Is there anyone who doesn't have the handout? There were two from the first class. There's two different sheets and we can just pass this back to the people who need it. And if it's an extra one that you already have, you can pass this one back at the end. Light's good. So last time we were talking about whether we are convinced that this belief in or view in the inherently existent self

[01:03]

is truly the root of all suffering, anxiety, fear, distress, problems. And I don't know if people have been contemplating this this week to see if there's any more doubts. We did come up with this one kind of suffering, of the kind of compassionate suffering, truly selfless, compassionate suffering. the kind of suffering that's the greatest happiness. We're not counting that one because that's the one that's the greatest happiness. We're talking about the suffering that's not happy. That this is really the root of all of it. And I think if we forget this point, we'll lose the motivation to continue this investigation and meditation. But then if we remember this conclusion that this really is the root of all this, this will be the motivation and the fuel for such investigation and meditation.

[02:18]

I mentioned this sutra and the simile of the saw from the old teachings about being sawed up. And I went back to look at that sutra and it's not particularly about the... the issue of the Self. It's more about patience practice, that sutra. But you could say it's related. But then I remembered also there's another passage in the Daimini Sutra, one of the Prajnaparamita Sutras. Mahayana scripture of the Buddha is similar and does actually directly relate to kind of the most extreme suffering imaginable in relation to this view of a self. So the passage in the Diamond Sutra goes like this, the Buddha says, Sabuti, when the king of Kalinga, so this is like in this past life, Buddha is recounting this past life where he was a bodhisattva on the way,

[03:30]

And he was practicing already with this teaching about no view of the inherently existing self. So in this past life, when the king of Kalinga cut my flesh from every limb, and apparently, so the story goes, that the bodhisattva at that time was... was practicing patience and also working with these wisdom teachings on the view of the Self. And this king, apparently, since the Bodhisattva had this reputation as one practicing patience, the king wanted to kind of test him. So he said, well, how about I'll cut your flesh limb from limb and just to see how you do with this. So, amazing, huh? So, anyway, the Buddha says, when the king of Kalinga cut my flesh from every limb, at that time I had no perception of a self, of a being, of a soul, or a person.

[04:39]

And why? If, Sabuti, at that time I had had a perception of self, I would also have had a perception of ill will at that time. So, which would be the... the end of patience. Patience is kind of like the antidote to ill will or anger. So the way to practice patience fully could be said to be to overcome this false view of the self. So this is about as extreme as it gets. We hopefully won't have to worry about limbs being cut up. He said it right to the end, huh?

[05:46]

Similar, I think, yeah. Different language we could say for maybe the same thing. I am God means I'm free from this limited individual self-view. But we can maybe be encouraged by the fact that even in this extreme, extreme situation, it's still possible to not arouse ill will, that there may be little interactions in our own life when ill-will might arise, when we're being slightly cut down by others or whatever, slightly pushed, that again, without this eye-making, without this view of the separate, independent, inherently existent Self, that it's the possibility that the ill-will will not arise and no problem will arise.

[06:51]

This last sutra on the handout, the Buddha also talks about, you know, if people insult him, he doesn't get upset because he knows they're insulting the five skandhas, and if he's praised, he doesn't get elated because he knows the people are praising the five skandhas, not him. So, many advantages to working with this practice. and also to re-emphasize the point that, for example, just practicing calming or concentration, shamatha practice, letting go of all discursive thinking, just being present in the moment, maybe in zazen, just following the breath to a really calm, stable, and even blissful maybe, and kind of feel like no problem, and just free of all this analytical garbage, and just free we feel.

[08:02]

According to this teaching, or many of these Buddha's teachings, that this is this temporary state, and though it's very nice temporarily, will never free us from the bondage in this driven cycle of birth and death where there's no freedom. So even though it's very helpful and necessary in order to then meditate on the view and clarify the view, we need this deep calm and concentration. But in and of itself, it's not enough. for true freedom. And so, in our zazen practice, we can remember this. We can cultivate this kind of stillness as a helpful tool to, in the end, clarify this view.

[09:04]

But depending on what we want, if we really have an intention to realize this freedom and this is possible, then we have to go further. Also, meditation, you could say meditation on dependent co-arising, kind of like opening to how everything is giving rise to everything else and arising and ceasing moment to moment and closer to this view. We might even interpret the self-fulfilling Samadhi of Dogen, something like just receiving whatever comes moment to moment, and watching how body and mind give rise to the universe moment to moment, even to watch this dependent co-arising, still a great meditation, in a way much greater even than this stillness.

[10:09]

But still, one could say, this is still not enough. Even though it's very close to meditating on this view of the self, it's not directly confronting the issue. It's not directly studying the self that is the actual origin of the problem. It's not explicitly directly looking at the false view and therefore seeing its absence. Does that make sense? Even though when one does see the absence of the view, one actually is then just being in the midst of dependent co-arising. independent co-arising is not separate from the absence of the self, but to meditate on the absence of the self is explicitly contradictory to the false view of the independent self.

[11:18]

Does that make sense? Because it's explicitly contradictory, it's the, like I think I said last week, the very point, the very exact precise point where we're bound and stuck and attached to the view is the very precise point where we'll become free. So we have to look exactly at this point and be free right at this exact point. And the pentacle rising can be, even though it's completely in a line with this same meditation, it's kind of, it's not so precise maybe. It's more... It can be more vague, or it's right around the same area. But because, again, it's because this view is so deeply entrenched and innate view, and so subtle, and so seemingly fixed, that without looking right at it, and specifically investigating that point,

[12:25]

We won't stumble upon it in the midst of the meditation on dependent co-arising, probably. So this is another proposal that maybe sounds like something new to people. And again, encouragement for this kind of difficult investigation of this precise point of attachment. Um, also, so then, so we could say, not only is, is, um, just this mere calming stillness, very peaceful meditation, not enough, meditation on dependent co-arising, even though also even greater, still not enough, really. And then, um, to actually clarify the view of the, um, the emptiness of the inherently existing self, to completely understand exactly how it can't be so and be completely convinced of that, still not enough.

[13:34]

And so this is to have a kind of conceptual understanding of how it's so and be completely conceptually, kind of the intellect, being completely convinced, still. This is also even greater, I would say, than the meditation on the Pentecost arising. But... but it has to then become completely embodied. So there's these three kinds of wisdom that people have probably heard about before, and I think it's just an important teaching if you haven't heard or if you have to remember this again. The wisdom that comes from studying dharma, you could say, the wisdom from reading or listening. In the old days it was from listening because they didn't really have writing, it's oral. Now we could say wisdom that actually comes from reading or studying or hearing the teaching. And just the words, just understanding the meaning of the words, basically. And that's a kind of wisdom.

[14:37]

It's a kind of prajna, actually, according to the teachings of the Buddha himself. But it's the kind of first level of wisdom. And it's essential for the second level of wisdom. The second would be... the wisdom from reflecting on the teachings. So not only to just hear them. So this class, you could say, is we're kind of doing this first kind of wisdom. We're hearing these things and trying to get the words down. The second kind we can also maybe do in the class is reflecting on the teachings. So like, I think trying to do last week some is like, propose this teaching of, you know, is this belief really the root of all suffering? And then we reflect on it. And it's good in a group or in discussion or with others. Is this really true? The Buddha himself, which is, I think, a wonderful thing about the Buddha's teaching, says, don't take my word for any of this. Check this out for yourself.

[15:38]

So this would be like the second kind of wisdom. We really have to investigate on our own. And it's going to be different. The way each person does this is going to be slightly different. very personalized in a way, although we can also do in a group. But the way that, and this is coming to, this would be like coming to this conviction on a kind of, in the conventional world, in the conceptual mind, being completely convinced through reflecting over and over again on these teachings. And this is, you know, it kind of makes sense, but there's maybe some, there's maybe some flaw in the system, or there's something, I still have some doubt, right? So it's clarifying all doubts. That's why you could say, well, this simple teaching about no self, why are there these volumes of teaching on the core selflessness and subtle selflessness? Can we just simplify it? But you could say, to really complete this second level of wisdom, the wisdom from reflecting on the teachings, we need to

[16:49]

We need to resolve every possible last doubt. So that's why continuing to go over and over and deeper and deeper into the nuances, subtle nuances of these teachings, clarifies the view more and more. And so that, again, really great. You could say even beyond all those other meditations or practices. And then the final one, you could say, would be... the wisdom from cultivation. And again, the word cultivation is this word bhavana. And bhava can also mean being. So cultivation, and they use it for meditation practice, bhavana, is kind of like becoming what you've learned. So it's a kind of nice etymology of the Sanskrit word.

[17:52]

So this is the wisdom from cultivating the teachings that we've reflected on and become convinced of, bringing it into body and mind in deep meditation. So now going back to this first kind of zazen of the stillness, calmness, concentration, and unite it with that. and then become what we've reflected on in a non-dual way, deeper than just a conceptual way, a way we're actually one with the teaching that we've been conceptually convinced of. So, many reasonings to... the first two types of wisdom, many investigations and reasonings, and that's what Nagarjuna is going to be doing.

[18:53]

And just to mention how I think we've already seen some examples in our Zen tradition, Dogen says to study the ways, to study the self, and various other passages from the Genjo Koan. But here's another Dogen one that... I think is almost identical to these early sutras and Nagarjuna's chapter on the self. It's not a really commonly quoted passage of Dogen, but one of his early teachings when he's just an example of Dogen encouraging this kind of analysis to discern the emptiness of the independent self. This is in Guidelines for Studying the Way. Dogen says, just forget yourself for now and practice inwardly. This is one with the thought of enlightenment.

[19:55]

You could say, well, maybe here he's saying first just practice inwardly by forgetting yourself. Maybe it could be just this kind of first calming kind of practice. Do the basic forgetting yourself and just... turn inwards to start investigating. Or you could say, this is the beginning of the investigation. Just forget yourself for now and practice inwardly. This is one with the thought of enlightenment. We see that the 62 views, which are all these views from the old teachings about the self, the false views, basically, we see that all false views are based on self. When a notion of self arises, sit quietly and contemplate it. So don't just sit quietly and do nothing. Sit quietly and contemplate the notion of self. This is Dogen. Is there a real basis inside or outside your body now? So now it's starting to analysis, right, and reasoning about the self.

[20:59]

Is there a real basis for the self inside or outside your body and mind? Your body with hair and skin is just inherited from your father and mother. From beginning to end, a drop of blood or lymph is empty. I think another translation says, you know, the drops of semen and the egg from your mother and father, they're empty, and that's where your body came from, right? So how could there be a self in there? So none of these are the self. What about mind, thought, awareness, and knowledge? So you can see he's going to the skandhas maybe, right? Or the breath going in and out, which ties a lifetime together. What is it after all? The breath is maybe some feeling, the breath has been going from when we were born, so it's almost like the breath could be our self, it's that close.

[22:03]

The breath that ties a lifetime together, what is it after all? None of these are the self either. How could you be attached to any of them? Deluded people are attached to them. Enlightened people are free of them. You figure there is self where there is no self. You attach to birth where there is no birth. You do not practice the Buddha way which should be practiced. And so on. So... It could almost be Nagarjuna, but very kind of simple reasoning. And it's just a little paragraph in Dogen, and then he goes on to other points, but profound paragraph. And he says, yeah, practice of buddha-vayari should be practiced. It means if you still are convinced yourself into most part of your life, it's actually not in the world of it.

[23:06]

I mean, you're in the world of it, but you're not. Yeah, it seems like that's what he's maybe strictly saying, is that with this view we're actually turning away from the Buddha way, or we're not fully immersed in the Buddha way. And we could say, well, if we have this intention and we're on the track of this practice, that's the intention to practice the Buddha way. But this is Dogen in his strict mode, I think, of saying. You know, to really see through this belief experientially for the first time and enter the stream of practice in a way is when you, that could be one place, then you're really on the Buddha way, kind of irreversible way. And then also, you know, in this early teaching of the Buddha on this handout, this second teaching, remember after the five yogis got the first teaching about the Four Noble Truths, and then he taught this teaching, and then there were six arhats in the world.

[24:15]

This is, again, simple reasoning about the self. Nagarjuna is going to get more subtle, in a way, with his reasonings, so we have no doubt remaining, but these yogis got it with this pretty simple reasoning, and it's a different one that As far as I know, Nagarjuna doesn't bring up, but it's in the style of Nagarjuna. It's using a kind of logic to see how could there be a self if there's this. So in this case, the Buddha says, form, taking the first skanda, the first of the five aggregates, form, monks, is not self. If form were the self, this form would not lend itself to dis-ease. dis-ease, so you could say this form would not lend itself to dissatisfaction or literally to, especially with the body form, would not lend itself to sickness. If it were the self, the self that's like the controller of all, the omnipotent, indestructible self that we might feel, is when we tune into this belief, at the core of our being, we might feel like there's this one.

[25:35]

But if there were this kind of self, how could it lend itself to disease? It would be possible to say with regard to form, if there were this self that is me, it would be possible to say with regard to form, let this form be thus, let this form not be thus. In other words, we could control it. We could say, well, let my body be 10 feet tall, or at least if I'm sick, just let me be well now. And we'll just be well, because we'd be the controlling self, right? Could do anything it wanted. But precisely because form is not self, form lends itself to disease, and it's not possible to say with regard to form, let this form be thus, let this form not be thus. And then he goes through the rest of the five skandhas. Feeling we're the self, we could say, well, I'm in pain now, let me just be happy. Because the feeling is me, and I'm me, so I'm going to change it now.

[26:40]

I'm going to change me to happiness instead of pain. And so on. And you could say, well, this is kind of weird reasoning. I don't really buy it. That's why you could say, well, maybe Nagarjuna and others got into more convincing reasonings. Because it's kind of a funny one, in a way. But it is using a kind of reasoning. It's the Buddhist kind of saying, well, if there were a self, then how could this work? And then he goes on, maybe a more convincing reasoning, is after that little section, he says, what do you think, monks, is form, taking the first skanda again, constant or inconstant? Or it could be translated as permanent or impermanent. Inconstant, Lord. Impermanent. And is that which is... impermanent, easeful, blissful, or stressful, or suffering? It's stressful. That which is inconstant is stressful.

[27:43]

Everything impermanent is like, because we can't get a hold of it and we can't control it, in that sense, if there's a self, it's going to be kind of stressful to be an impermanent being. So, Is it fitting to regard what is inconstant and stressful and subject to change as this is mine, or this is myself, or this is what I am? No, Lord, it's not. And so on. So I think the thing about impermanence is just a really great one that actually this chapter of Nagarjuna doesn't mention that point. He does at other places mention impermanence, but... You know, if the... Actually, it does... It will get kind of mentioned in a sense here in this chapter, but not per se. But, yeah, if the body and mind are impermanent, then how could they be... When we're talking about the self, we're talking about this inherently existent self, which exists by way of its own character, not dependent on anything else.

[28:54]

So, if it's independent like this, it doesn't... It doesn't arise and cease, dependent on other things. It would be like just eternally abiding self. And as we get into the view, hopefully we'll be able to point out this, how actually the subtle view of selflessness as the absence of inherent existence is different than permanence. these Tibetan commentaries say the permanent self is actually much easier to refute than the inherently existent self, and it's not enough to refute the permanent self. So they're slightly different. We're very related, and refuting the permanent self is pretty great, but it says that's not the root of samsara, actually. The belief in the permanent self is not the root. The belief in the inherently existent self.

[29:57]

hopefully clarify it's going to be difficult, clarify the difference between these. Part of the deal is that if we realize the non-inherently existent self of the person, then at that very same time, automatically, we see the non-inherent existence, the emptiness of inherent existence of all dharmas, because it's the same point. the Self and all dharmas regarding inherent existence. But permanence is a little coarser. Anyway, that's just a reminder for later. So the main thing today I wanted to do is kind of go through these five aggregates, five skandhas, which a lot of these teachings, they don't delineate them so much. But I think it's really helpful when we're starting to do this study or on the handout with the meditation on the not-self, where it's step four, look for the I and the body and mind, to start going through them one by one and as a set.

[31:05]

And I think by clarifying how the five skandhas work together, kind of getting this sort of psychological picture of how the mind works, I find it really helpful basically to resolve doubts. Like we started thinking, well, How does this work? I feel like there's me. If there's really no abiding self like this, then why does it seem like there is? And how can I do things? And how do I function in the world? And how come I remember yesterday? And so on. So the Five Skandas explain. They're like this model to explain how it seems to be that there's some real person here. And they're the things that we grasp as a self. There are these five areas that we grasp. And you could say, anytime we're grasping anything, actually, we could say it's grasping one of these five.

[32:10]

So, as we go through them, the proposal is that there's nothing outside these five aggregates. It's the entire, not only the entire psycho-physical personality, but the entire world, there's nothing other than these five skandhas. That's another big statement. What about, is the table one of the five skandhas? Actually, in a sense, yeah, because also to know that these five skandhas are the, it's kind of, it's from the point of view of our experience. In all the Buddha's teachings, you could say, That's the point. It's not making kind of metaphysical statements about the nature of reality so much as really deeply looking at our own experience. So the five skandhas are this model, and you could come up with different ones too, but it's a pretty good one, I think. The Buddha actually did have different ones, but five skandhas is a popular one.

[33:11]

And it's from the point of view of our experience, of our life, can be broken down into these. five areas. Saskanda means heap or aggregate and so each of the five is not just one kind of fixed thing. Each of the five is actually made up of like lots of different aspects in itself and then each of the aspects of the five are made up of different aspects so it's just all can be infinitely broken down but I think it's a nice point that he called them five aggregates instead of the five substances of the person or something like this, right? The five things that we grasp, five aggregates. So they're already like combinations of other dharmas. And the order that they're taught in is from gross to subtle.

[34:18]

not necessarily taught in the order of chronologically experienced order, although we can start to tell different stories about, and I think it would be helpful to do so, about an experience in terms of the five. But that's the reason they're taught this way, is gross to subtle. Gross meaning the most easy to see or identify. And also, I would propose that the subtle... The most subtle is the most easy to grasp as a self. I think we usually don't think form, like the body. We might feel like this is me, the body is me, but when we look closely, we know it's more than just the body. But consciousness, which is the fifth one, most subtle, is most easily taken to be the inherently existing self. So we start with the gross and also the subtle. builds on the gross to some extent. So the form skanda, rupa skanda, and these are written out on the bottom of Nagarjuna's chapter in the handout.

[35:29]

At the bottom it says five aggregates. Aggregates, bundles, piles, heaps of body and mind. So whenever we say body and mind, that's an abbreviation for the five skandhas. In a way you could say they're all mind, because if I were to let go of body and mind, drop off body and mind, then body and mind might do all kinds of selfish things. Because that's the only perspective the self has. But actually, this is part of our trust we need to have. Yeah, it's again, it's another ridiculous view that makes no sense, but we really feel it. That fear is based on nothing, but it's so deep. Just like the view. They're almost the same. The fear is so woven around the view. Yeah? This is unselfish. This isn't the right time, but I've been thinking about this since the beginning of the class. If not now, later.

[36:32]

It suddenly occurred to me that if suffering... depends upon this view of the self. Doesn't the desire to end suffering also depend on this view of the self? That's a good question. What is the desire to end one's own suffering? Because it would think, like, if I do this, then the I that I am a little bit later on will not be suffering. Yeah, yeah, right, right. And in fact, I remember having this thought some while ago, really looking at this suffering thing a lot, and thinking like, well, like, what's this big thing about ending suffering? Like, why, you know, if we really like, if we really see like, well, just suffering is just another dependable co-arisoned thing, like, why are we so obsessed about ending suffering?

[37:33]

But in a way, that almost insight, you could say, kind of, in a way, is the end of suffering, or in the direction of the end of suffering, to even get to see, well, why are we trying to end it if it's not really the thing we think it is already, almost like that is, then it's no longer the same suffering anyway. But yeah, and also I think at the beginning we see, yeah, the self is all tied into the motivation for practice, to carry the Self forward and practice is how we start. And then at some point, maybe one could say, and this could be a longer discussion later too, but something like, almost like our Buddha nature takes over, or almost like the, Suzuki Roshi says it's wisdom seeking wisdom, right?

[38:37]

So it's almost like, something deeper than our self is almost like the free awakened nature of this body and mind starts to open to itself. It's hard to talk about, right? It starts to be revealed and it, just like the view of the self, is constantly trying to protect itself and maintain itself very strongly. Same with this, we could say, Buddha nature or true selflessness. Also, its greatest motivation is to completely reveal itself and maintain it and kind of take over, actually. That's how compassion arises, and I think that's exactly what it is. That's the other side that comes... At the same time. And maybe the motivation actually never is to end one's own suffering.

[39:43]

Maybe the actual motivation is this motivation. But it's true, the Mahayana compassionate thing kicks in at some point. See, we can't really be free if everyone's not. See, I think the short answer to the question from my point of view is yes. People are suffering and they go, I don't want to do this. And so they start looking around. I think that's the... the entryway is that something's wrong with my life. And I'm different. But I think that's why the Mahayana teachings of compassion are there. They're like afterburners that are put on top of that. But I would think that the simple answer is yeah. And also it's kind of paradoxical because in a way it's like the very thing that actually the me that's trying to end suffering the very end of it is the end of that view of me trying to end suffering, right? So it becomes... But that me doesn't actually want to end suffering, because that me feeds on suffering. Yeah, or almost like, I think this is also, but at first we think that I can do this.

[40:48]

We think I can carry the self forward and do the practice. But that's in the view of the self that's actually just like preventing the true practice. It gets very tricky. But then as time goes on, your sense of self starts changing when you study the practices. All of a sudden, your whole concept of self is different. So I think people do find... And over time in practice, I think probably most people have some experience of actually the whole way of thinking about practice is quite different than when starting practice. It actually does like... Like if you compare your mind to when you first came, like, yeah, I'm going to do this, this, and get rid of this. It's actually like, it's a whole different realm, but yet it can keep going in the same. Like we keep going to the Zendo, for example, but maybe there's less me doing it, because then we see that that works more fluently.

[41:54]

So we've got the Form Skanda. Ten types of forms, kind of. Now, the Abhidharma Kosha mentions this eleventh type that I don't think we want to get into today. That's this kind of subtle, unmanifested kind of form. But basically, these ten. Next one, feeling. Vedana, or sensation. This is not the feeling of emotion. Sometimes gets confused. This would be like... feeling like sensation and there's only three types the Buddha says and Abhidana Kosha says so there's many types of emotions but sensation is simply pleasant painful or neither and sometimes instead of neither they say like Tenshin Roshi says it's really there's no such thing as neither it's just that So it's just indiscernible. It has to be either pleasant or painful. And what we call neither is just like it's very slightly one or the other.

[42:58]

Just can't tell. So this is born from contact of the six sense organs and objects. So there you can see I'm feeling it based on form. The five sense organs and five sense objects when they make contact When the eye and the color make contact, there's feeling. And feeling is a dharma that's associated with every state of mind. So it might be neutral, but there's always a feeling whenever there's sense contact. That's kind of a big statement, I think, also. So the five sense organs, five sense objects. When they contact, which they can be doing multiple, you know, we have visual and auditory sensations at the same time, so it's very dynamic. And there's feeling, and it's changing all the time.

[44:00]

Again, and it's dependent on form. You can't just have a feeling floating in space. It's dependent on form. Conception, you know, in the Heart Sutra, we translate it as perception. And it's been a long time... for this class, looking into trying to clarify the difference between perception and consciousness. And there's, I think, more places I look, the more unclear it is in some ways. They're very related. But it does seem that, actually, I think conception is a much better definition for this skanda, samnya. The nya, by the way, means knowing. And Nya in Sanskrit is related to the English word gnosis or knowledge. Sanskrit and English have a lot of similar roots. So knowing, knowledge, is the root. So Vijnana in consciousness also has Nya.

[45:01]

It's also a kind of knowing. And Prajna is in kind of knowing also. And there's a nice statement I'll read about these three, comparing Samya, Vijnana, and Prajna. And also the Jnana. is like Buddha, Buddha wisdom, like non-dual gnosis. And there's other jnanas too, vijjñapti, we say like concept. So it's a common word looking at the mind. So perception is sometimes often translated as perception, or I think identification or discernment, kind of like labeling even. the labeling aspect of mind, or apprehension, and it's literally the apprehension of signs of sense objects. So, such as blue, red, yellow, long, short, and even, these might sound unusual, but like enemy, friend, man, woman, these seem like more than just like blue and red, right?

[46:07]

It's like kind of complex to distinguish between those. So this third skanda is is it's not just a pure perception of a color, necessarily. It can actually discern the difference between long and short, and enemy and friend at first glimpse. So there's some kind of... This sounds a little more different than we might think of perception. I think it's making concepts. It's using concepts. Conception. Conceiving. which is more, I could say, maybe dualistic, or breaking things down more than perception, in terms of these English words. And it can even conceive mental objects, like enemy and friend is a mental object, but also like impermanence. You can have a conception of impermanence, and the sense of the self, when we're doing this work of trying to discern, the sense of self.

[47:15]

we're using the third skanda. So as we start to look at the practice here, the practice, basically all five skandhas are used in the practice, and you don't need a self to do the practice. The five skandhas would grasp the self, and also the five skandhas do the work of liberation from the view. Amazingly. And by the way, all these are operating right now. This is our experience we're talking about. This is the beginning of the storyteller, it feels like. The very beginning. Just, yeah, starting to distinguish between things. And, you know, you might think... A little bit, yeah. Definitely anime and friend are stories. Yeah. And you might think that first there would be form, and then there would be this concept, and then there would be feeling.

[48:16]

And I think it could be this way. Again, these are not in chronological order. But one story that the Buddha tells that I'll read, after maybe we go through these, I'll read one story of the Buddha. And he put them in this order in terms of an experience, that first you have the sense organs and objects, then you have contact, then you have feeling, and then from the feeling... Then you have kind of after, in a sense, the feeling. All these could be one moment. But then there's the conception. For example, you put your hand over here and there's a candle, say, candle flame, without noticing it. Immediately if you have pain, the first thing is the sensation of pain. And then, oh, hot, hot flame. discerning it as hot flame after the pain. Then who put that candle there? What's that? Then who put that candle there in the story? Yeah, then this is going to be the fourth skanda.

[49:19]

This is really the story-making one. It's really the fourth where really the stories get going. Fabrications, formations, we say formations, right? Fabrications, karmic tendencies, habits, samskara, making things. Samskara is related to the word samskrita, which is compounded. So all dharmas are often classified into compounded or uncompounded. And as a little footnote, the language sanskrit is the same word as samskrita. So they name their language, you know, making. Because language makes things. So it would be like us calling English, do you speak English, do you speak making? could say. I think that's kind of neat. This common word, Sanskrit actually, is related to this skanda, etymologically. So the Buddha, I found interestingly, defines the four skanda as intention, chaytana, intention, which he also, chaytana is also, how the Buddha defines karma.

[50:31]

So this, it's called karmic formation sometimes. So this one's very related to karma. And so the Buddha just calls it intention in the early sutras. Then like the Abhidharma Kosha says, well, we have to classify all these other aspects of mind. Like I listed some like desire, anger, pride, and doubt. You know, do we need to have all these hundreds of skandhas? So all the ones that aren't listed in the others are just thrown into the fourth skanda. So it's this really huge skana that includes all these aspects like desire and anger are actually karmically conditioned. And they involve intention. Some maybe it'd be hard to see how they involve intention, because some of them are just like, well, laziness does, I guess. Some of them are... almost like they have to classify all these things.

[51:34]

Sometimes it's said to be 51. Different schools have different numbers of formation dharmas. And cetana, as a dharma, in these later lists, is just one of the 51 dharmas in the formations skanda. And again, so now in terms of getting more subtle, This one, I think, more than the first three, is easier to grasp as a self. Because it's almost like this is our personality. Our individual kind of uniqueness comes from this fourth skanda. The way we karmically respond to different situations, different than other people. And our stories of ourselves, and how it's totally... Chaotic, right? You can't straighten out this kind in particular.

[52:35]

It's just karmic mess. But it's totally no problem if it's not grasped as a self. Well, here's a big one story. Say, um... Well, like we started to do with the candle flame thing, you know, sense contact, ouch, painful feeling, candle flame, and then immediately before Skanda, oh, I got to get away from that, and like who put the candle there, and all the stories that come from that experience. It starts with conception, concepts are just mere identifying different things, and then this is like our karmic response, almost like our response, to the first three. Does that make sense? See, in that way I think you could see how it's kind of like, um, and you could also have a, you know, uh, a karmic response from the forest ganda to just, um, to feeling, maybe even before conception, although it seems like conception may be necessary to be in there, so I think chronological somewhat work, yeah.

[53:53]

Like intention, like, you know, the desire, like you want to fulfill your desire, so it's like chronological, like something hasn't happened or something. I think time, does anyone know if time is a dharma? In the fourth skanda, it's not. But I think our sense of time would be based on that, and the sense of, because karma, karmic cause and effect, is... based on this kind of illusion, actually, of time. So, and like, you know, this person does this, and, you know, I do some activity, and then it has some effect later on actually not me, but another person that's dependent on the person who did it. But also you could say, and the karmic effect actually comes back, the karmic fruition or effect is usually a feeling. This action leads to this pain or pleasure.

[55:01]

So you could say that the fourth skanda is like a cause and the second skanda is the effect. So I was kind of meditating on this one time and I said, well actually the fourth skanda could apologize to the second skanda for causing its pain. Like, I'm sorry I did that without like a self. You could play with that kind of idea. They're like, oh, like, because all these things, they're all out of control, right? So, and like the pain comes, and you said, like, I didn't do that, but like the fourth Skanda did this activity, and like, apologize, fourth Skanda. And it's actually the fourth Skanda that says to apologize, too. So all that kind of story. This one, almost like, almost like most of what we look at maybe is, and most of our experience is kind of happening in the fourth, but the other four Skandhas, you could say, are the kind of framework for how it all starts.

[56:03]

In a way, it's all built on sense experience. It's based on form. Yeah, it's based on form. It's all based on form. And nothing is really separate. And nothing's separate. All these five skandhas are constantly, dependently co-arising, meaning it's not like one leads to the next. Every moment, they're all interdependently arising together. And so we can't, this is also, you could mean by not straightening them out in terms of like, okay, that happened, that was the first, that's the second. We can't really break it apart. But to start to see how it works, how the mind works, it's a story, a fourth Skanda story of how the mind works. The model of the five Skandas is kind of a fourth Skanda. Yeah. What did you say? Right, it's a concept. Aren't mind objects dharmas?

[57:08]

But not like, for example, tables are not dharmas. That's a mind object. But we don't list table on the list because the list would become infinity. So time is one of those things that just didn't get included on the list because it's a mental fabrication. I mean, you could say, well, everything is, but... Yeah, for some reason, maybe they could have included... But, yeah, it's more like a concept, I think, actually. Is the sense of self a Dharma? No. No, they didn't include that one either. But we will... And actually, yeah, basic ignorance, like avidya, ignorance, that's the root of the whole thing, interestingly, also isn't classified as a Dharma, right? But... But kind of basic confusion, like moha, that's a dharma. Conceit and confusion. So you could say, well, maybe they didn't want to list ignorance because it encompasses so much of it.

[58:10]

It's almost like ignorance. You can take the five skandhas, and you can see the five skandhas with ignorance, and it's all like total suffering. Or you can see the five skandhas without ignorance, and it's not. So it's almost like to list that in it is redundant or something. But impermanence is the Dharma. No. No. The conception, it says, we can conceive of objects, objects like impermanence and sense of self. Those are objects, but they're not officially dharmas on the Dharma list. They're concepts. For people who are interested in this, there are these lists of dharmas, and it's interesting to see what they put in the fourth skanda. So there's 75 dharmas according to this school, 11 in the form skanda, 3 in the feeling skanda, 1 in the conception skanda.

[59:23]

that would include maybe all these different kinds of conceptions, but there's one. And actually, in Vasubandhu's list, at this point, there's only one consciousness or mind dharma, and then there's like 51 or so formation dharmas. So this is studying the mind, Buddhist psychology. This is Abhidharma. So to finish off the skandhas, consciousness or vijjnana, Cognition, awareness, knowing. So I wrote non-discriminating illumination of objects. Sometimes this consciousness is translated as discrimination, actually. So maybe if I were to rewrite this, I wouldn't say non-discriminating. But I wrote that to emphasize the difference between this one and conception, which really discerns this and this. And the feeling I get from... looking at these different descriptions, is that this one's more, compared to concepts, and this one's more basic, all-pervading, and it doesn't choose so much.

[60:40]

It's just illuminating whatever the experience is. And actually, I said there was one, but I was wrong, actually. There's six in the Abhidharmakosha, six consciousnesses. So five that go with the five senses. And they arise at the contact between eye and color. When eye and color make contact, eye consciousness is born. When ear and sound contact, ear consciousness is born. So these sense consciousnesses are just direct sensory knowing of a sense without the... without consciously knowing, in terms of mental consciousness. But then usually, then there's mental consciousness, the sixth consciousness, that operates with the same object at the same time as the sense consciousnesses.

[61:43]

So for a visual thing, there's the I consciousness arises with the I, so I and color brown. I consciousness, visual consciousness is born, and then at the same time there's mental consciousness that knows this as brown, experiences it as brown, and could say later, I saw brown. If you didn't have the mental part later, you wouldn't even know that the sense experience happened. So that's, I think, a nice point that the Sandhu Nirmocana Sutra says, is that chapter five kind of goes through these consciousnesses and it says that you know that the mental six consciousness operates at the same time and with the same object and it says there can be eye ear nose tongue body consciousness all going on five different ones but then there's only one mental consciousness even if all five of those are going on there's only one mental that encompasses all of them which is our

[62:48]

kind of awareness of the whole picture, right? And so this one, it's good that it's the last, because you can have this awareness of all the other four, and it's most like all-pervading. So in the story of the flame, say, contact, feeling, conception, flame, formation, hot getaway, and then awareness of the whole process. Awareness was also born right at the contact, There was touch consciousness, right? Body consciousness, right? At the touch. And mental, maybe there too. There was awareness there too. And then during all the other skandhas, there's awareness. So this one in particular is the most likely to grasp as a self. Even more than a personality. Yeah, yeah. And this is what other Indian schools say. this awareness, continuous, they say continuous awareness, right, all the time, this is the I, this is the big self, this is, um, never dies, never born, um, awareness, and just be that, and it's pretty good, right, if you can just like, almost like, um,

[64:08]

They talk about the witness, things like this, right? Witnessing consciousness. That's just witnessing the other four skanas. And just be the witness, and that's your true self. Pretty good. It's pretty good, but... But... Here's one story about this. I think a good story in Sutra 38, in the middle-length sayings. So, some of you might have heard this story about Sati, the son of a fisherman. So Sati, the son of a fisherman, had this pernicious view, and he went around telling the other monks about it, because he sounded really good. And they said, actually, the Buddha doesn't teach that. And he says, yeah, he does. And so then they go and tell the Buddha, and the Buddha says, bring Sati over. And so the Blessed One addressed Sati, the son of a fisherman.

[65:09]

and says, um, uh, Sati, is it true that the following pernicious view has arisen in you? Quote, as I understand the Dharma taught by the Blessed One, it is the same consciousness that runs and wanders through the round of rebirths, not another. This awareness, this, um, undying, unborn awareness is what's reborn, right? It continues to, you might, I think this sounds somewhat like he thought that the Buddha taught this because it sounds like some of the things the Buddha teaches. And Sati says, exactly so, Venerable Sir. As I understand the Dharma taught by the Blessed One, it is the same consciousness that runs and wanders through the round of rebirths. You could say round of rebirths could be moment-to-moment rebirth, too. That consciousness is... It's the same consciousness that runs through all these rebirths, all these lives.

[66:10]

It's all awareness, right? Yeah, awareness or consciousness or knowing. There's this basic knowing that runs through all these lives. And this is what I think that you teach, Buddha. And we can say the round of rebirths different lives or we could just say rebirth is this birth every moment, right? So we can say there's this continuous awareness that runs through the birth of every moment. but the awareness is continuous. Sounds good. We could practice this way, and it would be quite helpful, I think. But then the Buddha asks, what is that consciousness, Sati? Tell me about this one that you think is like this. And he says, Venerable Sir, it is that which speaks and feels and experiences here and now are the result of good and bad actions. This is the basic consciousness. Self with a capital S, right? The one that, the Experiencer. I think we talked about last time one of the words for Self we could call it the Experiencer.

[67:15]

Or some, you know, school has talked about it. The Witness. Pretty good. And even some Buddhist schools talk a little bit like this. So it's interesting. Some of the Tibetan views get very close to this, but they're very careful to clarify it. But it gets tricky, right? So then the Buddha says, Misguided man, to who have you ever known me to teach the Dharma in that way? Misguided man, in many discourses have I not stated consciousness to be dependently arisen, since without a condition there is no origination of consciousness. Consciousness only arises when the subject, the organ, and the object contact. Definition of the arising of contact. Those are the conditions, I mean, for consciousness. Those are the conditions for consciousness, including mental consciousness. You need a mental organ and a mental object, like a thought.

[68:18]

You need a mind and a thought make contact, and mental consciousness is born. It's hard to talk about this one, but the mental one. So... It's the penalty co-arism, he says. Therefore, it can't just continue through life to life like this, right? But, misguided man, you misrepresented us by your wrong grasp and injured yourself and stored up much demerit, for this will lead to your harm and suffering for a long time. This is one of the kind of stricter sutras of the Buddha. He really rubs it in, too. Yeah, then he asked all the other monks, what do you think about Sati? And then, you know, later on, Sati sat silent dismayed with shoulders drooping and head down, glum and without response. So, anyway, but then he understands this new view.

[69:22]

So actually, after he gets over his glumness, I think he's really happy that he heard the new view. So that's... I think it's a good little passage because that point isn't specifically explained like that so much. That's a question. How does karma get passed on? I mean, obviously it's action that cause and effect, but how can it be? for the same person. You know how people are the same person? Well, it's not the same person. Yeah, exactly. But it seems like it is, and that's part of our problem, and part of why karma is so much of our problem. So this is something to meditate with, this no-self thing. How does this karmic effect thing work? Because actually, let's talk about the Buddha that sees the end of karma, actually, even though there's still activity, And cause and effect, so conventionally speaking, it's not like the effect comes back to the same person, because there isn't the same person.

[70:32]

And yet, there is this law, a conventional law. So, this is a point to meditate on. The conventional law is that good... Action always leads to good result, and that unwholesome action always leads to unwholesome result. But yeah, how to practice with this point without inherently existing self is something to meditate on. Okay, so any questions about... Oh, well, let me do one more thing about the last Skanda, the consciousness Skanda. So there's these six, right? And then the mind-only school, Yogacara or Chitta-Matra school, adds two more consciousnesses in the Skanda.

[71:37]

And I think it's this interesting point to mention. You don't need to do this. The other schools don't do this. But they kind of, I think they're partly added on... to actually work with this notion of the self. Because first the eighth, we'll skip to seventh for a minute, the eighth is called alaya vijjnana. It's a vijjnana, it's a consciousness. Alaya is the storehouse consciousness. And this also goes to the question of karma. This is the storehouse of all the karmic effects. It's not a thing, it's not a place, it's a consciousness, but it stores the effects of all karmic activity in the form of seeds. So seeds are planted, and they use this image of seeds. Karmic seeds are planted from activities, and the seeds give rise to fruit and come to karmic fruition.

[72:37]

And that's partly to explain karma without a self, actually. And... And in the Sandhya Nirmotana Sutra, the Buddha says, I don't, you know, this flowing alaya with all its seeds, flowing like a river, is easily mistaken for a self. Therefore, I don't teach this alaya to children. In his verse at the end of chapter 5, if you want to read that. Anyway, the seventh consciousness is like the mind, the afflicted mind, consciousness, and they sometimes say this is the, in the mind-only school, they say the seventh consciousness is the conventionally existent self. In the middle way school of Nagarjuna, they say the conventional I, that's not refuted, the mere I, that's not refuted, is a mental imputation dependent on

[73:45]

the five skandhas. The Mayanomi school says the conventional mere I is the seventh consciousness. So this is a complex thing to meditate on. And it's the seventh consciousness, actually, the way it seems to be an I, is it believes that the eighth consciousness, alaya, is the self. The seventh consciousness holds the view of the eighth consciousness as the self. And the seventh one, as it's defined, is afflicted with self-view. The seventh consciousness is afflicted with self-view, self-pride, self-esteem, and self-conceit, is it? Self-love, yeah. So it kind of seems to me, this idea I haven't heard put quite this way, but that the sense of self that we're looking for, this false sense of self, I just throw this out as a creative idea, that maybe this sense of self that we're looking for, that's going to get refuted, is the seventh consciousness.

[74:56]

We're looking forward to feel this elusive seventh consciousness, which actually, they say, in an arhat, the seventh consciousness ends. The other ones keep, the first six keep going, but the seventh ends, and so does the eighth, actually, for an arhat. this seems like, maybe this is a way to see, well, this sense, because we say sense of self, it's almost like it's another sense. So maybe the school said, we can feel the sense, and it's such an important thing, let's make another, let's call it another dharma. So that goes back to your question about the sense of self being a dharma. Maybe we could say in the mind-only school that the seventh consciousness is the sense of self. And this is just, I just, I'm not doing, I take no responsibility for this view. But meditate on that and get back to me next week if you think it's true. Then it would be a dharma, yeah. That's in the fourth skanda.

[76:05]

Yeah, it's one of the dharmas in the fourth skanda. And you could say that most of the dharmas in the fourth skanda come to be, I don't know, I'd have to look at the list, but many of them come to be due to the false belief in the self. For example, desire arises due to this false belief. And I think it's an important point that I do want to mention tonight, so thank you for bringing it up, that when the view is seen through, when the view is ended, the view of the inherently existing self ends, the view ends, desire, as a Dharma, still can continue, and usually will, because of this karmic working. It's become a habit. Even though the basis of it, its original basis, is now gone, that view is now gone, The karmic habit can continue for a while.

[77:11]

This would be like the path of cultivation, where things like anger, also is in this one, is based on the view. Anger can continue for a stream-enter, who's experienced the end of this view. These, we'll call, unwholesome dharmas can still continue for a while, but for an arhat, for example, they don't. They're gone. But there's this long path of practice between stream, enter, and arhat. And this is basically what it is. It's like applying the new view to all these dharmas that were created by the false view. Seeing how they don't make sense anymore. And almost like training the habits, which I think I said last time could almost happen automatically without working to train them. Through the wisdom of the view, they change. I think Thich Nhat Hanh in the transformation at the base, he talks about the seventh consciousness as being the problem.

[78:18]

Yeah, it definitely seems to be the problem, whether it actually is identical to the view of self, to the sense of self. Yeah, he might say that too. So this is the five skandhas. Now you can go into this, if you want, on this meditation on self and not self, you can start I didn't check to see if everybody's been having trouble finding the sense, the seven continents, or the sense of the I. If you have, do that first, it's helpful, and then you can start, now you get the sense of the five skandhas, start seeing how could this I be identical to these different skandhas, which we know now are dependently co-arisen, meaning they're like ceasing and arising, dependent on each other, out of control, moment to moment. Could it be this same? Or could it be different? And how does it relate? How do the skandhas and the self relate? And this is Nagarjuna.

[79:20]

Next time we'll start going to Nagarjuna. How is that going to work? What happens to the difference between the sense of self? I keep thinking of it as the sense of self versus I. I mean, I can't locate the I very easily anymore intellectually. Not intellectually. I think this is a feeling. Yeah, feeling, sense of it. It's what we're looking for. Yeah, I think more important than the intellectual one for the meditation. Find the sense, and while keeping the sense in mind, then start investigating, is this the same as the body, feelings, conceptions, and so on, and the combination of all five together. And so many ways to find the sense. For example, if it starts getting past nine o'clock and you start getting anxious or something, that's your sense of self. It's the belief that the one that's up tonight is the one that's going to be tired in the morning. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So we have that whole thing. And we really believe it's true, too, right? Yeah, we do.

[80:20]

And it's not that there's no cause, it's not that there's no effect of staying up late, right? That's right. Because there's one that's going to be sleepy in the morning. Even if it's not this one, there is one. Yeah. And will that one, will how that one relate to sleepiness in the morning, too? Will they be like... This is like, if only I hadn't, if only Owl hadn't kept talking. He, that self in him, you know, I know his skandhas are out of control. But it wouldn't be the same owl in the morning either. Yeah, but you might think it might be. At 9 o'clock every Monday night, I might think it's the same owl. Yeah, and you might, tomorrow morning, when you're feeling tired, you might look at the person who looks like me. Until Monday night at 9 o'clock. That's when it comes up. Well, it's a good way to see it, right? Could this one really exist? So, yeah, we'll continue next time.

[81:24]

So, during the week, if you have questions about any of this stuff, we can discuss it in the dining room, for example. Thank you.

[81:43]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_89.71