So, apropos of our talk this morning, my talk this morning, I was reminded of the old Zen story, the famous Zen story of the two monks who are walking next to the river, and they're getting ready to cross, but there's a lady, young lady there, who wants to cross, and The one monk says to the other, well, I think I should help her. And the other monk says, well, you know, it's Kinstar rules to touch a woman. And the other monk said, just went over and hopped the lady on his back and took her across. And the other monk was astounded. And he said, how could you do that?

[01:11]

And the other monk said, why did you take her across, carry her across? And the other monk said, I put her down at the other side and you're still carrying her. So, This is a kind of example of, because the monks, although the monk did something which was against the rules, he was actually doing something that was in line with the Dharma, and no self arose. In other words, I put her down means that there was no birth of itself in that event. So this reminds me of Bankei.

[02:19]

Bankei was a famous Japanese monk, and most of you probably know about Bankei, and his teaching was about existing in the unborn Buddha mind. So he was always talking to his constituents about the unborn Buddha. All you have to do is reside in the unborn Buddha mind. So unborn Buddha mind is the mind that is never born, simply residing in Buddha mind without creating a self. So, these are kind of examples of, the examples are all over the place of this kind of activity.

[03:23]

And this is the basis of Zen practice. Dogen, if you read Dogen and you have this understanding of unborn Buddha mind and not letting a self be born, you realize that Dogen is talking about this all the time. To study the Buddha dharma is to study the self. and to study the self is to not let it rise up, forget it, to not create it. So I'm wondering if you have any questions from this morning. rather than is consciousness as such?

[04:53]

Well, I think it is consciousness as such, because the sense bases ... Nama Rupa, you've heard of Nama Rupa. Rupa means body, and Nama literally means name, but actually it means mind. So, body-mind. So, awareness of body-mind, body-mind is the foundation for the sense bases, and the sense bases are the foundation for consciousness. That's what it's talking about. That's right, he's not attached, so non-attachment is of course the story here, the meaning of the story.

[06:02]

And consciousness has arisen, and consciousness has arisen through the eye, so consciousness arises through the sense doors. So, first they saw the woman, that's consciousness arising through the eye organ. and the woman is the object. Object, I, consciousness, those three arise simultaneously. And then there's the idea of taking her across, that's consciousness arising through mental activity, which is a sense door, six senses, mental activity. and which brings up mind consciousness, arises at that simultaneously. And then he puts her on his back, which is contact through touch, which is the sense door.

[07:04]

And then there's tactile consciousness arises. So those are three doorways for consciousness to arise, and I think that's the meaning in the cycle of ... You don't want to avoid consciousness. Here's the problem, the problem is not whether consciousness arises or not, but whether it leads to suffering. So here we're not talking so much about good and bad, right? What's really at the heart of this is, what actions do you do that lead to suffering? And when a self is born, all the 12 or whatever, 11, 9, what?

[08:13]

all rise at the same time, in that one moment of action. And it depends on how it's followed up. If there's attachment, then the self arises. But there can be contact without attachment, which is rare, but it's a little tricky, you know. But contact without attachment means that the self doesn't arise. It only arises with attachment. And if you read the Platform Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, attachment is the biggest cause of problems. And of course, it's all throughout Buddhism. The monk who gives her the assistance to cross the river, it seems to me, simply perceives her as she is, He has a problem in his mind and she's not trying to get it on with him.

[09:21]

No, there's no attachment. He just wants to get across the river and he understands that and so he does it. Right, so there's no attachment involved. And ordinarily we wouldn't think so much of that, but the reason why it comes up as a subject is because they're two monks. Right, but that's the point of it. So that makes a point. So he can see her as just a woman standing there wanting to get across the river. She's not part of something to suck him in, or make him pass, or compromise him, or anything. Because there's no him to be, there's no ego to be harmed, or to be weakened. Well, there's nothing there leading to suffering. or dis-ease. Yeah? I'd like to follow up on my question to you this morning regarding food and desire and the self that arises that, for instance, really likes to consume scramble and desires seconds for that.

[10:30]

So, one way of looking at it is, I want to and that's another portion, yet I can't help but think that could also. Well, it has potential. Right, so if one is sort of, you know, metaphorically bound up, oh, I shouldn't take second because that might create a sense of self and desire of wanting more, that's not so good. Right. It's really taking without wanting third. So, attachment to aversion is just as bad as attachment to desire. So, you took seconds, and I took seconds, and I took seconds knowing that I was going to do a talk on it.

[11:36]

But I thought, well this is pretty innocent, you know, it's like I'm not I mean, I'll take the consequences. So, that's important. Well, what are the consequences of taking seconds? Well, the consequences of taking seconds is that if you took thirds... Once you take a third, then you have the possibility of a habit. Truly. The first one is investigation. The second one is confirmation. The third one is, because then you have a choice after the second one, shall I continue or not? So the third one is introduction to a habit, and then you just keep wanting more and wanting more.

[12:45]

So that's clinging. and then grasping, clinging, and attachment, in that order, if you want to look at it in that order. But when you do that, if you do it with mindfulness, then mindfulness might say, don't do it again. But doing it with mindfulness, you might want to do it again, but you know that this will have consequences, and you're willing to take the consequences. The main thing is taking consequences for your actions. It sounds to me like you said that the mindfulness that we bring to a moment before to arrest the possibility of going to the next link is

[13:48]

Well, the sense of self is different. You know, bringing mindfulness is a sense of practice. The mindfulness is the practice that you bring to the situation. If you don't have the mindfulness that is the practice you bring to the situation, then it's only self, because there's nothing to protect you or to remind you of what you're doing. So that's why practice is the important part of it. Oh, yes.

[15:01]

I understand simultaneity or almost simultaneity. When I look at this, I'm looking at it in compounds. Okay. What's really logical to me is link four, mind-body. Mind-body at the condition of birth, second organs, at the condition of contact, feeling, craving, grafting, coming to be, birth, death, foliage, So, old age and death leads to ignorance. I understand that link. Ignorance leads to volitional action. I understand that link. But I don't understand how volitional action precedes mind-body. How can you have volitional action without mind-body? Being presented as a wheel is one way of looking at it.

[16:15]

Let me read you something. First of all, just tell me what you mean by the gap. What I mean is that I don't... I don't... To be honest, I don't understand the link... I understand birth, obviously, is a condition for old age and death.

[17:23]

I don't see where old age and death is a condition for ignorance. Right, because old age and death in paticcasamudpada, there is no birth or death. So, birth and death is a condition for ignorance because ignorance conditions birth and death, birth and death conditions ignorance. It's not one way, both are a condition for each other. Give me one minute to find my passage. That's right.

[18:50]

But then, here's what Buddha did not want. In his first Dharma talk, the Buddha cautioned his disciples not to be attached to either bhava or abhava, being or non-being, because bhava and abhava, being and non-being, are just constructs of the mind. reality is somewhere in between. This is page 245 of Thich Nhat Hanh. When we present the 12 links in the usual way, which is the way you're describing, if we say there is no attachment it means there will be no being, that we are aspiring to abhava, but this is exactly what the Buddha did not want. If you say that the purpose of the practice is to destroy being in order to arrive at non-being, this is entirely incorrect. with non-attachment we see both being and non-being as creations of our mind and we ride the wave of birth and death. We don't mind birth and we don't mind death. So, you're saying at the end, birth and death leads to ignorance.

[19:53]

No, I'm not saying that. I mean, you're saying that ... I'm just looking at what ... You're looking at the diagram. Yeah, okay, I see what you're saying. In a circle, one thing follows another. Because we think that the circle starts with ignorance. That's just arbitrary. Or you can say it starts with birth and death. You can say it starts anywhere. you just pick your place to start. So, birth and death, ignorance, it's just the next thing.

[21:01]

That's why we don't really look at it that way. I mean, that's not the most accurate way to see it. And this is what is considered a linear way of looking at it. the way you described the diagram where, let's see, diagram on page something. Yeah, 235, right. So these are the 12 links. So it looks like a circle, But actually, if you took and made lines between all of the components, you'd feel that each component contains all the rest. Each component contains all of them.

[22:04]

And so this is why I'd say that they all arise at the same time. They're presented in a circular way as a kind of aid to thinking about it, but they shouldn't be attached to that. Well, I was going to say, to me, the link between birth and death and ignorance is something that I can kind of imagine, because you have the experience over and over again of things being finite and limited, and you go to sort of ignorant solutions. It reminds me, for example, of the endless wars between different factions. somebody's dead, so I must kill somebody else. So the death doesn't end it, it just, it seems to make us even more obsessed with trying to solve the problem. So that's why it does seem to be like, you know, whether they have the pig and the goose or the snake chasing each other.

[23:13]

Yeah. I just wanted to say something else. Don't forget, although I don't have any argument with what anybody's saying. This is birth and death of the self, and ignorance of the self. So, or when a birth arises through bhakti-jasam-upada, and we easily keep getting mixed up between the two levels, and going back and forth between the two levels. So, if we keep on the higher level, it makes it easier to think in those terms. But it just naturally happens, and then we try to get people to not create a self on that little secretion of whatever ideation.

[24:27]

That's right. Yeah, so don't build on the thought, don't create a self on the cushion. Yeah, when you were discussing the monk carrying the woman, it sounded like very linear. But you have to remember that those didn't arise because there was no self arising, so those conditions weren't manifesting. I was talking about contact. There was contact, but the contact didn't manifest into a self. And I want to study those, you know, If you look at the diagram on these two pages, 246 and 247, which are kind of the heart of all this, I'm kind of leading up to that and I don't want to start too soon, but I want us to kind of talk around it so that we have talked about it before we get into those two forms, because page 246,

[25:50]

has the 12 links when conditioned by diluted mind and when conditioned by true mind. Diluted mind is on the left, true mind is on the right. And then on the next page, it has the same thing, only the smaller circle is diluted mind and the big circle is true mind. So, I'm kind of leading up to that, but I don't want to get there too soon. But we're edging toward it. Inclining, as they say in Navadama. Yeah, Ken? Right, so that's called transformations.

[27:34]

So it's a big subject. All these little subjects can be very expanded into understanding. Each one of those stations is a big subject in itself. But arising lifespan and old age and death is the arising lifespan and old age and death of the self in one moment of manifestation. And then the next thing is ignorance, again, because the next one is going to arise, right? Because what happens is when we're conditioned through ignorance to have a self, it just keeps rising up all the time, moment by moment. And so this is the round of ignorant behavior which we don't necessarily always realize is suffering.

[28:41]

It's only when it stops that we say, whew! We don't realize how much we really suffer, actually, because we have defenses and we get used to our suffering. We get so used to our suffering that we don't even know it's happening. I think that's really true. And the more we ignore, the more we kind of store it. All these things are happening in the world, they're too overwhelming, you can't deal with them, and we're helpless, but you have to keep going. And then we store all that stuff somewhere, and it causes a lot of suffering, it causes illness, and all kinds of illnesses, because we're storing it and there's nothing you can do about it. And we have all this suffering, but we don't necessarily think about it all the time. and you don't realize it until you let go of it somehow.

[29:46]

But it's there, certainly there. I had a cycle of credit cards. And then Greg Denny picked up Miracle of Mindfulness. I read it at home and started doing mindfulness. I thought he was leaping into the deep of faith. That you can stop that cycle of debt and just live on cash. So I got four dollars. And I really, really want to do this mindfulness, you know, just stay right in the moment and trust that all this is going to work out and I'm going to get money for rent, you know, or a job and that kind of thing.

[30:51]

So, I was also going to introduce you to Wilson's book that he told about that after the World War II, there was starvation and he had little old rice. Yeah. And when he came in and saw his He had the faith that if he continued his practice sincerely, that he would be fed. Yeah, so that's what I think. I want to be able to do that. And this seems to be linked to that. If I really just go straight, right at the moment, and really mindfully don't be deluded, and I'm going to get a job, And it's going to be the right livelihood job. It's not going to be... I'm really grappling with all this. I want to make sure... That's your practice.

[31:53]

Yeah, that's the practice. That's your practice. It's interesting. Right livelihood is one of the eight... the last of the eightfold... Eightfold... Path. Path. And it means always being being continuously mindful. No matter what's happening. It means being continuously mindful. That's the meaning of Right Livelihood. Because when one is continuously mindful in practice, one will be fed. Or not! That means you're trusting your practice. and everything works. I mean, that's been my experience. Yeah, it's interesting because I bounced a check, and then I got $50 to cover it, and now I have $3 in the bank account.

[32:56]

I covered it! I mean, is that an example of just going with it and trusting? Not expecting. Not expecting? No. If you expect, then... If you're expecting, then you... But, just trying to get something through your practice. Expecting is trying to get something through your practice. But if you just simply do the practice, But they may not. Is it time to stand up? Okay.

[33:56]

So do we have any more questions? I'm wondering about like, is this all making sense to everybody? Is it like too thick or too thin? This is a little bit of an aside, so if it's not helpful I'll take the answer off your called Arguments and Contestation, that basically outlines five of the points that you've called for. Can you make the same point that we're talking about without all the confusion? What confusion? What we've just been talking about. What's confusing? Well, without the complexity. Just the straightforward teaching of, as soon as there's a meaning of something, as soon as there's a recognizing of the meaning,

[35:04]

It seems like that's the heart of the teaching, and I'm wondering what these additions to that original teaching are meant to do and where these meanings are. Well, you know, the heart of the teaching is, because of this, that is. because of that. This ceases to arise when that ceases to arise. So that's the heart of it. And then that's what that's all about. So then there... I thought I kind of explained that this morning. I'm actually interested in historically... Well, historically, nobody knows really.

[36:14]

Nothing was written down for 400 years. Well, it's the Buddha's original sermon. There are three things. Four Noble Truths. The three Dharma seals and Pāciccasamuppāda. Those were the three things he talked about in his original talk. And Pāciccasamuppāda is the heart of all of that. First discourse. I don't know long or short, but it's probably pretty long, but maybe it's pretty short. No, the 12 links. Yeah, well, there are different versions throughout the tripitaka.

[37:41]

But I didn't want to go through all the versions because they're just variations of the same thing. So some go this way, some go that way, some are going both ways, some start in the middle and go both ways, or start in the middle and go this way or that way. But I didn't want to get into all that. Well, this is what is considered the polystereotype, and that's why I wanted to show the contrast with the Mahayana. We haven't got there yet. That's what I keep saying. Maybe. Forgetting the self means to be totally aware.

[38:50]

Forgetting the self doesn't mean to forget yourself. It means to let go of self-centeredness. No gap between yourself and the activity. That's called Zen practice. But there seems to be a kind of lack of awareness in a certain way. It comes after, like afterwards I reflect, oh I was lost in that moment. When you say lost you mean... Absorbed. But if there's absorption and then you maybe come out of the absorption and then you realize, oh, I was absorbed.

[40:17]

There are various kinds of absorption. In Buddhism we call absorption without ego, samadhi. and there are various Samadhis, but what we call Samadhi is absorption without self-centeredness that you may or may not come in and out of, but absorption without self-centeredness means to see a big picture. as well as the particular, to experience the whole as well as the particular. We can have absorption in music, we can have absorption in painting or in various activities, riding a bicycle, skiing and all those athletic events and so forth, or seeing a movie.

[41:24]

It's not necessarily samadhi. So, the absorption that we're interested in is samadhi, which is you experience in zazen when you're not creating a self out of your experience. This is what Dogon means by forgetting the self. You simply experience without a self. So there's hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, all those doorways and objects, but there's no self in it to be found, and that's just basic Buddhism. And then, maybe this is more problematic, then you look back and say, oh, gosh, what happened to me?

[42:40]

But that was not forgetting the self in the positive sense. That was getting so carried away that you were oblivious to what you were doing. Self-forgetfulness. That's self-forgetfulness rather than forgetting the self. But I don't know if that's what cut him in or not. Yeah, so we can get totally absorbed in anger, yeah, and so that's creating a self, definitely. Judy? Yeah, you're supposed to remind me. I mean, he really saw a woman.

[43:41]

And he didn't have ego and self obstructing his ability to see her. So he could, and did, just simply and completely see her for what she was, deal with her, and go to bed with her. I mean, that, it's not like he was really on, you know, I mean, forgetting, having no self doesn't mean you can't see. On the contrary, it means you absolutely see, because you're not, you don't have all these obstructions getting in your way of coloring what you see or distorting what you see. Well, that's right. You see clearly what it is in you. That's right. So it's letting go of self-centeredness. is letting go of the obstructions. So we take a little hiatus, and in this hiatus, instead of just kind of wandering around, I would like us to do a little stretching, and I'll leave you in a little stretching for about five minutes.

[44:58]

Yeah, restroom break. How many of you read the text before the class? One, two, three, four, five. It makes it easier to deal with if you read the text. I'm going to give you some time to just read the text.

[46:11]

Huh? Yeah, the handout. If you need a handout, I can read it. The whole chapter is there. I wonder, on page, now that you've read it, on page 231,

[47:40]

At the bottom of 230 there's a paragraph that starts with, �There do not have to be exactly 12 links.� See that? �There do not have to be exactly 12 links.� In the Abhidhamma texts of the Sarvastivada school it says that you can teach 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5 or up to 12 links. The one link belongs to the unconditioned realm. Now, let me say something a little bit about ... Avidyāna, of course, was developed as an intellectual exercise mainly by the Buddhists who came after Śākyamuni as a systematization of his teaching. and it became very intellectual and analytical.

[49:03]

So we get bored with this analytical stuff because a lot of it is just exercise, mental exercise, based on Buddha's teaching. But it does have value, and the value is that it's analytical. The Mahayana texts tend to be more synthetical, so Abhidhamma talks about examining all the particulars until you get to zero, and it's a kind of reductionist way of looking at things, kind of like certain kinds of science. And Mahayana is more broad and inclusive like the Avatamsaka, the Hawaiian teaching of all is one and one in all, so that's more holistic and synthetic synthesis. So these are the two sides and we're used to the Mahayana side which doesn't take a lot of

[50:13]

analytical thinking, but it's good for us to do some analytical thinking because that's the other side and it gives us a different perspective which is important. So, when we look at the 12 links and so forth, that's the analytical side, the Abhidhamma side, and so what the later scholars or practitioners have done, is taking the synthetic synthesis and the analysis and kind of put them together in a way, so that we're not discarding something, we're using it in a way that works for us. And that's kind of what this article is about. So Thich Nhat Hanh is very good at that, he's very good at taking the the Hinayana and Mahayana, and kind of not discarding but trying to create a synthesis.

[51:20]

And he does it very well. And I think also some Theravada scholars or practitioners have the same similar idea. And this is more like the cutting edge of how Buddhism is synthesizing the various practical school, practice schools, or practical schools of practice, and presenting the teaching in a synthetic way. So anyway, he says, the two links are cause and effect. The three links are past, present, and future. Now, this is the whole thing. It sounds simple, but I didn't even want to get into this. The four links are ignorance, volitional actions, birth, and old age, and death.

[52:24]

The five links are craving, grasping, coming to be, birth, and old age, and death. Anyway, I don't want to get into that. But what I do want to get into is sometimes when the Buddha taught interdependent co-arising, That's our subject. He began with old age and death and the suffering that accompanies them. In the sutras that do not include ignorance and volitional actions as links, the Buddha ends by saying that mind-body is conditioned by consciousness, and consciousness is conditioned by mind-body. The Buddha never wanted us to understand the twelve links in a linear way. but the linear way found its way into it. So the Buddha Dasa talks about the various ways that are not really accurate or not really worthwhile, and this is one of the ways he's talking about it, but we have to understand what it is before we see that it's not worthwhile.

[53:27]

So the Buddha never wanted us to understand that there is a line going from ignorance to old age and death, or that there are exactly only 12 links. Not only does ignorance give rise to volitional actions, but volitional actions also give rise to ignorance. So it doesn't work one way. Each link in the chain of interdependent co-arising is both a cause and an effect of all the other links in the chain. The 12 links inter-are, which is Thich Nhat Hanh's term, inter-are, inter-being. So, in a tendency to see the teachings of the Buddha as an explanation of how things are, rather than as a support and guide to the practice. The Twelve Links have been misunderstood in many ways. So, it's really, if it aids you in your practice, then there's a validity. If it's just an intellectual exercise, then it doesn't. That's what's important.

[54:30]

And what Buddhadasa calls his book is Practical Bhakti Chasambuddha. It's got to have some relevance to our practice. There is, on the next page, page 233, there's a diagram. The three times and two levels of cause and effect. You see that? It's like, pay no attention to this diagram. Well, pay attention to it, because it has problems. So if you look at it, it has three parts, or four, but there are really three. One is, on the left hand you see past, right, past cause. That is ignorance and volitional actions. past cause.

[55:32]

That means, in this diagram, it means that there are the three times in our service, we say three times, right? Past, present and future. I don't know if that's linked to this or not, but it's an old, what Buddha Dasa says is rather fallacious, because it's about the past life linking up to the present life, And he says that is not a practice in Buddhism, that's Hinduism, because that presupposes that there is a ghost, if you will, it's called the ghost in the machine, that travels from one life to the next, and that's not Buddhism. So, ignorance and volitional actions So, the theory is that when one dies, ignorance, which it means not knowing anything, it's ignorance which is blindness, kind of blindness, and volitional actions.

[56:56]

which carry through, in other words, your karma. Your karma and blindness are looking for something, another rebirth. And so the present is the ghost finds a couple who are copulating and says, I want to be born through them. And so then the present consciousness, body, mind, the six sense organs, contact, are present effect of that past life. And then the cause from that setup is feeling, craving, grasping, coming to be. And then in the future life, there's birth and old age and death, into the future life. So this is often believed as a diagram of the cycle of rebirth, in a physical sense, in a body-mind sense.

[58:11]

But it's not paticca-samutpada. Guru Dasa rails against this. He feels that this was brought to the foreground by Buddha Gosha, who wrote the compendium of Buddhism, the Visuddhimagga, which is an incredible text. I don't know if you've ever read the Visuddhimagga. I remember when it came out as a translation. It's about this thick, and it has everything you want to know about Theravada Buddhism, in detail, and stories, and lists, and it's just an incredible book. Edward Kanzi says, if there's one book that I would pick out to read, that would be it. But this is an erroneous ... Buddha really rails against this as an erroneous thing that crept in, and he gives all kinds of proofs, because it's really Hinduism.

[59:26]

And you can see how Hinduism could creep into Buddhism in those days. So anyway, I don't know if this is interesting to you or not, but I think it's interesting because it's important to keep the dharma pure. It's easy to create a kind of self, and even speaking about Buddha nature and Vairochana Buddha, Vairochana Buddha kind of borders on being a deity. in Pure Land Buddhism, you know, Buddha is a kind of deity, right? So, it's real tempting to do that. It's so tempting to think, oh, another life, whew!

[60:29]

Yeah. Well, volitional action, it means karma formations. When we say forms, feelings, perceptions, formations and consciousness, formations means karma formations, volitional actions which create karma. That's the meaning of formations. I mean, it's a funny word to describe, you know, you have to know what it means, otherwise formations. Well yes, anger is a karma formation. There's a whole list of a hundred dharmas and each one of those dharmas is a karma formation. There's also 75. The Buddhists produced lists of the dharmas that they would use

[61:36]

and they cover wholesome dharmas and unwholesome dharmas and neutral dharmas and various other categories of dharmas, and the wholesome dharmas are what you would expect and the unwholesome dharmas are what you would expect, you know, things that lead to good states and dharmas that lead to suffering states. Anger is a dharma that leads to suffering and good Faith is a dharma that leads to good karma. So that's what karma formations are, dharmas that lead to either good states or dharmas that lead to suffering states. Well, attachment to any dharma is unwholesome, leads to some kind of delusion at any rate.

[63:12]

Well, that's right. That's right. That's right, because there was this tendency in early Buddhism to separate yourself from unwholesome dharmas, and in doing so they became attached to unwholesome dharmas by aversion. So it's very tricky how to stay in the middle. Not create opposites. Yeah, that's right. Judy? I have a question seeking support and guidance practices. What's in your self?

[65:19]

Well, who is the self that the self is in the way of? Who is the self that the self is in the way of? Well, neither am I. In other words, you know, what is there to locate? What is there to locate if something is standing in my way, right? Yeah, the self is standing in my way. Just think about the question. That's what I'm asking you, is to think about the question.

[66:22]

The question posits two selves. Right. So the self is in my way. I'm positing a self, a big self, if you want to talk that kind of talk. But you know, I'm talking about consciousness without ego. Oh, okay. And by that I mean very sharp. I mean, really there, so that you perceive other people, or animals, or trees, or whatever, you perceive all this stuff without the encumbrance of ego that so often, or that always, stores. Well, that's mindfulness of practice. That's mindfulness of practice. When something arises through contact, through perception, to have mindfulness about what it is that's arising at that moment, and then to cognize that and decide

[67:46]

Is that something that you want to nurture in the realm of desire or not? You have a choice. You always have a choice. That's basic Buddhism. You always have a choice. Our life is not dependent on fate. Fate means you have no choice. So if you say, you mean I have a choice? Well, of course, because your life is not based on fate. It's based on destiny, which is not fate. Destiny means when you do this, you're destined to do that. I don't see, though, how I can will to not be encumbered by ego.

[68:57]

You don't have to will to not be encumbered by ego. You just make choices. Well, but I don't understand then what choices I can make that will get rid of the encumbrance of ego. Well, supposing you're going down the highway in your car, and then there's a road that goes out this way, And there's a road that goes up that way. And you can decide, well, instead of going straight, I'll go this way. That's a choice. So there are roads that are choices. Well, you have to discern that. I mean, I can't tell you that because you have to know what you're doing. You have to know what you're doing. So, if your choices are based on dharma and not just on whim or desire or habit energy, then you have some direction. But you have to know what dharma is. Then you know ... Don't do anything that will cause you suffering.

[70:11]

Well, I'll give you a hint. It's up to you. Well, to look at something without ... I can't say objectively and completely, because objective is still subjective, but to see something clearly, even though you don't see it clearly, you ask yourself, what's the practice now?

[71:28]

You have to ask yourself that all the time in every situation. What's the practice now? What's the practice in this situation? How do I practice with this thing? How do I practice with this desire? How do I practice with this idea? And the more you ask yourself that, the more your responses will come from practice instead of self. So, I think it's time for us to look at the diagrams because it's all explained there. It is. All the things you're asking are explained right there. Okay. Turn to page 246. Before that, before this, Thich Nhat Hanh explains what all these terms mean.

[72:38]

But maybe we'll reference what the terms mean as we go along, but if we read it, we'd know, kind of have an idea what the terms mean. So, let's look at, Instead of looking at the page 246, let's look at the next page, 247, which has the two circles, okay? The circle that we have been talking about all along is the diluted mind circle, the inner circle. See that? Anybody not see that? Diluted mind circle. which starts with ignorance. Dependent upon ignorance, going to the right, is volitional actions, because volitional actions means karma, karma-producing actions.

[73:44]

And karma-producing actions, in the sense of creating suffering, are dependent upon ignorance. You don't realize how what you do creates suffering. That's what that means. You do things which you like, and which feel good, and so forth, and are drawn to, and are compelled to. Those are volitional actions, but we don't realize that they're dependent on ignorance. If they weren't dependent on ignorance, we wouldn't do them, or we may not do them. We may do them anyway. But at least we know. I'm doing this, even though I know it's going to hurt like hell. I'm not saying that's good or bad. None of this is good or bad. It's simply, how do you avoid suffering for yourself and others?

[74:49]

That's all. Good and bad is out of it. So, then volitional actions are a condition for consciousness. In other words, consciousness arises in this particular kind of circle, in this diagram that we're talking about, in the way of explaining it. Consciousness arises dependent on volitional actions. Because volitional actions create objects, we have to kind of understand what consciousness means. Volitional actions are dependent. Consciousness is dependent on volitional actions because unless something happens, consciousness doesn't arise.

[75:56]

We've been talking about that. Consciousness needs an object and an organ in order to arise. So it's dependent on those actions that create the consciousness of what we're doing. I'm aware of what I'm doing. That's consciousness arising from our actions. Okay? And then, body-mind is a ... consciousness is a condition for the arising of mental and physical actions. We act out through the body-mind. And then body-mind is a condition for the six sense organs and their objects. So, be careful not to attach too much to the order of things, because each one of these contains all the others, but it's a way of talking about it.

[76:58]

It's a way of talking about how whatever happens is dependent on conditions. The whole thing is about how things arise through condition, how one thing conditions another. Contact arises through conditioning by the six sense organs. And feeling arises conditioned on, gotta read it, contact. Craving is conditioned on feeling. Grasping is conditioned on craving. Coming to be is conditioned on grasping. Birth is conditioned on coming to be. Birth here means pratityasamutpada, remember that, the birth of I. And old age and death is conditioned on birth.

[78:00]

If there wasn't birth there wouldn't be old age and death, and if there wasn't old age and death there wouldn't be birth. These are conditions for each other. And then, old age and death is a condition for ignorance, and so on, in that circle. But we have to remember that it's not just a circle, it's like ... all of these conditions are conditioning, like all these 12 conditions arise together in one moment of birth of the I, of the ego, right? But it's laid out in this way as a kind of, you know, if you have an automobile and you ever looked in an automobile catalog, the whole automobile is laid out in little pieces on a piece of paper. So no, it's parts, and you see how they're all related to each other and how they all go into making a car, right?

[79:08]

But then you have to have a real car in order to make it a car, and it's not a car until you step into it, turn on the key, and it goes, and then you drive it away. Then it's a car, but it's not a car until then. Just an idea of a car, it's a potential. potentiality.

[79:32]

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