason this is important is because the dimensional truth is where Bodhisattva vow and the Bodhisattva precepts are arising.

[35:46]

That's how they exist. Through conventional truth. I vow not to kill you. This said that. And that has an impact on you. So, since the goal of this technical operation for all kids suffering, the guardian of you is that that can only be achieved by insight, ultimate nature of things. They're emptiness. It's the only way in, the only way out. You have to have the understanding of the ultimate nature of and in turn, the ultimate nature of nothing, which is this. Try to go up right now. It's like a crowd. Walks down.

[36:46]

So the one that's like, well, why do I do so much about the conventional truth? Because it's all the nature we've realized. Right. It's all the nature we've realized. The God says, ultimately, what cultures that eat us want to pay out of religion exists. So in order to truly understand self-existent, how it ultimately works. And you'll never wake up. You'll never be in the real world as a real girl or a real woman. So, he argues that understanding the ultimate nature of things is completely dependent upon understanding conventional truth.

[38:01]

Just as sweetness is the nature of sugar, and hotness the nature of fire, so we assert that the nature of things is emptiness. Reality is not to be seen as something different than conventionalities. Conventionalities are described as emptiness, and just emptiness is conventional because neither occurs without emptiness. You can't get one without the other, no matter how hard you drive. So, in terms of the goal, you say the goal is like, in terms of the goal, not the job, but the conventional teaching in order to understand what it means, the realization. The Enlightenment Guide is understanding the relationship between the conventional and the ultimate.

[39:06]

So again, we can't get out of it. We [...] can't get out of it. And in terms of how, co-crevation of understanding requires use of conventional truth. So we train ourselves. So we train ourselves. of the patient or resistance to the words of even more so, whoa, what just happened.

[40:07]

My precious, to me, my work. Hmm? Yeah. It's all traditional. It's like I'm not sure what this standing is. Wait, I think we're in a tall junction. So how do you imagine? Well, actually, this is the more precise way of saying something. I think it's this one here. You're all in the relative truth camp. But we do argue all the time about what's more... What's just... What's... Lots of centuries of arguing about what's true. So we can do that. They continue to do that, right? No one's ever left the final answer, right?

[41:23]

Not just society, but work. Yeah. We too. Yeah. Or ethical. That's another kind of analysis of ethical. What's true? Is that truly happening? Is there really dominance by white people happening? I can't believe that. That's not true. So I think it's true. I think it's good for us to actually understand, you know, that we're talking about efforts. How do we make our case? Because we're going to argue against that. So that's a little of our kind of issue as well. So it's easy to say, conventionally, within the realm of the conventional, within the realm of the conservative, these things actually have more It's our value system.

[42:28]

If I push this button, the atomic bomb will go off. That's true. It's mechanics. There's a wire. It goes over there and it will trigger that bomb. It's true. It'll work. So it's true. It has nothing to do with whether it's good or bad or right. No, this is just relative truth is all that's good and bad. Because... This relative truth, you have to take it seriously. Don't just like throw it away because you've got this ultimate. But you can argue with me. I would say that it's because it deals with your strength.

[43:37]

You said, I woke up. You want to wake up? What is happening? It's unconditional. You know, so he gave some head pointers that were, I think, right, and looked at the star and it wasn't outside for myself. You know, only you know, warm or cold. Only you know whether you are secure or real. Look at that, there's something else. Right? It's not. I think what I feel is warm. You also feel it warm.

[44:39]

What I feel is cold, you also feel it's cold. You do? It's cold. It's cold. It's cold. I found out I gave an idea to the little box of fruits. I think we quarrel. Buddha said his insight is beyond argumentation. So if you're not arguing, you're probably closer to... Do you want to be called?

[45:52]

and yet there's this tension of like how do i uh you know commit myself to what i think is ethical and without being Well, social workers just bring them food stamps. I don't know what they're going to buy on them. I mean, it's not like your business, really. Is it good? Are you helping anybody? How would you prove it? You know, how would you know? Follow them home and see if they're happy all day long, or, you know, where is that case where you can see it like you're actually doing something good? Well, just try. Just try it. I mean, we're fools. We're just fools. What a lot.

[46:55]

We're just trying our best. Did you have stolen it? Well, thank you so much. I used to have a standard. What is just, you know, I just wrote. And yet, not to be attached to that standard system. Yeah, well, the standard's a problem. Standards are not bicycles. You know, I think it's really tricky to figure out what's the situation now, what's the corporate response to this situation that we're having today. It's going to be different than the one 20 years ago. I don't even know what to do with this situation. I don't need just this one. I need a big one. I don't know how to change it, you know. Do something big. But the same thing happening, they're causing tremendous harm. They're getting higher. So I count on you guys who know how to do it.

[48:04]

Did you say together? You did? All right. All right, a good team. Team or two. Hissenberg. Just to contextualize, I might be fruitful for people to know that Madhyamaka has two major subdivisions, the Prasangaka and the Spatantrika. And the Spatantrika is trying to parse out exactly this. How do we assess the relative value of different conventional thinking mechanisms and which are more in line with what we would call phallic cognition and which are just complete BS? You know, so some of you guys are just like, why do you think we made up this kind of BS? And the Stantricas are like, yeah, but. Like, you can't just say fake news. Like, you have to show, like, this is fabricated. This doesn't actually, this is backed up by actual events that actual things went up. You can just say fake news and kind of, like, erase things in one big eraser.

[49:15]

But if you say fake news, like, the Holocaust happened. You can't just say fake news and make it not true that it happened. So there's ways of parsing it out that have really severe ethical implications. And so the Spotsha Drikas really grappled with that. Yeah. Yeah. So that's cool. I'm glad they do. And we have to, too. You know, we don't just be good. We don't have to slip away from the thought of what's the ethical, what's true in terms of morality. So that's, yeah, or now. I mean, what's happening now? We can touch, you know, history. I left with some books, some monuments. What about now? How are we engaged? You know, with the living, something. I'm going to get in trouble for how I say this, but...

[50:16]

I feel like we can't let the teachings make us... You know, Dogen came back from China and said all he learned was that the eyes are horizontal and the nose is vertical. He didn't say, you know, eyes are vertical. Well, he probably did also say that somewhere else. But... You know, like... Yeah. But... We... find our own moral center. We have to have our own pragmatic understanding of the world. Madhyamaka is not supposed to undermine our confidence in the scientific method. If I pick up my shoe and drop it, which way do you think it's going to go, down or up? Well, you can say down and up aren't verbal designations, but tell me now, which way is it going to go, down or up? If you say up, you're wrong... You know, I can tell you if you're not that long.

[51:19]

Well, you know, let's place a bet. Well, you're talking that down. I'm going to get all your money. You're talking that down. I called that up. So, you know, it's a language base. And we have conventional designations, which we're conventional. We agree on that sound. Yeah. Yeah. But whatever we call it, it goes the way it goes. So far. Ha ha ha. And also, similarly with ethics, it's like nothing, a book, or anybody tells me is going to make me not care about, you know, injustice, but then I read the Guardian on, so I don't care anything. Well, that's going to be interesting. Yeah. You have this level of emptiness, your poison is a poisonous thing. It bites you. That's a misunderstanding event. Well, it's a pentagart, child.

[52:22]

That's the problem. Apparently, the division between Satraptica and... Is it to that first time? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Well... Apparently the... They're both Majomakans, right? Majomakans, they're both Majomakans. It sounds like the Prasachikas for Vedic teachings is falling into moral relativism or some kind of like, I don't know anything. But we have to own our own centering and grounding in this world. That's all. That's all. I agree. Chapter 7. Yeah. So we don't get half of it.

[53:30]

And the existentialists. And I don't want to put down which ones. Those guys. But we do know that the third attorney came along because the second attorney led a lot of people who were very good people to become idiots. And that's what we didn't know about this second attorney. You know, it was known in its time, it was known, that's why it took them away in the ocean for several hundred years because this stuff is hot potato. You know, it's very easy to get in this handle, the emptiness teachings. And we still, you know, all of us still have done it. I did it a long time. I don't know about myself. You know, I don't know. [...]

[54:33]

I don't know. Sometimes it just goes up. You know. Sometimes it just goes up. I think you guys quit. Wait, you guys covered it. It's interesting that a person can lie. But I guess that's still within their own conventional understanding of what's true. They're lying about that. The idea that something lies is more like what Laura said. There's something. There's some truth. Something happened. But I think people pretty much covered it. Yeah. Lying is really common. I think a lot of people... Lying is really common. It's one of the more common things to not get in trouble.

[55:42]

Whatever it is, there's lots of life going on. Getting up lying is probably one of the biggest things I can do right now. And it's kind of stopped in your tracks. You know, the same children. One of the things that I hear contemporary teachers saying is that conventions have changed and that for the contemporary practitioner studying the five skandhas may not be as helpful as studying things like race and gender and that the opportunity to protect us is available to us.

[56:51]

opportunity to learn from these very teachings, but within the conventions of our day. And so I think that that kind of direction is one that does keep the teaching alive, and that is just the best. Do you agree? I have thoroughly enjoyed the skandas. I think it's an important question to add when I'm sitting in this body. But what it's feeling is not... disconnected from an inquiry of race and gender in this body as well. And so, yes, I do agree. I think it's really helpful to teach the animus teachings and the conventional truths with this life that we're living.

[58:03]

And right now, this life that we're living is conventionally being spoken to. these words which were not spoken of. And also that's studying the thought process. So that's one of the examples. As long as you're studying the thinking process and the thinking process of your friends and colleagues and the people who are speaking about these matters, you're studying the consciousness. I think it's helpful to have a frame for whatever the topic is invested in the frame. And I totally support it to you. I'm just thinking about the role of language and whether there's a way to practice

[59:09]

around like the language, truly realizing how our language is, our perception is, our way. Being in a world of how it really does vary, it does change person to person. Obviously, and the most obvious case is like different languages. And just how much, like, there have been many philosophers, many, um, political philosophers talking about the nature of understanding of language. Like, you see that, you say this, and I say that, I say that. And how do we agree on anything? And I think there's, like, a place to be really helpful in that language. starting sentences by saying, it is, etc.

[60:13]

Instead of saying, I see, or I hear, you know, like, there's a place for, like, Jeff's example, the shoe dropping, like, it goes down. I see it going, you know, it's like a way to approach it, and it does kind of fear toward moral relativism. I've noticed that in myself, like, I fear toward that, and, and I feel like that's the better than the other directions. For me. I don't know about it. Ideology. It's kind of an ideology of doctrine. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's your production of your consciousness. And that what comes out of your mind. That sucks. Oh, God. Thank you.

[61:16]

Thank you. Thank you. With respect to this being, so I appreciate it. I don't know. [...] It seems that it was kind of that exact terrain that seems to be addressed within that. In the sense that there is this discernment of the terrain of this regimen tree, which isn't as useful, whilst at the same time the entire second half the process of the creation of that entire, uh, mechanism. There's also that trap that you're saying.

[62:37]

Yeah, but that's why we're thinking so... enlightening of our practice, I think without it. So, I think it's... So, I think it's...

[63:44]

In other words, the conventional is precisely what is important to get right. And the ultimate is vital precisely because the way it falls so as to allow right . ... [...] And the spirit, of course, is very concerned with the ethical implications of conventional truth, maintaining that understanding this matter rightly preserves the law of karma and the goal of liberation, whereas misunderstanding opens the door.

[65:06]

Priority, therefore, in our life of practice is to take conventional truth seriously. I'm quoting the big archaeologists and a number of other scholars out there who call themselves the Calvary. And they've written a number of books. One's called The Bigger Point of the Moon, The Moon Points Back, and The Shadow of the Moon. There's essays that they've all written about. These guys think they do it. They're really good zippers. Great thought. So I said, I'm not forgetting what happens when you take those seriously.

[66:09]

on over the left side of the guardrails. And you've lost it. But we did this very well. It's not so easy. So, so, oh my god. Well, that's kind of good. Except I still would like to jump. What I would like you all to do. Here, that's my... is to look at once you've got the stack. I'm not going to remember, but I think you've heard a number of the vocabulary words now. And there are, the heart sutra is basically a kind of a bent of all the basic, primary key keys from the first. So, you know, starting with the five aggregates, five skandhas. So we know about those. So if you read through it slowly, form and emptiness, emptiness form, and then it starts to take it all apart. The five stambas, eye, ear, nose, tongue, bite, these bayatnos, and we've got the datu, and we've got the propel jay.

[67:16]

Do you see if you can spot these major categories of teachings? I just think it broke down myself, like in diagram sentences in the old days, if you ever did that as kids. It just kind of, you know, there's the datu. Does that make you also know those terms? Does that make you also know those terms? First turn. So I also brought some illustration that I will bring back Just, just, just show them.

[68:17]

Yeah, we'll just, this is this, yeah. Oh, that's it. Here's some wonderful books. Now, these, what's up? Simply put my suit on there. I have all the verses, and I have all the commentary. So these are five marks. Okay, and this is Wikipedia. So all of these are basically depictions, you know, visual depictions of Wikipedia. They'll be all pictures. It's a circle at the top. And relative to you take off.

[69:20]

And then Shunryu Suzuki. Zen Tatsu. Tenshin. And then back to the ultimate truth. What kind of blood? The precept pain of the Buddha's is the one with the causal condition for a precept. That's the only thing we are authorized to transmit to. That is transmitted. of the truth is not dual, family co-arisen, empty, works, just to say. So the same, you know, this is another story of how the boy looking for awakening, about the ox, riding the ox, getting above the ox, ending up going to that place.

[70:31]

Well, five ranks, really fun. Five ranks. You got it all. You got all I got. So, I'll bring these for the next thoughts. If you haven't read them before, they're all black. For this set. Thank you very much. What's that? No. No, they're famous. Kakuwan. It's the name, Tulsa Tree Artist. Robin blew them up. All right. Thank you. Thank you for listening to this podcast offered by the San Francisco Zen Center. Our Dharma Talks are offered free of charge, and this is made possible by the donations we receive.

[71:31]

Your financial support helps us to continue to offer the Dharma. For more information, visit sfcc.org and click Giving.

[71:41]

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