And my glasses stayed on, my hearing aid stayed in. Great. 246 and 247. We started with ignorance and clear understanding. Actually, ignorance can be considered as a condition for suffering. And suffering is actually a condition for enlightenment. So that way everything is to our advantage. So in the deluded mind circle, volitional actions are

[01:09]

Ignorance is a condition for volitional actions, which we've studied as the dharmas, right? That's what that means. Volitional actions are karma-producing actions, basically here, karma-producing actions. And if you look up at its opposite, clear understanding is a condition for great aspiration. So if you look at volitional actions, karma creating actions, that's the world of karma, the karmic world is what it means, whereas great aspiration is the dharma world. there's a distinction between living by karma and living by vow.

[02:23]

Living by vow is called great aspiration. Living by karma is called ignorance because karma just leads to karma, more karma. Karmic actions just lead to more karmic actions and the whole round of deluded mind, karmic actions become way-seeking mind. The way I understand it is karmic actions are caused by desire, but as we know, should know, desire itself is not a evil, as some people would think, because of the way it's lambasted in Buddhism. Desire is the cause of suffering. Desire is the cause of all the problems. That's the second truth. But desire, when it's transformed, in the way-seeking mind, is beneficial.

[03:30]

So there's really nothing wrong with desire, it's just a matter of how it's directed. So instead of being used by desire, we use desire. That's the difference between being driven by karma and being driven by way-seeking mind, is that karma is, although we think that we're doing things, actually we're leading our life, actually our life is being led by what we're caught by. Whatever it is that we're captivated by is leading us. And we're willing slaves. We're willing slaves. In the old days, they used to capture people. They still do, but on a different scale. They used to capture people and use them as slaves. And now, we entice people into enslaving themselves and leading them around.

[04:33]

Credit card game. Huh? Credit card game. Well, yeah, credit card is one way. credit card debt, definitely, yeah. And conveniences and debt, period. Indebtedness is a kind of slavery. So, a clear understanding is a condition for great aspiration. Once you understand, then you have inspiration, and then you start to practice, and that starts to turn your life toward conscious living instead of karmic living, karmic control. So, volitional actions conditioned consciousness, and consciousness is discriminating, necessarily discriminating.

[05:43]

And I've talked a lot about the eight levels of consciousness. In the Theravada school it's six levels of consciousness, but that was expanded in the Mahayana to eight levels of consciousness, or even nine, And the first level, if you look at the third part on the left-hand page, deluded mind, where it says consciousness, vijnana, vijnana means consciousness. Under that it says first five consciousnesses. That's eye, ear, nose, tongue. smell or taste in eye, ear, nose, throat, doctor, the five senses. And then there's mano vijnana, which is the sixth consciousness, which is mind consciousness.

[06:52]

And then under that is manas, which is ego consciousness. So they've located the ego. It's actually located within consciousness where the ego resides, and it's called manas. And then there's alaya vijnana, which is the storehouse consciousness which Ken was talking about. So alaya-vijnana is the storehouse of all the seeds of our actions and when they're watered by further actions, karmic actions mostly, then habit energy proceeds to reinforce our karmic activity. So this is how we get caught. on the wheel of samsaric activity, because when we do something, as I said, three times a habit, that's just the way things do work.

[08:07]

even the first time, a seed is deposited, a seed of likeness is deposited, a kind of mirror thing happens in your mind, in the alaya vijnana, and a seed, you're dropping seeds all the time. We're like fruit trees, you know, we're producing these seeds continuously, trillions of seeds, because everything you do is recorded. in the Alaya Vijnana and it's very complex and nobody knows exactly how it works, but nevertheless we know enough that in this model, everything in Buddhism is a kind of model, so be careful that you don't try to make it too perfect, right? Well, there's always an objection and a little crux here and there that doesn't seem to fit, but basically it works this way. I mean, you can see that it can work this way. So, Alaya Vijnana, which is the repository of all the memory bank, all the seeds of the actions, some of them atrophy because there's no further action and there's no watering, there's no cultivation to make them sprout.

[09:30]

And if we take the path of practice and don't water the seeds of karma that have already happened, then eventually they atrophy. But still, there's residual karma that will follow you the rest of your life, that won't be eradicated. because it's too strong, but they say even Shakyamuni had residual karma. That's just to make a point. So we all have residual karma even though we're on the path of practice, and so he said, gee, a Zen student still does that? Look at all these Zen students, they still act as if everybody who practices Zen from day one is supposed to suddenly be perfect. But our children are like residual karma. Those are direct karma.

[10:33]

And they'll follow you around the rest of your life. It's tied into the credit thing too. So they're acting out your karma. So the first five consciousnesses are the sense consciousnesses, which are all discriminated by mana vijnana, which is mind consciousness. So mind consciousness is a discriminating consciousness but it discriminates between the sense fields. So it says, discrimination means this is seeing and this is hearing. That's a discrimination. Tell me the difference between one thing and another, this discrimination, dividing. So the Manu Visnana,

[11:44]

thinks, but it doesn't think egotistically, it's just a thinking consciousness which discriminates between the fields of sense, basically, but also has other functions. Manas is the culprit. because manas has a function which is to send messages between the alaya-vijnana, the storehouse consciousness, and mano-vijnana, which is the discriminating consciousness. But manas doesn't follow its function. If manas followed its function, the I would not arise. and there would be no birth of the I. So what arises as manas is discriminating consciousness that is egotistical.

[12:46]

So that's the ego among the levels of consciousness. Manas, the culprit. I always like to describe Manas as the office boy who has a function, but when the boss is out, sits in the boss's desk, puts his feet up in the chair, puts his feet on the desk, opens the drawer and takes out a cigar and lights it up and picks up the phone and starts directing things, but out of ignorance. So Manas acts out of ignorance. So Manas is called, what's it called? Deluded consciousness. Deluded consciousness because it thinks of itself as what it is not. What is the true meaning of Manas?

[13:52]

As a messenger between, it delivers, it's a messenger boy. delivering messages between Alaya Vijnana and Mano Vijnana. It's a link, a linking consciousness. And a lot of the books say that Manas should be eliminated in order to have no ego, but Thich Nhat Hanh and others say, especially Thich Nhat Hanh, don't get rid of manas. You simply use manas and reform manas. You have to have manas. You can't get rid of your ego. The ego has to work for the benefit of all beings instead of working only for its self-satisfaction. So this is the problem with manas, is that it only works for, it directs us to work for our own satisfaction only.

[14:59]

Well, because then it becomes transformed. Transformation is the name of the game. The name of the game in our Mahayana Soto Zen is transformation. Paravrtti, transformation at the base. That means that, and I'll explain that right now. Yes. Laya Vijnana. No. If you burn yourself and it leaves a seed in your Laya Vijnana then when you go to the stove again, yeah, it could be that Manas delivers a message to Manu as Jnana that says, don't do that again.

[16:31]

That's its function. Mayer may not say that, but that should be its function as I know it, as I understand it. simply doing its work, but not thinking of itself highly. Well, I delivered a message, and I'm pretty good, you know. I'm the boss. It's not the boss. Buddha is the boss, and Manas is the servant of Buddha. So my understanding is when we come, every time we bow, to the altar, we're offering manas to Buddha. We're offering up our ego to Buddha, even though when you stand up you go out and manas will pop up again, but you keep doing it over and over again. He was a brilliant, brilliant student.

[18:02]

He never got a decent academic job for the rest of his life. That's to learn. One moment of birth. Yeah. You have to be careful. The higher you go, the harder you fall. So, Aparavrti means turning on the basis. The result of realization is that consciousness turns on its basis and all those aspects of consciousness become aspects called wisdom. So when the whole thing turns on its basis through realization, then the alive jnana is called the great mirror wisdom, which reflects everything exactly as it is, without distortion.

[19:07]

Our minds are always, our consciousness is always distorting things. We see things according to the way we want to see them, or the way we have learned to see them, or the way we... through surface observation and so forth. We rarely see things really, and it's Suzuki where she says, as it is. So this is what happens. We see things exactly as it is. And then manas becomes the wisdom of equality. In other words, everything is equal. You see the equality of all beings. and then Mano Vidyana becomes the wonderful observation wisdom which sees the perfect distinction between all things. So Manas levels everything.

[20:15]

That's horizontal. Mano Vidyana, when it becomes That's vertical because that's the wisdom of distinctions, because distinctions are hierarchical. So, vertical is leveling and horizontal is leveling and vertical is distinctive, making distinctions based on truth or reality. Instead of based on ego, yes. Ego becomes the great leveler. In other words, it doesn't stand out. So, and then the first five consciousnesses

[21:18]

But that's, in other words, wisdom of action, putting all this into action. That's great activity, which is expressed as great activity. So, it's really a wonderful model. There's a lot of commentary on it and it's a great study. And Thich Nhat Hanh wrote this book, Transformation at the Base, which is about that. And I would like to study that with some people who want to study it by actually reading it and making a commitment to study for as long as it takes. sometime, because it really is all about just all about this.

[22:28]

So then, So, consciousness then conditions body-mind. Body-mind, nama-rupa, you know, we think body-mind already exists, which it does, but consciousness gives rise to awareness of body-mind. and how we use body-mind, nama-rupa. So, in deluded mind, body means one thing, and in

[23:32]

mind of vow, body means something else. Body, mind means something else. So what it means is nirmanakaya. We have nirmanakaya, sambhogakaya, and dharmakaya, Buddha. We say that every time we have a meal. Nirmanakaya is the Buddha's body. In other words, when you practice, you are nirmanakaya Buddha. because you're practicing Buddha's practice as Nirmanakaya Buddha instead of simply as an ordinary body. You become Buddha's body, whether you like it or not. We always have a struggle. Is this my body or is this Buddha's body? Sometimes we think it's mine, sometimes we think it's Buddha's. But nothing really belongs to us. this body, I say it's my body. When I say it's my body, then I'm born as an ignorance.

[24:45]

An ignorant human being is born. So if I say this is my body and believe that, then it's just manas. But if this is Buddha's body, then I make a deal. with Buddha, that I'll take care of Buddha's body. It's half mine and half Buddha. I think that's right. It's half mine and half Buddha. And so by taking care of Buddha's body, that's offering manas up to Buddha. So, as Tsukiroshi always said, we're half Buddha and half ordinary being. And I think that's true in everything. And it has to be, because when you're completely Buddha, then you're completely just ordinary being, with a difference.

[25:49]

You know, we say mountains, mountains, and ordinarily, we think mountains and just mountains. Look at that mountain. Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world, and we revere these high mountains. But when mountains are no longer mountains, they're just bumps on the earth. They're just configurations, different kinds of variations of mountains and valleys, just different configurations of the earth. have higher realization. Yes, those are magnificent mountains. At the same time, they're just bumps on the earth. They're just different configurations in a line. Because the earth is just one piece. Just one piece. And in order for mountains to be mountains, there has to be all the rest.

[26:52]

That's what makes a mountain. So, when we realize that it's all one piece, then we can appreciate mountains as mountains, in a true way. So, the same with people, and the same with waves. It's time to take a stand up? Okay. Mind-body is a condition for the six sense organs and their objects. We've already talked about that. how in order for consciousness to arise, there has to be an organ, a subjective organ, and a object. So the organ is the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. Those are the sense doors. And for consciousness to arise, there has to be a sense door.

[27:55]

And one of the sense doors is mano vijnana, the thinking mind, which can think things up. You don't have to touch something. You can think it up in your imagination. So that's one of the functions of mano vijnana. Mano vijnana can think things up. Manas can fantasize. The reason that the difference between mano vijnana and manas is that they're both vijnana, but they call manas manas to distinguish it from the other ones so you don't get mixed up, which you probably are already. So manas is the ego, and mano vijnana discriminates between the senses, but also things. So, and distinguishes what is, you know, we say, I see something, but it's really the mind that sees, right?

[29:01]

It's consciousness that sees. It's not the eye. The eye is just an induction center. So, So the six senses function as doorways for the sense objects, and when you see a sense object which is an object of desire, or when you see an object that has some characteristics that you like, then desire arises in the mind, that's ordinary perception, the result of ordinary perception. That's a beautiful red car, you know, wow, I want it, I crave it, I'm attached to it.

[30:05]

So I mean this is a kind of example, right? That's deluded mind, so to speak. So when deluded mind is transformed, then the result body, or sambhogakaya, arises, which is the wisdom mind. Someone asked the sixth ancestor, Huineng, Taikan Eno, to explain the wisdom mind. the Dharmakaya, Nirmanakaya, and Sambhogakaya. Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya. Dharmakaya is your nature. Sambhogakaya is your wisdom. And Nirmanakaya is your actions. I mean, that's basically categorically how we see it.

[31:08]

So Sambhogakaya is your wisdom. And sometimes it's called the result body, meaning the result of all of your practice. The result of your practice, basically, produces this wisdom body because your life is based on practice rather than based on karma. These are the two aspects. One is vow, and the other is karma. Vow is vow of practice. When your life is based on vow of practice, then nirmanakaya is your body, and sambhogakaya is your wisdom mind. And dharmakaya is always your nature, either way. And I was kind of thrown by that because it sounded like a different way of talking than you can do, because it sounds more closed and limited.

[32:26]

But he says if we're not doing that, we're not practicing. And that's what he means. Usually we say, the rest of the text says, mindful. So when something is done, when an action is done with mindfulness, that's practice, that's guarded. So it really means mindful. It doesn't mean to have your rifle or something. We talked about guarding the senses. Yeah, because the senses are thieves. so to speak. They're usually sometimes described as thieves because they use your vitality in ways that are not productive. They steal your vitality and squander it in ways that are not productive. So then sense organs and their objects are a condition for contact.

[33:55]

So contact here is really where attachment comes in. So I'm going to take contact, feeling, craving, grasping as kind of all together. and use an example from Buddha Gosha. Now, I already gave you a couple of examples. This one is about a little child and losing crying over her doll. So this will bring up various emotions for you. Please don't express them. Just take it as it comes, okay?

[34:59]

If it's wrong, it's wrong. So now I would like to give a few examples from everyday life to show you how dependent origination arises. A little child cries loudly because her doll is broken. Think carefully for a moment about this, and then I will explain how dependent origination arises. Three conditions. A little child cries loudly because her doll is broken. When she sees the broken doll, there is contact between the eye and the visual object, and then consciousness arises, right? The doll is the object, the eye is the doorway, In this case, a form, shape, and color of a doll, of the doll in a broken condition, is the object. At that moment, I-consciousness arises and knows that the doll is broken. I-consciousness arises, right? So the doll is the object, the I is the organ, and the consciousness of a broken doll is the result.

[36:04]

That's how consciousness arises. It takes all three of those. As a matter of course, the child is filled with ignorance because she doesn't know anything about Dharma. Don't say anything. When her doll breaks, her mind is filled with ignorance. So ignorance means not knowing, in this case. She doesn't know, you know, she's not aware of why that's happening. She may, but in this case she doesn't. So ignorance gives rise to volitional formations. Ignorance is a condition for volitional formations, a kind of power that gives rise to an idea or thought, which is consciousness. That which is called consciousness is seeing the broken doll and knowing that it is a broken doll. This is eye consciousness because it depends on the eye seeing the broken doll.

[37:07]

There is ignorance of no mindfulness. at that moment because the child has no knowledge of dharma. In other words, no knowledge of mindfulness. The child may be mindful, but the child has no knowledge of mindfulness. Because of this lack of mindfulness, there arises the power to give rise to consciousness, which sees form in a way that will be suffering. So the doll broke, and there's suffering as a consequence. The meeting of the I and the form, the doll, and the consciousness that knows this are all three together called contact. All three together is called contact, the condition for contact. I mean, I remember when I was four, and I got an ice cream cone on the corner, and I remember it was orange ice and chocolate. And just as I was about to take a bite out of it, it fell out of the cone onto the sidewalk.

[38:16]

And I understand this little girl's... I'm very sympathetic with this little girl's problem. Now, eye contact arises in that girl. And if we are to be detailed, that contact gives rise to mentality materiality. the girl's body and mind conditioned to experience suffering arises. So the reason the suffering arises is because her body-mind is conditioned to suffering. This body-mind thing can be like, what does that mean, right? It means the body-mind is conditioned to suffering. And through transformation, the body-mind is not conditioned to suffering because there's mindfulness. So, now eye contact, please understand that ordinarily our body and mind are not in a condition to experience suffering.

[39:23]

They're not naturally in a condition to experience suffering. there must be ignorance or something to condition it to become receptive to the possibility of suffering. And so it is said that the body-mind only now arises in this case. It means that ignorance conditions consciousness and this consciousness helps the mind-body change and arise to action and become capable of experiencing suffering. In this kind of mind-body, at this moment, the sense bases arise, which are also primed to experience suffering. They are not asleep, as is usually the case, so there will be perfected contact, which is ready for suffering. Then arises vedana, or feeling, which is unpleasant. Unpleasant feeling arises because of the conditioning.

[40:27]

then this unpleasant feeling gives rise to grasping, the desire to follow the power of that unpleasantness. That's a very interesting statement because I've often thought people love their misery. If you can't be happy, if you can't find a way to be happy, one way, you will find a way to be happy the opposite way. If you can't find your way to be happy through love, you will find it through hate, because you need to find it, and one vehicle is as good as the next. Anyway, this is a little different than that, but this unpleasant feeling gives rise to grasping, the desire to follow the power of that unpleasantness. Next, attachment clings to the feeling as mine, my feeling.

[41:28]

All this happens before you say mine. This is where the I concept arises, which is called becoming. When this blossoms fully, it is called birth. Then there is suffering and seeing the broken doll. There is crying. That's what is known as tribulation, which means extreme frustration. Now, about birth, jati, it has a wide range of meaning, which includes such things as old age and death. If there were no ignorance, there would not arise the belief that the doll broke, or that the doll died, or some such belief. If that were the case, no suffering at all would have arisen.

[42:29]

But now, suffering has arisen fully because there arose attachment to self, my doll. When the doll broke, there was incorrect action because of ignorance, and so the girl cried. Crying is a symptom of completed suffering, the end of dependent origination has been reached. So this is like all in one moment. And I wrote down a thought here which says, we think the doll is the object of attachment, but it is actually the I which is. It's actually the I which is the object of attachment, but the doll is a vehicle. We say, I fell in love with so-and-so, and then all these things arise, and you create great attachment to the object.

[43:42]

And then, for one reason or another, it's gone. and we suffer. But actually, our suffering is for, not for the person, but for our, it's for our own loss. I'm not saying this correctly, but it's not as much about the other person as it is about ourself. I don't know. I said, we don't ask questions like that. We're just simply using the model as a model. How old is she? Who is her mother?

[44:45]

You know, what about her father and her uncle? We don't want to... That's not relevant. What is relevant is... Oh, it's kind of universal for those kids. Yeah, it's kind of universal for those kids. I don't want to get into anything besides that. Yeah. You said our suffering is not for the person, but for... What about the true Bodhisattva? What about it? Well, isn't it by definition, a Bodhisattva is experiencing Bodhisattva, yeah, let's put it this way, bodhisattva experiences suffering, if one is, say, like, undeveloped bodhisattva. A developed bodhisattva would not be doing something ordinarily egotistical. So the suffering that the bodhisattva would have would be associative, sympathetic.

[45:58]

So although the bodhisattva suffers the suffering, the bodhisattva is not detached to that suffering. I can be sympathetic with your suffering, but it's your suffering. I can feel what you're feeling, but it's your feeling. So, it's perverse to step into someone else's feeling and go and feel it as much as they feel it, so that you can't extricate yourself any more than they can, so you're not helping the person. You have to be able to If you go down to hell to help somebody, you have to have one hand up on the top of the ladder. Otherwise, there may be a case where you both sink. That's okay, but that's your choice. But you have to have a hand up so that you can take the other person out.

[46:59]

I have a great story about that. Which side does he do? He's a bodhisattva, but he doesn't get attached to his people's suffering. Well, of course, yeah. You can't. Like a psychiatrist can't get attached to their patient's suffering, and a Zen teacher can't get attached to his student's suffering. Although, you definitely are sympathetic with it. And sometimes you're not. I'm actually thinking of two stories, I think, from the Korean tradition of like a monk who finds a baby deer and wants to, because the baby deer's mother was killed by hunters, he wants to take care of the baby deer. The story is funny, but the long and the short of it is the baby deer dies because he can't get milk.

[48:03]

He's trying to get milk from the villagers and they won't give him any. There's an interesting story in this book by Thich Nhat Hanh, that book, where he says, too much sympathy is not so good. He mentioned that there's a class of people in the Romantic period of poetry who would, when leaves fall, they would take the leaves and cry over them because they were falling leaves, and they would bury them and give them, you know, a ritualistic kind of, you know, overly sympathetic to something. We have to be able to cry when crying is necessary, and feel grief when grief is necessary,

[49:07]

and then you have to be able to recover. Because otherwise you can't get out, you'd put yourself in the hole. Well the contrast is that he's talking about letting go of everything. you realize that in the end you have to let go of everything. So, like going out in the middle of the ocean in a boat. It's also like going out... It's like sinking to the bottom. Your boat should be full of holes, so that the boat you go out in should be full of holes so that you sink to the bottom. But it's not about others, it's about you.

[50:11]

That particular story is about not holding on to anything and just sinking down to the bottom. And I use that all the time as a story when we're serving food. You should always go down to the bottom. You think I'm talking about the food, and I am, but I'm talking about your practice. I'm always talking about your practice when I talk about that. Go down to the bottom. It's not just about the food. Stir up the bottom. What's on the bottom? How deep can you go? Don't just do something. Don't just serve off of the surface. Anyway, that's my understanding of the difference between those two. So in your own practice, go down to the bottom. When you're helping others, go down to the bottom, but keep one hand up so that you don't get pulled down, too. That doesn't help. It's not helpful. Now, I know there are more questions, but just let me finish this, okay?

[51:15]

And then there'll be more questions. So, here's the point that most people fail to understand. It is the hidden part of the topic called the language of ultimate truth or the language of dependent origination. Most people don't believe that people are born all the time. It means continuously being born. Or that the mind-body is born, or that the sense bases are born. They don't believe that the normal state is equivalent to not yet being born, in which there has yet been no action according to function. When any natural event causes these things to function, then we say that birth has occurred. For example, take our eyeball. We believe that it already exists, that it has already been born. But in the sense of dharma, it has not yet been born until the eye sees some form.

[52:20]

This is Dogon, straight out of Dogon. I don't know if you've read the Dogon, or Dogon right here, but straight out of Dogon. The boat sits there in the water, but it's not a boat until the boatman steps into the boat, raises the sail, takes the tiller, and goes out into the water. Then the boat is the boat, and the man is the man, and the man is the boat, and the boat is the man, and everything is completed. Otherwise, it's just potentiality. So that's, well, the eye is there, but the eye is only there when it's activated. It's interesting, in Japan and other places in Southeast Asia, when they make statues of Buddha, they paint in the eyes, they open the eyes.

[53:21]

You say, well, that's just paint, right? But it's not just paint, because it's giving life to something that we create. Anyway, you can think about it any way you want. But anyway, we believe that it already exists, that it's already been born. But in the sense of dharma, it has not yet been born until the eye sees some form. When it performs its function, the seeing of forms, it can be said that the eye is born and the form is born, and then eye consciousness is born. These three help each other to give rise to what is called contact. Contact is a condition or gives rise to feeling and grasping and all the other elements, all the way up to the completion of the cycle. Now, if later on that young girl goes to bed and thinks about the broken doll, she'll cry again. At that time, it is a matter of mind consciousness, not eye consciousness, the mano vijnana, which thinks.

[54:33]

She doesn't see the doll anymore. She only thinks about the doll. So that's consciousness through the doorway of consciousness. So when she thinks about the broken doll, the thought is the object of perception, and that object contacts the mind, giving rise to mind consciousness. She thinks about the broken doll. This gives rise to the body and mind at that moment, and causes them instantly to change into body-mind, which are the condition for the sense bases, which will experience suffering. These sense bases will give rise to contact of a kind that will experience suffering. Then feeling arises, followed by grasping, attachment, and finally suffering. At this point, the little girl is crying again. And even though the doll broke many days or even many weeks ago, these thoughts, which are concocted one after another, are called paticca-samuppada and are in all of us as a rule.

[55:35]

We all experience this. It's our human nature to experience this. But we have to respect this. This is all conditions which give rise to, based on ignorance, but where our feelings are so strong that we can't help ourselves, basically. This is a description of all of us, not just a little girl. We're all little girls in this story, and we all have had this experience. But it's how conditions arise based on mindlessness. And we, you know,

[56:40]

You have to be careful who you say this to, because some people will resent it. And rightly so. What were your questions? Okay. So going back to our text, contact is a condition for feeling. So the true mind, when feeling is modified by mindfulness, then this is true mind. And when contact is influenced by my mindfulness, then the possibility of non-attachment is present.

[57:51]

And so we come to feeling, number seven, as a condition for craving. And then he uses the four immeasurable minds, the four Brahman-miharas, as a base for freedom from craving. So what are the four Brahman-miharas? They're karuna, which is compassion, meaning suffering the suffering of others, because passion means suffering. and compassion in suffering with. This is compassion. And that's what we were just talking about. Compassion and loving kindness and sympathetic joy and equanimity. It's interesting. These are the four aspects of Buddhist love.

[58:56]

Compassion, kindness, sympathetic joy, being joyful at other people's accomplishments, but strictly speaking it means their accomplishments in Dharma, and equanimity which means not taking sides or existing in the balanced state which helps people. which is non-discriminating, non-discrimination actually. So those are the four aspects of the Brahma-viharas, and they modify craving. When craving becomes craving can be turned by using that energy for those, within those four aspects.

[60:13]

So then there's grasping, which is a, what are we supposed to do? Okay, so anyway, You get the picture. We can just go on and on. And I'm glad we're going to the end because my leg is beginning to hurt. No, no. Just Rinzazen. Doesn't yours? No, no. My body feels great. Except this is a little funny. So anyway, Okay, this is called Paticca Samuppada, Practical Dependent Origination, but I don't know if you can get it. Can you get this, Alan? I think I have a few copies that I could put in the library. We've got a print, but I have a few.

[61:20]

I bought them on mass. Yeah, we should at least have one. I could put another one in, but I think it's pretty interesting. This is the Heart of Buddha's Teaching, which is quite available, and the whole book is good. Everything in here is... This is the good study of what the Dharma is, basically, basic Dharma study. And this is The Shastra on the Door to Understanding the Hundred Dharmas by Master Hua, who was the master of the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. I don't know if you can still get this at their bookstore. I always use this. Although Master Hua's commentaries are not ... I'm always kind of puzzled by some of them, but it's a good book because it really lays out the whole thing quite well. It's in the bookstore.

[62:21]

And we used this one time. Xeroxed it for people. I did a whole class on it, on the Hundred Dormants. Nobody remembers. It's somewhat repetitive because it's a number of talks put together, but the more I read it, the more I just find it really fascinating, his whole take on it. And of course, any book like this, the more you read it over, you find that you didn't understand it as well the first time, and the fourth time, as you keep reading it, it keeps revealing itself. So, oh yes.

[63:42]

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