Surangama Sutra Class

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in intention
i think that this is our last the class in the server answer

welcome to our visitors
have you
but i'll warn you in the beginning that it's very difficult texts were studying in
it's hard to understand and we ourselves don't really understand very well so how can we possibly exploded so if it seems a little bit
seems a little bit
but
i apologize in advance
usually to do i was to
text
look for a laser you
so i probably would really didn't
but i enjoyed like many things that are good for us and that we enjoy we don't do them unless we can have forced into it
so
i'm glad to be forced into having read this sure ago sutra and i was doing that today
and i really became mixed up and confused partly it was my state of mind but also the text is guilty in part as well very hard to understand the sutra especially the particular part that will go disgust tonight
i would like to
this evening
go through we can necessarily more read every word but
go through the whole expanse of the sutra as it speaks of we began at last time as he speaks of the nature of the consciousness
in terms of the five skirt is the six cent stores
the twelve locations or contact realms and eighteen
curtis this is
so i'll try to cover that tonight and it'll be good at any point because we're gonna take up the sutra again sometimes the future whatever it is that when we have another round glasses
will resume study the supersets kind of a good starting point
so i got so confused that i was trying to think you know now what is the suitor about and what doesn't have to do with anything and where who is studying listen
so on it's always good to return to those kinds of questions
so i was asking myself this the
i was reminded myself that
well
the main thing is as always in buddhism but not only buddhism but in the spiritual journey
suffering first their suffering and the recognition of suffering and and the ultimate sir built in this satisfaction
of existence itself even when things go well
so that that's that and then us so early in the early buddhism there was the antithesis of this which is peace
the cessation of suffering cessation blowing up letting go the ending of suffering
so this is early basically that's early buddhism or and suffering in the end of suffering in cessation and then
the great my other pundits came along and said well where do you suppose this cessation of suffering is
where would you find it
is it in another location the suffering is located over here in the cessation of suffering is located over there
the cessation of suffering is located prior i mean the anterior in time in otherwise in located in space from the suffering in the great my honest pundits said that makes no sense they they actually proved logically that this couldn't be so
that that actually the suffering the cessation of suffering must be in the middle of the suffering that the nature of the suffering to begin with must already be the cessation of itself
which sounds funny in a way but psychologically and spiritually turns out to be true so they said things like
all dharmas are empty
meaning that they're already sensation
and in and they said things like form is emptiness emptiness is form
the word suffering is cessation of suffering and cessation of suffering is nothing but the suffering
it's not too different things at some distance apart in space and time there it's one thing except we don't recognize its nature so we have to wake up this is the meaning of the word buddha of course as you know as to wake up to the nature of the suffering in the cessation of suffering and then
we find some life
that is deeply true and
satisfying to ourselves
so far good you know that he said then
but so this is a statement about the nature of reality right that reality is suffering and cessation of suffering simultaneously that's a description of reality but then somebody might say well that's good i i like i agree with it i agree with that i liked that very much i am all for that but
here i am suffering and
my experience of the world
is
only arrives
a place that i can call it experience because of my consciousness because i have consciousness
i receive whatever this reality as i agree that isn't that it's the way you say this but i only received this reality in terms of consciousness
so then well we have to discuss than what is consciousness what is the nature of consciousness
so while the majestic a school schools of my own of buddhism the emptiness teaching schools
discuss the nature of reality the yoga charter schools discuss the nature of mind
in recognition of the fact that
nord practice we have to work with mind that descriptions of reality are it's important to be straight about that and how that clear but it also is necessary to understand the subject in a way is is not quite right but you could say that that the doctrine of emptiness describes the object ourselves
as an object in the world as an object how it is but the yoga charter schools describe as speak of the subject
ah how the mind works how the consciousness perceives and someone
so this is the issue and gamasutra that were studying is as sutra the yoga charter school of buddhism and it's a suitor that is concerned with a discussion of the nature of mind the nature of consciousness
so then they're so that so the the
you could say early buddhism said in effect form
the world of
stuff
suffering physical and mental world for an emptiness are two different things we gotta go from for him to emptiness neuron the my honor school said for of an emptiness
our one of the same thing to names for the same thing we have to understand and the yoga school says mind is not form not emptiness
so it's it's another
step in the dialectic so to speak
so that's what we're finding as we study the sutra that that initially and under who does not understand the nature of consciousness is always speaking the buddha in the matter what he's always put as constantly this abusing him of all the different ways in which he thinks of consciousness as is something we think
of consciousness as if it were something as if it were a thing in this world like everything else
and we do we think of ourselves as things in this world like everything else
but
consciousness is not a thing in this world like everything else
it isn't a thing at all
and so had the buddha's constantly pointing this out to another and ananda is say oh yeah i get it then it must be like this and the witnesses now and then he says it's not like that either and keeps serve almost like taking away all the notions that another has of consciousness and then even says
you can even say that consciousness is or isn't
because we could say well it's not a thing it's a process or it's not a thing it's a for sir it's so we can use all kind of words but this is not to even say that it's anything at all
to say that it is to say they live in exists or doesn't exist
both of those propositions would be incorrect
to say that consciousness is independent of
the mind
and the object of the mind
is wrong to say that it's dependent on the mind or the object of the mind is also wrong
so basically all assertions that we would make about consciousness always end up to be assertions about something in fact that is what an assertion is an assertion is an assertion always about something whether we call it a physical thing or process aura an idea or whatever it's always something so
so actually it turns out that know assertions can be made about consciousness at all
and we then we notice how many assertions we have in her mind about country we have a very distinct if unexamined ideas about consciousness that we deeply believe
in other words we have very distinct ideas about who we think we are that we are convinced as i say they're usually quite unexamined but we haven't very strongly nevertheless and were very convinced of course this is how it is this is who i am this is what the world is this is how what if what a person is but the sutra
is telling us that actually not only are we wrong about all that
but it's that very
maraniss about exactly that that causes us to be and the words of the sutra upside down in relation to our whole approach to life
so the suit was trying to turn us right side up by showing us through a kind of what we have found to be a kind of bizarre and not too logical chinese style of logical
the indians do better i think with logic and chinese logic is very strange we're finding and we don't know how much of that comes from the fact that
chinese as a language is very ill suited to the expression of logical propositions and how much that is due to the fact that we might have a faulty english translations are tell him we don't know chinese or were in the dark you know but anyway we're we're finding as we go along with these arguments
that they seem
like what
and i'm saying that because it's even worse this week
if you think if you're even imagined but it's worse this week so i'm going to start and it's gonna be very easy because are not easy brief and maybe i prefer because rather than it's it's a formulaic
in other words
the sutra dutifully go through five gallon as the six
since gigs the the twelve
the twelve items which is the sense gates and objects and the eighteen doctors and realms which is the soundscape object and consciousness that goes along with it because through each and so those likes this discussion a whole discussion about one through six once through twelve and one through eighteen but it's formulae once you'd get from
one than you know president so i actually did more or less
go through and read on them but i don't recommend it it makes a little crazy and we don't have to do that tonight we just have to go through the first one of each of the sections and except
we with the scotus will take up where we left off last time
last time we discussed the first
a scandal is gone the of form
this time we'll start where left off with this kind of feeling feelings and then
well jump to the first member of each section and see if we get through them that parliament so
the scanners
are the words gonna means heap a pile
and i sort of like when you're doing your laundry in you make pilaf
whites and the pile of darth and any of this big hampering you sorted out while it's like got the mind is a big hamper full of dirty clothes
which we call me
and we say that's me big pile of dirty clothes that's how it is
it's this big
might hamper his green it's called green cloth and up or so i say i have this green cloth hamper full of honest thirty cause i don't know what's in there but i see the green trip that's me so the buddha said no no no that's the an unsuccessful way of looking at your life instead of that you should take the stuff out of the hamper and sorted into pots one will for lights one for die
sharks and one for the in betweens when for delicate someone one for permanent press five scarlets on console
the five yard is our first of all this kind of form that means physical matter
only one of them has to do with physical matter
some
in our culture is very concerned with this one but that's only twenty percent of the stuff that's in the hamper
think about that so then what is form the other one the second one is feeling or sensation and that is the
primordial largely unconscious
reaction that we have whenever there's perception of anything
and there's basically three kinds of reactions the buddha taught what is
i really want this i would like to like have it forever
the second one is i hate this and i'm outta here
and the third one is
i'm confused i kind of your both those things or anita
so those are the three reactions that we have anything that we perceive those a cop feelings and the third one is called a perception sometimes it's called thinking or conceptualisation because we put together as we all know bunch of in inchoate impressions the mind gathered all
this together and sort of ties it up neatly in and says oh that's council or that such and such so perception is actually conception that's the third scanned and the forests gun is the activity life going forward activity that comes out of our perception we perceive a world and all of automatically
we think i'm going to do some about that
and so all the energy of our life that says we gotta do something about it is the forest canada of impulses for thought formations are there are various translations for the scandal
which has to do with you know like i gotta do something about it and in the last fiscal that is called consciousness awareness the field of awareness in which all this takes place so that's one
we can take those same clothes out of that and we can sort them in a variety of different ways like we could say let's put all the cotton things over here and all the wolf things over there we decided not to do it that we were with the colored things and white things and so on so you could see that with any hampers with of clothing there's many many ways right that you could sort it out let's take all the things that are for so
summer and all things that are the winner and so forth and so so the skybus are not an absolute
the way of sorting out what's inside the hamper in the virtue of having various ways of sorting things absolutely things in the hamper out is that we would then recognize that it was a bunch of stuff in a hamper instead of me
and it's the me idea that is so
troublesome
because it's about me than you know why are all these people like doing what i want
why is it that like for example i feel like that my body should get younger why is it getting older and i'm like them things like that big thing if you type that are like series
so better to sort things out and see more clearly what it is it's in there rather than their this the fundamental kind of idea like that so anyway that's just no good about the scandals i'm doing this for the benefit of the guess who might not know what this guy is are assuming that everybody else
us knows perfectly well with the scanners are but maybe not so that's why i that be were value anyway for the rest of you
now we're on the second scarlett
this kind of feelings now feelings has to do with like as the emotions of recoiling or desiring but it also has to do with physical sensations it's the same thing because when we have a physical sensation with feel a sensation when you're like scraping the farm or him and that's an immediate kind
a feeling which is either pleasant to me or not pleasant for me
the same thing where it's a mental or physical object so now booed is going to discuss the the nature of that skanda of feeling what does that really like what is it a mountain
stock into another he says another consider the example of a person his hands and feet
are relaxed and at ease and whose entire body is in balance and harmony
he is unaware of his life processes because there is nothing agreeable or disagreeable in his nature
well there was nothing's going on so there's nothing to pay attention to
however so this is a state of like he says balance happiness and ease without anything that the the mind would turn its attention to that's agitating it or pleasuring it or in any anyway giving any reason to look just a kind of a free-floating feeling of well-being without a pretty
color object
however for some unknown reason
and this very important as it for some unknown reason and like out of the blue
the person
rubs his two hands together
in the middle of emptiness
so literally that's rubbing hands to get actually it's unpleasant to do that because it starts the friction that can cause hear something so then he does that and sensations of roughness smoothness cold and warmth seem to arise from nowhere
between his palms it's amazing when you think about just take your palms together and there are a number of different sensations that arise you know what you do that
where did that come from
right how can have it was that in your palm where'd that come from it so yeah so that's what he's going to analyze them so that happens out of nowhere so this is like you know for no apparent reason this happens out of so this is a very simple thing about rubbing your palm together but it's also about the initial arising of sensei
nation in the world
for no apparent reason where there is just as a feeling of stasis and well-being for no apparent reason this happens and sensation were there was none ever before suddenly arises
so he says you should know that it is the same with this kind of feeling this is an example of the skanda of feeling or sensation and under all this illusory contact it's illusory this contact even though we experience it what is the nature of it's a lose
surrey contact it does not come from emptiness
there was empty space where it were rubbing your hands together we're all the time surrounded by empty space right if it weren't for empty space there wouldn't be anything it's thanks the space which nobody knows what that is exactly space you know what a space isn't a thing where space is not anything
but because there is somehow space forms can exist within space and when we rub our hands together we're doing that in the middle of space but that come to the feeling that we have
when we rubber hands together doesn't come from the space
it also doesn't come from the hands
the reason for this amount that is that if it came from the space
then since the space could make contact with the palms of hands why wouldn't the space make contact with the rest of the body
it should not be that emptiness chooses what it comes in contact with
if you say that the rubbing the palms together is to the sensation that we feel is due to the space then why don't we feel the same sensation all the time the rest of our body why is it only only rub our palms together that we feel that particular sensation so it's not because of this face
if it came from the palms
that why can't it be felt without rubbing the farms together why don't if i just have one palm you know like
why don't i feel it i only feel it when i do this i don't feel it when i do that if it was in the palms why wouldn't i feel it anyway without rubbing the prompts to get what is more if it were to come from the palms than the palms would know
when they were joined
some of the palms had this capacity to create this kind of sensation than they themselves would know that they were doing when they see when they are separated the contact that they generated would return to the arms the risks the bones and a marrow and you should also be aware of the course of its entry for somehow
if that was in the hands this capacity than
the the hand of the sensation with big would flow summer from the hands you saying throughout the body just feel it elsewhere if it were there
it should also now not may not buy this but this is what it says it should also be perceived by the mind because it would behave like something coming in and going out of body in that case what need with there be to put the to palms together to experience what it's called contact in other words we know already that if you know like if we cut our heads off
even though he rubbed our palms together we wouldn't have that sensation because it depends on us having a brain nervous system rose that just in the palms or in space it's also in the brain and nervous system in the consciousness but if it came from the consciousness so it's not in the palms it's not in space and it's not unconsciousness either because of it came from consciousness than why
i would we have to rub the palms together that experience it why would we just be able to say okay nine and experience the feeling of the rubbing of the palms together who needs the palms but we can't do that even though we're very smart people
we won't have a memory of it we could have a memory of it but the memory or that we would know very clearly is not the same thing as this actual sensation
so all these elements seem to be relevant the space the palms
the mind
but none of them
if you look for that sensation you don't find it in any of those different places right therefore you should know the bullet precludes now having said all that therefore you should know
that the scandal of feeling is empty and false
because it needed depends on causes and conditions
for existence nor is spontaneous in nature
so this is the formula that ends all of these
both arguments
in other words
what is it comes down to comes down to the fact that we have to admit that we have a sensation when you rub the palms together
but if we try to analyze how that comes to be
we actually don't know
the reality status of that sensation of the palms rubbing together is something that actually is a great big cipher all we can all we know is that we have some sort of experience but we don't know where it comes from or what it's measure it is
that's consciousness consciousness is the experience that is what enables us to have that experience and consciousness so is saying it's not that consciousness is independent of those conditions he's not saying that that without all this we wouldn't feel the rather than the party just saying that that
this all has to come together but the experience of the rubbing of the palms together is does not explain by all those conditions it needs those kids that apart from the conditions but it's neither is it in the conditions
somehow it arises out of nowhere and passes away into nothing we really don't know how or why and we really can't and when we say i feel that sensation all the words in that sentence are subject to great doubt i feel that sensation all those
how shall we say conventional expressions
if we were to analyze any one of them we will not be able to find what does was actually referred to
so it's not a matter of depending on causes and conditions nor is it outside of the causes and conditions it's the spontaneous arising in the neighborhood of these things
and then he's gonna go on and say the same thing about
no perception
and also consciousness but i think that i'll be the one about kind of this because consciousness is somewhat different so i'll read that one and then i will will surpass her moment and see everybody looks stricken over there
i'm only reading the sutures don't blame it on the this is just where it says it's about passion speaker are you feeling better know hogan
there are you gonna say it
so
let's say
oh yes
so
ananda this is the one about consciousness that i'm skipping over a procession and activity there interesting to learn i skipped us
consciousness that this is the fifth scanner another
this is the for the formulas the same an example and then an analysis of example and in a conclusion which is always say so another consider for example a person who picks up a karlovic of pitcher
and stops up it's two holes the kalinka is a kind of a bird and mythical bird so this is apparently maybe they had in china or somewhere pitchers you know that would hope vessels that how that were in shape of this kind of a bird and somehow they have to holzer
maybe like a double mast
the pitcher something that andrew anyway suppose you pick up such a pitcher and you stop it's two holes
the person lifts up the pitcher which is you know is filled with emptiness which is to say it's empty in so it's filled with infinite space
and walks a thousand miles
and he takes the picture to another country
and put it down there
you should know that the skanda of consciousness is the same way
thus another the space does not come from one place nor does it go to another place
have you take a picture and stop it up therefore enclosing the space inside it so that he can escape and take the picture you know to japan you get an airplane with the pitcher and take you to japan
did you then take space can you do that can you read can you buy take a piece of space
from here and move it over there
no she didn't have the space that had moved from one place to the other
the space is just like consciousness actually
and we space enables us to in a physical matter to exist just the same way consciousness enables us to have experience in the illusion that were alive and everything but what is it like what his face when you think about it i mean you realize that it's ridiculous the idea that you're going to like
have you remove some air me the japan that's true but space is not the same thing as air air is in space is included in spain drape the space is what enables the air to be held inside of space isn't air
so air we can move to japan in a pitcher but space it seems absurd doesn't it the idea that you take a piece of space
and move it from one place to know so consciousness is just the same the reason for this another in case you wondered if you want want to know i know well the reason for this amount is that if it were to come from another place
then
when the stored up emptiness in the pitcher went elsewhere
are stored up space in the pitcher went elsewhere there would be less space in the place where the pitcher was originally
the black hole and
yeah but if that doesn't happen you know i mean who knows what happens in space there but in this in this black planet
so how can that be took the space and your breed flew to japan but there's no less space to know over here where you started from so therefore it shows that you didn't really move that space to japan at all
if it were to enter this region when the holes are unplugged and the pitcher was turned over you would see the space come pouring out but you don't see that
right
make sense
everything at once the him to fly
therefore five episode and therefore you should know that the scanned of consciousness is empty and false since it needed depends upon causes and conditions for existence nor is spontaneous in nature
so again
it's pointing out that our conceptualisation of consciousness
is fine as far as a go-to when you really examine if you can't really conceptualise consciousness nothing you you can't really assert anything about it you don't really know what it is the same way we don't really know what spaces i mean space so logically seems to exist because of mathematics and stuff like that but we don't really know what it is
it's it's it's it's a like a logical category somehow but nobody but it was really seems to exist but what it is or how it exists no nonsense and consciousness is is exactly the same way
so next
ah he's gonna discuss the six entrances which is the sixth
sense the six cents gates six cent stores
which are the eyes the ears nose the tongue the body which is to say the sensation the quality of the skin and software that enables us to feel sensation that's five and the last of the sense organs
according to the buddhist analysis of mind
his mind mind is a sense organ the each organ has a particular kind of object that it relates to
ah
you can't see a sound but you can hear a sound
ah and you can't
taste something that you see unless you put it up to your tongue so each other was each it's like six different totally different categories of sensory experience and the mind
can experience thoughts
where emotions
so the mine
has its own kind of object non physical object
and plus the sixth sense organ also interacts with the other five to produce the experiences of the other five said service
so now he's going to analyze these five
sensory functions
i'll start with the first one

he begins and this is interesting and very important the way that each one of these six begins
moreover and under
why do i say
that the six entrances have their origin in the wonderful nature of true such this the treasury of the thus com one
so
this is the whole point of all this the milk a moment ago we were discussing the sort of so to speak negative aspect of the fact that we are noticing the buddha was helping us to notice that our all of our experiences
our on an inexplicable
an unknowable
which gives us an unsettled feeling perhaps
but he's saying now he say that this is because
all of our experiences are none other than the wondrous mind of enlightenment
so enlightenment is not like elsewhere
in something other than some colored lights flashing or some like some of the movies that you see nowadays and cosmic televisions you know and which we think enlightenment some kind of cause it's not like that it's actually and hears in the actual nature of our ordinary everyday sensory experience which we
of our habitual conceptualisation which arises for no reason originally
have reduced
our experience of the world to something very small and and satisfactory
but if we really paid attention to what it is that our experience is we would actually recognize eventually that it's the limitless minds of buddha
or that's where the way it would be said in a buddhist sutra or you could say that
it's you could say that it's it's the whole world is nothing but the mind of god
something like that depending on how how you how whatever kind of explanation but you see what's being said here the world is already this little world that is so oppressive to us sometimes and which we don't know where we came from to get here who knows how you got here we all know like
logically there was a time when we weren't here
and we all also know logically there was a time when when we won't be here
a time when we won't be here but where did we come from and where are we going nobody really knows that right
nobody has the faintest idea even though every this very smart scientist human beings are brilliant brilliant human beings the things that could think and do unbelievable you know but nobody knows has a clue even as the where we came from and where we're going and what buddhists buddha saying is where we came from and where we're going is
the wondrous mind of buddha about which know assertions can actually made me made other than to give some sort of description like that that doesn't really mean too much like the wonders mind the buddha god or something and furthermore not only that but that that place that we're going to and from which we came is actually
yeah this place that we're in right now and it's totally their through all acts of consciousness because it is consciousness and this big consciousness only comes forth when we run our hands together open our eyes or ears or nose or smell or hear whatever it is it's not contain and limited
by all that but it only comes up when that comes up and we've reduced down to
something very small and in a result of that were suffering were fighting one another we're grabbing you know something from each other because we think that we don't have it
when all the time were swimming and is limitless ocean of reality which is everywhere shining forth some other place in the sutra i think we read that it's as if we were a little bubble on the ocean and this bubble on the ocean is of course the ocean it's not safe
from the ocean right it's it's manifestation for a moment that the ocean throws up by this little bubble it's as if there's little bubble were say i know i'm so depressed and this system the bubble you know where we're going and i'm doing analysis to awful meantime you're this you're actually the whole ocean while you're complaining and saying all that
it's the ocean talking to them
so this is the situation that we're in so here he says
nice as saw i'm saying is why why do i say that the six entrances have their origin in the wonderful nature of true such this the treasury of the thus come on
why do i say that ananda although the eyes staring
causes for tea
the eye and the fatigue originate in enlightenment
staring eyes give rise to the characteristic of fatigue
because a sense of seeing is stimulated in the midst of the to false the filing objects of light and dark the filing appearances are taken in this is called the nature of seeing
apart from the to defiling objects of light and dark this seeing is ultimately without substance
thus another you should know i may go through something and go back through many unexplained a little bit best i can thus and on the you should know that seeing does not come from light or dark nor does it come forth from the sense organ the i nor is it produced from emptiness from space
although all those things and to be present it's not in any one who just the same as the analogy with rubbing the palm tree why
if it came from light than it would be extinguished
when it start
and you would not see darkness but even when it's dark you see darkness if it came from darkness than it would be extinguished when it is light and you would not see like suppose it came from the i
which is obviously has nothing to do it itself with light or dark a nature of seeing such as this would have no self nature
i think what it means here is that if it came from the i how could the i ever have anything to do with light and darkness it has no in the it side the odd is nothing in it that connects with light or darkness if it were in the i would you see lot of darkness there's no way to get in there
because it came forth from emptiness when it looks in front of you had sees the shapes of the filing dust turning around and would see your sense organs
then if it came from the space than a space would be seen with would say spaces the than everywhere you look around it's like paranoia like i say before even company like everything's looking at me you know like the birds and trees and leaves and every tree the air itself was looking at me know what it's creepy was not fun because
they don't have the capacity to see so seeing doesn't come from space
therefore you should know that the i entrance is empty and false and is needed depends upon causes and conditions for existence nor is spontaneous in nature
so this part of about fatigue and everything
this is very interesting again and all these discussions sharing karma sutra despite the fact that
the buddha said in an early sutra that town
i do not discuss the beginnings of things
here the sharing gamasutra is actually discussing how it is because the problems issue gamasutra is that since everything without exception is none other than the light of buddhist i so to speak were shining reality itself or god
how is it that everything's such a mess you know how did this all this happened like why isn't it why isn't the world is the a beautiful pulsing glow
without all the stuff in it bumps into itself and know like skin abrasions and cuts and bruises to station the wars and pain and suffering and misunderstanding why would all that have to exist you know if everything were true
lee that's a lesson that that's why that's true and kama sutra sort of essay is a kind of explanation of all that and it's has to do it's very much like here like the earlier it said the palms or rub together for no apparent reason
here it says
the eyes staring
causes for fatigue
and the fatigue
the originates in enlightenment
in staring and the teague cause there to be kind of like the bible you know and let there be light
flint they realized that causes like because of the eyes and of staring into fatigue light comes to be where once there was no line there was a kind of primordial perfection
now because of the eyes and the staring
light comes to be and when there's life there's darkness and when we have enlightened darkness though are just a product of this petite
and then we have site which is then proves doesn't come to live in darkness doesn't come from the eyes doesn't come from the space and yet doesn't exist apart from them independent of them
neither neither country of them nor is independent
so i was thinking about this today and i think that the
the idea of fatigue is but it really amounts to is
duration right
duration in time
as soon as there's duration in times
we end up with
this world us sitting in this room
wearing clothes and having bodies that the a and so forth and so
because of this initial arising of time and duration step by step by step the whole world is created
oh and know this is not a mistake it's not that we're in exile from this perfection that we should have maintained but didn't
it's that
the enlightenment itself
needed to
unfold in this way
this is what it needed to do this was it its nature was to unfold in this way
the world in which eventually there would be the kind of consciousness that we have
that would have the capacity
to create a very small world of suffering and
to turn that world around and open spiritual
saw it personally this to me the sounds that so different from like the the story of the bible
you know in which very similarly you know
did you ever thought about the bible you know in the bible when it says they'll let there be light
it doesn't mean like when it says that
because it's only much later that the sun as creative during alyssa
the sun the creation his son comes much later than the life so let's has let there be light doesn't mean lives that we are the we physical life doesn't mean that i don't know what i mean exactly what it means something like some consciousness that's me the light or dark
then later on there's the distinction between earth and sea and light dark and then out of that comes all these things and then comes the necessary problem
which has within it the seeds of and openings i think this is the the spiritual journey you know is a kind of a people thing for anything
you don't say like occasionally we have mice in our house
i never heard about the mice discussing their spiritual journey i don't think they have that issue in their lives the mice don't worry about such things
it's not their destiny but the human being you know has this destiny because of the kind of consciousness that we have we have this destiny to be those who would
go on this journey and we're not doing this all by ourselves or only for our own benefit
because we are part of this great big world and and everybody has a job in the world i mean the mice whose job is that the little holes in your house
and feed themselves and all that that's their job so you shouldn't complain if you have might cause that's the job be nice and but our job is to go into spiritual journey and somehow we don't really know how it is that this journey influences
the rest of the universe but it definitely does we we know
and that's what i think it against to return to the
genesis story when it says that human beings have dominion i think that's really not and that's a mistranslation and think it means human beings have this job a unique job to will have spiritual unfolding it's a kind of a duty and that's why when you don't participate
in it and whatever way that you're given to participate in and there are many ways we all know how to participate in
you feel funny
you don't like it doesn't feel right
either you feel funny or you feel nothing which is another option
in a lot of people take that option
you know you can feel nothing by running around a lot
you can like click on various things on the internet and zip all over the place and buy things and you can become addicted to something so forth and so on as many people are so you can not feel or if you feel you feel funny
unless you engaged in this journey to turn around the consciousness
that you possess just by virtue of warm human you don't to be smart
i mean every human being regardless of their intelligence or kindness or whatever it is every human being by virtue of having the light of consciousness
has this capacity and this obligation and necessity
romesh you
take the journey you feel funny
journey is to turn it around term from to open up the small world and when you open up a small world and open the doors why then
you see in only connection
and with connection there's only it's kind of compassion
not compassion
born pity like thank god that he's the sort suffering when the me so i'd better like giving send card to her
but the recognition that
every single one is you and therefore naturally your heart goes out by everything and everyone naturally because you turned to mind around and you saw that your mind is not something very small but it's something very big that's how consciousness is so that's the jury
so that's the first of the six cent stores which
and the others by go the same way
there seem to have no
the tip to
transcend their conditions and yet not be independently
well what did i stop there and see maybe this
thanks to talk about
before we launched into the twelve and eighteen
which is only two
advanced hearing a system applications for activity
oh yeah okay with that said
there's a nice like this has to do with that
the activity means going to like force is an energy of life
which is always actually mixed up
let's see
for scandal

ah
another consider for example a swift rapids whose waves follow upon one another in orderly succession the one be the ones behind never taking never overtaking the ones in front of
left example for activity a swift rapids six endless succession of ways one after the
you should know that it is the same and with the scandal of activity
amanda thus the nature of the flow does not arise because of emptiness
nor does it come into existence because of the water
it is not the water
and yet so it's not the space
and it's not the water and yet it is not separate from either the emptiness or space or the war
the reason for this another that is that if it arose because of emptiness
then the inexhaustible emptiness throughout the ten directions would become an inexhaustible flow and all the world's would inevitably be drowned and catch up with proven fact
if this flow of water were caused by the emptiness than everywhere everywhere with the flow of water would always swimming all the time and eventually getting tired to drown
this is the kind of logic there is no different the sutra is is based on
so let's not look too closely if alloys it's using in a way and in a certain way as that it makes sense you know you believe it in a certain way but
some out then sell ecological use the does it absurd that he has a
yeah doesn't sound like logic reduced him
if the swift okay so let's not because of space now let's talk about is it because of the water if the swift rapids existed because of the water
then their nature would differ from that of water and the location and characteristics of it's existence would be apparent
hmm if their nature we're simply that of water than when they became still unclear they would no longer be made up of water
so
somehow if their water
if the waves of this swift current are caused by the water that explains it
then i mean there's all kinds of water so they must be caused by the what of a different from the one right because in atwater so
if they were different from the water caused by the water than they would have to be some differentiation between them and water
and then that differentiation between them in the water would be apparent and you'd see the waves somewhere where there wasn't water
but you never see that you only see them where there's water on the other hand if they were just water period
then when they became still unclear they would no longer be why because
so thing here but
a wave
it will say like a with is sort of water it's water but it's not exactly why you can't say it's warm you can't say it's not what if you say he say it's water
then
water doesn't always have waves so if the way of is caused by the word and there must be some waviness to the water that's different from the water than why don't you see that waviness somewhere else outside the wire on the other hand if it's the same thing as the water and there is no extra can wave miss that makes it then when the i was a wave know
longer was away but only water it would disappear because nature is unitary than it would have to be a that it wasn't a way that we disappear so it's actually a kind of sophisticated and subtle logic which is almost difficult to grasp
but
but it's a kind of what you would you call it it's a
well it's very similar actually and many people have written about this it's very similar to
the literary
current literary technique called deconstruction
will you take any kind of structure and you look at it closely and and up until it disappears into its proves itself to be self contradictory is basically what it is
and you can really do that when anything if you look closely enough
no we can
pick a microscope you know and powerful microscope and we can deconstruct ourselves you know and we can look at our bodies and we can say well you know this is not a body actually mostly what it is as empty space which is true right literally
so it's like that you just think you can deconstruct anything and that's the kind of logic it is it's actually pretty ironclad like you can't really reputed
and it does it does point out the fact that most of the things that we think and believe are only conventional realities that they can't really be examined and if you examine them thoroughly they don't hold up
i think that's true
personally i actually believe that
so that's what the kind of like than this so you say it can't be this this this this ongoing so activity are activity of our lives is like an ongoing rush of current
it's it's not caused by our life it's not caused by something outside of our lives suppose they were two separate from emptiness in water
there isn't anything outside of emptiness
because everything to emptiness everything's included in space
in outside of water there isn't any wave
so you can't separate from emptiness and water nor can you say that it's reducible damned innocent one and therefore you should know that the scandal of activity was empty and false since it needed depends upon causes and conditions for existence nor is spontaneous in nature
so we all have lifeforce just like this current
this is actually in in inner some of the texts of i'll be done i'm text they discriminate they likened the ongoing this of lie of our lives through a lifetime and even passed into new new like them as being like a rushing stream
going by you can't like take a stream and put it in a box and say here i got the stream here right you gotta get a like a siphon in like try to put it in a pail
you could get a pail of water out of it but you can you can never say that was the stream
so what would the stream what is the stream
well you know it isn't anything it's an ongoing process but even to say a process what is a process and it's just a word that we used to describe something we don't really know what it is so on the ongoing activity of our lives is like that it's a it's a stream it's a kind of a flow
have
desire devotion forward moving even if somebody said okay that's it i'm stopping right here
i'm not thinking and the growing all and not breathing nothing
you can't do it
nobody can decide to do that because we're all in their flow and no matter what we decide on we course we could jump off a bridge or something and and in our life we could do that but buddhist thought would say well what you've done there is you set up a tremendous like throwing a giant boulder into the stream
kerr plunk definitely makes a difference but the stream goes on
strange though going on now there's a kind of thing it as the flow around
so yeah there's a transformation there but the strange that no just keeps flowing so in this analogy that causes and condition is the or a stream of fire and it's action is is common in athens
while the cause the other causes and conditions is the space in the water
that's the cost of the condition that and what i'm saying is that the stream is neither explainable are contained in space and or water nor is it something outside of the space of the water it's neither one of those two possibilities and what does it what does that mean the actual nature of the stream is
is the wondrous mind a good consciousness itself
experience itself all the activity of our senses all the activity of our scanners everything in our lives is nothing other than the beautiful realities of buddha's mine
which we don't know why we it's that's what it is always what it is it's just that we don't know that and we don't live there and we don't appreciate and we're missing out on something really great
so
if you are inspired by these words of the sooner than you think to yourself on know how am i going to get in on it
that sounds like a really good thing home again get in and and the answer to that question as you get in on it by
devoting yourself to your spiritual practice
and becoming awakened in our practice is the recognition and and when we use terms like the wondrous mine avoided can make it seem very distant and them
you know high for luton or something in our some exotic navy it's like we have to be asian or some when it
but i don't think like i think that it's not that
it's not that unusual or impossible
to feel as if
the maybe you maybe many people in this room have felt sometimes in a moment as if
yes
it's perfect
the
i'm here at this moment
and it's perfect that my life is what it it has been in ways what it is
how could it have been otherwise
i am grateful he could feel ungrateful grateful for the gift of being alive right now which is a completely gratuitous an unbelievable experience that i
can see than i can hear that i can smell that i can communicate well
what a thing
and i'm worried about paying the rent
the rental take care don't worry about just appreciate for this kind of thing we can listen not a mystery right and i think that through spiritual endeavors more and more one could feel this kind of way about life not than one would feel unnecessarily every moment but i think one can also
every moment not be too far in touch with it and in some moments feel it
with a rush of emotion even i think it's bottle
so i think that's what
texas or meaning to say so that's what it says event or activity
huh
anything else that we should look at an intimate west transpired so far
it's sometimes can be misleading to call it food as mind as if it did it existed only after buddha yeah yeah mean we all know that but i
given here yeah says that when i have point food it was born and then it was booed as minor as good as an historical figure yeah in the my on sutures as we know that the word buddha yeah big stands for something other than
a person who taught software the students were a kind of a principle of reality rather than a person or figure or or
yeah you a particular concept
well okay i think i will just read to you without too much of an explanation just so that i can feel that i did my duty and with its closeness of the first of the twelve
first of the eighteen
doctors
oh i said well i carry everywhere after i can remember the explanations and her
ah
so remember those are the five skylanders and in the six per cent stores i explain and then for some reason the style of buddhist analysis has to say there's a list of six cent stores and then there are twelve
i think the column kind of like locations
because the cent store is nothing in and of itself if the world were full of a much of eyes and ears in tongues rolling around and i would be too much experience going fine unless there was something like that you could taste with the tone and see what the eye and here with the ear right so so once the i makes contact with something
that can be seen then there's a location it's called many one translation because use them location for those six doors and twelve locations and twelve locations are simply the six doors repeated again plus the six appropriate objects so there's a year and a sound
and i and aside object
a tongue of taste and software
so
a b twelve
the first of the twelve
moreover and under why do i say that the twelve places so here you system translation places why do i said that the twelve places are basically the wonderful nature of true such this the treasury of the thus come on was very much the same as he said when relation
to the six dollars why do i say that that's the nature
ah the twelfth place
know look again at the trees in the j to grow in the fountains and pools that's where they're sitting there and all this is going on there sitting this beautiful grow look at the trees in this grove and i may and fountains and pools what do you think the these things come into being because the forms are produced
and thus the eyes see or because the ais produce the characteristics of form
so here we see these things that were they come from the they come from the things are the eyes
anon if the organise site where to produce the characteristics of form
then the nature of form would be obliterated when you see emptiness which is not for
when it was obliterated everything that is manifest with disappeared since the characteristics of form would then be absent who would be able to understand the nature of emptiness the same is true of emptiness that than mps would be obliterated by form
if moreover the defiling objects of form where to produce the i seen
then seeing with parish upon looking at emptiness which is not for in other words if the form of the something produced the same then when there was nothing there seeing would disappear forever
but it doesn't even when there's nothing there
the eyes see darkness but the eternal lights out or if you are somehow in space should see space would see like dark darkness or whatever they'd be experience of consciousness of sing something so it's not the object because then it then if there was no object you can see if you do
okay so therefore you so that it says if moreover women
yeah so therefore you should know that neither seeing or form nor emptiness has a location
and thus the two places of form and seeing are empty and false their origin is not in causes and conditions nor do their natures arise spontaneously
he isn't to discuss oh yeah first he says if the oregon produced the characteristics in disproves that
by saying that
when you saw emptiness and with historic for and then he says so using the same exactly the same kind of logic in the same kind of way he ends up to the same conclusion
that
need a seeing or form has a location
and their origin is not in causes and conditions nor new their natures arise spontaneously none words they're nothing other than the wondrous an ineffable unexplainable on locatable none is none is not nature of reality which is peaceful and
listen
all the time
so
then
ah i think you get the picture so we don't have to do this again okay i'm i mean does the eighteen rose i forgot there's also the seven elements which is the same story here so this amazing community a man sitting there reading this suitors no wonder i'm such a wreck
we asked all this and i'm going away tomorrow i am all these things to do you know and i mean and i impossible and i'm sitting there reading this is there
so no wonder no i understand i lied
okay so but now read the end of this section which is very inspiring different wonderful
and then we'll call it quits
okay
so after all explaining all this
must have taken days weeks mean they're all sitting there listening to the good explain this
the bullet says

if this conscious mind does not come from anywhere
you should know that the same is true of the mind which makes distinctions
and the seeing hearing awareness and knowing which are all complete and tranquil know come from anywhere their nature is without an origin
they an emptiness earth water fire and when the seven elements are together called the seven elements their true natures are perfectly fused and all the treasury or the thus come one fundamentally devoid of production and extinction
that's the end of all his petition then he says and under your mind is course and shallow
hey and so you do not realize that the seeing and hearing or the treasury of the buddha and you do not discover that knowing is the same way you should contemplate these six locations of consciousness are they
the same or different are they empty or existence are they needed the same of different are they neither empty know existed you basically do not know that in the treasury of the buddha the nature of consciousness is bright and knowing enlightened brightness is the true
consciousness the wonderful enlightenment is tranquil and pervades the dharma realm it encompasses the emptiness of the ten directions and issues fourth in it
how can it have a location
it is experienced to whatever extent is dictated by the law of karma
ignorant of this fact people in the world are so deluded as to assign its origin to causes and conditions or to spontaneity
these mistakes which arise from the discrimination and reasoning processes of the conscious mind i'm nothing but the play of empty words which have no real mean
this is serve those of you who are familiar with my poetry night
the
yeah this year or every year this is superior know you get back
how to read the poem
empty words the play of empty words that have no real me
this is
the world we live in the
at that time amanda nanda and the great assembly filled with a subtle wonderful instruction of the buddha
were peaceful and body and mind and were without obstructions
the buddha according to the mythology of such as the buddha has the power
two
i'm explaining this and known you either appreciate or not but then you know we go on with our lives but if i were the buddha according to mythology the sutra then you would hear it and instantly everything would be transported just like happens here they become peaceful and body and mind and were without obstruct
the assembly because they were lot of people they are listening and you know
became aware
that his or her mind
pervaded
the ten directions
they felt them
this is why we don't really have to be afraid of dying right
because we were not going anywhere
the mind pervades the ten directions
behold the emptiness in the ten directions
just as intimately as one might look at a leaf
or an object held in one's hand
all the things that exist in the world are wonderfully where the wonderfully bright inherent mind of enlightenment that's how they say
the essence of the wine was completely pervading and contains
the ten directions
meaning infinitely in all directions was contained in the mind
they bowed to the buddha and place their palms together having obtained what they never had obtained before then facing the buddha and under spoke verses in praise of the buddha
and in concepts the wonderfully deep durrani which is like curse spell teaching spell that the buddha was reading these explanations the wonderfully deep the ronnie
the unmoving honored one foremost sure and gonna king is seldom found in the world
it melts away my upside down thoughts
gathered in a million copies a carpet is a very long time
so i needn't endure awesome care years to obtain the dharma body in other words my mind creating this very small suffering will have been habituated to doing there were many many many many many millions and gazillions of years of the stream flowing of how
habit i have been looking at the well in that way but now hearing the buddhist speak this magical spells of teaching i don't have to go through that many years of retraining my mind just now i get it
i wish now to achieve the results and become an honored king
like in other words a buddha who then returns to save as many beings as there are sand grains in the ganges i offer this deep thought to those who are as countless as the motes of dust of the buddha lands to repay the kindness shown by me
the buddha
in obedience or obeisance in reverence i asked the buddha to certify my vow to enter the five turbid evil realms
if there is even one being who hasn't become a buddha at the i will not reach for nirvana
may the exalted heroes awesome strength
his kindness and compassion search out and to spell even the most subtle have my doubts
causing me to quickly attain supreme enlightenment and sit in the body mandola of the worlds of the ten directions should even the shunyata nature emptiness nature entirely melt away
this vase your mind will never waver
the and
so that's kind of wonderful ending the another receives this explanation of the end of it he says perfect i understand now and i don't know i don't have to my my whole bad way of thinking is reversed
and i'm so happy and grateful recognizing the gift that it is to be alive in the world knowing what the world really is that i hereby say for sure that i'm going to devote myself from here on out
morning to benefiting beings and it is one being anywhere and i'm even going to go to the nasty rotten places where they are wherever they are whatever their a condition i will go to that place and i will be in that condition
for their benefit shirking no responsibility and not thing that are thinking that any place there could be would be too hard to place to go i'll go there and until until every single one of the infinite number of sentient beings is made glad and happy by this activity of mine
until then i will not
seek peace but i'll effortless our current constantly make tireless efforts on behalf of these beings forever and ever until they're all saved and peaceful then i'll take a break
and i promise and even if the even of emptiness itself were to blow away
this vow of mine
which comes out of appreciation of this powerful teaching of sharing notice will never end
he says
and the end of this
third volume in master was translation so
yeah thanks everybody for attending the series of classes i always give one out of it can you do no doubt and i always said enjoy it
much more ensure that you do and i hope that the that we all should live long enough that we can have another series of classes on the trunk and center
and catherine it and then finish good reading on it
thank god yes
thank you so much for his text i and many as the
and i really appreciate so much they welcome here while the minor sutras we have to say are unreadable
haha i really are we have to read them in this way together
especially nowadays when are reading habits have been
greatly reduced you know because of the modern way of reading and speed and all that and when i was teaching high school i was shocked to realize that very intelligent high school students could not read charles dickens
because the sentences were too complicated and twenty clauses and dependent clauses and lengthy sentences so nobody can read it's kind of thing anymore
so we have to do it together
once i had a three year class on the other of sutra
which is sir
something like two thousand and pages long
and i'm working when i keep mentioning it i'm working my way up to diminish him thomas that was a really good put every night
so
okay thanks thanks everyone
the iran