evening again um so some of you may be new to our sunday sangha so i just want to mention the pattern that i've been following for a while so i'll talk for a little bit about the subject that we're looking at right now we're looking at the mind only teachings which are very important uh underpinning of zen meditation zen tradition um and then i will come on and to the gallery greet all of you who are here and then after that you're welcome to bring up any questions you have or comments you have or anything else you'd like to say okay somebody's unmuted if you wouldn't mind muting I don't know who you are but just check your CV a little red microphone there okay so here we go yoga chara I wanted to start this evening with a recommendation of a film and then also some books, which are quite wonderful. Back in the seventh century, so this is a long, long time ago, there was a Chinese monk whose name was Xuansong, I think that's close to how you pronounce it, Xuansong, who traveled from China to India.

[01:25]

and back again. And he was gone on foot. He was gone about 17 years. And this is a trip along the Silk Route, which if any of you have looked at that route or seen any pictures of it or even been there, it's extraordinary. The mountain range is along the foot of the mountain range are these oases, which were basically a Buddhist empire for many, many centuries, and going from China all the way to the Mediterranean. And so a lot of travel, a lot of pilgrimages and a lot of material, a lot of merchants traveling the silk crowd. Anyway, so Xuanzang went from China, which was actually forbidden. He snuck out into the desert and he traveled to India. And he was, you know, it was about a 10,000 mile round trip by the time he got home again. But what he brought back with him to China was an extraordinary library of commentaries and sutras. And what he was particularly looking for, and why I'm bringing it up, was the Yogacara teachings. So he spent time in Malanda University, one of the largest universities in India at the time, Buddhist university, studying Yogacara.

[02:32]

And there's a wonderful film that was made of his journey. It's called Xuansang. It's X-U-A-N, and capital Z-A-N-G, and it's on Amazon Prime, for those of you with such things. And then there are two books written about this journey. One is called Journey to the West by Anthony Yu, Y-U. And the other one is this one. It has a picture of him, of Xuanzang, with his traveling, his monk's traveling gear, like an antique backpack that he's carrying. And that one's called The Silk Road Journey of Swansong by Sally Hovey Riggins. So just something to do if you have spare time. Wonderful context for Buddhist study and how, I mean, we just turn on our computers and it's all right there. So these long journeys they made, these sincere monks and travelers and teachers who wanted to bring the Dharma.

[03:33]

you know, from India to their countries, you know, to the east, and now all the way to California and beyond, you know, still traveling. Dharma hopefully will be traveling for a very, very long time. So if we really want to be well, so now we're going into the text itself. If we really want to be well, the Buddha taught that we need to learn to see and to take care of our mental states, our mental health, cultivating those that are beneficial and letting those that are not drift on by. So this is not so easy, as we all know. So the method centers on simply being aware and attentive to who we are and how we feel in the present moment, right here and right now. And then of course, we think as I've said before, but maybe someplace else is better than right here and right now. I mean, that's how we think.

[04:35]

In fact, that's why we keep moving. There might be someplace better than right here and right now. And yet, somewhere else as soon as we get there becomes right here and right now. No, that's the irony of it all. You can't get away from yourself. You'll always be there wherever you go. So we never get to someone or somewhere else, you know, as hard as we try. So we might as well stay here. as Dogen says in his influential essay, the Genjo Koan, very famous talk that Dogen gave. And that Genjo Koan means actualizing the fundamental point, actualizing the fundamental point, in which he says, here is the place and here the way unfolds. Here is the place and here is the way unfolds. So this is the message you'll hear again and again throughout Buddhist literature and Buddhist teachers will all say the same thing. Right here, right now. Easy to say, not so easy to realize that you always are right here and right now.

[05:37]

And why is that? Well, that's what the Yogurtara is trying to help us understand. Why don't we see that? Why don't we know that? Why aren't we settled in the present? There's good reasons and important for us to understand how it all works. So looking back again at the 30 verses, at the first two that we've looked at the last few weeks, here the verse number one, everything conceived as self or other, everything conceived as self or other, occurs in the transformation of consciousness, mind only. self and other mind only kind of an interesting proposition verse number two this transformation of consciousness has three aspects the ripening of karma the consciousness of a self and the imagery of sense objects so last week i talked about what these three are but i will repeat a lot of these again because it's not so easy to remember you know it's part of our problem as humans it's hard to remember

[06:45]

So then we go to verse number three. So what's happening now is Vasubhanda is laying out the structure of his case, the case he's making for self and other, our mind only, our transformations of consciousness. And he's first of all going to establish a map of consciousness of how the mind works. And that map is in your chat and also the verses are in the chat. want to pull those out you can open them and look at them as we as I go through the first three of these okay so now verse number three the first of these three that he mentions in verse number two is also called alaya alaya the store consciousness which contains all karmic seeds and what it holds and its perception of location are unknown okay So this concept of our consciousness both explains why we do what we do, but more importantly, how we can transform or let go of afflictive emotions, you know, namely greed, hate and delusion.

[07:58]

You know, if we were only like a car and could go into the auto body shop or wherever and get things fixed that would be great but we can't you know there's no surgery available for helping us to understand and root out our greedy hateful and delusional qualities you know we have to come at it through the only way we know through how we think about things you know so this mind only really has to do with how we think about things how we understand things and how we've come to believe what's so so this is a big kind of uh a tradition that pulls the rug out from under our assumptions about ourselves and about the world. And in doing that, it's kind of a courageous thing to allow that to happen, right? I mean, because we've been having those assumptions for a very long time. And they kind of give us some confidence that the ground's going to hold and my idea of myself is going to hold and I can get through this life intact and so on. But the challenge is, is that good enough? Do we actually feel like that's enough? I don't need any more than that.

[09:00]

Thank you very much. Or do we want to look deeper and to see what else might be there that could be freeing and exciting and arouse our curiosity about ourselves and the world, a kind of fresh look at what we think. and how we came to think it. So that's what this text is all about. And I'm going to be fairly slow and methodical in going through the language of it because I think, as I said, it's not so easy to understand unless we have our own vernacular conversation about it. So anytime you all hear something that's like, what? Just make a little note or mark the spot if you have this. You can do that on your computer or you can print out the verses and write on them however you do. to make notes for yourself. If there's something that you want to go over again, just let me know. I'm more than happy to do that. So this concept of consciousness, as I said, explains why we do what we do and how to transform away from our afflictive emotions, the ones that cause us harm and cause others harm.

[10:07]

So according to the Buddha's teaching, it is possible to change our reactions to events. And how we do that is through a repeated seeding, think gardening, a repeated seeding of our unconscious storehouse, which is mentioned in this verse, the alaya, the storehouse. And by reseeding it with kind, generous, patient, and compassionate responses. So there's a method to all of this. It has to do with first recognizing where the afflictive emotions are hiding out. They're hiding out in our unconscious. We're not so aware of them. They pop up at various times in response to events that happen that we don't like or that we really like and don't want to end. So that's don't like is hate and really like is greed and don't know for sure is confusion. So those are the big three that drive our lives. I like it, I don't like it, I'm not sure. Greed, hate and delusion. So they hide out in this unconscious until they're stimulated by something coming toward us or we think.

[11:11]

Something's coming towards us, an object of our awareness. So, you know, I wanted to tell a little story about Norman Fisher. Some of you know Norman, wonderful teacher, a former abbot at the Green Gulch, and he has a large group of people who study with him. So while Norman was our abbot, he was driving out from Green Gulch on Highway 1, which is kind of a white, windy, curvy road on a very... kind of steep cliff and he came around a corner and this car with a young woman inside who was not looking at him ran headlong into Norman they had a head-on collision they weren't badly injured either one of them but Norman jumped out of the car and the young woman jumped out of the car and Norman just opened his arm and said are you okay and she said no and so she's crying and he's crying and they're holding each other go oh my god i'm so glad we're okay you know and i thought what a different way to react to someone giving you know running into you and she was changing the channel on her on her video or tape her audio tape or something she was pushing buttons and hadn't looked up so

[12:24]

I just thought, you know, Norman has kind of reseeded himself, again, seeds as in planting seeds, for a kind response to an event. I mean, it's hard, you know, I think it's a really good one, because can you imagine doing that yourself? Just like, are you okay? You know, you just ran into me. Are you okay? Anyway, this is the kind of outcome we're looking for, where we actually have a choice to make about how we respond to the world, not just our habits, which we all know pretty well. what our habits tend to be. So how we recede depends on what choices that we're making right now, you know, during this particular event. So karma, karma's a word kind of thrown around a lot in the 60s, it's your karma, but what it really means is a Sanskrit word and it means actions. And it particularly refers to actions that you intend, not accidental things you do, you trip or you fall or you knock something down on You know, not on purpose. It's just an accident. That's not karma.

[13:25]

Karma is things you intend. You know you did it. You meant to do it. You know, you could see that you meant to do it. So that's karma. Karmic actions. So it says in the text that having intended, one does karma through the actions of body, speech, and mind. What you intend are then translated into actions of body, speech, and mind. So we get to choose. between selflessness and selfishness, between more suffering and more kindness. In terms of what we can do with our life are the choices that we make in this moment, and that's what really matters. So this understanding about the transformational power of the actions that we take in the present, in the present moment, is the endless point of return for all Buddhist practice. How you behave now is going to determine what happens next. What you do now leads to the future. As the very famous verse from the Buddha's teaching called the Dhammapada, footsteps of the Buddha, what we are today comes from our thoughts, our intentions of yesterday.

[14:37]

Our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow. Our life is a creation of our mind. So this is kind of radical. I'm not sure how many of us have actually heard that kind of teaching before. I certainly hadn't until I came across the Yogacara understanding of who we are and how things happen. So by keeping the laya, the storehouse consciousness, in mind, we can remember the ability that we have to plant healthy seeds. Otherwise, in our usual way of thinking, we might just imagine that we can never change unless the conditions outside of us change, you know, in order to make us happy. Unless the world changes. So this is called conditional thinking. Conditional meaning, if only then, if only I could lose 10 pounds, then, you know, I'd look great. Or if only my daughter would call more often, then I'd know she loves me.

[15:38]

Or if only I had more closet space, then I wouldn't have to squeeze all my things into this tiny area. So we do that kind of thinking all the time. If only, that's conditional thinking. This is not about conditional thinking. This is quite a different approach to being a human. So as I've said the last few times, and I'm gonna repeat things as we go along. The second half of the 30 verses, I'm sorry, the second half of this third verse, not the 30, the second half of the verse that I just read, which I will read again to you now, the first of these three, aspects of the transformation of consciousness is called alaya the store consciousness so i just talked about that which contains all karmic seeds i just talked about mentioned that what the alaya holds and its perception of location are unknown so this is kind of an interesting point that i'll talk a little bit about now so what that means is what it holds in its perception of location unknown introduces some of the characteristics of this alaya

[16:46]

of this storehouse consciousness. And if you've opened the little map that I sent to you, which is the map of the mind, you'll see the alaya is down there, below the conscious level. And it's called the eighth consciousness, okay, on this Yogacara map of the mind. It's number eight. And in a little while, we're gonna be also reading about, in upcoming verses, about the seventh consciousness, the one that's called manas, the lover. That's the one that self-love comes from. And then also these six sense consciousnesses, which will then fill out the map. So the point here about what it holds, meaning the alaya, what it holds is not known, its location is not known. Vasubhanda is teaching that one of the characteristics of our unconscious, of the alaya, of the storehouse, is that it holds the body. This is the sense that we have of having a body. that our consciousness is attached to a physical form can you feel that it's like I'm in here somehow whatever I am I'm in here I'm in this body and I depend on this body and I try to take care of this body because I kind of get it that for me to be in here I need to have a body so it's the alaya that is taking form as a body so that's the theory that's the story so

[18:09]

This idea that we have of being a physical form is because we have this mind, this consciousness that is basically attached to us. It's appropriated us. And yet much of what our body does is not known or directed by conscious awareness. So that's why they're putting all of this down in the unconscious. You know, my body right now, my heartbeat, my blood flow, my kidney function, the hormones that are moving around, my eyes blinking, my ears, you know, the ears hearing, every single part of my body, my hair growing, there's nothing that I'm controlling as far as I know. These things are just happening. I came into this body, whenever I arrived in this body, and it was pretty complete when I got here. You know, I had to learn how to use it, but it had all of these things just working right along without any necessity of my conscious mind doing something to make it all happen. So this is kind of a reflection that we're invited to have by this teaching.

[19:14]

Like think about, just kind of think about that. When you think about yourself, think about yourself as inhabiting this form, which is not separate from you, it is you, but it's also not exactly you. Because it has its own way. You could be asleep and it keeps going, you know. You could be in a coma and the body keeps going. So there's kind of an interesting relationship here that we have between consciousness and having a body, the functioning of the body. So in Buddhist meditation, one of the interesting little side mentions is that we practice awareness of breath. You know, and there's a very good reason for that. Because breath is one of those unique bridges between our conscious awareness of our body. I can tell that I'm breathing, I can put my attention on my breathing, and I've been instructed to do that when I'm sitting in meditation. One of the first instructions I received, and maybe you did too, is follow your breath. So I can do that.

[20:15]

I can watch the inhalation and the exhalation, another inhalation, another exhalation, I can do that. Not very long because I forget. But anyway, that's part of the practice is to pay attention to your breathing. It helps us to calm down. It's a tranquility practice. Follow your breathing up and down like a little boat on the open ocean. Up you go and down you go. Up and down. So, you know, the alaya is basically... taking up most of the time is taking up the activity of breathing without us having to be aware of it. You know, if we had to pay attention to our breathing, as we can all imagine, we wouldn't be able to live very long, because we would, our attention would get distracted by something else, we'd forget to inhale and pass out. So the fact that the alaya, this unconscious quality of awareness, of this not conscious awareness, but awareness of a kind, the body awareness, is is a really dominant and, thank goodness, part of what makes us able to live.

[21:20]

So this is one reason that breath practice, as I said, is so popular in Buddhism is because it's one place we can actually connect this unconscious activity with our conscious awareness. Right there is a little bridge for us. But we don't know what the storehouse conscious is perceiving or how it keeps our bodies healthy and balanced we don't know we have really no idea even if you go to medical school we really don't know why this all works you know how it all happened you know how did this happen you know from the first living thing up to us how did that happen how did we all survive you know there's been no broken line between the first living cells and each of us if there had been we wouldn't be here so the entire appearance of life for us is a miracle. And we've kind of gotten into thinking of it not exactly as a miracle, more like, oh God, what do I have to do today? So we're trying to come back to the miraculous appreciation of what we are.

[22:23]

That's part of what I find exciting about Yogacara. I feel like, wow. A lot of times I read this and I'm going, wow, that's interesting. That's interesting. So, so The state of our unconscious, which is based in our past karmic conditioning, so where all of our tendencies to be how we are, have come from is from how we were five years ago, or 30 years ago, or in my case, 70 years ago. How was it when I was a seven-year-old and a 15-year-old and a 30-year-old? What were the things I did and thought and learned during all those different years? And where are they now? Well, a lot of them I still can access, I can ask questions to myself about my past, and a lot of that will come up, but I'm not aware of it until I ask the question, until I summon those memories. Otherwise, they just stay in my unconscious. All the things you know how to do. I often use the example of the flute. I know how to play the flute, but I'm not playing the flute right now.

[23:27]

But if I got a flute, I could play the flute. So many of you have similar knowing similar training that you know whether instruments or language or everything that you are not currently aware of is in the alaya the storehouse as your karmic conditioning the result of your actions in the past I hope this is making some sense but that's what this is talking about okay so you know even though we don't know how the storehouse consciousness perceives or how it keeps our bodies healthy and balanced the state of our unconscious is still it's based on our past and and whether you know and it will produce either a bright clear light in the present if we've been doing the work of trying to clarify ourselves in the world or and then the bright clear light of our awareness will see the world through a bright clear light it'll be like oh wow what a beautiful world

[24:29]

Or we'll see a smoky, distorted image of the world if our karmic conditioning has brought us to see things in that way. You know, we know that. Some days are good, some days not so good. And that is how we see the world. It's coming from our unconscious conditioning, you know. It's not really out there. The fog is not the problem, you know. It's how I feel about the fog. So that's important for us to keep track of. Oh, it's my... I'm saying it's a bad day. I'm saying it's a great day. The day is fine the way it is. So correct understanding, meaning wisdom for a Buddhist, is therefore very important in the face of our inborn belief that how we perceive the world is actually a direct perception of what is actually there. And we're taught that. It's called... What's it called? realism like we actually think the world is really there and that when I look outside those are real things that I'm seeing and that I just have to see them and have a relationship with them and then that's reality you know it's kind of a naive realism and so we don't really think that what I see and how I understand the world is a result of my karmic conditioning that's unusual to think that way

[25:54]

You know, we're studying this material to see if we can actually come to think that way, or try it on, you know, kind of try it on. Is this, I'm looking through the lens of my karmic conditioning and that's what I see? So this is the invitation from the 30 verses. So just as a reminder about the whole of the 30 verses, it's these first 15 that we're looking at now, and we're only up to number three, that describe how consciousness functions in order for us to practice with our experience. This map of the territory of our conscious awareness is being given to us so we can actually practice with how these great meditators from centuries ago understood us and understood how to make ourselves healthy. How to come through these toxic beliefs that we have and how to rid ourselves of toxic behaviors. So this is a message forward from the ancient world, from these people traveling the Silk Route with these books, you know, for us.

[27:00]

That's why they went to all that trouble. And then the remaining verses, so after the first 15 is 30 total, the remaining 15 verses describe the nature of our consciousness in order for us to understand our experience, you know, what's real and what is not real. and to therefore liberate ourselves from these afflictive emotions and the actions that result from our unwholesome thinking and our feelings. So the outcome, in Dogen's words, is a synthesis between practicing and realizing. So the first half of the 30 verses is all about practicing with the way our minds operate, and the second half is about realization of the nature of reality. So it's kind of a A lot of stuff in these 30 verses, kind of the primary teachings of the Buddhist tradition are packed in there, which is what makes it a little challenging to unpack it all. But I'll keep trying to my best. So once again, reading the first three verses as we move on to number four, verse number four, verse number one, everything conceived as self or others occurs in the transformation of consciousness.

[28:13]

Number two, this transformation has three aspects. The ripening of karma, alaya, the storehouse, the consciousness of a self, manas, which we're going to learn about later, and the imagery of sense objects, these six sense consciousnesses. And number three, verse number three, Vasubandhu introduces this term alaya as the first aspect in the transformation of consciousness. Verse, oh, I just read that to you. I'm going to, verse number four is where I'm going. We just did number three. Verse number three, well, just to repeat it. The first of these transformations is called alaya, the storehouse consciousness, unconscious, which contains all the karmic seeds and what it holds is perception and its perception of location or unknown. So we don't know much about alaya because it's unconscious, but we do. And we do have proof by virtue of how we behave and what else could be happening by the logic of these teachings that there must be such a thing.

[29:20]

And modern psychology and modern neurobiology is saying, yeah, indeed, there's a lot of unconscious stuff that we're made of, much more than the conscious parts. So verse number four. It, alaya, is always associated. Okay, so here's a list of five things, and I'm going to explain them. And I think they're familiar to you. So they're said a little bit differently in this verse than what you're used to. But I'm going to talk about that right now. So alaya is always associated with these five things. With sense contact, for example, hearing with sound. That's sense contact. sensory organ making contact with sound is where sound happens my eye organ making contact with some visual object is where vision vision happens you know something touching my skin is you know my feeling my my sensory uh tactile my body sense is there so i've got a nose i've got a mouth i've got ears eyes and so on so my sense organs that's what's meant by sense contact

[30:31]

So a lie is always associated with, in relationship with, sense contact, with attention, you know what that is? Attention, pay attention. With sensation, some feeling you have, like I like it, I don't like it, I'm not sure. Those are sensations or feelings. With perception, hmm, I wonder what that is. And with volition. Oh, I know what that is, and I'm going to act on it. So these are our primary motives or motivators, how the machine runs. So a lie is neither pleasant or unpleasant, it doesn't have its own personality, and it's not obstructed, and it's karmically neutral. Like a river flowing, in enlightenment it is overturned at its root. So why it matters, why this bag of unconscious behaviors matters is because Awakening is understood as a layup, I'm no longer being in charge, no longer producing things that we believe to be so kind of runs out of juice and to motivate us or to move us in habitual ways that are not so healthy.

[31:36]

So what I want to do is to kind of go into this, the first line of verse four, and which we can start by briefly reviewing the five skandhas or the five aggregates. So it's hard to study Buddhism and not encounter the five aggregates or the five skandhas. You know, they're there in the Heart Sutra, right at the beginning there. Avalokiteshvara, Bodhisattva, while deeply practicing Prajnaparamita, Wisdom Beyond Wisdom, clearly saw that all five aggregates, all five skandhas are empty and thus relieved all suffering. So he woke up. So this is extremely kind of important element of what the Buddha said, how he attempted to help us, and why it's important to try and understand this a little bit. So I'm just going to keep going and talk about the five aggregates.

[32:42]

And again, please ask any questions you have. So these five aggregates are the categories that the Buddha used in his beginning teaching in order to break up what to break up the singularity that we believe is a self you know to break up the self this is how he hacked in to this solid belief we have that i'm a self i'm a self and i'm a singularity i'm a solidity and this is me and that really matters and i'm protecting this self against other selves and the things that that this self has are mine. You know, the whole world is run by that engine of self-centeredness and self-clinging. All the pain we know in life comes from self-clinging. And all the pain we cause to others comes from self-clinging. So this is key or central to the Buddha's understanding of what we need to be freed from. We need to be freed from self-clinging, self-centeredness.

[33:44]

Okay. So one of the ways he attacked this idea of a singularity called a self was by saying, well, you're not really a single thing. You're just a bunch of parts. You're just a bunch of five parts. And those five parts are, you know, form, feeling, perception, impulse, and consciousness. That's all you are. Where's the me? There's no me in there. There's just these parts like a, like a beehive or a swarm of flies or whatever, just hanging out together and making a shape. of some kind, and then acting as if they're a whole thing, a one whole thing, you know, behaving as if they're a singularity. So this is the purpose of the five skandhas was to break up this sense of a self. You know, this is because we have this inborn attachment to a singular self that's separate from the world outside. We're born like that. We're born and we're taught to believe the world is out there and this is me in here. And so the Buddha taught the five skandhas to help us see that we are just a collection or a heap of parts.

[34:51]

There's no self in the heap to be found. This is kind of a revelation. And when you actually experience that, which you may have, or you may about to, when you actually experience the lack of singularity, it's kind of stunning. It's kind of shocking. It's like, excuse me? And it comes back. I mean, it's not like it's a permanent dissipation. I think, as all of us can tell you who have been doing this practice for a while, that it comes right on back, not to worry too much about losing your ability to drive a car or to walk or anything else. But it is a very important realization to recognize that this is just an illusion or a fantasy that we have, a belief that we have. But there's no evidence, really, to point to that. No surgeon has ever found a self inside when they've done surgery. Can't find it. So there's a sequence. Oh, I wanted to show you a little diagram here of, and where is it?

[35:58]

Oh, here it is. Okay. Okay. So what this is basically, explaining or hoping to explain is that there's a little difference not not a huge difference but there's a little difference in emphasis between the five skandhas which I just talked about and what's being talked about in the 30 verses which are these five universal factors so we've got the five skandhas versus the five universal factors both of which are ways of describing our experience as human beings So this is how, and if you check it out as we're going through these, try to see if you can locate in yourself what each one of these is referring to. So, as I mentioned, you'll find the five skandhas in the Heart Sutra, for those of you familiar with the Heart Sutra, and it's taken from a very early sermon by the Buddha called the No Self Characteristic, in which he talks about this.

[37:01]

There's form, there's a physical form. So these are the five skandhas. You have a form, you have feelings three kinds three flavors of feelings positive feeling negative neutral that's it three feelings you have a perception you have some idea of what you're seeing what you're experiencing some notion there of what it is that's happening you have an impulse to do something about it and there's an awareness there's this attention okay and then These same five are expressed a little differently in these 30 verses, which is taken, rather than taken from this particular sutra the Buddha gave, it's taken from collection of teachings called the Abhidharma, which I've talked about before. You can look it up, you can think about it. It's not something you need to know a lot about because basically the later teachings are saying, well, this isn't that helpful, these Abhidharma categories. But we've taken these five because we think these are helpful.

[38:06]

So Yogacara has appropriated from the earlier categories these five and said, these are helpful. So let's use these. Let's use these understandings in order to build our mind map, in order to help us become free of our attachments to self and to objects. This is the kind of surgery that's being done here. So form in the 30 verses is what's meant by sense contact. You know, this is what I said, ear hearing something. That's all that's about. And the form here is basically the same thing. It's about the body. Just slightly different name. Feelings are the same, positive, negative, neutral. Perception is the same, but you perceive. What's different, a little different here, is in the heart suture, they're called impulses. And in 30 verses, they're called volition, like intentional actions that you take. It's kind of an important distinction. And then consciousness also is slightly different because in the 30 verses, attention is almost like laser, like a laser fire.

[39:15]

Consciousness can be kind of a vague sense of I'm aware of everything around me. I'm conscious. I'm awake. You know, this is a little more undefined. But in the 30 verses, we're talking about attention to an object. So I put my attention on something. That's what this is about. So I will go on a little bit more. Oops, gonna get rid of that and come back to here. Okay. So I think I wanted to add a little bit of context to what's going on here, because I do understand that this probably sounds a lot like calculus or something. It's a little bit mathematical. I don't know exactly what, but all these words and terms and how they fit together, it takes a while to be able to say, oh, I see that. I get that. So I appreciate your patience in this process of coming to understand the Yogacara, which I can only say

[40:23]

over and over again, I think is so important and so valuable and exciting, but it takes a while before that part kicks in. So I wanted to mention a verse that Dogen says about practice, the sequence of practice, which is what we're gonna be looking at, how to practice with the mind, how to bring our own intentional karmic activity into the practice of freeing ourselves from our suffering. So Dogen says the sequence that he names for himself, is a very familiar kind of poem that I think many of you have heard. Dogen said that before one studies Zen, before I studied Zen or Dharma, mountains were mountains and rivers were rivers. That's the relative truth. Mountains are mountains, rivers are rivers. We all know that. That's simple. Every child knows that. And then he says, after a first glimpse into the truth of Zen, into the truth of the Buddhist teaching,

[41:24]

that I'm not a singularity, for example, and so on. Mountains are no longer mountains and rivers are no longer rivers. The self is no longer a singularity. Things are shifting and changing. This is kind of disturbing. This is having an encounter with the ultimate truth. So mountains are mountains, the first verse, relative truth, normal way of thinking, the way we were raised and how we always think. Mountains are no longer mountains and rivers no longer rivers is not usual way of thinking this is this is a kind of a realization of the ultimate truth and it is inconceivable it's mind-blowing it's sort of that moment when you go like things are not quite what i thought you know like alice in wonderland you know stranger and stranger so we're basically walking into a different understanding of what it is we see what we see doesn't change but how we understand what we see starts to change. And then Dogen says, so we've got mountains are mountains, mountains are no longer mountains.

[42:28]

And then the first verse, the third verse, after enlightenment, mountains are once again mountains and rivers are once again rivers. You know, leaping beyond the perspective of either the relative or the ultimate truth and merging with reality as it truly is. Just this is it. without imputing some story that we have about what's happening. Just what's happening. I'm not going to make up something about what's happening. I'm not going to decide and judge and evaluate and choose and hate and love. I'm just going to notice what's happening. Like, wow, that's kind of amazing, isn't it? And I'm going to ask questions. I'm going to be curious about what's happening as best I can. The first way that we are taught to see mountains and rivers is the way we humans have been taught to think about the world and to understand the world.

[43:42]

You know, there's a mountain, there's a river, there's a car, there's a boy, there's a redwood tree, there's my partner, there's me, there's my house. I can point at all these things. And it's like mountains and rivers. That's the first perception. Mountains are mountains. If you remember the terms Ji and Ri, relative truth. That's Ji. Relative truth. Second verse, mountains are no longer mountains, is the way awakening beings begin to see the world. where there are no singularities there are only parts or aggregates that are dependently co-arising based on everything else that's happening things are coming into existence and going out of existence everything's moving continuous change nothing's permanent that's not the usual way we think or see the world right where it's just a flow like a river things are moving and we're part of that flow we're moving right along too So there are no singularities, there are only parts or aggregates, like the skandhas, that are dependently co-arising, and to which we humans have given names, making them seem as though they are single things.

[44:50]

You know, we give people names like a mountain or a self. Or in truth, in the ultimate truth, there are no mountains and there are no rivers or selves to be found. Just try. Jump in the river and try to find the river. Climb up the mountain and try to climb the mountain. I remember doing that on Mount Tam. I was climbing up Mount Tam. I was like, where'd Mount Tam go? I could see it from the highway, but I couldn't see it from when I was on it. It was just rocks and trees. It's like, wait, wait a minute. These little shifts of perspective are very helpful and kind of fun. So then the third verse, mountains are mountains again, the awakened one no longer has to work in order to see things correctly. And they can engage with others and with themselves with greater authenticity, greater curiosity, and most importantly, greater kindness. That's what we're after is greater kindness. So I showed you about the skandhas and universal factors.

[45:57]

So there is a close relationship between these two, between the five skandhas and the five universal factors. Whereas the problem with the skandhas is they can be mistaken for things in themselves. So we can say, well, I'm not a thing, but my body's a thing and my feelings are things. And we can start to project or reify, make real the parts of ourselves, just like we made ourself real. We can just say, well, I'm not real, but my parts are real. You know, it's kind of an endless regression of trying to attach to something that is permanent, isn't going to change on us, and we can count on, you know? That's kind of the strategy that we humans, as life forms, have taken. We think we need to do that to stay alive, you know? So, whereas five skandhas can be mistaken for things, for nouns, rather than for verbs, which really were much more like actions or processes, The teaching of the five universal factors, on the other hand, which we're looking at in the 30 verses, helps us to see how these five aggregates, which are making up the illusions of a singular self, are moving continuously throughout our daily life.

[47:12]

So starting with sense contact, here's an example. So if you imagine yourself having a sensory event, a non-conceptual moment of a sensory experience, meaning you haven't thought anything about it yet. You just hear ping or sniff or ouch or hmm or huh. You hear something. I'm going to use hearing as the example of sense contact. You hear something. No concepts, just an experience. No words yet. Then the second of the universe, that's the first universal factor, is contact. The second universal factor is attention. You're aware of the sound. You know, the mind is now aware of some particular aspect of the present moment. I'm focused on a particular sensory event, you know, on a sound. And the sound I'm going to choose is ping. I hear ping. And my attention goes to that sound.

[48:14]

I've pulled it out of the hole. You know, here we have this whole experience of ourselves. Like, I have this whole room to choose from. I have my whole experience of the world to choose from. And I'm picking this one sound to put my attention on. We do this. We pick out one thing and we put attention on it, okay? That's the second universal factor. The third universal factor is I have a feeling about that sound. You know, a kind of basic sense of positive, negative, or neutral. And that feeling is kind of subtle. In the case of this sound, ping, I'm going to say I have a negative hit on that. I don't like it so much. I don't trust that sound, ping, especially if it's coming from the engine of my car. So now I'm starting to cook. Now things are starting to cook a little bit. So then we get the fourth thing. of the five universal factors, which is perception.

[49:17]

So this is beginning to name call. So I now am going to come up with this conceptual label for that thing that I just heard. So I now think that the ping is my carburetor. Driving my car, I hear ping. I go from putting my attention on the sound to not liking the sound to imagining that that sound is a problem with my carburetor. I'm getting real specific now with my ideas. So then the fifth universal factor is volition, meaning I'm going to take action. It's an impulse or an inclination to act. Act is karma. Action means karma. I'm going to take a karmic action here, which has been characterized by an emotion I have. So I'm now driving to the Toyota dealer to get a diagnostic of my engine. That's my action. So this sequence, you can put your own examples in there. You might just jot down an example of a sequence for yourself that starts with a sensory experience, a smell, a sound, a taste, a visual object, whatever, a positive, negative, or neutral sensation around that experience, a perception,

[50:35]

concept about what that might be and then a volition. I'm going to do something about it. Okay. So I think that's pretty much what I'm going to say now because that was a lot. I think I've got a lot more to say and I'm not going to do it because I already feel like that was a tremendous amount of stuff. Oops. My gosh. What does that keep happening? Um, Okay, so I'm gonna pause there for now and turn to you. And first I'm gonna say hi, welcome you all. And there's Griffin, hello Griffin. Okay, Helene, nice to see you Helene. And hello Soren and Steve and Jifu, welcome. Chris, hi, Chris, and Jerry and Kathy, Jacqueline, nice to see you again.

[51:35]

Helen, hello, Helen. There's Dean Bradley. Hello, Shozan, Tim, Justin, Kakouan, Drew. Vicki Austin, hey, Vicki Austin, good to see you there. Hello, hello. I'm in Minnesota and Minneapolis with Pat. Oh, wonderful. Nice to see you. Thanks for joining. Carmina and Marianne. Paul and Kate, hi Tom, Kagan, Senko, way far away, morning Senko. Hi, who do you got there? He's the shy one. Hello, Meredith, welcome. Peter, new one perhaps, new person, welcome. Kosan, welcome, and Yonah. Okay, welcome everyone. Please bring your questions to the floor. Who? Yes. Oh, Meredith asked the name of the film. It's, I think it's Swan Song, the name I spelled, and it's on, it's a really good, it's a really good film.

[52:44]

Yeah, X-U-A-N-Z-A-N-G, Amazon Prime. X-U-A-N-Z-A-N-G. Senko, how do you pronounce that correctly? I think you're pretty much right. It's Xuanzang. Xuanzang. Xuanzang. Yeah. Thank you. By the way, today is Buddha's, it's a national holiday in Singapore. It's Buddha's birthday and enlightenment day. So everyone can stay off. The kids are home. Oh, that's great. Happy birthday, everybody. Hi, Carmina. Hi. Hello, everyone. When you were going through the list right now from Nasconda, okay, and I guess there's also the possibility over here, you know, it's counterpart, not totally, but mostly.

[53:55]

That is when you're dealing with that sixth sense, namely, the mind, that consciousness, how do we apply some of the things we've talked about or you talked about in terms of how it works for sense one through five? How does it apply to that sixth sense? Yeah, thank you. So the five sense organs, which we all learned as children, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind, body, so five. The sixth one is mind. So in Buddhism, unlike the way we've been trained, the mind is considered an organ, just like the eye, and what the mind experiences are thoughts. So as the eye experiences visual objects, and the ear auditory, and the nose olfactory, and the mouth, you know, tastes, the mind experiences thoughts.

[55:03]

So that's the connection between the mind is with thinking. Is that the same as perceptions in this case? Perception is a little precognition. You perceive something before you necessarily gave it a name, but it's in the mix of I perceive it and now I'm going to give it a name. I'm going to call it something. So that's it. You're activating the relationship between the sixth sense consciousnesses at the top there the things you're conscious of right the only ones you're conscious of are the six at the top of that chart so they're starting to get activated it's like we do that all day long you hear something your attention turns toward it you like it or you don't you give it a name and then you take an action so I see somebody I You know, my attention goes to that figure, that person.

[56:04]

I think it's somebody that I don't like. Oh, that's that guy who was mean to me the other day. So I get a negative feeling and I start to turn away and I realize, oh, no, no, no, that's my best friend. So then I turn the other way. So we're constantly navigating around what we think we're seeing and then how we behave about what we think. It's pretty automatic. That's what they're pointing out. You have a habit of doing this and you don't even know you're doing it. So they're kind of pulling us to attend to how we do this thing that we do without paying any attention. So attention. Watch yourself act on how you feel and what you think. You know, the Dalai Lama calls them emotionalized conceptualizations. I have a really strong feeling about what I'm thinking, you know? And then what do I do? Well, I do a lot of stuff.

[57:05]

Write a letter to my congressman, you know, whatever. But I will take action on what I believe is happening. So we're just kind of looking in a neutral way about how that mechanism works. Just using a few examples of how do you do that? Oh, well, you do it just like that. And you all do it just like that. is this common universal factors we are all doing the same thing and that's why this is kind of a wonderful thing that these teachings apply to all of us humans you know okay is that good is that good it's very okay okay and if there's ever time i have another question but let everyone have their time. I don't see another hand, so maybe everyone else totally got it. Well, okay. Well, this is more like historical... I don't know that concept is the right word, but as you're describing all of this, I have a sense that for

[58:21]

Those of us who have been raised in the West and have a very organized Western way of looking at things, that makes Buddhism hard for us to understand because I think, correct me if I'm wrong, that if we had been born in the East, even if our parents were not Buddhists, you know, But just from living among other Asians, we would already be predisposed, so to speak, to understand these concepts more easily. Yes, and we weren't, and we don't, and we can't. So we have to start like babies at rethinking what we think have been taught is true. We're kind of naive realists, according to the Buddha. you have a very naive understanding of reality and of yourself.

[59:21]

And he woke up from that naive understanding and had a rather profound understanding of what he was and where he was and what was going on that he tried to articulate for us. So they're still trying to articulate that vision. Yogacara is trying to help us a little bit with a map, with this map to help. We'll start by understanding how your mind works and then when you understand how your mind works and you can actually experiment with that you know try it out sometime this week just give it a try spend some time noticing how your sense organs draw your attention i mean this is a really this is really important i find the universal factors to be extremely helpful in terms of a practice You can practice with that. You don't have to do it all day long. You couldn't. But you can try it now and then. Set your alarm to go off every hour or so. And just notice what sense organ is being triggered and then what happens.

[60:24]

It's fascinating what we are and how we behave. We're Westerners. No, I don't know. I think those barriers are falling down west or east. I think it's a big round ball that we live on together here. I don't mean to be stereotypical. No, no, I know. But, you know, I think you understand. I do. You know. I do. And if we only had a different heritage, we could have an easier time of this. Right. But we don't. I don't. I don't. Some of you may, actually. I don't want to assume that, that you didn't have a different heritage or parents who taught you Buddhism or something, but I certainly didn't get much of that when I was raised. Hi, Jerry. Okay, Carmina, is that okay? Yes, thank you very much. Okay, you're welcome. Hi, Jerry. Hi, Fu. So...

[61:31]

Oh, maybe three weeks ago, I had a very intense fight with a friend. Verbal fight, not physical fight. Disagreement. And then we met the other day, and I said to her, we need to have some, if we're going to talk about this, which we will pledge to do, we need to have some guidelines. Mm-hmm. So we don't, you know, because the time when we first had the first argument, she ran out of the house and ran away and accused me of pushing her out of the house, which I had no idea I was doing and didn't intend to do. Anyway, the point I'm trying to get to is we did discuss some guidelines and we began to talk. And not surprisingly, we both got very emotional, very intense. and started to have raised voices.

[62:36]

And then a part of me remembered that I was reacting to thoughts. And just that realization stopped me. And then some voice in me said, where's your breath? And I... focused on my breath and immediately, immediately felt some relief and release. So I said to her, I'm going to stop talking. I'm going to start focusing on my breath and close my eyes for the next few minutes. Maybe you want to do the same. Did she? Well, she didn't say anything. I just closed my eyes. You don't know what she did. And I began to notice my breathing. I have to tell you, and I'm not saying this.

[63:40]

I am saying this to let you all know. It's quite amazing how attending to my breath really changed my mind, my physiology. my need to win, my need to argue, it all just dissolved. And I was silent for, I would imagine, two, maybe three minutes. And then I opened my eyes and just looked at her across the room, across the table, and in a few seconds, she opened her eyes. And we looked at each other, full on, full face, which... for a long time, for like 30, 45 seconds, which is something we don't do. When did we really stare at people? We weren't staring, we were looking. And then we just started laughing.

[64:42]

And we never got back to talking about the content. And I realized, why bother? It's like, whatever the hell happened, And whatever might have gotten resolved or not, that's for another moment. That's a great story. That's a great story. And it's so simple and it's so hard. It's so hard. You know, we just are so convinced. Yeah. Of what we're thinking. It's amazing. Yeah. Thank you, Jerry. That's a perfect example of how simple, you know, just take a breath. Take a break. You know, that thing about, somebody said to me once, they came for Doksan, when I was, and we were, I was sitting there waiting for them to look up.

[65:46]

A lot of times people come into the room and they haven't been there before, they're just looking down. And so I'm looking at them and they're looking down. And then, they suddenly look up and I'm looking at them and they're like, Oh God, somebody's looking at me. I mean, it's really, it's really startling. I remember that from the first time I went to talk with Richard Baker, what it was like to look up and see this dude staring at me. I was like, and then the person asked after a while, I said, finally, I break the silence. You should, I say, was there something you'd like to talk about? That's kind of my, intro. And then the person said, kind of comically, is this a staring contest? I said, kind of, yeah. See who blinks first. Anyway, there is an intimate there's very great intimacy and people don't do that. You know, I'm one of the things about dogs on our practice discussion is sitting face to face with someone who you don't know.

[66:49]

In a certain way, we call, I know somebody, but you don't know them other than you're there to talk about something important to you, you know, something that you care about. And it's quite an extraordinary and unusual thing to do with another person. I've never done it before except, well, therapy, but it was kind of a little different. The chairs were arranged a little differently in therapy, you know. That was part of my anxiety was that I didn't know who I was to be in that conversation because I had never had it before with her. And I never had it before in that way with any human being. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was like we both admitted we were in pain and we both said we wanted to talk about it. Well, OK, where's the book? Show me the rules. It was terrifying. You wrote the book? Good. Thank you.

[67:50]

Hi, Senko. Yeah, Yuga Chara. I just feel the first time I learned from you, I was just watching your recording on San Francisco Zen Center's website on Yuga Chara. It just really shocked the whole thing. I got pudding. I don't know how to say it, but this time, again, And so I also been reading the book by William, sorry, William Waldron. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And he mentioned this concept called Ego Tunnel. Yeah. And I follow that concept. I went to Thomas Wetzinger's book called Ego Tunnel. So Thomas Wetzinger is a German philosopher. And also he's like collaborating with neuroscientists. He's like the expert on consciousness for German. And he's like, I was reading, I just started, but it shocked me somehow, even with the preparation of Yuga Chara. So he's saying, you know, basically, you know, we're just in this world of all the electromagnetic, you know, field.

[69:03]

Everything, there's nothing with color out there, right? Nothing with shape out there. It's just we, our mind, the faculties has a simulation model. Our model created that so we can survive. So like everything we see and feel, experience, it's just our simulated model. I mean, it's kind of inconsistent with Yoko Chara, but it still kind of scares me a little. And then later on, later in the chapter, he said, even the time, even now, the moment we think now is not now. It's just our simulation model because strictly speaking, we don't have now because our neuron takes some time to get... you know, kind of create a simulation. So now it's already gone. And that gets me off my foot a little bit. I feel even more like, I was like, okay, come back to my breath now, but there's no now. It's all smeared. So I'm just like letting you know that I'm feeling. Well, I just, you keep reading, Waldron, you'll find that eventually this is called, you know, the bottomlessness of reality.

[70:09]

There's no bottom to it. You know, just happened to have landed on a rock here gravity kindly put us down on a space where we could walk around but basically there's just space and that's just you know the movement and there's just this funny little thing that happened on this rock that's you and me you know so this really isn't anything like what we think it's just so much yeah and yet you know We're here to kind of subject reality to our human way of thinking. We have no choice. We are here to say, well, we want to think about reality this way. And so everybody's taking a shot at it. Buddha took a shot at it. This guy's taking it. Everybody's philosophers. Everybody's taking a shot at it because there's no user's manual. Nobody said, this is what it is. This is what we are. So we got all these theories running around. And I think the idea of bottomlessness or egolessness, the only way that's comforting is if you really don't think there's a bottom.

[71:10]

And you'll just keep falling, but you're not going to hit. You're not going to land. You're just going to keep falling. And then that way you can kind of make it more like a jellyfish. You're just floating. You're just floating in this amazing ocean of experiences. And... And you can't change that. You can't make it otherwise. So why don't we just figure out how to do that in a graceful way that's full of kindness and appreciation and all the kind of stuff that makes this journey worth our time? Yeah, I know, right? As you said, it brings us back to the miracle feeling. Like, wow, you and I, we just through the magnetic field, we can communicate. Somehow I figured a way. I created a simulation and you did. And we're using our model to communicate. And it works. And Mr. Zoom, whoever that is, created this opportunity for us to do this very magical thing from Singapore to Hillsburg, California.

[72:12]

You're having breakfast and we're getting ready for dinner. Is that weird? Is there anything weird about that? But it's true. Even though it's really strange to think you're on the other side of this world, of this rock. And you are, aren't you? yeah yeah yeah yeah we think so it's so strange but it's actually what's happening so here we are it's okay right it's okay it's okay thank you thanks i i like the thing you said pudding was it you said it was like pudding is that the word you used Which one? Pudding? Did you say pudding? I felt like pudding. I don't know. I ate it. Oh, okay. All right. Well, that's good. Pudding would work. Yeah. Okay. Thank you, Fu. Thanks. You're welcome. Hi, Justin. Hi, Fu. So I turn 38 next month. And as I've entered my life, one thing I've really been thinking hard about is death.

[73:16]

So... From the standpoint of having a true self and evil, it's essentially non-existent, but we, like you say, we're still a composition of scandals and aggregates and stuff like that. When we pass away, what do you think happens to our various compositions? Just kind of like in a genuine sense. Do you still have a perception and consciousness, not being a material perspective? Or is it like something totally just like not understandable? The question can be... Well, according to Yogacara, you need the body for perceptions and for sensory contact. You have to have ears and eyes and so on. Without your body, which is going to die, what they say is left is the karmic outcome of your life. So the influences from your having lived don't die. You know, and for the Tibetans, that's kind of, they take up another body, they become another being, you have another lifetime.

[74:18]

So some traditions, Buddhist traditions, hold that you reincarnate. You know, the alaya appropriates a baby, becomes another human. Or other ways to think of it is just that the influence of your having lived, like many people whose names we could say, like Beethoven or whoever, is that that music is still alive. the effect of their life is still happening in the world, the impact of having lived. So that's one reason to try to leave a nice trail behind yourself, so that the effect of your having lived creates a sort of positive wake as your body goes away. I kind of like, I think that seems okay to me. I can feel that, the truth of that, you know, by people who I've lost who are just not gone. They're in my heart, I think of them, I see them, I see images of them. So in some way, the impression of their having lived still lives because I still hold that impression.

[75:20]

They live in me. So that's one way to think about it. And for me, that's not discomforting. Maybe that's part of what we're looking for is some way of comforting ourselves, knowing that our bodies are going to die. Are you still? Where'd you go? I lost you. Oh. Oh, no. I hope you're okay. Anyway. Okay, maybe he'll be back. Peter. Peter, I see a hand up that says Peter Pansy. Is there somebody there who would like to speak? Yes. What's up? Okay. Can you hear me? Yeah. Oh, okay. I got a question. I'm going to try to ask this. Key word, try. It's my understanding, I guess, in Zen Buddhism that it explains, I guess, the universe as we are basically a product of the universe.

[76:22]

We are the universe expressing itself. So I guess explaining this philosophically, I mean, like you have monism, you have the idea of dualism. And in Zen, it's called... non-dualism which is i guess the middle way is what they call it yeah which is i guess my understanding correct me if i'm wrong but it's kind of the middle ground between monism and dualism it kind of uh has both aspects so it's in a sense i guess saying that we are the universe but at the same time we are separate like the universe in a sense separated itself and expressed itself into multiple forms but it seems like a lot of people also say that all of this is an illusion. So it seems to be kind of a paradox. And so I'm trying to understand, I guess, the idea of non-dualism and senyata. Pardon me if I pronounce that wrong.

[77:24]

But I'm just trying to understand those concepts there a little bit more. Well, you've got all the right parts, you know, and I think as you continue to think about them and... and read about them, you'll be able to put the puzzle together because, you know, you're touching on the right elements. There's these two truths that you may have heard about, which are there's the ultimate truth, reality as a totality, you know, the all-inclusive reality. So that's one truth. And it's inconceivable. You can't name it. You can't point to it. It's everything. So it has no particular name or quality. It's everything, all qualities, all names. And then within that, there are these particularities, these relationships between parts of the whole. So the whole has all these parts. We're a part of the whole. We're also made of the whole. We're not separate from the whole. And we're also a part of the whole that can have its own distinctive characteristics. So that's called the relative truth.

[78:26]

It's conventional. It's we just agreed on. And, you know, what Senkova was just saying is, well, there's really just electrons going like this. There really isn't any color. There isn't any real shape. You know, that's kind of ultimate truth perspective, where you won't find something like a person or a bird or a train. You're just going to find, you know, a vast number of moving things that you can't really identify, and they're all making up the universe. But then we have this ability somehow to conjure up ourselves and a world with all kinds of names and qualities and buildings and wars and we're just nuts and we're doing all this stuff as a species on this precious planet other than just taking care of the precious planet and loving being alive and all that and we're kind of we need to get some help and i think that's what the buddha was doing and jesus was doing and everybody else is doing it's not so much about the you know, ontology, like, what is it that we are?

[79:30]

It's more like, what are you here to do? How are we going to cure ourselves of our bad behavior? So the Buddha was a physician. He was trying to help us end suffering. That was the main point. And one way he did that was by helping us, by helping us to break down. She's such a best. I don't know why she breaks in. So anyway, we're trying to basically break up the ideas we have about the human being that I am. It's very personal. So that I can be free, whether I understand the whole puzzle or not, I can be free from the conditioning I have to be angry and hateful and selfish. You know, the whole point of this is to become free, each of us, to become free of our habits, our bad habits, not our good habits. So I don't know if that helps, Peter. Are you Peter? Is that an okay name? Yeah. Peter? Okay. I don't know if that helps.

[80:31]

Yeah, I was just confused about the whole idea of, because, like, form is emptiness, emptiness is form, you know, from the Heart Sutra. Right. And so in a sense, I guess that is also saying that, you know, the idea of we are the universe, but in the also sense that we are the universe expressing itself into multiple forms. So we're separate yet not separate. That's right. So I think that's what they're saying. That's right. Yang and whatnot. But it's just that it seems paradoxical a little bit, like it's contradicting itself because most people would say that all it is is an illusion. And they'll see is they'll see this as like, oh, we're just tetrahedrons floating around in space. Well, that's OK, too. That's okay, too. You can define it however you like. You get the choice to say what it is for you. The Buddha said it's two ways of looking. One way of looking, it's all-inclusive universe. It's all one. Another way of looking, it's all parts. And so you can look at this entirety either one way or the other way.

[81:34]

But both of them aren't two different realities. They're just one reality from two perspectives. So, you know, the Zen saying is not one, not two. Not together and not separate. It is paradoxical. And that's what makes Zen so frustrating. Come on, that's not how I was taught logic. Either it is or it isn't. Nah, no, no, it both is and it isn't. It's sort of like, you know, Zen has its own logic. Buddhism has its own logic, which is based on non-duality, as you said. So keep working with those pieces, Peter. I think you're on the right track. So basically, I mean, don't try to conceptualize it. In other words. No, just don't believe what you conceptualize. You can go ahead and conceptualize. Just don't hold on to it. Hold it lightly. Okay. Okay. And then keep learning and things will grow. Well, thank you.

[82:36]

You're welcome. Hi, Chris and Helen. And then I think that'll be it for this evening. Chris, where'd you go? Oh, there you are. I'm here. Hi, Fu. Hi, Chris. Wonderful to see you. So the universal factors I'm really intrigued by. I was first introduced to these by the founder of conjunctive psychology, who I studied with, who introduced me to Green Gulch in a meditation lab on conjunct on the Abba Dharma and Buddhist psychology. And so this has been in the back of my mind for the last over 20 years. But I've forgotten entirely about this. And one of the practices that we did, that it was taught and that I adopted for walking meditation for Kin Hin, was to apply this directly to Kin Hin. And I'm curious, knowing that that's what I've...

[83:37]

been doing but not really consciously aware of it, is that a recommended practice or appropriate or is that mixing traditions in a way that I might be better served thinking of this or not thinking of this, practicing this internally, just silently sitting and being aware? Chris, I would never restrict you from doing anything that's wholesome. So if you want to explore through all these different lenses, I think that's part of what excites you and makes you keep going, is you have all these different lenses that you've looked through over these years. And you're looking for a synthesis, right? Aren't you kind of looking for how they work together or an approach that kind of brings those different tendrils into a useful form? Maybe. Maybe that's part of it. think that's a big part of it okay okay most of it is just my just my practice so how i approach reality and and the world and and live within it so i i think doing that kin hymn practice sounds great but i wouldn't do it like as a law you know make it a rule i think i i think experimenting is really the best you know try it how does that work count backwards from one to ten instead of

[85:01]

forward from one to ten what does that do to your practice you know what happens when you start to juggle the balls and and make it a little bit more you know a little different point of view uh you just want to unstick from anything you're stuck on that's kind of the main practice are you stuck on something well see what's going on there figure out what it is and and then Whatever you find to unstick yourself, that's good. It'll be another stuck place later on. So that's not a rule then, right? You don't want to keep using the same technique or the same conclusion. Just keep finding new things, you know, freshness. But these old truths are really great. And every time you come back to them, like you just said, it is fresh because you forgot all about that. So now 20 years later, it's like an old friend has just come back to town. And you can begin to try that one again. See how that works for you. So why don't you practice with the five universal factors for a little while.

[86:02]

See what they tell you. Does that sound okay? It does very much so. Thank you very much. You're so welcome. Hi, Helen. Hi. So this may look different after you've had the experiences that people have and pertain to enlightenment or samadhi or whatever. But my response to your answer to the guy that asked about it basically in afterlife and then disappeared is... Great disappointment. Is that the best you've got that we live on? They live on and we live on in their hearts and in our good works and blah, blah, blah. You know, all those banalities that we're used to hearing at memorial services.

[87:02]

Yeah, I'm sorry, darling. But that is all I've got. That's all I've come up with. And I've been looking. I'll tell you, I wanted more immortality as bad as anybody. And I'm pretty convinced. Is that the best Buddhism has got? Because I thought there was more. Well, it depends on what school. If you want more, you go to the Tibetans. That's right. That's right. And they'll give you so many lifetimes. You'll be working out for the rest of eternity trying to get to be a Buddha. Why is it all worth it in a sense? Not that it wouldn't be worth it for right now, but... Here's a question for you. So if it's many lifetimes to become a Buddha, do you know which lifetime you're in right now? No, you don't. You don't know. So this could be the one. This could be the one. But now you're contradicting yourself because there's only one lifetime. One long one that has a lot of different parts or there's just one short one that we think we're in and it's going to end in about 10 years or less.

[88:08]

So yeah, I can go any direction on that and not come to a conclusion. I'd like to hear a theory that I was go like, Oh, there it is. But I haven't heard one yet. And you haven't had an experience that makes you feel some reality. one way or another? I'm asking. Well, that seems like a very private question. We'll have to have ducks on that one, Helen, and I'll tell you about my experiences. Okay. Yeah, I can't identify experiences. They don't come in, you know, not articulated. They're more like perfume. Oh, I smelled something really sweet there, you know. So I name it, I wouldn't dare. I wouldn't dare. Nice. Yeah. I can take that. Okay, good. Thank you. All right, everyone. So good to be with you, as always.

[89:10]

And please take care. We'll struggle on with Yogacara. I really think this is good stuff, or I wouldn't do it. So anyway, we'll keep trying. And we've already got four verses done, so there's only... 26 left. Good night. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. Bye. Bye everybody. Bye. Have a good week.

[89:49]

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