Good evening. Oh, I guess this needs to stay. Does everybody have the handout? Not here? Thank you. It's a welcome. What? Can you read it? I am going to ask you to read it. Oh well, we're going to read it now. So Ann, you want to start? If your paragraphs are really short, take two. It's the Dhammacakka Sutta. It's either the first or the last page of the handout that you have. I don't remember which. And at the very end of the first column, you will run out of text, and we'll all help, and we'll all say it together.

[01:08]

So we're reading the same thing? Yes. That's right. That's right. Well, yes, we are going to read it. You can read this every day for the rest of your life. It would be helpful. We're not, oh, OK. We're not starting in Roman II. No, we're not reading the other stuff. We're just reading the old, the same old sutra, or sutta, the Dhammacakka. a.k.a. setting and rolling the wheel of the dhamma, bhikkhus, there are these two extremes that ought not to be cultivated by one who has gone forth, but two. There is devotion to pursuit of pleasure and sensual desire, which is low, coarse, vulgar, ignoble, and harmful. And there is devotion to self-mortification, which is painful, ignoble, and harmful. The middle way, discovered by a perfect one, avoids both of these extremes, gives vision, gives knowledge, gives peace, direct knowledge, to enlighten, to live on.

[02:10]

What is that middle way? It's this Noble Eightfold Path, that is to say, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right positive, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. That is the little way discovered by the perfect mind, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to the five elements within the body. There is this motive to be separate, to work as separate, engaging as separate, symbolizing as separate, death as separate, sorrow as separate, grief and despair as separate, association with one another It is suffering. Dissociation from the love is suffering. Not to get what one wants is suffering. In short, the five activities affected by the suffering are suffering.

[03:11]

There is its noble truth at the origin of suffering. It is craving which produces renewal of being. It is accompanied by remorse and love. Relishing this and that. In other words, craving for sexual desires. Craving for being. Craving for everything. There is this noble truth of the cessation of suffering. It is the forgiveness of pain and the ceasing of pain and delusion. Letting go and rejecting that same pain. There is this noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. It is this noble eightfold path. That is to say, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right mindfulness, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Just leading into these next four paragraphs, I just want to remind you that what he's saying is that there are three ways to practice with each of the noble truths.

[04:17]

understand it intellectually, practice it, and then realize it, integrate it. So that's what this... Oh, hi. Sorry, I didn't... I thought you might have already gone up north. I couldn't remember which class. So we're reading this... No, I'm here to bother you again. Okay. So, go ahead. Okay. There is this noble truth of such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth must be penetrated to by fully knowing suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by abandoning the origin of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, The understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before.

[05:22]

There is this wonderful truth that the origin of suffering, such was the insight and knowledge and understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by abandoning the origins of suffering, such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light, the wisdom, the aid, and the things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by abandoning the origins of suffering, such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light, the wisdom, the aid, and the things not heard before. There is this noble truth about the cessation of suffering Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by realizing the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before.

[06:24]

This noble truth has been penetrated to by realizing the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. There is this noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth must be penetrated to by maintaining in being the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by maintaining in being the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. No, it's just that that refrain is constant throughout. As long as my correct knowledge and vision in these twelve aspects, in these three phases of penetration to each of the four Noble Truths, was not quite purified, I did not claim to have discovered the full enlightenment that is supreme in the world, with its deities, its Maras, and its divinities.

[07:46]

In this generation, with its monks and brahmins, with its princes and men, But as soon as my correct knowledge and vision of these twelve aspects, in the three phases of each of the Four Noble Truths, was quite purified, then I claimed to have discerned, discovered, the full enlightenment that is supreme in the world, with its deities, its Maharas, and its divinities, in this generation, with its monks and monks, with its princes and men. The knowledge and vision arose in me. My heart's deliverance is unassailable. This is the last birth. There is no more renewal of being. You notice that he says his heart's still aggressive. This is not an intellectual pursuit here.

[08:47]

So last week we talked about the first noble truth, dukkha, dis-ease or suffering, and the five aggregates of form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, and how when they're affected by clinging that that is suffering, the attachment found in that is suffering. And we're going to talk about it some more today in terms of what's called the 30 verses, in terms of how our minds work. giving rise to this sense of self that then somehow needs to be protected in a rich way. I can't help but use the word reified, please forgive me. I prefer not to use it, it's one of those sort of pretentious words that we call it. But you know, it means to concretize, to make solid, to make a thing of it. So we'll come back to that.

[09:47]

And that the, At the most fundamental level, the suffering is, you know, there's plain old, you cut your finger, it hurts, suffering. There's suffering of the fact of change, that something you like is not going to last. And on the deepest level, it's this kind of pervasive suffering, this dis-ease that we experience because we separate from our experience. And that feeling of somehow I think we have a sense of that separation. And we build a sense of self in that process. And there's some way in which we sense that it's not real. And that there's a pervasive sense of suffering in our lives. So that's suffering. And today, tonight we're going to talk about the cause of it. So we're basically going deeper into this sense of self.

[10:50]

and the belief in the sense of self. Belief in our separate, independent, inherent existence. So the second noble truth is the arising of Dukkha Samudaya. Hi. And the second noble truth is sometimes called craving or tanha. thirst for becoming. And the center of that is this ignorant notion of self, this idea of ourself, that we want to see, we seek to continue it and we seek to protect it. And we're going to talk about how that arises. There's something called the 12-fold wheel of becoming, or sometimes it's called the 12-linked chain of existence. It's a way of describing the conditioning of the arising of our experience.

[11:59]

This is how a human being operates. And this is the, you know, have you heard the dependent co-arising? Not codependent, but dependent co-arising. DCA. This is the DCA, dependent co-arising of human experience, this 12-fold, I like to think of it as a wheel, so we'll come back to that and go into that in some detail. We're going to end, by the way, we're not going to take a break, we're going to end at quarter of, which is why the cookies are getting passed around now. But this craving is pervasive, that's why that third version of suffering is pervasive suffering, and it's not like there's There's a first cause. You could go back and find something. Fix it. Or there's no original sin. It's just life. Lifing.

[13:01]

It is our experience. And the motivating forces for this craving is greed and hatred. So when I say craving, it's important to remember that there's two sides, right? If it's a pleasant, remember we talked about feeling, it's pleasant, unpleasant, neutral, period, that's it. We're not talking about emotions or anything, just pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. But what happens, of course, is that we want more of the pleasant and we want to avoid the unpleasant. And we want to not bother paying attention to the neutral. So craving doesn't only mean wanting unpleasant experiences. It may be a craving, wanting to avoid the unpleasant. And the mechanism, I guess I could say, is karmic activity.

[14:07]

And I think we talked about karma last week as karma is volitional action. It's the I choose. to do A, B, or C, to think X, Y, and Z, to say D, E, and M. So karmic activity is this response to the attachment. It's acting, acting on it, which includes thoughts, but as soon as the attachment arises, or the aversion arises, then we start the process. And it says, the 12-fold chain, the 12-fold wheel, is a dynamic description of the process, of our process. If you have any questions, please simply interrupt and ask. And I may tell you that we're going to get into it in more detail, and it will become clear, but maybe not.

[15:07]

So please, what's your question? I think I understand what you're saying. Formations? That's what that is really. It's karmic activity. Karma is not the end product. Karma is, Buddha describes this, as karma I describe as choice. Or volitional activity. Ego-based activity. could say, I think, is roughly what you're saying, but there are fruits of karma, but karma itself is the volitional activity of choosing, and it forms us, it forms our future experience. It has, karmic activity bears fruit, and that fruit is our experience, at every possible level, and vastly complicated, so it's not

[16:16]

necessarily sometimes there's instant karma that really I do something and I reap the result just like that but often it's much more complicated than that whatever forms us in our mother's wombs and forms you know kids you know a kid is born and a kid already has a personality it's not it can be had nothing to do with parents so where did that come from? So the 12-fold wheel, I'm going to list it very briefly and then come back, and then I'm going to go through it in some detail, and then I'm going to talk about Vasubandhu's version, which is not contradictory by any means. Okay, so the 12-fold wheel is ignorance, formations, consciousness, name and form,

[17:21]

the six senses, contact, feeling, craving or desire, clinging or grasping, becoming, birth and death. And that is all here. In the handout, just before the truth of the cessation of suffering, he runs down this, it is with ignorance as condition that formations come to be, with formations as condition, consciousness, and so on. And that's the noble truth of the origin of suffering. So you can write these down if you like, but they are there. So, ignorance, formations, consciousness, name and form, Six senses, contact, feeling, craving, clinging, becoming, birth, death.

[18:27]

Ignorance. This is a wheel. We have it. Display it? Sure. Oh, the Tibetan, the Wheel of Life kind of thing? Yeah. Yeah. I always get confused with these things, though, I have to tell you. It's different. Yeah, in the center of this is greed, hate, and delusion, because that's what makes the world go round. And then it's the six realms, you know, the heavenly realm and the jealous gods who want to get back into the heavenly realm, and the human and the animal and the hungry ghosts and the hell realm.

[19:33]

And then the 12 links are on the outside of the circle. And ignorance is usually like a monkey with an arrow in its eye. But it's not always easy to tell. You can find the beginning and you can usually figure it out. It's not always easy to tell if somebody's version of these things, what they look like. But this is, that's why this is called the Wheel of Life, because it really does describe our experience. And then it's held usually by a fierce deity. Okay? So there's two, at least two ways of thinking about this wheel. One is as the description of a lifetime, the development of a life and death of a person. And another is, and I'll come back to this, but another is that it's our experience moment after moment, so that an experience arises, comes to fruition, comes out, it comes actually into being, lives and dies, and then the next moment arises.

[20:49]

And you don't have to choose. You can think of it both ways. I have a preference for the moment after moment, because it sometimes seems a little contrived, the whole life theory. I mean, I'm not going to get into it, but I've seen it where it describes it in terms of this point is kind of like adolescence, and then it's adulthood and so on. I don't think so. I don't think so. But feel free. I don't know that any of these books describe it that way, they probably don't. Okay, so, for the whole life theory, the understanding is that there are causes in the past. That's the first two. Ignorance, which is the motivating force. Somehow we want to make this thing permanent and safe. And we want it to not die. Death was what, death conditions ignorance, right?

[21:53]

So we want to make it okay somehow. We want something to happen. So that ignorance, the nature of reality, which is emptiness, and not self, that ignorance is a motive force And of course the karmic formations, karmic actions in the past shape the future. So those are the causes of the past. The effects in the present are consciousness, which here has a little more general notion. Another thing to understand is that the five aggregates is like a static snapshot. and the 12-fold wheel is like a dynamic description of a process, and you may notice there's a lot of overlap. So, the effects in the present are consciousness, name and form, which is otherwise known as the five aggregates.

[23:04]

Okay, so form is form, and the name means the four more mental aspects of the five aggregates. The six senses, contact and feeling. Okay, so those are the effects in the present. The causes in the present are craving, clinging and becoming, which are simply intensifications of karmic activity or of attachment. And we'll go into this in more detail, but So each one is a further manifestation. I think of it as an arm. First it's here, and the impulse arises, and then it starts to move, and then it's like this, and then boom, it wraps. So the causes in the present are creating, forming, and becoming, and the effects in the future are birth and death. And another way of thinking about it is that it's a description of our experience moment after moment.

[24:19]

Each time we grab for something this whole process takes place or is in play. So I find it more useful to think of it that way. That this is a really useful way to understand our experience and how we make things happen so i want to go through it now in more detail are we uh okay so far is it so ignorance is conditioned by death If you think of it as a wheel, I think it's helpful, so that it's not like there's a beginning or an end to it. And usually the first one is thought of as ignorance.

[25:20]

But ignorance is fueled by our fear of death, or fear of annihilation, or fear of not being. What do you mean, no me? And that's, that's, that fear of not to being, and the fear of separation is really, really deep. You know, the psychologists talk about that we want to return to the womb, which I think is true. But there's a longing deeper than that, below that. Well Mary, it's interesting that The two biggest things on the internet are pornography and genealogy. Really. Barno is... Sex and continuity.

[26:24]

Really. And genealogy is a bit... and everything else is... We really want continuity. And this continuity... It's an interesting notion in a way, see, that if you think of this 12-fold wheel, this wheel just rolling, that's continuity. And can you get off of it? And what is discontinuity? There's a Dogen fascicle, I always block the name of it because I had a hard time with it. Anyway, he says if you can understand discontinuity, I think it's points to watch a poem, but anyway, If you can completely understand discontinuity, that's enough. I was in a seminar and I just really started yelling. I like to think that I must have understood in some visceral way that this was threatening to my sense of self.

[27:32]

I have a question. In the second paragraph of this sutra, it refers to about creating for being and creating for non-being. I don't understand what the renewal of being is and what the creating for non-being is. Well, renewal of being, I think, is what I've just been talking about, about wanting to have continuity, wanting to, this ignorant desire to perpetuate ourselves, because we think that there's something to perpetuate. And the craving for non-being, and he also talks somewhere else about annihilation. I'm not so sure. They don't discuss it much in these books.

[28:33]

I think It's... I understand it in a number of ways, and I'm... but I'm not... I don't... I just don't really think this is definitive, okay? Not that anything is necessarily definitive, but the rest of these other things I've been saying, I feel pretty clear about. I think it's... craving for avoiding pain. You know, just that sort of sense, that it not be. But I think also that it has something to do with our death wish. Our wanting, there is also that wanting to not be. And I don't know if you've ever had an impulse towards suicide, but it's very frightening. It's very frightening. And that's a pretty universal life experience. Some people have it really strongly, and some people never have it, and most people, you know, it'll just arise, it arose from the depths of Tassajara.

[29:37]

I was walking by the baths, the old baths, just walking, trying to walk or something, and just this thought arose about going and drowning myself in a poncho. I wasn't aware of it happening. No idea. It just came, and it was really strong. It was frightening. You know, that somehow I might act on it. It seemed, I mean, I guess it wasn't out of the blue, who knows, but it felt like it was just out of the blue. And that it didn't have to do with me, you know, that it wasn't something I was in charge of. And, you know, I've talked to a lot of people that feel suicidal much more often, consciously, than I did. They say that too, that it's very frightening. Because it's not like you completely want to do it. But it just feels very strong impulse.

[30:37]

And I think it's primal. I mean, I think that's when I talk to a teacher about it, they say, oh, yeah, that's it. Just like, oh, yeah, that's common. Do you think you're such a big deal? I'm sorry? Vertical. In high places, the fear is that you'll jump. You don't want to get to the edge because then the edge will take you back. Yeah. So, I think it's about that, and I don't know if anybody else has any other notions about it? Well, the first fear, the desire for fun. It also seems to me it's a fear of abandonment. Fear of separation, fear of abandonment. And the way it can be extinguished that pain through life. Okay, you can just take charge of fine.

[31:40]

All right. Fine, if you want to be that way. I mean, I suppose, yeah, because I guess, you know, I'm not one of those people who get to that point, it feels like a cessation of suffering. Uh-huh. Annihilation, it doesn't seem to me like fear of annihilation so much as fear of death. Anything else? Yeah. I think, at least with me and a lot of people I knew and grew up with, I'm still young nowadays. desire for transcendence, you know, and usually with guys it takes them a long time to get over the self-descriptive behavior, you know, that's problems, you know, extreme sports or substance abuse or something.

[32:50]

But it's, at least, you know, in my experience, it's not about, you know, having a good time, but more of a... you know, a losing yourself, getting away, freeing yourself from this... Anything else? So it seems like we're kind of on the same page. It's something about avoiding, avoiding suffering. Okay, so ignorance. Fear of not being in control, not continuing.

[33:51]

Basics that belief in the independently existing self. Ignorance of the truth, fluid, empty. ever-changing nature of our experience. And the ignorance, conditions, karmic formations leads us to act, to try to shore up this self. So it fuels our karmic actions and then those karmic actions lead to karmic formations, in other words, whatever the choices are that we have made, and that have been made, that forms our experience. So when I say have been made, I mean the karmic activity is so myriad. And you know, you were taking on Han's description of emptiness, and he takes like a piece of paper, and he says if you knew what made this, and then you could go into a riff, it winds up being

[35:05]

the whole universe, or a cup, you know, it's empty of water, but it's full of the universe. So karmic formations are like that. Who knows? We don't know all the causes. And I talked about that some last week. I'm sure I talked about it. Birth causes death. A bullet causes your death. But actually, you could say that the human form caused it. So the karmic formations color or form what develops. And the energy comes from these past actions, driving us in a particular direction. So those are the motive forces. And they are seen throughout the rest of you. Because your karmic, your karmically formed makeup is going to

[36:08]

affect how you feel about something, just even at that level, or how you perceive colors, I think we talked about that too, that I might see green and somebody else might see blue. So that's affected by my karma, or whether I think it's too hot or not, that kind of thing. So this is pervasive. And of course it comes that much more into being when we talk about attachment. So then the next one is consciousness. And this is a consciousness that's shaped by karmic formations. But it's not the consciousness we spoke of when we talked about the five aggregates, which is the consciousness associated with the activity of a sense organ. So this is the beginning of growth of

[37:10]

an experience, a potentiality, starting to kind of easily take shape, maybe. And the next one is name and form. So this is the functioning of the five aggregates here. The name is the mental ones, the feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness. And form is the body or material world. So now, if you're talking about the development of a human being, obviously it's starting to take, it's taking form. But you could also think of it as an experience of starting to be embodied. The next one is the six senses. Eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind. And the reference here seems to be just to the organs themselves, because contact and feeling come later.

[38:28]

Consciousness was before, so this is a little bit different, it's kind of, it's in there though, you know that we talked about, there's the eye, and then in contact with a stimulus, eye consciousness arises. So the six senses are referenced here. So also here, the potential for separation is also starting to emerge because the I to function needs an object, right? The subject, E-Y-E, needs an object in order to actually to be an I. An I isn't much. without sight in a way that defines an eye. So here's a potential horizon. The next one is contact.

[39:31]

So we've talked about that. That's when the eye functions. It makes contact. contact happens, it doesn't get caused by the eye, it just arises. The eye sees, meets the object, contact, and eye consciousness arises. Or the ear hears, ear consciousness, or the same with the thought. And then, feel. feeling again pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. So that's our response to the contact. So now we're getting into, it's not karmic activity, because it's not ego-based. This is kind of hardwired, but still, it's functioning of what we think of as consciousness.

[40:38]

This is, now we're starting to be in the realm where we can really, we know this, we can experience this, we can touch it. The notion of the five aggregates or consciousness in some inchoate form, it's not so easy to understand, but now feeling, hot day, cool breeze, feels good, you know that. But as I say, this is not karmic activity. At the realm of feeling, there's no attachment yet. There's just the response. The next one, however, is craving, or desire, or attachment. And this is where the I comes up. This is, I want more, or I don't want that.

[41:39]

And this is where, this is our experience. We have the feeling, pleasant, the response is, or unpleasant, the response is, no. And neutral, there may not be a response, but there is often, I think, a subtle turning away from it, and not paying attention to our experience. Until I say what I'm about to say, you probably weren't noticing at all the feeling of your clothes against the skin of your body. It's part of your experience. It's probably pretty neutral, unless you think about it. Like this sweater feels actually kind of nice, but mostly one doesn't think about it. We don't pay attention. Mel once said to me, a good Zen student always knows where their breath is. Do you know where your breath is? You know, maybe you do when I ask. I know that you said so, yeah. Yeah, right, but before that, were you aware whether it was in your chest or in your belly?

[42:44]

So that's, that's the ignorant, or not paying, not ignorant of the deeper sense you're talking about, but sort of the not paying attention to the neutral experience. So desire is the birth of the I, letter I, And there's not yet a sense of going for it or anything like that. It's just, I want more or I don't want that. It's the beginning of a process. Like I said, it's almost like before, if you were thinking of it as a reaching, then it's before you even move. But the impulse is arising. And then the next one is, grasping or cleaning. So there you're starting. You're starting to move for the experience. The wanting intensifies, either for or to avoid, but it increases.

[43:51]

And this is the beginning. I think that this is the beginning of going for it. And it's the initiation of really a karmic activity in the sense that there's really an action. And becoming, then we're fully committed. That's really going for it. And becoming results in birth. So becoming results in a completed action, giving rise to something, which includes a thought, you know, it isn't necessarily physically reaching for something, but it gives rise to something. And when something, something that arises, is of the nature. Something that is of the nature of arising is also of the nature of cessation. This is this way because that is that way. If it is born, it will die. Things are all, everything, including Buddha, is dependently co-arisen.

[44:59]

Everything is conditioned. Everything that arises passes away including certainly including our experiences so as soon as as soon as we're in the becoming stage in the birth stage then death follows too. Does this make sense? Oh, what does it say? stuff about where every time there's a season and the sun rises and then it passes away and, you know, everything changes. Is that where that song comes from? To everything, there is a season, turn, turn, turn? Yeah. Oh, yes. I mean, if you ever read it, you'll find many book titles and songs just in that one chapter.

[45:59]

You divide it and then it passes away. I mean, it's very much that, you know, there's no permanence. It's roughly, I think, about the same time period. But it's, you know, that cycles. Well, I think it's basic human understanding. The difference here, if there is one, is that it's not like... The difference here is that there's nothing that locks. There's not like a God out there somewhere that actually is divine and permanent. No. Nothing. Or there's not a soul that's going to go to heaven, fly around and be happy. Nothing. Nothing is permanent. So sorry. That's where we are. It's the wisdom that completely understands

[47:02]

Emptiness. That's right. But it's not nothing in the sense of nihilism. No, that's right. It's not nothing in the sense of nihilism, but it is nothing in the sense of no thing. That's right. So I think I've been pretty unequivocal. I don't know if you've read the Rahula book. But he's adamant about these two. He talks about Atman and An-Atman very strongly. The Buddhist belief is An-Atman, no soul or self. So, I don't know if this is difficult to accept or understand, that becoming would mean to birth. But there's a sense of the energy that goes into that reaching.

[48:11]

There's a certain inertia. You know, inertia in the sense of, like if something in motion continues to be in motion. So inertia doesn't just mean the friction that stops something. or that something is hard to move, to get started moving, I guess. So whatever's going on continues. So if there's a motion, inertia, we'll keep it going until something stops. Do you think I'm in inertia? I also be in inertia. But isn't inertia my, is that right what I said? Yeah, yeah. At any rate, so it leads to birth, which leads to death, sickness, old age, lamentation, and death is how they usually describe it, you may have noticed. Change, mutability. I want to come back to your point because I understand the inertia, the difficulty in getting something.

[49:19]

But also, it means... I thought you were talking about momentum in terms of once a force is set in motion, it has its own... Well, I think what inertia means is that what is happening continues to happen until some force changes that. So it both means that it's hard... if something is static, it's hard to get it to move, but it also means that if something is moving, something has to stop it from moving. a lot of emotions. That was, I remember, I mean, I was in physics 10, one of those kind of things. It really took a while to get my brain around this, you know. I'd just read it and read it and read it. That was my first, I think, big experience with resistance. And it was really difficult. And then finally, something would just give up. I just stopped fighting it and said, fine, you guys, you proved this, you must have proved it, I'm just gonna have to believe it.

[50:25]

It was really difficult, but it was, it was wonderful. But I didn't understand the process. So, I want to, talk about the 30 verses. I just want to say that we'll next week we'll talk about how to deal with this, respond to this experience. I feel a certain inertia, going a certain momentum that I usually when you talk about the 12 fold wheel, and then you talk about how to get off of it or how to deal with it. And that's getting ahead of myself so I'm not going to. So the 30 verses, I want to bring it up, I'm not going to go into a lot of detail about it. Vasubandhu was a 4th century Indian scholar, a Mahayana scholar, an emptiness scholar, and he wanted to make the practice of emptiness more accessible to people.

[51:32]

So he wrote these 30 verses which are pretty dense, maybe for Indians at the time, in Sanskrit it wasn't so dense, I'm not sure. It's about something I think I've already been talking about, this notion of how we see our concepts, and then in that process, we can define ourselves. So now I'll talk about it a little more. Well, I'm just going to go ahead. I was going to start to say if I already said this too much last week, but I don't think I did. So, we, I know I talked about it some. We have an eye and it comes in contact with an object and eye consciousness arises. And then something has to organize the experience and name it an eye.

[52:33]

In order to know the object, which we actually do The thing is, we need to do this. We need to know what the object is. We need to know if it's solid or not. We need to know how to drive the car. We do need to know things. But in order to know it, we have to objectify it. We have to separate ourselves from it so we can see it, so we can experience it. And then in that process, we go inside ourselves and root around and find our ideas, which are, of course, karmically formed. All of our past experiences are labeled. We find our ideas, and then we apply all these labels to the object. And we kind of paste them all over ourselves. It's a wonderful vision, just all these name tags all over this thing, and after a while, you can't see it at all. So you kill it.

[53:35]

We do that. And to some extent, we have to do that. Because as I say, we have to be able to function. And the egos, the job is to go root around all of these little bijas, these little seeds, in our storehouse consciousness, it's called, and pick out the ones that apply. And this happens instantaneously. constantly and in some sense all we see is our idea of something we don't really see something as it is I don't know what there would be something to because it's always well you may be seeing it more clearly yeah well or you know you can go to a different place and see something that looks like an animal you've never even seen in nature.

[54:42]

Yeah, but you instill your ideas of color and shape of ears and teeth and all kinds of things. I mean, I don't think it's ever... You've got to work on it real hard. It's not clear to me that you ever see anything. Well, of course, it's not clear to me that there is anything there at all, but assuming there's something there, I don't think we see it. Because we have to separate. Or at least we don't really know it. Because we have to separate from it in order to see it. And that's one definition of dis-ease, of the First Noble Truth, of pervasive suffering. You see, that act of separating from our experience is a painful act. And we have to do that. Yeah? But even so, and that is a different, that may be a fresh way of seeing.

[55:51]

Let me continue a little bit, because I think the problem is that we believe in this, we believe that these ideas of things have some kind of inherent existence, rather than that they are conditioned, that they're dependently, that our ideas about them are dependently co-arisen, and it, the object, such as it is, is dependently co-arisen. The whole process is completely fluid, but we forget that. We forget that, and we cause ourselves and others suffering because We usually kind of kill things by having so many ideas about them and believing them so strongly and believing that they actually exist in some solid way. So we don't see.

[56:54]

And then every so often, I think we do see in a much less conditioned way. But still, you have to separate. We have to do this, and our work, I think, is to really know that, and to remember it, and to accept it, and to just live there. He says you can't, you know, as soon as you, even if you go around saying, oh, that's just an idea, that's a mere concept, that's another concept. You know, you just have to do it. It's chican-taza. You just have to do it. I think about when we went to Mexico, we were bird watching. And this guy, he asked if we collected, were we keeping lists? Kind of like, were we competitive bird watchers? And you can do that. You can get so into identifying each bird and knowing what it is that you never really see it.

[57:59]

Because when you look at it, you're missing out on the wing doors, this, you know, and then you're looking at the book, and, you know, instead of just, see the pretty bird, see the pretty colors of the pretty bird, you know what I mean? Yes. And who cares whether or not you know the name of it? There are different schools, right, and, you know, people with the binoculars and so on. But, I mean, you know, and it's very easy to get caught up in wanting to know the names of everything. You're that kind of person, but I'll try to keep reminding myself just to work hard. Otherwise, you're not seeing it. Well, yes and no. I mean, because it's also true that I don't know anything about art. I know what I like. My sister's a painter, and I once asked her, well, what is that? What is that? What's wrong with it? It seems like it's a big deal to know what you like.

[59:01]

I mean, what's so bad about that?" She said, actually, it's not bad at all. But the more you do know, then the more you can get out of it. So... So, I don't know. But you can get so caught up. You can. The idea is that you have to really experience. You just say experience. Yeah, and people do that. But you're saying we're trapped in the moment. Yes, I'm also saying that. But that's a way, what Anne's saying is a way of understanding it. I mean, it's like, it's like a, it's a rough enough example, which I don't mean as bad, but it's a rough enough example that we could actually see that. And then if you can extrapolate from that and know that we do it constantly. Constantly. where we believe in the inherent existence of ourself.

[60:02]

Constantly. It's rare that we drop out. So... When you go, you know, if you go to a foreign country, it's a different situation where people's responses are different. People... No. You can't count on anything, depending on how far away you go, how different it is. And you can't take anything for granted. And you just, you know, you can still have different ways of looking at something. Well, that's a bird one for us in person. I remember this too, when I was a child, in this great country in New York City. what country it is, and they, you know how they got there, and you didn't know their relationship. I mean, it's exactly what we learned.

[61:04]

Say more about it. Well, I haven't seen it in 30 years. That, just that sort of dislocation. But I remember it being here. It's a little bit of a laugh it off. Huh. association with men to be a part of the same narrative, trauma, and the rule of school. And seeing it as if for the first time, that you could keep it. My sense of it is that it's biologically, really, that it's this push to I wish to not be stuck with the same students, or not to be deprived of new students. And so that in our generation, travel represents the extension of self beyond suffering, because it's the denial of the same person.

[62:17]

the people in the first row who felt that, get on a plane and really gratify that need. That's really how we do it. To not be sitting on a cushion in a semi-dark room. And part of the discipline that we have made to them is to not fall into that delusion that getting on a plane when you get bored is going to change you. But it goes all the way back to our first appearance. What would explain ancient pre-humans moving from one place to another? How did the sun drop to the moon? Well, you can run out of resources. No, but you know. Even those among us in our culture who resist, who anesthetize themselves with energy?

[63:32]

Well, the thing is we anesthetize ourselves with all different things. That's karmically created, your anesthetics of choice. So there were the ones that went off other places, and then there were the ones that stayed. in Africa and then there were ones that left, you know. But for me, our practice is to sit still. Yes. That's right. Our practice is to sit still in the middle of all this and it's not easy. So give yourself some breath. No, and none of us can always do it. Even you say the period of Zazen.

[64:33]

And it's, well, you know, Shohaku Okamura talks about Dogen as saying, get over yourself and get over this idea that that there's some kind of enlightenment or some idea that someday I'm going to really understand this. Someday I'm going to know whether there's an object out there or not. Not. So just forget about it. This, this really is it. Right. Which is wonderful and maybe not so wonderful. Very difficult. to accept. And we cause ourselves no end of suffering by trying to have experience be something else. And whether it's through travel or through not travel, finding, having some sense of this is, there's safety right here.

[65:40]

It just, it doesn't matter. What is it, is that John Cameron Sinscrave or whatever, you know, wherever you go, there you are. Oh, that's Buckaroo Bonsai. Buckaroo Bonsai, yes, yes. Well, it's, I mean, that's also covered in the Bible or something. Peter Willock is Buckaroo Bonsai. It's a wonderful name, Buckaroo Bonsai. Well, I'll show you. Buckaroo Banzai is a brain surgeon. He's an international diplomat. He's a rock and roll guitarist. He's a great, you know, dancer. And you might notice how that one of the white lines, right through his name. He can do it. That's really nice. No, no, no. No, he doesn't have special powers. He's just very skilled with everything he does. I mean, it's Jake Twonk.

[66:46]

Yeah. Different movie. Save the World. Yeah, that's right. Because Buckaroo Banzai has magic powers. No, he doesn't have magic powers. Only that it's Jake Twonk. But I'm lost here. All right, so... So is he trying to dump her or is she trying to dump him? I can't remember. They're in the nightclub. He's performing. He's singing and playing his guitar. And he says, wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold everything. And this girl brings something. You know, trying to cut a cable by herself. Wait a minute. Give me that spotlight over there. Spotlight goes to her. And then he says, don't ever forget, no matter where you go, there you are.

[67:50]

I had one question. Yes. Enlightenment and non-being, they're not synodic terms in these texts. No, they're not. Okay, because whenever I think of not being the opposite, it's not necessarily the opposite of being, but sort of being a void. Well, it's not about a void. Well, next week, next week is Nirvana. You can't wait. But it's not, you know, it's like, it's not nothing. It is no thing, but it's not nothing. Shariputra defines it as joy, but it's not hilarity. Anyway, I think it's non-attachment, not being.

[68:57]

No, nirvana is not attachment, it's not not being, it's being willing. I mean, in a way, it's not for getting ahead of myself, it's being willing to be a being. That's, I mean, that's, I think, what Dogen is saying. Be willing to be a human being. What about that? It's a tough job. That's right. Or to know yourself. I mean, that's, isn't that our job? Studying the self in all of its aspects. And that's what this, analysis is about this is the first step is knowing what a self is or isn't and isn't and knowing how it gets formed understanding what what it is that we that we do that we give things substance we designate them as having independent

[70:01]

existence, inherent existence. We do it all the time. We fantasize that we and our experience are not empty. And we have to really, I think, we get, the more intimate we are with that experience, the more we can see how we're causing suffering for ourselves or others. But you have to keep watching it, and just keep seeing it, and seeing it, and seeing it. And you have to work with it. I remember, Rev was lecturing about the precepts, and he was talking about the seventh precept, about not praising self at the expense of others, and talking about how there's this substrata of our experience where we're praising ourselves all the time, And there was another time when I was listening to a tape of this, because I was teaching a class. Have I told you this story?

[71:03]

No. Anyway, I was going to teach a class in the summer at Tassajara, so I was listening to the tape of his lecture about the seventh precept, and I was in the car. I found myself yelling. I said, no, no. Because I think of myself as garden variety, insecure, and self-critical, and all those things, which is true. I didn't think of myself as having this underlying layer of self-love and self-regard, but I think also I was yelling at him because, on some level, I kind of thought it would be. And I kept listening to the tape, and also kind of working on this precept and thinking about it. Do I, on some level, embrace self-love all the time? And I finally kind of got this sort of sick feeling and realized it was true, that that is part of, I think, the human experience. That helps some.

[72:03]

You have to realize it's not just you being a jerk. That's just, that's the human experience, this self-regard, self-love, self-clinging. I came to it when I realized that I tended to think that my view was correct. I trust my judgment. And from there I could kind of begin to really know that. So you just keep coming back, keep turning back to experience and looking at it. Like you're studying yourself to forget yourself. Yes! forget the self is to be able to do a lot of things, right? I mean, I think people forget that when we're like pre-occupied, we're studying the self. We're studying the self. Yes. Well, but studying the self, it means... It doesn't necessarily mean Zen students, but people in general can get off the ground.

[73:05]

Well, Zen students too, yeah. Yeah. Because we can, you can, yeah. That's why we don't forget the self. That's right. But you don't get to skip the step either. And one of the Zen student sickness is to jump to emptiness. Somebody does something really hurts and you can say, oh well, it doesn't hurt. If there's no hurt, there's nobody to hurt. There's nothing to protect and so blah blah, you know. And then the next time you see that person who you know, you weren't hurt by it, nothing happens or whatever, you know, you kick them in the shits, or you say something really mean to them, and where'd that come from? Because you didn't deal with it, you didn't own it. So, so there is that kind of work that has to be done. So then, studying the self, I think of us operating on the plain old nitty gritty samsara world, day in, day out level, and that also,

[74:08]

You don't stop there. It's like the longing below longing to return to the womb. You have to know that part, that self, this self that we've been talking about, this empty self, this self that tries to keep creating itself because it doesn't like what it sort of intuits. So what's that? So you need to understand the self in lots of different ways, just deeper and deeper, but we don't get to But that's not where you stop. I hope. I mean, obviously you've done something, but that's not where you stop, because you're here. What's that Tutsugin's favorite quote about? What do you do when you get to the top? His answer was, I don't feel my feet. And I don't stop then either. I think that's a good place to stop.

[75:11]

So next week, next week Nirvana. Things are numberless.

[75:19]

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