James, Comprehensive Manual of Abhidharma, is that what you said yesterday? Yeah, that's it. Tomorrow is another going to be a light day. Wasn't that quick? Isn't it funny how the first one was so far away and the second one is all of a sudden upon us? So, I just wanted to remind everybody that it is coming up and you know what you did last day off, so if that was good for you, then do the same thing. And if that moved you too far away, then do something different. I again would suggest staying close. If you leave the building, then do it for some kind of exercise, but don't meander about, come right back. And take care of your gathering of mindfulness and the continuity that you're trying to develop.

[01:06]

Don't, at this time, leak. Don't, don't, don't leak. And having to do with that is silence. So, for those of you who are staying around the building, see if you can maintain some kind of contained silence. It doesn't mean, you know, be with each other and so on, but don't do idle talk. Don't do too much idle talk. And also try during today, the day, that when you're around the kitchen and in the small kitchen and so on, especially for the rest of the morning, don't, don't, don't leak, don't leak. And if you're trying to really do that practice of staying silent and maintaining that, and people come up and try to engage with you, it's perfectly okay to say, I'm trying my best to practice silence, and I love you very much, but go away.

[02:08]

Don't bother me. I'm working. You know, there was somebody at Tassajara, David, was at Tassajara, and he took on that practice. How long did he do that? I don't even remember. Yeah, that's right. The idea is not to make contact, not just to remain silent, but don't make contact. You know, don't like, you know, brush off against someone. I'm being silent. How about you? Yeah, the idea is not to, huh? Yeah. People ask me about like the time frame for it, and maybe you could say something. The time frame? Yeah, kind of be safe, I mean, evenings are then until lunch, definitely silent time.

[03:15]

Yeah, that's it. And you really do have a chance in the morning. This is from a book, Mudra. They're poems by Trungpa, early poems by Trungpa. I was thinking of reading you about Mahārāti, which there's a piece in here that I really like, and maybe when we get a little bit farther into the text, I'll read it. But the one I want to read this morning is called, oops, where is it? Wild Duck. No, it's called The Silent Song of Loneliness. Some people, when they have peaks of emptiness, peaks... Where's the duck?

[04:24]

Oh yeah, okay. People have this experience in two ways. Sometimes people have an experience of emptiness and it's full, because it is that, it's everything. Also, you can interpret it that way, as a kind of a fullness. And some people have an experience of dry, alone, desolateness. And that's scary sometimes for people. So I thought I'd read you a little bit of... This isn't scary. Won't be scary. But this is a very, I think, rich feeling of Trungpa's way, his mind. This was written in 65, June of 65. So he had already walked out of Tibet.

[05:30]

You know, what's happening in Tibet is beyond sadness. It's just one of these horrific things that are happening. The odd thing about it is, in a way, because that's happened already in Tibet, we get the benefit of their wondrous ways. Enormously has enriched the West, but at a horrible expense. Horrible expense. You know, when I was in Tibet, when I was there, I think now they've built up the monasteries a little bit, but the devastation was just really impressive. The thangkas were all chipped away from off the walls and written over, and monasteries were in ruins. Of hundreds of buildings, there would just be like one building left and so on. And that's to say nothing of the people who've been so hurt by it.

[06:38]

And how they can maintain the quality of still loving, understanding of what's happening from a compassionate point of view, is just almost beyond me. Amazingly impressive, it seems to me. So anyway, he walked out. The Dalai Lama left in, what, 59, I think. And many people walked out with him. It's not easy to walk over those mountains. I'll tell you a story. Yeah, I'll tell you a story. When you get really high up, it's very... The oxygen doesn't come into your body, so you can hardly walk. I'm not going to tell you a story now. Never mind. I'll tell you in private, this is too much.

[07:39]

This is the Silent Song of Loneliness. The one to whom peace and solitude are known forever, perfectly, you, Milarepa Longchenpa, the guru to whom all things are known, the one who shows the single truth, you, I remember, I, your son, crying from an alien island. He was in Scotland. The wild duck, companionless, cries out in desolate loneliness and flies alone, wings outspread, soaring in the boundless sky. In the womb beyond the one and many, yours is the inner loneliness and yours alone the emptiness within and everywhere around. The mountainside alone creates the clouds that change the rain, the two that never go beyond the one,

[08:49]

so soar away, wild duck, alone. Thunder resounding everywhere is only the elements at play, the four expressing the sound of silence, the hailstones triangular, the black clouds and the storms blast are earthbound only, wild duck, so do not fall a prey to doubt but get you gone upon your flight. The waters of the sunset lie saffron-painted, beautiful, and yet unchanging is the light and dignity of the sun, so cut the cord that joins the day and night and stretch your wings and fly, wild duck. The moon's rays spread over the ocean and heaven and earth smile, the cool and gentle breeze moves over them, but you are young and far from home, wild duck, so stretch your wings alone and travel on the path to nowhere.

[09:51]

A sharpness is on the summer's tail, the healing breeze of summer yields to the bitter wind of wintertime. If this was a signal to you, bird, then you would know the seasons not themselves but as a turning wheel. The young deer, wandering among the summer green and pleasant ways, remembering his mother caught and killed in a trap, can yet enjoy the freedom of the empty valley and find relief and rest of mind. The lonely child who travels through the fearful waste and desolate fields and listens to their barren tune greets as an unknown and best friend the terror within her and she sings in darkness all the sweetest songs. The lonely bird lived all his days in a place apart yet did not know peace or the dwelling place of peace. But when the face of loneliness is known to you,

[10:54]

then you will find the Himalayan hermitage. The jungle child sings his song sad and alone yet weeps for nothing and joy is in him as he hears the flute the peaceful wind is blowing and even so am I in the sky dancing, riding the wild duck. Thank you.

[12:07]

What is it? Basically asking for something that's not really something. It's not an important one. It's not profound. I think you can name a couple of examples. I didn't mention myself. Somebody else noticed. No. No. That was sort of polite. I didn't mean to be rude. I was talking about myself. And I had a lot of thoughts about it. I don't know whether I should answer that or respond to it or not. I think it's up to you. What is important about it? That's not important. Well, I think traditionally there are three, I think,

[13:13]

levels of understanding. I don't remember them exactly, but the first one is listening, I think. Listening to the Dharma. I don't know if I have this right at all, but anyway, the sense of it is that we need to use all the ways to actually understand. Listening is one way. Studying is another way. So we're studying intellectually. So at that level we have maybe intellectual understanding, which is useful because it's encouraging, it's clarifying. But then the most important thing is to have some direct experience yourself of that. It directly addresses suffering. Until we really can let go of a sense of me,

[14:17]

a sense of solidity and everything, we really don't end our suffering and can't really be with anybody else. We have to pass through a real experience of not-self and not-other. I'll follow up. Well, it seems like there are three facets of reality that we need to be very clear about. One is the last one. The other is arising of not-self and not-other. I say facets because they're kind of large. Specifically, the other two I have a little bit better grasp on. But in Sri Yasa, my understanding was that the term originally came from the expression for something like bored, which appears to be very quite substantial on the outside, but is kind of hollow.

[15:17]

And so I was wondering if Sri Yasa was in a way a kind of remedy to the extent to which what really happens to us is a basic method of survival for assessing what we need and what we don't. Because we've got brains that are really powerful that are really good, it's been elaborate on the type of reverse tail of what we're doing to the not-self and where everything lies, of course, and so you see that bore is substantial. In fact, if you look more deeply at the conceptual meaning of reality itself, it's not made as a deal. You have to make it out to be, and then you start to let go. And the other two components are the ways in which this reality is substantial. Plus, there's no center anywhere, there's no one thing, you know, those sorts of things. It seems like, you know, for me, for my own personal experience, what got me into this and what touched my emotions

[16:19]

was my own personal understanding of the past. I think that's why I'm sort of eager to start off about it here. It really did change my life. I understood the science of things, about what's going on, and how things kind of shatter. And, you know, it was a very profound experience. And so, maybe that's one of the most memorable and certainly a new question that's really going to take away from the deeper work that I've done. It says, for some people, that's right, the intellect is an entranceway. Some people don't need it. But for some people it's an important entryway. Did somebody have their hand up? No. So, what I put on the board

[17:22]

is kind of, in a way, relevant to what we're talking about because... for a couple of reasons. One is, sometimes, in a certain kind of way, direct experience of emptiness is a gift. It's just kind of a grace thing. If we grab after it, it seems to go further away. But they say, the way some people talk about it is, is that you can kind of... Oh, it's an accident, they say. It's an accident. But you can make yourself accident-prone. One of the ways of making yourself accident-prone is to really thoroughly understand, intellectually, what we mean by emptiness. And then, to put it into your life and practice with that. Not thinking that anything's going to happen, but just because...

[18:23]

just because why? The reason why I'm stopped is because it's really a fine line between practicing and grasping after something, which is... we have to be careful about, and some people have to be more careful than others about that. But it's also true that there are these methods and tools and so-called practices and so on and so forth that do help, in some ways. So, it's... Some people say that it's enough to just go and sit. Suzuki Roshi says it all the time. But what does that mean, just sit? You know, it doesn't mean just sit there and just, you know, let everything... Well, in a certain kind of way, that is what it means. But we have to be present

[19:30]

and being sitting. We can't be not present, being sitting, thinking that that's sitting. It's not. So, in the beginning, we have to make an enormous effort to be present if we're not. So, there are practices to do. So, like the Vipassana people have very, very, very clear practices. They just deeply, deeply, minutely train themselves to slow everything down massively. Everything is really slowed down. And you can see all of the little minutia that make up the smallest experience. Like, you know, like their walking meditation is, you know, three quarters, half, a quarter. I don't know the fractions, but of ours. They go really slow. It took me, when I was at IMS, it took me to go from here to...

[20:32]

You know, the Buddha Hall would take 20 minutes at least. You know, if not longer. You go really, really slowly. And then what happens is you see everything just kind of falls apart. Because you can see how all of the, like, impulses and the smallest little tendencies and elements and so on and so forth. You can see how the whole thing just is totally changed. There's nothing substantial there. That's one way, you know, one way. And the Tibetans have lots of ways, and in a certain kind of way through intellect, not like the intellectual, but in analyzing, they analyze a lot. They use that method. And what we do is kind of, we just sit, but we also take our just sitting into our daily lives. So this is what I put on the board today. So one way to do it is to,

[21:35]

you know, and we also have koan practices, which I've done in my life a little bit. And for people like me, I don't recommend them. But what you do is you just hold, you don't intellectualize it, but you just hold in a way that you can a question or your particular koan. And in the same way, you can do that with other things, like, for example, grasping. You can just hold in your mind or keep that foremost in your mind, grasping, and then every time that happens for you, every time you lean out of the present moment, every time you lean towards something, up comes an awareness that that's what you're doing. And that's the neat thing about Vipassana practice because, you know, way before you even get to the lean, you're already knowing that you're leaking. You know, it's really minute. But anyway, you can hold grasping in mind and then you can, by the awareness itself,

[22:39]

which is what creates the space around the grasping, you don't, I say you don't go there. What I mean is you don't hold on. You just don't do that grasping. You watch, you settle there. And by settling there, you can see change. You can see that nothing can be held as you watch what it was that you were trying to grasp, like a relationship, like somebody. When we get into relationships, we often think that that person is going to stay just the way they were when you met them, and that's them, that is who they are. And then when they change, you know, you're surprised. You have to kind of re-relate to the person. And the same thing is true on this side. If you just stand there and wait and not buy into whatever it is that you're watching or studying or holding in the mind, you can see clearly that everything changes, this side and the other side.

[23:40]

And you can see then that it, so-called, is not there to grasp, and you can't grasp on this side either. So just holding some idea, some concept, or something you're working with in that way is a very effective way to work deeper and deeper. And this is another way which I think is really good. Somebody was talking to me actually once, and they said they aren't blah, blah, blah. And they stopped themselves before they got to this word. They were going to say they aren't friendly, but they didn't say that. They were present enough to be aware that they were just about to conceptualize somebody. They acknowledged that that's what they were going to do. The precepts popped right into their mind. Well, this is actually one of the Eightfold Path, but...

[24:43]

Speech, don't do wrong speech, popped into their mind. They stopped. They didn't impute that concept in a truth. They stopped. As soon as that idea came into the mind, they stopped. They just noted that they had that concept in mind and didn't do anything with it. They didn't deny it. No, no, [...] they really probably are friendly. And they didn't grab onto it, yes, they really are not friendly. They just had the thought and stopped. Did not. Did not. No. No, no, no, no. No. Right, and we're going to understand that today. I want this to be really clear. Okay, here we go.

[25:45]

Let's say belief for starts. Like I said yesterday, we are trained in the United States, and probably all over the world now, to think about people who are different than we are, that they have certain inherent characteristics. So when we say, if you're living in the Balkans and you talk about a Muslim, let's say, that they are blah, blah, blah, violent or whatever it is, okay? We're taught that. Now, because we're taught such a thing, those thoughts are going to come up in mind. That is not imputing substance to them. When you reify that thought and say, yeah, that's right, they are violent, and you believe what you just thought, then you're imputing substance. You see the difference?

[26:50]

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. No. No. I think if I may be so... Yeah, I disagree. I actually disagree. But don't say, I'm right. Right. But I do want us to understand the text, and that's not what the text is saying, in my opinion. Okay? That's the difference between having a concept, which is not a problem. We have an idea of self. It's not a problem that we believe that there is a self with inherent existence separate from everything else.

[28:05]

That is a problem, and that's imputing existence or substantiality or reality or substance to an idea that is only a label on a bunch of characteristics that's totally fluid and empty in its essence. Well, the idea of the accomplished, okay, is that you stop at the arising of the concept, and you don't impute. Do not put... This is ahead of the class, okay? This is ahead, but you're going to get this tomorrow. You do not impute. The accomplished is the independently arisen concept without imputation. That's number twenty-something or another. Okay? That's what we're going to study.

[29:06]

The accomplished is this, but the accomplished is this without this, without imputing. We have to have concepts. That's how we are in the world. Concepts arise. There's nothing wrong with concepts. Okay, go ahead. Okay. What he... ...in terms of... Right, that's the imputation. Okay.

[30:19]

Yes, inherent existence, that the idea represents something that inherently exists. That is the mistake. No, no, I'm not. We label by concepts. I want to... Let's just do this for a minute, but then I want to bring the class along, otherwise it's not fair. Okay? I'm not saying the label is... We label all the time. That's how we think. That's how we know something. We can't not do that. That's how we are in the world. Reifying it, imputing some inherent existence to that concept is a mistake. Grasping that concept as real is a mistake. Only if you...

[31:22]

Only if you impute the truth there. I don't want to go too much with this because we're only on 17 and we'll get there tomorrow. Yes. That's how I'm talking about it. Yes. I don't know if I would use karma quite in that way, but the gist of what you're saying, I agree with. I can't hear you. If you don't have a...

[32:25]

If it isn't coming from self... Yes, of course. Were they what? I don't understand your question. Is it possible... Activity... Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah.

[33:27]

I think that's true. I think that our developed... You know, it's infinitely developed. I think there... I don't know. There might be maybe three or four people who maybe really have completely no... You know, the self is really completely... The rest of us are, you know... In the... Yeah. Are you happy? Are we getting to karma enough? I brought... I even brought the fox just to read you the story. All right. So let's try to bring the whole class together, but let's be warned that tomorrow we're going to be at Parakalpita, Paratantra, and Parinirvana, and they're... The day after tomorrow? Oh, okay. Day after tomorrow. So could you guys go over that,

[34:47]

both, you know, in the definitions and also in the Kalupahana and you're studying? So at least we have the same vocabulary to deal with. Those are in the twenties, starting with twenty, I think. Yeah. Twenty, twenty-one, and twenty-two. And we'll just talk about it. We'll just have a discussion. But, you know, the thing... The most... The bottom line is how are you going to use it in your practice? For me, that's the bottom line. If this helps for our freedom from conceptual clinging, then I don't care how you think about it, from my point of view. This is a tool. This text is a tool for our awakening. So I'm just basically interested in presenting something to you that you can use. Yeah. Although, you know, I do want to go...

[35:50]

I want to do seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen. So we'll just go quickly. So from my point of view, she didn't impute anything to the idea that came up. She did go to the body and notice the contraction of separation, which is painful. She withdrew her involvement from the idea. She was studying the process of mind rather than the content. That turn is really important. She noted how she was creating a self by really, you know, about to believe that how she thought of the situation was right. She was used to being a person who was right. And she didn't... She turned her awareness toward that idea of self-image that she had and didn't cling to that idea of me. She saw there was a watcher there watching that she was not grasping a me.

[36:51]

And then she was noticing, well, who is that? Who is the watcher? And didn't impute substance to that. Didn't grab on... Let's forget imputing substance. Didn't grab on to that as a me. And in doing that, you can see the whole thing is a process and keeps changing, and the changing of the whole thing helps us to see the emptiness of the whole thing. You can say the change, or you can say the dependent co-arising of the whole thing. Dependent co-arising is a great way to study all of this stuff. So, that's what happened there. So, let's look at 17. Thus, thought involves this transformation of consciousness. For that reason,

[37:54]

what has thus been thought of does not exist. In other words, the way we think of things, the way human beings see things, in that way, things don't exist. It's not saying that nothing exists. They're not saying that nothing is out there. What it's saying is the way that we think it's there is not the way things actually are. That we see apparent things. We give apparent things inherent existence. We impute inherent existence onto a process that's happening that we glom onto. We put in a box. We label characteristics. We impute a separation on them. In that way, things do not exist. Therefore, all that we know conceptually

[38:59]

is basically a representation. It represents something, but it's a complete mental event. It is not the way things actually are. We see things as separate. We see things as... And ourselves, we feel ourselves to be separate, inherently existent, solid, even unchanging. And none of that is true. Yes. Although it's not wetness,

[40:01]

it's just sensing. Just the sensing. And is it sensing? No, I think there... Remember in the beginning we did say that there can be just sensation. Physical body consciousness is a direct experience. As soon as you make it yours or label it something, or tea or whatever it is, or wetness even. And again, that's not a problem. The problem is to think that that actually is the case. It's like the weather. To say that there's a weather or even storm, you keep deconstructing it until the whole thing disappears. The whole thing is just this one life, empty of parts, empty of separation. It's just this one process. Life, death, same thing, no difference, you know. Me, you, no difference.

[41:02]

We come up together as one. Consciousness is not separate from its object. It doesn't exist without an object. There's no such thing. It's one event. It's kind of reassuring. Eighteen. Consciousness indeed possesses all seeds. Its transformation... He's just kind of summarizing this now. Its transformation occurs in a variety of ways, three in particular. It proceeds on the basis of mutual dependence. It's all dependently co-risen. There is no ultimate, as a result of which such and such thoughts are born. He just summarized what he's been trying to explain to us. And number nineteen is karmic dispositions together with the two dispositions of grasping, karmic dispositions being the habit patterns,

[42:03]

habit energy, together with the two dispositions of grasping, which is grasping itself or grasping at other, produces another event, produces another event when the previous result has waned. So each one of these things is a dependent co-rising, influencing alaya again, and alaya influences the arising of the concepts in the way that they come up because of all of the seeds. Remember I drew you this thing in the beginning that went like this and it went back up and down, up and down? So alaya is influencing the way we perceive things, the way we perceive things and create a self goes back into our consciousness and so on and so forth, back and forth, back and forth. When we have... What? Okay. Well, I'm done. What? I was going to say the process of the resultants

[43:04]

sort of waning and then producing through this karma or whatever, producing this other object. I love using the triangle. The object is created. So this process, this continual process, is that the thing that creates the basis for what we grasp onto? Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Grasping, you know, remember that thing that we studied that we didn't know, this volition thing that we didn't quite understand because it wasn't really conscious there, it's just a tendency of mind? This tendency of mind is what grasping is coming from. Our mind has a tendency to grasp because it wants to... We are reaching for ground all the time. It's our survival mechanism. It's trying to help us understand what is basically threatening. And interestingly enough,

[44:06]

what happens is as it creates self and other, in order to know whether this other thing is threatening or not, it feels threatened anyway by what's separate from it. It's kind of ironic. You know, it's kind of ironic. We need that separation to know what is happening out there, apparently, our best guess of what's happening out there, running it through all of our past experiences with the closest thing that we know of whatever that was. And yet that very process which separates us from life itself, we feel basically inside we're really threatened and nervous by the very fact of separation. I find it really interesting. Anyway, that tendency of mind to grasp is just a tendency of consciousness. It's inherent in every consciousness

[45:11]

that arises, is this tendency to grasp. And that is the beginning. That is the beginning of the reification of self and other, the grasping of the separation. It really makes it really solid. So this grasping is just another one of these speeds. It's not the nature of all of the speeds. It's not the nature of the mind itself. I think it's the nature because it comes up, it's one of the mental factors that comes up with every consciousness event. It's there. Looking at birth and life being, could we say a thought arises which is a karmic event? No, it isn't. A karmic event traditionally is volitional. It's volitional activity. You're using karma in the kind of pop Buddhist way. You know, that karma is just everything that happens to you is karma. Karma, the word karma

[46:14]

just means activity. And karma in the sense of Buddhist, our understanding is it's volitional activity like in the twelvefold chain. It's based on ignorance which is the ignoring of our, the true way that we exist which is not separate. So the karmic event is based on separation. It's based on self. That influences consciousness. You know, I think we have to remember this stuff is not exactly linear. You know, these things are happening all the time with billions of events

[47:17]

are happening to us all the time. So it's not like, you know, it's... Well, because I think that it's pointing to dependent co-arising. You know, it's all dependently co-arisen. So it does, it all, everything depends on something that happened just before it. So we do have this, we do have this event. We do have seeds. We do have this transformation. We do have this whole process which is mutually dependent means dependently co-arisen. And as a result of that process thoughts, these kinds of thoughts are born. Thoughts of separation and solidification of self and other are born. It happens in the way the previous verses explain it.

[48:18]

It happens in that way. It transforms in the way he's been talking about. Do you understand? Yeah? Okay. Go ahead. Water encouraged certain seeds. So it's not necessarily necessary for that seed to arise and ripen just then. But the waning is the ripening of some seed. And when that goes away depending on how you act because of that you either water it again

[49:23]

or you don't. You water something else. Thich Nhat Hanh explains this I think really well for those of you who have that book. Mm-hmm. [...] No, it's there even in delusion. You're acting...

[50:31]

You can tell. You can tell. You pay real close attention. You can tell. First of all... See, now this is what I want you guys to do. On your day off. On your light day. You take this, the business about... Really notice when a concept comes up. Really notice when you're feeling contracted and the difference between how you respond that way and what kind of awareness that is than when you don't and you're just being. You won't even notice because you won't feel... You won't feel that separation. You're just being in life. It's all completely different and we all know. Just now notice. Notice the difference and then come and we'll talk about it. What? Ask me again.

[51:32]

I mean... You know, this is interesting. Mel, yeah. I asked Mel specifically about that and he said exactly. Not based on a sense of self. It won't be karma but he also said that that's, you know, kind of theoretical in a certain kind of way because he didn't even want to in a certain kind of way, in a way, talk about that level of being. I think. But am I not understanding what you're saying again? I hate when that happens. Okay. I just want to say one thing. The interesting thing about this is that

[53:00]

it seems to me like when we had... I think it was last class or two classes ago when I felt like there was a sense of not believing that you can actually be and act in the world without a sense of self, let's say, without a sense of self. I don't know how to... I don't know exactly how to address that except to say, just keep going. I mean... It's easier to be in the world without a sense of self, without self-reflecting all the time. It's way easier to be in the world without all the time having to think about how you're affecting somebody,

[54:01]

whether they like you, is it going to be okay. It doesn't mean... To come from a place of not-self does not mean that you are a vegetable. It doesn't mean that you don't have discrimination. It's just that discrimination is not based on self, on preferences in a certain kind of way. It's based on awareness, but it's not based on self. So it's clearer. The world is clearer that way. It's not so clear a distinction. Remember the sixth consciousness is discrimination? It's discrimination without manas. Well, just that I think that where I might get caught in thinking that I don't want to be a vegetable, right? Yeah. And I have this idea of like the enlightened one comes only from a place of like no-self. There's notices and notices that doesn't infuse well of love.

[55:03]

And then there's me caught in delusion, completely caught in delusion. I don't think that there's... Or maybe I'm asking, is it really that distinct or as we practice... There, I just read the other day, I think I read, it was by the Dalai Lama, that for some people awakening in a way does happen that way, but for most of us it's a gradual releasing of self. Well, look at what Dogen says. Dogen says to study the self is to forget the self. The more you study, the more... As you study, we study the superficial things first, the gross things. And as you study and are clear about those, those are forgotten. And then you go to a deeper level of identification of self. And as you do that, those are forgotten and so on. To be awake is to be awake about delusion.

[56:05]

We study delusion. We study delusion. Yeah. Yeah, include, include, include. Awareness is, awareness can, like Dalai Lama says all the time, awareness can be, you know, endlessly expansion, expanding. And that's what happens, you know. Our awareness is like this, when we're selfing, when we're selfing, that's a good way to think about it, selfing, okay, as a verb. When we're selfing, our awareness is like this constricted, tight, painful, experience. And as we release the selfing part, you know, the selfing business, the more we release, the wider and wider and wider awareness, the awareness is, you know, big anyway,

[57:11]

but we, we release more and more into that awareness. It's a question of releasing, relaxing, releasing. Well, for some people they have sudden awakenings and those are Kensho experiences, but they have, those things have to be put into and embodied in their day-to-day life, otherwise they're meaningless. So, for example, if a person who has a Kensho experience and knows the self, let's say, is completely, you know, not there, then when their self comes up, that's what they renounce. They renounce the barrier, they renounce grabbing onto the, acting from and believing in a self. It has to be digested and lived, otherwise it doesn't mean anything. That's why it takes so long. You have to do that work. In terms of the,

[58:13]

the meditation you've been talking about, on the one hand, it's, I think, pretty straightforward to see how something like friend or enemy or, you know, bad, or I can be patient. What about things like red, or like seven pounds? Are those, are we saying those are also imputations? The funny thing about pounds is if you just take two of them, they are the same. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, just a second. Let Blanche and then you can come. Yeah.

[59:16]

Conventional designation. You have to remember that. The relativity. Wait, wait, [...] wait. Take it easy. Wait, wait, wait. Andy, would you like to respond to Barnaby? Oh, I'm sorry. I don't mean in the sense that, I mean, yes, the pound as a human measurement is itself a phenomenal designation, but the measurement itself, if one person weighs something and describes it as a pound and another person, you know, correctly weighs another object and describes it as a pound and you put them both in your hand and you find that, you know, your experience is the same. So there seems to be something to that that's different from friends, I think, which is purely a phenomenal designation.

[60:23]

Andy. I would rather have the pound Wait, wait, wait. Go ahead, respond. I want to say that colors, first of all, colors, there really isn't such a thing as a color, right? It's because in colors, we have different colors in the back of our eyes. We have different types of colors. One is a persimmon, another is a red, one is a blue. What if we define a color as a particular frequency or energy in particular, right? But if you think about it in a sense that somebody might not even have the color sensitive to energy that corresponds to what we call a red light, they're not going to see red. They're not going to be able to see it, unless you define red. Wait, wait, [...] wait. Let's not have a cross. Let's not, let's not do that. Let's just get everybody's points of view out there. They're going to, okay, we're going to have lots of talks over the light day, I can tell. Wait, who was first?

[61:25]

You were first. This is a clip on the kind of example that we have to go on using the different colors to the various things other people are expressing according to the functionalities. So even if I go back to you and say you can tell me energy, even that, albeit nominal designation, albeit computing, even that is true as can be seen. No, it seems to me Wait, wait, wait, wait, Barnaby, Barnaby, just a second. Hold on, hold on. Maka. Right, or something being,

[62:36]

if you're able to describe something in mathematical terms in this very absolute way, even if, you know, the math that we use is conventional to us, the principles behind those mathematical descriptions are still there, whether we use, you know, certain terms versus other terms. Okay, that's a point. Go ahead, Kathleen. Could everybody please speak louder so everybody can be included. In the document, you have a pound on Earth and a pound on the moon. That's different.

[63:36]

All I'm trying to say is that what it is is dependent on other things. Excellent point. Kofi? Could you speak louder? Could you speak louder? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

[64:39]

Mm-hmm. Josh? Josh? Josh? Were you done, Kofi? Thank you. You look great in glasses. I like that. I like that look. Hold on a second, Barnaby. Are you listening or are you writing your... Okay. Okay, okay. Go ahead. Go ahead. I'm sorry, what?

[65:57]

Mm-hmm. [...] This is so interesting. I think we should have a debate the day after tomorrow. Okay. And have another person

[67:02]

who has had a similar or same experience to understand what I have experienced. The color red is never red. It's frequency or whatever it happens to be. And when I say red, it's just a finger pointing to the moon. Right? It's just describing an experience I've had to somebody else who has had the same experience. Now, I can never describe an experience I've had to somebody who has not had that experience. I have them understand the experience that I've had. Or I guess you can never have the same experience. You can't get close unless someone has had a similar experience. Mm-hmm. Paul? Not yet? Anybody else? Yes? Okay. Uh-huh.

[68:10]

It's another point of view. Blanche? Okay. Mm-hmm. [...]

[69:19]

Mm-hmm. Well, delusion. You know, we're trying to wake up about delusion. Victor? Okay. Thank you. Okay. Right.

[70:22]

So, I don't think that I understand it. But, what I understand is that a pound doesn't exist without two pounds. I've read that it doesn't exist without three. Yeah, I think that's true. I think that, clearly, you can show that that means any description that we attempt to isolate and balance affects in five ways, which is that designation My point, really, was that I think that the fundamental difference is the ignorance of the appearance of solidity. We can talk about the indication of good or bad, but I think that's a coarse bubble. I think that the fundamental difference

[71:24]

is that we expect the appearance of things as even suitable to be designated as solid. So, I'd like to stop there because that's what we mean by substance imputing, substance, solidity. But I want to stop and what I'd like to say is this, okay? Every, I would hope, person in this room is feeling, in some degree or other, a self. We're feeling it because of we are either interested in what we're talking about or not interested in what we're talking about. We're saying it's just a good thing or it's not a good thing. I feel such and such and such and such about my participation or such and such and such and such about not participation and so on and so on and so on. So, for our study, the important thing is to turn the light toward that.

[72:25]

If we don't do that, all the talk is flowers in the sky. Okay? So, when you have your light day, which you're not beginning until later, in the meantime you're going back to the Zen Do in which I hope that you feel what has actually arisen in you from this discussion and that's what you study. Where are you grasping there? Are you grasping some idea of self or are you grasping some idea of other? And if so, what does that feel like? And can you have some space which is awareness around that and can you see that you can let it go? And what does that feel like? And so on and so on

[73:30]

and so forth. That's our study through all of whatever arises. That's what we're concerned with. So the day after tomorrow we're going to do that. The fox? I'm just going to bear directly on the history. Yes. Alright. Okay. Ready?

[74:01]

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