So last week, after I finished presenting what I had offered to you, I realized it was a lot. I thought, wow, that was a real dense offering. So I'm going to try and chunk it down a little more, you know, a little smaller bites, because we're not in a hurry, for one thing, and there's an awful lot that can be said about the mind-only teachings. It's a wonderful school. There's much there. And I also feel that it's really accessible in a much more experiential way than some of the other teachings, which tend to be kind of heady or logic-based. This one has a lot of heart, a lot of emotion comes up. And anyway, so we'll see. And I'd love to hear from you how Yogacara, mind-only teachings, affect you as we go through it. So this evening I want to begin looking at, as I said we would, Ben Conley's book called Vasubandhu's 30 Verses, Inside Vasubandhu's 30 Verses.

[01:19]

Last week I suggested that you take a look at the foreword by Norman Fisher, which was a very nice praise of Ben Conley as a third generation from the founding ancestors of Buddhism who came to the America you know back in the 50s and 60s and then the students like me and Norman who started studying with some of those founding teachers and basically put our lives into that study and very much in the kind of monastic form and then now with people like Ben who are out there in the world and and have a great love of the Dharma and feel a lot freer. to use the teachings in a variety of ways, and yet at the same time being very true to these texts and to the intention by which they were written. So I thought that was a very nice foreword that Norman wrote. And then there's the introduction to the Yogacara that Ben Connolly himself has written. And then the 30 verses themselves, which are the next part of the text.

[02:23]

He starts off by... putting the 30 verses there for you to look at. And then I also thought maybe you could look at the first two chapters so you could see how Ben basically goes through each of these verses and helps to open them up so we can understand what the intention is of these kind of terse writings. So if you did any or all of that, you have a pretty good taste of what the rest of the book has to offer us about the mind-only school of Buddhism. And in order to have... perhaps even better taste of the text, I think it's also helpful to take a brief look at the author of these 30 verses, 4th century Indians and ancestor Vasubandhu. So Vasubandhu's own transmission story is highlighted in chapter 22 of the Transmission of Light, a text by 13th century descendant of Dogenzenji, his name is Keizan Jokin. and which some of you may remember from our study of that text back in the fall of 2020.

[03:26]

So it's been a while. It's a wonderful text. If you haven't looked through it yet, basically it's the Enlightenment stories or teachings in the form of kind of little koans that introduce the Enlightenment experience of each of the ancestors and then talks about their history, where they were at the time, who they studied with, and so on. So that's Transmission of Light. by Kezan Jokin. So, in chapter 22 of that text, it begins with this story, or this koan, about how Vasubandhu's teacher, whose name was Jayata, now these are Indian teachers, and they are basically studying at the great university of Buddhist studies in northern India, called Nalanda University. And there are a great many of the schools that came out following the Buddha's own teaching years and then the 500 and so thousand years that followed, there were these big universities in India. And all these schools that grew out of the early teachings had their start, much of their start in these universities.

[04:32]

So unlike some of the other places where Buddhism showed up around one text or another text, as I explained, I think it was last week, that these texts came into China or Tibet and Japan one by one. So if a Yogacara text arrived in China on a camel, that text became the source of an entire school. And if the emptiness teachings arrived, then that became a school. So it was really spawned by these great universities. But the advantage of the universities was they had each other to talk to. You know, there were the early, the foundational teaching, the monks from the foundational studies, the Pali Canon. There were the monks from the new Mahayana literature that was being found and produced and sent for the monks to study and so on. There were the practices of all of these traditions and so on. It's a very rich stew for people. these monks to be able to study and practice and learn all varieties of interpretations of what the Buddha taught.

[05:35]

Remembering that there was at least five or six hundred years after the Buddha's death that anything at all was written down. That all of the Buddha's teachings had been memorized by these monks who had a prodigious memories. They were chosen for that to be part of the memorization team. There were the cooking teams and there were the farming teams and there were memorization teams. So there's pretty good evidence that that's a possibility that those things could have been remembered over many centuries. And then eventually they were put into writing. So in this story about Vasubanda's enlightenment, he is talking with his teacher and his Jayata, and Jayata says the following, I do not seek the way, yet I am not confused. I do not pay obeisance to the Buddha, yet I do not disregard the Buddha either. I do not sit for long periods, yet I am not lazy.

[06:36]

I do not limit my meals, yet I do not eat indiscriminately either. I am not contented, yet I am not greedy. When the mind does not seek anything, this is called the way. When the mind does not seek anything, this is called the way. When Vasubandhu heard this, he discovered the uncontaminated knowledge and awakened. I don't know if you could hear from that verse that Jayata spoke to his student, there's this feeling of this middle way between I don't do this and I don't do that. I don't go for the extreme of limiting my meals, but I also don't indulge. I don't worship the Buddha, but I respect the Buddha. So he's offering two sides. The middle way has to do with reconciling two sides of any dilemma. any two things. So this is pretty much echoing throughout what Vasubandhu has heard and what helped him to awaken.

[07:42]

So for the next several weeks, I'm going to be discussing with you the teachings of Vasubandhu, this fifth century monk and scholar who himself had been converted from the old wisdom or Theravadan tradition of practice to the Mahayana tradition. And he had written definitive texts in both of these traditions. So as we begin a discussion of Vasubandhu and the mind-only school, in order to understand the place that this school holds in the formation of Zen, I think it's helpful to have a few key concepts to help place the various schools into a kind of a correct philosophical pathway that leads to, and in some cases away, from the language of which our Zen tradition is. uses to express the Buddhist profound truth, you know, the ultimate truth. So one of the big categorizations that's been very important for sorting out this mass of teachings, you know, all of this stuff was, as writing came into being, all of these things were put into writing and were sent out in all directions, you know, all over East Asia.

[08:52]

So it's confusing to us now. And so I think what was really helpful some years ago when I read about the three turnings of the wheel is how to see the categories in which these major schools and teachings have been, you know, placed. So it's called, this teaching or categorization is called the three turnings of the wheel. The three turnings of the wheel. So the Buddha's first sermon was called the first turning of the wheel. Well, it didn't even call it the first. It was just the turning of the wheel. It happened first. So later on, from the point of view of the subsequent schools that developed, particularly the Mahayana, they looked back at these earlier teachings and they said, okay, that first sermon the Buddha gave was the first turning of the wheel. And then in the second century, there was a second turning of the wheel. And now the Yogacara is the third turning of the wheel. Three turnings of the wheel.

[09:53]

So although these categories, these three turnings, can be seen as chronicological, you know, the earliest teachings, and then there was kind of several centuries, and there was another bunch of teachings, and then there was several centuries, and then another bunch of teachings. They're basically, the categories are apocryphal, meaning they're of doubtful authenticity, given that they were primarily written by later generations and then attributed back to whatever had happened in the previous centuries, immediately following the Buddha's death. And as with all traditions which have lasted through the ages, the best stories usually win. So the first turning teachings are sometimes referred to as the old wisdom teachings or the foundational teachings, and they're most familiar to us these days as Theravadan Buddhism. or here in the West, the Vipassana tradition, which is based in the teachings as recorded in the Pali Canon. Pali is the language of these texts.

[10:54]

It's a kind of a precursor to Sanskrit. So the Pali Canon was the source material for Vasubandhu's early training. In fact, he began his studies as a Theravadan monk. So before his conversion to the Mahayana and his devotion to the mind-only school, Vasubandhu had written extensively on behalf of the first turning teachings. So the first turning, as I said, refers to the earliest teachings that were given by the Buddha to his new disciples, which were collected and written down in the Pali Canon many years after the Buddha died. And the primary focus of these first turning teachings is Here's a term for you to keep in mind. Causality. Causality. Which simply means things are caused. There are causes. Things don't just pop out of nowhere. There are causes. And we should understand that things are caused. They have caused.

[11:55]

There's a source for whatever's happening right now. The source of our life. We can think about all the causes and conditions that have created our lives. So he basically, in the first turning... outlined causes and conditions and causes and effects by teaching the four noble truths. So suffering, the first noble truth, is caused. It's caused by ignorance and desire. Okay, so first noble truth, suffering. Second noble truth, the cause of suffering. Caused by ignorance and desire. Basically wanting things to be different than they are is the cause of our suffering. And then the cessation of suffering, the third noble truth, It is caused by the Noble Eightfold Path, you know, how you live your life. So, in other words, these teachings are primarily designed to show us how we humans, by doing good actions, will have good results. And if we do bad actions, bad results.

[12:57]

That's the primary message, you know, do good, avoid evil, and purify the mind. And then the word for actions in Sanskrit is the familiar word, very... very popular during the 1960s, called karma. It's karma. Karma means actions. Your actions in the world result in effects, cause and effects. That's the primary focus of these first turning. So the first turning teaching emphasizes the path of purification. This is the Noble Eightfold Path, a means by which one identifies and avoids the impure or bad elements of existence. In particular, the three toxins that the Buddha called greed, hate, and delusion. So don't be greedy, don't be hateful, and figure out how not to be delusional. And by those means of approaching, purifying those out of your system, then you will have liberation.

[13:58]

You will be free of suffering. That's the pattern. Now there's a trap. in that teaching of the first turning. And the trap is the possibility of falling into a belief that these little elements of existence, which are called in the first turning, small d, dharmas, little elements, kind of like atoms in our modern-day physics. We used to think everything was made up of atoms. So in the early teachings, everything was made up of dharmas. And dharmas existed. and they were somewhat eternal. They had their own being, so they had an essence. So the essence of dharmas basically was how you were able to sort the bad from the good was because they were really there. So you could get rid of the bad dharmas and keep the good dharmas, and that's how you went about purifying yourself and ending your suffering. So believing these elements to be real is what's meant by substantiated.

[15:00]

They were reified. So the problem is that that led to a belief in the possibility of a purified no-self, that you could actually be this purified no-self, that you had basically eliminated that thing we call the self by this process. And you could separate yourself from the world and its turmoils and its enticements by avoiding certain things in the world. Those are bad things. You know, eating certain kinds of foods, that was a bad thing to do. Don't do it. I hate to say it, but looking at women was a bad thing. So don't look at them because that's the source of your suffering is the object of your desire. So whether it's the food or the women or more sleep or, you know, whatever, nice clothing, whatever it was, it was drawing you, your greed was the problem. So by avoiding those things, you could basically be free of them. And that kind of works.

[16:01]

I mean, there's a way in which that works, and we can talk about more of the detail of that. But, you know, the idea here was basically that you could separate yourself from your own critical, judgmental, and self-centered point of view. So this approach to awakening is referred to critically in the Mahayana tradition as both the philosophical and practical limitation of what's called individual liberation. of the possibility of liberation that is only about yourself, that basically I'm free, and I'm free as a no-self. I no longer have a self, and therefore I'm free. I'm free of whatever was coming at me and causing me all kinds of suffering. So it's a little simplified, but that's part of the... part of the narrative that's looking back on these earlier approaches to the Buddha's practice. So then the second turning comes along. So this is centuries later.

[17:01]

And the teachings are given to, you know, these teachings were given as a kind of sutra recitation by the Buddha on a place called Vulture Peak. So while the Buddha was still alive, according to the Mahayana, he went up on this Vulture Peak People have climbed up to Vulture Peak. It's in India. And he gave a lecture to the monks. And he introduced them to the emptiness teachings. And to this teaching of dependent core rising. So these are the terms that we're going to need to learn and use over and over again. Emptiness, dependent core rising, no self, and then the two truths. So the Buddha introduced to his disciples... This teaching of the two truths of emptiness, of own being, there is no own being, that these little dharmas have no existence either. You can't count on those being the solution either because they're just like you. They have no substantial self.

[18:02]

They're insubstantial. Everything is insubstantial. And thereby, that realization is what sets you free. The insubstantiality of all existence. is what sets us free. So this is the second turning of the wheel, very familiar to us through chanting of the Heart Sutra, for example. Now there's a trap. So each of these three turnings has a trap. The trap of the first one is reifying the no-self, is becoming a no-self-self as a real thing, a real possibility. The second trap is the possibility of falling into a nothing, reifying nothing, as in nihilism. So while there's no dharmas, there's no self, then there's nothing. So I don't have to worry about, certainly I don't have to worry about morality because there's nothing to worry about. And there's nobody here that can do anything immoral. So there was kind of a danger in the second turning that turned into what is called nihilism or nothing. I don't believe in anything. And nihilists are, it's kind of a hard cure for when you fall into the trap of nihilism.

[19:06]

So this is misunderstanding emptiness teachings as nothingness, as nothingness. And what the name for that trap in Zen is called the Zen sickness. And I've actually known some people, and I may have myself fallen into that trap for a time, when you really feel like you've gotten free of whatever it was that was bothering you, but it's all those other people. I'm so sorry if I'm bothering you, but that's your problem, you know? I don't have a problem anymore. And so this is a distortion of the emptiness teachings. So, but it's an easy trap to fall into when you hear the second turning teachings, for example, the heart sojour, where as you all may know or remember, it says such things as no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no suffering, no cause of suffering, the four noble truths, no cessation of suffering from the first turning. And ultimately, no path leading to the cessation of suffering. This is the path of liberation.

[20:08]

No, it says no, no, no. So now what? Now what do we do? So that was basically the... trap that was there in the second turning. So we've got the trap of the first turning, which is kind of falling into a centralized sense of a no-self. We've got the trap of the second turning, which is substantializing emptiness as a nothing. So along comes the mind-only teachings, which is the third turning, with this emphasis on caring for the mind and how the mind functions to create this illusory world that we have come to inhabit. So it's a different story altogether. There's a trap in this teaching too. So all three of the attorneys have a trap. The teaching in the mind only is the possibility of falling into an extreme view of eternalism, as though the mind itself is a substantial existence that goes on forever, keeps reincarnating, never ending, the never ending mind.

[21:11]

So each one of these was a kind of correction trying to correct whatever the limitations of the first understandings of what the Buddha taught. These early monks came up with this idea, then the later monks came up with this idea, which is what philosophers do, and they kind of trumped the first turning, and then along comes the third turning, and trumps both the first and second by harmonizing them. So the virtue of the third turning is basically that it... endeavors and somewhat successfully, according to what Ben's teaching us, successfully harmonizes the traps of the first and second turning. So that's what we're going to be looking at. I don't know if that's particularly helpful, but if you want to take a look at the three turnings of the wheel, you can study that a little bit yourself and see if that makes more sense to you. So anyway, with those cautionary notes in hand, we then enter into the study of the Buddhist teaching laid down over the centuries. by using our own good sense and our own embodied experience to find out for ourselves, as the Buddha encouraged us to do, a path of true freedom within this one and only precious life, the one that each of us has to live.

[22:27]

So not to get thrown off by all of these historic discussions going on throughout the tradition, but to keep coming back to what's helpful to you Which of these approaches works best for you? For a long time, what works best for me was the Heart Sutra, was just saying no to any of the kind of distorted thinking I was into in those days. I would just kept repeating this mantra, no. No, I'd be in the kitchen working away and noticing my little negative thinking about my fellow workers or whatever later that day, something I had to do or something someone had said. And I would just keep... I noticed those things coming up and I would just say in my own narrative, quiet mind, I'd just say, no, no, just cut the carrots. No, quiet, quiet, no. So I found... the heart suture to be extremely beneficial in the early years of my own training. And then later on, as I said, I found the mind-only teachings to be extremely beneficial and softening of that earlier approach.

[23:36]

So in the second turning teachings of the Heart Sutra, the Prajnaparamita literature, this teaching of emptiness, which is also understood to be the ultimate truth, is used to pull conceptual rugs out from under our feet. You know, the very concepts by which we come to know ourselves and to know the world. You know, concepts like our eyes and our ears, our noses and so on, our rugs and feet. These are all concepts that we have. Whereas the third turning of the wheel redeems the use of concepts. and of logic and of words and of language. So the heart suture basically is no, it's just a no. If you got something, no, right? Drop it, drop it. Whereas the third turning, the yoga chara is saying, yeah, it's okay, we got to talk about it. We got to think about it. We have to consider all of these matters. We have to relate to... and relating is the relative truth. So whereas the Heart Sutra is primarily bringing us into a relationship with the ultimate truth, that none of these words apply, whatever you're thinking isn't it, and just stop it, just stop it.

[24:44]

The Yogacara is saying, no, we want to look at the conventional truth, at the truth of our way of thinking, of our common sense way of being in the world. We want to study the world through the way we think. the relative truths, the conventional truths as they're called, using words and language, while maintaining an understanding that logic and language and words are ultimately completely without any basis in reality itself, thereby bringing us back to the realm of the ultimate truth. So the approach of the mind only is to take us on a journey of logic and explanation to the point, it's almost like taking us to the edge of a cliff where we can understand exactly what's happening and then pushing us off the edge of the cliff into the realm of ultimate truth, of no, no, just no. As Dogen said, drop body and mind, body and mind dropped. So as a kind of synthesis of the first and second turning teachings, the third turning

[25:54]

Teachings honor the way in which logic and words and concepts are useful and beneficial for guiding us along the path to no path. So you go up the mountain, the mountain of wisdom. You really make your best effort. You try hard. You do your sashims. You do your study. You do all of that. And you arrive at this kind of non-conceptual knowing, you know, this belief. bright light where things are not any longer distorted by your divisive way of thinking about the world. You've kind of cleared the space. I like to think of it as getting to the top of Everest where everything drops off. You use the wisdom to get to the very summit of existence where everything is dropping away. You have a taste of ultimate reality, but As I've said many times, there is no snack bar in Everest. You can't live there. So you have to come back down from the mountain. And what brings you down is compassion.

[26:56]

for other beings who are suffering from their delusional thinking that got you up the mountain in the first place. This is one of the images of Yogacara too, that there's this voyage that we take using words and logic and study to go up the mountain. We have an experience of the non-dual nature of reality and then that experience, with that experience perfuming our life, we kind of don't forget that, we come back down the mountain to the village And talk to other people about, you know, there's a really nice thing you can do if you go up the mountain. You can have this really amazing experience, but you can't live there. You know, that's not home. Home is here. If you forget, you know, the values that you learned in this experience, then you go back up again. So you just keep going up, have that, remember that experience of the non-dual nature of reality, and then you come back down. So this is kind of the voyage or the journey of what these teachings are helping us to understand and to do. So basically the Yogacara is taking both the ultimate truth and the relative truth seriously, the two truths, right?

[28:07]

The two truths are really essential to our understanding of the Buddhist teaching. and I'm going to be talking about the two truths next month. I'm kind of trying to figure this all out so I can say something about it. The weave is so tight on all of these things, and so many things have been said, and there's so many different ways of expressing all of these things. So I'm doing my best to come up with something that might be easy enough to understand, easy enough for me to say. So that's kind of my practice right now. So perhaps I think you may have heard this Zen saying, it's kind of famous Zen saying, that at first, when I began to practice meditation, mountains were mountains. That's conventional truth. No one questions that. You point to a mountain and say, that's a mountain. And everybody goes, yeah, that's a mountain. So there's been a convention and we agree on that. The names of things have been agreed on by those of us... in the same language group, right, of course. So it's not a mountain in another language, but for English-speaking people, a mountain is a mountain, right?

[29:11]

Conventional truth, relative truth. Then after I had a realization of the true nature of reality, I saw that mountains were no longer mountains. I couldn't find the mountain, you know, no matter how far I looked, how many stones I turned over, how many trees I climbed, where was the mountain, you know? Just all these different elements, all these different parts, all these different points of view. Sun comes up, sun goes down, you know, I walk up the trail, where's the mountain? Where did the mountain go? So this realization of that there are no mountains is called a realization of the ultimate truth. And then I realized, as my practice matured, that mountains were mountains again. So mountains are mountains, mountains are no longer mountains, and then mountains are mountains again. by means of taking both the relative and the ultimate truths seriously. So this is another way of understanding these three turnings. First turning, mountains are mountains, things are as they seem, and we work with them on their own level.

[30:17]

Then you study in your real life, there's realizations, something happens, you just kind of fall off the edge of the cliff, and there are no mountains anymore. There's no self, there's no others, it's just kind of like, Wow. And then you come back from that experience and you see the mountains again because you've now harmonized that first understanding with your experience of, let's call it, awakening. And then you come back home to sit with your friends and have a nice meal or whatever you're doing. Okay. So this third turning, Yogacara, uses the magic. of logic, that mountains are mountains again. That's that third realization, that relative and ultimate truths are definitely integrated. They're all of a piece. We're not trying to separate them except for trying to understand what these pieces are. Just for the sake of understanding, we use logic and words to try and understand what's meant by two truths.

[31:20]

What's meant by mind, what's meant by the path, and so on. So the third turning, as I said, uses the magic of logic, mountains are mountains again, by which mountains have been freed of being either mountains or not being mountains. Non-dual, a non-dual realization. Top of the mountain is the non-dual realization that nothing you perceive is outside of yourself. Everything that occurs between your mind and an object is happening at the same time. You and the mountain are not separate. Never could be, never have been. In fact, you're not separate from anything you perceive. So that realization basically frees you of saying, well, that is a mountain. Well, it's also not a mountain. It's a mountain and it's not a mountain. And I can explain that to you. It's going to take a little while. But this is the problem or the gift of two truths. It takes a little while to understand reality. but it actually is the basis for our studies of the Buddhist teaching.

[32:26]

So Reb says in his book on the third turning of the wheel, he's quoting a Sandi Nimrachana Sutra, which is one of the Yogacara texts. He says that the third turning, Yogacara, protects us from a dangerously narrow understanding of the second turning, the emptiness teachings. by offering a systematic path and a conceptual approach that is free of both a real self and real objects. Like mountains are mountains and mountains are not mountains. I'm actually here and I'm also not really here in the way that I think I am. So it's kind of a test to see if we are truly free of conceptual approaches, of our logic, of the magic of logic. Are we free of that or do we buy it? Are we holding on to it, you know, to our notions about things? So then Reb says, therefore, at the Zen center, we make good use of signs, of schedules, of robes and gardens and vegetarian feasts, and we make good use of the Buddhist traditions so that we can refute the whole thing.

[33:34]

There is no Zen center here. At least no one has ever found one. That's it. And I thought, that's kind of interesting because one of the things I came to say over the years of my life at Zen Center when people would talk about Zen Center did this or Zen Center did that, I would say, but Zen Center is not a person. Who did you talk to? What happened? So we tend to attribute sort of substantiality to these abstract things like Zen Center. as though you could actually find it. You could go there and find it and talk to it. But there's no such sense. There's no Zen center. There's no thing like that. There's no Enso village. Can't find it. I live there, but I can't really find it. Can't get a hold of it. It's not a thing. It's a process of relationships that we all have to the day, to the food, to each other, to the space, and so on. It's a complex called dependent co-raising. And it's empty of any particular inherent existence.

[34:38]

So this is the terms you're going to hear again and again. Empty of inherent existence, dependently co-arisen. It's kind of the same thing. And then Reb said, so, and yet we take care of Zen center just so when someone asks us, is this the Zen center? You know, we can eventually answer with a smile because we know there is no Zen center. And yet we, the students at the Zen center. are the ones who are very happy about that realization. They're free of being trapped by concepts, either of ourself or of a place or of things. So this is a kind of Zen way of articulating the freedom from ideas. So the third turning of the wheel, Yogacara teachings are not geared toward explaining the nature of reality or of the universe, but rather toward explaining the nature of our experience.

[35:41]

What happens to us? What is it to be a human? What is it to experience thoughts and feelings and impulses and so on? How is it to be you? And that's what we're studying here. Not what you are, but how is it being you? You're already here. So we might as well get deeper into what are you? What is it from your point of view that you find? When you look to yourself, try to understand yourself, what do you find? Well, Yogacara is basically a result of a study of that question that the monks for many, many centuries have done and continue to do. What is the nature of our experience? And so basically this teaching tells us that we don't know anything that is not mediated by our minds, by our consciousness, and that working with the way our consciousness operates is the best way to promote the cessation of suffering. So by understanding the working of the mind, how it works, what it's up to, is our best hope at alleviating the cause of our suffering.

[36:50]

So in other words, by working with the clockwork of our mind, is the true pathway to liberation. And moreover, the freedom that's found within the clockwork itself is the same for all of us. We all have the same clockwork. It kind of feels like that, doesn't it? That we kind of get each other in a certain level. Not necessarily, we don't say the same things or wear the same clothes or we don't have the same shapes or whatever, but our clockworks are pretty similar, which is how we're able to learn from this understanding, from this way of analyzing. The mind. You know, the content of our minds, of our individual minds, are not alike at all. You know, they're very different. No two minds are alike. But the clockwork is the same. So before discussing the verses themselves, I wanted to offer you an exercise that Ben Connolly suggested in the opening chapter of his book, which is entitled Self and Other. So if you all just kind of settle into your seats, wherever you are,

[37:54]

And relax and maybe pay a little attention to your posture, to your spine and your shoulders and any tension you might have in your face, your jaw. And just take a bit of time to notice what kind of experiences you're having right now. Perhaps you're having a sense of being in a particular location. Do you know where you are? Where are you? And then notice the sensations in the body that you think of as yours, your body. What does that feel like? What does your body feel like? Is it your body? That's a good question. And then take a moment to kind of scan around the visual field that surrounds you. Just glance around your body. What's there? What do you see? What do you hear? How do you respond to what you see and what you hear?

[38:57]

Also include the things that you sense with your body that you can't see or hear, like the back of your chair, like right now. I can't see it, but boy, I can feel it. There it is in the bottom, the seat of my chair, I can feel that. The bottom of my feet on the floor. What's that like? How does that feel? And then notice the way in which you think of those things as either inside or outside of what you call yourself. Are your feet on the floor or is that sensation inside of you or is it outside of you? Is the floor on the inside? as you sense it or is it on the outside? How about sound? Is it inside or outside? And visual objects, are they inside? Are they coming inside? Or are they remaining outside?

[40:04]

And then you can notice this imaginary center of that experience that you call me. You know, that's me. That's me. Where is that me? Where does it sit? Is it in your heart, area of your heart, your throat, the top of your head, your abdomen, your knees? Where is me? Where is me? It's kind of like Zen center. It's kind of hard to find it. Where is that? Well, that's kind of the point of these explorations. You begin to exhaust some of the assumptions you make about yourself and about the world. And that's part of the path of liberation is exhausting assumptions that we make about the world. So this experience of self-centering is going on all day long. And the problem that this causes and the possibility of transcending those problems through intimacy with them is the principal subject of Vasubandhu's 30 verses.

[41:10]

becoming intimate with our story about ourselves, with our assumptions about ourselves, and then, in a sense, transcending those assumptions, looking wider and bigger at what's actually there and what you actually are. Suzuki Roshi's small mind and his big mind, the big mind, the vastness that you are, that we are. So that's kind of the direction that these teachings are taking us. So the outcome of this exploration may allow us to realize that we are imagining the consciousness that experiences things to be the self. So the one that's looking around and the idea that my consciousness, my awareness of the world, out of my body parts and of my sensations and so on, that's me, that's myself. Consciousness is myself. And that the world that is thought to be experienced by consciousness is the other so that's another major belief we have that this consciousness this awareness is me and that what i'm aware of is outside of me is other myself and other subject and object the major split that the buddha is hoping to help us heal the major source of our suffering is that fundamental belief in the separation of myself from the world around me

[42:38]

So in the first verse of the 30 verses, Vasubandhu is offering another possibility. That whatever is conceived of as self or other occurs in the transformation of consciousness. It's a little bit of a movement going on in consciousness. That's what's happening. Little images are going on in my consciousness. Little sensations, little preferences, little beliefs. It's all happening in consciousness. and that neither the self or the other is consciousness. They are just mere conceptions that occur within a fluid process of consciousness. It's just like waves rising on the ocean, just little images, little thoughts, little desires, little preferences, little stories about our history, little story plans for our future. These are all fluid processes going on within our consciousness. And that whatever is conceived of as the self is not a fixed entity.

[43:43]

It's not set. It's constantly changing, transient. But a mysterious process of transformation. What he calls a wondrous flowing unfolding. A wondrous flowing unfolding. More like a river than a road. So our life is more like a river, more like a verb than like a noun. So we're really trained to think in terms of nouns. You know, this is an ounce. But this process of studying the mind is to help us look at the world as a flow, as a process, as verbs. They're always moving, always changing. No two moments are alike in a non-repeating universe. So these verses from Chapter 1 are... that Ben Conley has recorded in Chapter 1, are from a 13th century Tibetan classic called the 37 Practices of the Bodhisattva.

[44:46]

Whatever arises in experience is your own mind. Mind itself is free of any conceptual limitations. Whatever arises in experience is your own mind. The mind itself is free of any conceptual limitations. Know that and do not generate self-other attachments. This is the practice of a bodhisattva. Whatever arises in experience is your own mind. Mind itself is free of any conceptual limitation. Know that and do not generate self-other attachments. This is the practice of a bodhisattva. So Ben says that the mind-only teaching proposes that the perceived split between the subject and object, between me and you, or me and the world, is the ultimate aspect of our consciousness that we must see through in order to find the peace and the joy at the heart of our life as awakening beings.

[45:54]

So this is kind of important. I mean, the emphasis here on this split... the split that we have been taught to believe in, that we see it that way, we think of it that way, we went to school to learn all about it and so on, that split between ourselves and objects is the primary source of our suffering. So he goes on to say that the Buddha called himself Tathagata. The Buddha referred to himself as Tathagata, which can mean either that which comes and goes or that which neither comes nor goes. Of course, it can be translated either way. Mountains or no mountains. Coming and going or not coming and going. Same word, tathagata. So it's a merely flowing occurrence. That's what the Buddha said. He was merely a flowing occurrence and that the outward form of such a realization is what we call a Buddha. It looks like a calm, steady, generous, and compassionate being who's been freed of this idea of the self and other separation.

[47:05]

That's the Buddha. So these teachings of consciousness only give the practitioner a ground on which to do our practice, including the practice of realizing that there is no ground. Tricky. But this is how it comes to us. If we're going to work with and in and as the disciples of the Buddhist teaching, a lot of these things are just going to have to be, I don't know, the word tolerated come to mind, but actually enjoyed and pursued and devoted to. It takes time to understand what's going on here. But I think Ben has done a brilliant job in helping us to follow along. with a very profound teaching that was given, you know, at the 5th century by Vasubandhu, this teaching of 30 verses. And we haven't really gone into them yet, but that's what we're going to be doing in the next few weeks, is going through each of those verses and then using Ben's wonderful explanation, because the chapters of his book are looking at each of these verses and helping us to look at them in kind of ordinary language, which he's very good at, and to better understand what the purpose of.

[48:23]

these teachings is and to actually perhaps have access in our own experience to the wisdom and realization of what these teachings are offering to us. So that's that for now. And I really welcome your questions and your comments and your whatever else you might have. And first of all, I want to go around the room and just say hello, welcome you all. to our gathering here. Hello, Drew. Hello, Diana. Diana Oakes, welcome. Lisa and Steve, good to see you. Hi, Steve. Hi, Lisa. Chris, Chris Enders, welcome. Griffin, Kakawan, Kaffee, Corey, hello, Corey, welcome. Millicent, Jack, hi, Jack. Jerry, Musho. K again.

[49:24]

K again. Welcome. Hello, Dean. Welcome back. Amr. Welcome. Jaquan. Hello, Jaquan. Shozan. Michael. Shun Orika. Nice to see you. You're still over on this side of the big ocean. That's good to have you here. Helene. Hello, Helene. And Meredith. Welcome, Meredith. Dagmar. Welcome. Paul, Kate, and Carol. Trouble Treasure, welcome. Senko, Tom, Kate, Adrian, and Kosan. Oh, Genshin and Alice. Okay, welcome everyone. So nice to have you. And please make your comments. Drew, it looks like you're first to go. Hi, hi, thanks. Yeah, I always get to this point, and I probably brought this up before, It's when – I don't know how you refer to dualism or the mind separating this from that as the problem.

[50:31]

That's the root cause. And I'm not saying it's not. It's just that it doesn't explain why the mind evolved that way. It seemed that somewhere along our evolution, for us to evolve – It had to happen. We had to realize this and that. We couldn't live in a oneness. So it seems like splitting, biting, you know, when you bit the apple, that was the good news. And the mind splitting between this and that and dualism is the good news or else we wouldn't evolve. And it gives us some problems. Right. That's right. That's right. So mostly our evolution included our belief that there is only one thing. There's us and that. There wasn't the idea that there was a non-dual way of understanding who we are and where we are. You know, the Buddha's enlightened moment, as we've come to understand it, was when he, after seven days of meditation, looked at the sky and saw the star and had a realization that the star wasn't outside of his consciousness.

[51:43]

That it The star required him and he required the star. It was mutually, it was dependently co-arising. And the dependent co-arising is really the point of our understanding that allows us to feel responsibility for everything and everyone. You know, we're not separate. I'm responsible for my not being separate from this world and for how I care for this world. And if we all saw that the world is not separate from us, it's not just a field of exploitation to be used you know by me because I'm hungry you know which is maybe how we got our start as beings is by taking a bite out of our neighbors so you know that's basically our origins but there's a tremendous suffering that's gone along with that and we also have manifested ways of living without that kind of violent you know biting our neighbors so I think the teaching, these are wisdom teachings.

[52:47]

You know, the Heart Sutra, all these three turnings are wisdom teachings. They're about understanding the Buddha's insight, but they are at the service of compassion. And if we don't have compassion as the whole point of why we're doing this, then we're missing the point. The point is to reduce our greed, to reduce our hatred by seeing that that which I hate is coming from my mind. The hating is a product of my imagination. Lust is a product of my imagination. Take responsibility for my feelings about the world and spend time with looking at your mind and how it works and creating what you think is the world and what you think is yourself. So it's really kind of like just look at those assumptions, but also look at these teachings as a possible alternate way. Try it on, like putting on another set of glasses. I don't know if you've ever seen any of these videos of these, not just young people, but various people who were colorblind, and they give them these glasses to put on.

[54:02]

and they all break into tears. They see color for the first time, and they just burst into tears. That's what the world looks like. Yeah, that's what the world looks like. Sometimes it's little children, sometimes it's older people who never saw color, or they saw some kind of color. So I think these are glasses or lenses of thinking, of ideas that we can try on, like non-duality. What does that mean? What would that be to see the world as not outside or inside of myself, but as actually creating myself? As Dogen says, to carry yourself forward and see myriad things is delusion. Oh, that's there, and that's there, and that's mine, and that's delusion. That myriad things come forth and realize themselves in you is... So we have these great teachers who are telling us the same thing.

[55:04]

Turn the light around. Bring the light of your awareness this way. It also seems that there's teachings from other religions, the more mystical, are also saying the same things. Yeah. Suvi Meister Eckhart, he's unbelievable. I mean, they all seem to be in their own way getting to that same point. Yeah, so, and we each have an opportunity because it's, you know, it doesn't do me any good that Dogen figured it out. Yeah. Right? So I had to figure it out. And it's like, oh, no. Yeah. Each of us has the same assignment to sort of take these hints and see if we can apply them. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the hints. Sure. You're welcome. Thank you, Drew. Hi, Chris. Hi, Drew. Hi, everyone. So wonderful to be here.

[56:07]

I'm absolutely loving this. I'm reading the books, kind of looking at Norman Fisher's writings, remembering, spending time with him, thinking about... some of these topics up at his place. It was absolutely amazing. But I'm finding so much connection between this, like what you had mentioned, different ways of seeing, what Norman mentioned, different ways of viewing the world, the three turnings of the wheel, the synthesis of what Vasubandhu is trying to do, different ways of looking at it. It's really interesting. I'm not saying this clearly, but like what Suzuki Roshi mentioned, you said small mind, big mind. The left foot, right foot, the macrocosm, the microcosm, the in, the out, the non-dual reality.

[57:21]

Um, it's, it's really, um, it's really interesting saying that, um, I'm just loving them. I'm connecting and into, um, and I'm curious with Vasubandhu, um, the connection between this and jnana yoga and the, uh, Vedanta, uh, and Vedanta and the, uh, Um, the, the, the punish shots, um, it seems to be very directly related to that. Um, the, the idea of superimposition, the, not even superposition, the reality of superimposition, uh, the rope, the snake, the, um, mistake that we make. Um, I don't know. I'm, I'm just, uh, I, I'm just really, I should have had this more clearly thought out before saying something. But this is... I think it's exciting.

[58:25]

You're excited. Not too often the Zen students get excited. They're sitting there very blank. I've got 10 books on my desk right now that I'm talking. I am... So the start of the book, the start of the actual Sanskrit script, talks a little bit about that connection, the Mahavakya of the I am that, I am basically, the start of... Well, anyways, I'm finding a lot of connections. I'm really enjoying this, and I'm really grateful that this opportunity is... is here, and I hope to be able to capture my thoughts and words later and synthesize some of the great books. Chris, I know this is your life work is synthesis, and I appreciate it very much.

[59:30]

And when you get that all worked out, I really want to hear your report on that. I wish I could be like you and Norman and spend time out. Anyways, thank you. Sorry to take everyone's time. That's okay. We're going to walk slowly through these verses, so we'll have a chance together to look at the implications of each of these verses. We're just kind of tapping in right now. We haven't really started to look at Vasubhanda's work, but that's what's next. Thank you, Chris. Always good to see you. Lisa and Steve, it says. I think Griffin's first, maybe. I'm sorry. Griffin, I think you're first in line there. And then after that, Lisa. Hi, Griffin. So I'm excited about that I can see myself in each of those traps that you described. And that was actually specifically, you know, what brought me to Soto again was, you know, seeing but not really understanding those traps.

[60:33]

But this week, experientially, what I was questioning is that I understand intellectually how interdependence and emptiness are related, you know, that interdependence, a connection, you know, with everything and emptiness, you know, of a self separate from that. But what I question is like how deeply I feel or embody that. Wisdom? I mean, as a matter of a moment of reflection, I was with my family at a beach house this weekend watching the waves. I had a longing, you know, for really just sitting quietly and watching this continuous movement of the waves. And you hear the grandkids in the background and my daughter cooking for everyone and, you know, occasionally an irritation because my sister is, you know, being...

[61:42]

too chatty after drinking two glasses of wine. And, you know, then feeling, oh, there's that belief in a separate self, you know, with a curiosity. And then feeling that I had this preference to be like only with the waves and not with that. And, you know, that's my trap. That's one of my traps. Then I just sort of checked in with my body and had this vague anxiety in my abdomen about, you know, questioning whether I really deeply feel that interdependence, that connection in my bone marrow, you know. Well, it's possible you feel it more strongly when something's irritating you.

[62:44]

That's really not separate from me because I'm really irritated. We don't want to discount any of these experiences. They're all giving us the same message. It's your consciousness. It's your mind. What do you mean by mind, Bodhidharma says? You ask, that's your mind. I answer, that's my mind. It's not a big mysterious event going on here. Your mind is having all these different things going on. My mind's having all these different things going on. So trying to sort through these various impressions we have and figure out what's my relationship to what's coming up in my mind. If it's my mind, I'm perhaps maybe a little less likely to get mad at my sister. Maybe or maybe not. It's not a promise here. It's more like it's our homework. This is our effort. is to understand these matters and then to apply them as we can, as we remember.

[63:48]

A lot of times we don't remember that we're Buddhists or that we're interested in awakening or anything else. We're just all caught up in whatever else is going on. Not to leave out the body and the feeling. What's that? And not to leave out the body and the feeling. You can't. You can't. You can't leave out anything. You're not in charge. There is no agent of control. No self. The way we think there is. There's the doer of deeds and the recipient of karmic consequences of your deeds as karma. But there's no being in there. There's no little puppet master, you know, making all of that happen. But we have this opportunity to pay attention to these beautiful teachings and to see what we can do as we receive them. to apply them at the picnic with our family, which is the hardest place. I always tell the students, it's the hardest place you'll ever go to practice is home.

[64:51]

Because they still think of you as that silly kid that did all those things that way. Very hard for them to let you change. So I often would tell them, you know, well, I just want to go home and tell them all about Buddhism and I give them all these books. I said, no, don't do that. Just do the dishes. That'll be enough. They won't know what happened to you, you know. Just be hopeful. See if you can do kind things, you know. So... Good to go? Thank you. Hello, Lisa. Hello, Fu. So I have... So I have a short circle back to Drew's question and then another question about mind. So coming back to Drew's question about the self and evolution, I think, you know, to get some idea of where we went wrong.

[66:00]

You mean when we were single selves? Well, when we were porpoises, when we were elephants, when we were some of the creatures that seemed to have a sense of self. You know, the question was, Drew's question was, what happened? And, you know, do they have a way out of the sense of self then? It's a hypothetical question. We have no way of knowing. Even to know that they have a sense of self is hard. But I sort of wonder... if it isn't unique to humans. That sense of self in that way? Yeah, yeah. Well, aren't you the neurologist, neurobiologist? I've played one on TV or in lectures. So I heard recently, I heard an interesting proposition that thinking and cognition are not the same, that we can problem solve.

[67:08]

Whales can problem solve. Ellicens can problem solve. We can problem solve without thinking, without putting words to it. In fact, the words are kind of a smaller little element in our brain, the kind of language thing, the aphasia. Sometimes people can't use words anymore, but they can still do stuff. They can still feed themselves and walk across the street and all kinds of stuff. So in a way, I think this language that we're studying here is simply language. you know and as nagarjuna says to us in in later in later teachings you're forgetting the horse you're riding the horse of language yeah so if we drop off if we become aphasic and stop using language There's a whole other way of being in the world that we already know, that we did receive from the single cells up through evolution, up through the mammal line and the primate line and so on and so forth. We have been conditioned by all of those that went before us. And each one of us, there's an uninterrupted line from that first cell to each one of us.

[68:12]

If there had been a break in that line, we wouldn't be here. So somehow our ancestors managed to survive from the beginning of life. Isn't that kind of amazing? And so here we are and we're going like, oh, I'm so bored. We just have amazing lack of awe for the fact that we exist, that we're here, we're here to learn and understand, you know, and to be less, maybe less automatic in our responses to the world. than perhaps a jaguar is or an elephant or whatever, although they do pretty well. Yeah. I have great admiration for those animals. Yes, the question here is maybe my working theory is that it's language that got us into trouble. Well, I think so. And if you read Sapiens, Yuval Herrera's book on Sapiens, Language didn't happen that long ago.

[69:12]

What, 80,000, 90,000 years? That's nothing. Right. And we went from just going grunting. Well, one of the things about language that this thing I read was is that language is like telepathy. It's a kind of telepathy because you won't know what I'm thinking or what I'm cognating. My cognition is not visible to you unless I tell you. if I communicate with you with language. So I really like that idea of telepathy, both to myself, back to myself, what am I doing? I can kind of explain it. And to someone else, I can give you some instruction about how to do something, which language is, what allows us to do that is language. I think one of the most stunning points he makes about that, about our capacity, you know, which is burst forth, with our intoxication with language, to go from a single individual making a spear and going out and hunting.

[70:16]

So I can make a spear and I could go hunt. It takes a million individuals to make an atomic bomb. And the reason they can even do it is because of language. So it's exponential what's happened to this species as a result of this invention. of language, of logic and words. So, you know, your question is a very important one. What happened? Yeah. And the question then is, if what we do, if the learning that we do that leads to realization is actually going back to some older pathways. It's a theory. There's still there. Oh, yeah. I don't think anything in neuro, you know, I think it always looked to me like when the brain evolved, all that happened is you slapped more on top. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You didn't lose, you know, you changed some functions, but you didn't lose anything.

[71:20]

Yeah. So I wonder if we're going back. Anyhow, that was the short question. And I will not do that to anyone else. Okay. I will shorten my second question, which is, is one of the traps of the third turning reifying mind? Exactly. The trap of eternalism. That there's a mind. Okay. Yeah. Because I read this, you know, when you read the quote from the 37 practices of the Bodhisattva. Yeah. You know, whatever arises in experience is your own mind. Mind itself is free of any conceptual limitations, to which I say, yeah, right. What about biology? But mind, it's hard to see that as not being reified there. That's the danger. That's the trap of the yoga car. And the emptiness teachings point at them and say, you guys are reifying the mind.

[72:23]

You're making the mind into a thing, a substantial thing. And then they point back and say, yeah, but you guys are turning all the monks into nihilists. So they both have a pretty good case to make about them. And that's why Vasubandhu was very devoted to bringing them together. Right. Okay. So as we'll see, the first half of the 30 verses is the old school, is the earliest wisdom teachings, the foundational teachings. And the second half is the emptiness teachings. So like I said, he's going to walk us to the cliff and then throw us off. But so far, no people have been injured in this process. It's because it's all here. Right. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. Hi, Ulrika. Great to have you here. Welcome, welcome, Ulrika. Hello, everyone, and thanks for having me.

[73:28]

And I just got back from Santa Fe studying with an old friend that you know, and he also says a big hello. We've studied for years together, the Yogacara and other things. But this last year or so, he's just what you just said. He always was... Now it's mainly his thing. He's so full of joy and he enjoys cooking and making pizzas and horizontal olive oil in the kitchen. I mean, just it's so precious. And so he and you and the group in our discussions actually made me think of a very old woman that I know in Germany that's a lot like him. And I used to have a cabin in the Black Forest. right in the middle of the woods, totally hidden, 200 years old. And I used to go there and sit and study and go on small retreats.

[74:30]

And there's this old woman in the village down there. And she tended to the graves. She walked. She smiled at people. And at some point, I thought, she's my Zen teacher. I mean, she's right here. I don't have to go anywhere. So we sort of became friends. It took years because I was an outsider and she only wore the traditional dresses that she made herself. Maybe she had two or three. That was all. She was very, very poor. She had been a servant on one of these big farms, these traditional farms her life. She's like 95. So at some point I couldn't help myself. And I said, look, I mean, I'm watching you and you are doing kind of I mean, without thinking about it, what I try to study in my spiritual practice. So what's your secret? And she looked at me totally in disbelief.

[75:31]

I mean, you want to study me? Her eyes looked at me, and she gave me this long glance, and then her mouth opened. And she just said these three words, and it's hard to translate because it's local Black Forest dialect, but it was something like, Endure, keep your mouth shut, go through. Endure, keep your mouth shut, go through it. I'm going to write that down. I mean, I never forgot that. Very good. Anyway, I almost start crying thinking of her. So anyway, you all brought this out of me to tell this anecdote from German Black Forest. That's a lovely story. Is she still living? Yeah. Oh, my. She's still living. And I drove there before I came to Colorado just to see her. Oh, lovely, lovely. Well, you have wonderful connections out there, don't you? That's so nice.

[76:32]

I'm so grateful. My old friend Dan and now this lovely elderly woman. Yeah, they're everywhere, really. Yeah. Just have to, you know. Just keep our eyes open. Yeah, just open your eyes. They're everywhere. Thank you. So nice that you were able to join us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, it's a bit after six. I think that was a lot to share and I'm very happy that you're enthusiastic. I keep thinking, maybe they're not going to want to do this, but I think maybe you do. And I think we'll try and we'll spend our time. I do want to start with the verses themselves. And I will put in the chat the copy of them so you can print them out if you want and write on them, which is kind of helpful. And we'll start looking at chapter one of Ben's work.

[77:35]

next Sunday. Yes? Yes? Oh, fabulous. That's great. Did you all see in the chat something that... Can you all see it, Karina? Just put in chat that Waldron, who's written this incredible book, I'm just starting to get into it. I'm just loving it. And everyone who started to read it is loving it, making sense of mind only, which would be a little ambitious for us to try and go through together. But it's a fabulous resource. Everything you ever wanted to know about just about anything is in this book. He's a beautiful writer. He got great praise for this book. And I just got it. And so it looks like he's talking about that on YouTube, about making sense of mind only. That's the title of the book.

[78:37]

Yes, thank you very much, Jekyll, for that. I look forward to it. I'll look at that myself. That sounds wonderful. Who? Yeah. If you put his name in search... Sorry, Alexa. I'm sorry. What did you say, Jacqueline? If you go to Apple Podcasts. Who is talking? Aldron's name in. Yeah. A two-hour podcast interview comes up with him talking about that book and somebody asking him questions. Great. Great. Have you listened to it already? I'm trying. It is two hours. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Well, thank you for that addition. It's in a podcast called Buddhist Studies, and it's William S. Waldron, Making Sense of Mind Only, Why Yogacara Buddhism Matters.

[79:41]

Yeah. Fabulous. In Apple Podcasts. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Time to let go. No holding on. Okay. It seems like that book is out of print. Is it? Oh, you told me that. That's right. When I tried to get it, I could only find remnants of copies at elevated prices. So I don't know if anybody else has tried to get one, but I think... because there's a demand from this group and maybe also from Green Gulch, it sort of scooped up all the remaining copies when I was looking at it. Maybe people have found some more now, but anyway, so you were saying there's a YouTube discussion just now that we've got.

[80:43]

It's on Amazon. He's talking about the book, so I don't know how much he goes through the... content of the book but he's discussing it on youtube the the podcast he really goes through the content oh okay look the podcast is two hours oh but the youtube i have not seen i've heard it's good okay fabulous yeah i think you know charlie um henkel uh kokyo is also teaching on this book. And I think his students probably all got a copy as well. So we just kind of flooded the market or evacuated the market. Emptied the market. So these resources may be much more valuable than books. You can get it on Kindle. Yes, it is available on Kindle, but I can't read Kindle.

[81:44]

Yeah, well, that's sad news. Yes, it is available on Kindle. Try the monastery store. I was able to get a copy there a little while back. What's the monastery store? Is that something online? Yeah, well, you can order it online, through online. It's from Mount Tremper. Oh. It's Mountain Rivers Order. Zen Mountain Monastery. Yes, and it's the mountain. It's called the Monastery Store. Well, maybe they've got a box of them there. Has anybody looked at this just recently? Because we're talking about just in the last couple weeks since all of this activity has happened, it's just all vanished. It's taken up all of the available copies that are... floating around on Amazon used and whatever of my experience.

[82:50]

Well, why doesn't everybody make their best to see if they can find copies of this book and then we can report back? This is quite a spread of possibilities here. Maybe Australia has a few copies left or maybe back east there's a few copies. So maybe anyone finds a copy, let us know. There aren't any there. Australia is no good. Oh, well. The copy I got came from Nottingham, England via Belgium to... California. Wow. Wow. Well, Singapore. Singapore, any hopes there? Ying? I got Kindle. Sorry. You got the Kindle. Okay. All right. Well, we'll do our best to share resources and hopefully they'll print some more. That's probably unlikely, but that would be nice if they did. Okay. Well, thank you all so much. I'll see you next Sunday. I won't be late. I don't think I'll be late. I'm giving the talk on Sunday. Also a little bit with the mind-only bent.

[83:51]

So I'll be at Green Gulch for the 10 o'clock talk. One more thing. Uliki, could you say the three words in German? Except you're muted still. Durchhalten. Entschuldigung, aushalten. Maul halten, durchgehen. Shall I write it in the chat? Yeah. Translation. Maushalten, endure. Maul halten, that's a bit rude. It's like kind of maul is a kind of very kind of like animals have maul. Aushalten, endure.

[85:01]

Maulhalten, keep your mouth shut. Durchgehen, go through. I'm sending it. Can everybody see it? Karina's going to send it. For some reason. Yeah, I can only send to Zendo events. Oh, that's Karina. Karina, you got it? You're going to forward it? She's doing her best. Oh, there it is. Keep your mouth shut. Go through. Yeah. Thank you. It's our new motto. Don't keep your mouth shut, though. No, no. She doesn't keep her mouth shut all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But about certain things she does. All right, everybody. Good night. You're welcome to unmute.

[86:03]

Thank you so much for you. Thank you, Sando. Thank you, everyone. Have a good week. Have a good week. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. Take care.

[86:16]

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