Business. So here's the business. The business of the day is those people who borrowed Blanche Sutra Claus from Blanche, please return them their one, two, three, four, five people. Do I need to read their names to remind them? Maybe I will. Just put them back in the drawer. Andy, Teddy, Janine, Travis, and Jason. And the other business to do is, here are three sites if you want to go to them. One is the Access to Insight that I told you about yesterday. All kinds of the Theravada and Pannon are on that website. And the place where Yogacara seminar, yearly seminar is, is www.uncwil.org. Pidju, E-D-U, slash P-and-R, P-and, P-and-percent, P-and-percent-R, slash Yogacara.

[01:15]

And the other one is a kind of a dictionary. It's a theosophy dictionary, if you will find that helpful. They have some, you know, words. www. Theosophy, T-H-E-O-S-O-P-H-Y dash N-W dot org slash Theo, T-H-E-O-S-U, I think W, slash C-T-G slash something. But anyway, that'll get you there. I think it's A-AG, so A to AG, because I looked up an A word. Oh, you're looking it up? Can you go onto the internet immediately? Who knows? You may be able to. All right, here we go.

[02:20]

So I wrote this up behind me. The books? Library books. Please put all library books back on the back table. And then we'll put them back in the library. Bring them back. Did she send you an apology? Oh, she should send you an apology. Yeah. I left her that. Yeah, well, she apologized to me, but I wanted her to apologize to all the CC she sent that letter to. OK, so I put this on the board. Frankly, I think this is really good. I really do. I really do. I thought about it, and I think this is kind of a really terrific summary.

[03:29]

Whether it has anything to do with Vasubandha or not, I haven't yet made the connection. But I almost don't care, because this is kind of a summary of our practice. I just kind of want to make sure that we get to this. today and also go over the last couple of things. But the last stuff in Vajra Bhajan is going to throw us over here anyway. So at least I'm going to read you from the Majjhima Nikaya, the middle length discourses, our last advice from the Buddha for this class anyway. which is where this comes from. Nothing whatsoever. And he doesn't mean kind of nothing. He doesn't mean sort of nothing. He doesn't mean only what is convenient or what you can do or what you're not scared of letting go of. He doesn't mean that. He means everything.

[04:31]

Okay? So... Nothing whatsoever should be clung to. We could stop right there. But as I or mine. And you can see here, the I part is clinging to, you know, grasping to self or mine, which is grasping to other. Okay, so nothing whatsoever should be clung to as I or mine. Nothing whatsoever should be grasped at as self or other. So what happens? You know, what happened? So the whole first part of the Vasubandha part explains to us how we got to delusion, how we got self and other. We talked about how the mind works and so on and so forth. We followed it as much as we did or not. We ended up with self or other.

[05:33]

And then he explained to us that there were such things as past seeds and karmic tendencies and so on. And he told us where they were, you know, how they were available to us and how they came up and how this turning of the mind, which is called manas, which we can also call, if we want to, maybe the watcher. thinker, okay, how that comes along with a tendency to first love itself, love that separation, appreciate our individuality and so on, and how along with that comes all of the past stickinesses that have been stored that are available to us that have to do with a similar kind of perception. You're all following me, right? And let's have that under the category of delusion because it is first an illusion, the illusion of self and other, which becomes a delusion when we believe that to be the absolute case.

[06:36]

We have dualistic consciousness, consciousness that is sure about self and other. We have all kinds of body stuff. We assume the body to be mine. Isn't that odd? that we actually think the body is mine. Isn't that weird? Don't you think that's weird? You don't really think of yourself as the body. Think of yourself as the I that has the body. Isn't that weird? I think it's weird. We have karmic tendencies. We have future wishes and fears. And you can fill in, you know, reams of your particular stuff. All right? And this is where we start practice. We start practice in delusion and usually suffering. Unless sometimes we have, you know, tastes of... our true nature and then people come to practice because they think in a few weeks if they work hard enough they'll get back to that mind state.

[07:37]

I should put mind states up here because it's another thing that we cling to, pleasant mind states. We also cling to unpleasant, we prefer unpleasant mind states actually. Don't we? You're laughing but You're laughing because you know it's true. We get stuck in them. All right, so here's how we come. Okay, now this is the first turning. The first turning in practice is a very mysterious one, and I don't still understand what helps somebody to turn to do this. Because I myself didn't do this for years and years and years, take responsibility for my mental and emotional being, who I was.

[08:43]

It was a really interesting experience because I was, by that time, you know, so-called grown up. I was in my 20s and I had a job and I was independent and I was having relationships and I was making money and I was doing everything I was supposed to be doing. And the people I was relating with, the most intimate people I was relating with, kept telling me over and over again that I'm not taking responsibility anymore. What are you talking about? I am taking responsibility. I'm doing everything everyone's telling me. It means to be an adult, you know. I was actually pretending to be an adult. I wasn't quite an adult. I didn't understand what it meant. I just couldn't get it for a really long time. It really made me suffer. For a long time, I just was wondering, what does it mean? What could they possibly mean? And I don't remember how it was that I finally understood that what they were trying to tell me was that the feelings that came up in me were my feelings and my responsibility.

[09:49]

And I don't even remember exactly how it worked. So I can't talk about it, I guess, very much, because I don't really remember it. But I remember distinctly, it took me a really long time, and it was very hard to figure it out. But this is the first thing. the first thing that has to happen, and if this doesn't happen, it's a really difficult time because we think we're doing lots of things and practicing and sitting and so on and so forth, and we may well be. I was. But I wasn't really in touch with... I wasn't really... working, I wasn't really working really with what was coming up in me because I was feeling something probably because of other people or because other people didn't do something, I was feeling something, something like that.

[10:55]

I'm not exactly sure, but something like that. Anyway, it does have a lot to do with blame and being the victim and being sorry for yourself and so on and so forth, that kind of thing. It means you're not taking responsibility. So once that turns, then the next thing that happens, that needs to happen, that must happen is we need to actually accept. We need to start from who we've come to be. We need to accept the person we have come to be by dependent co-arising. We didn't necessarily choose that person. Almost always we are not happy with that person. The person is usually quite selfish, usually afraid, very greedy, embarrassed at who they are, think all kinds of bad thoughts about who they are, whatever. Usually we don't like that person. Usually.

[11:57]

Almost always. Now, suffering in this place, the place of not taking responsibility, is just massive suffering, but you're kind of lost in it because you don't have a clue really. Here, suffering is a little clearer. You do have a clue. The clue is if you're suffering, you are resisting to what is right now. Suffering in this place is non-acceptance. You are stuck someplace. And the world wants to keep moving. And you're grabbed onto something, but you're resisting. You're resisting whatever it is that's arising that you are, that you just don't want. You don't want it. Suffering is that kind of resistance. It's not acceptance, it's resistance, and it's clinging. The mind is caught somewhere. Now, in this area, this business about accepting, the body is extremely important because all of the pain that we grew up with, that was given to us, it's given to us.

[13:14]

It's generational, generation after generation after generation. And now we receive it as children. Thank you very much. Of course, you know, you can't blame anybody because your parents have the same thing. Almost always, if somebody is an abusive parent, they've been abused. Almost always. You don't invent that. You know, a kid doesn't come into the world feeling that way. So when you begin accepting responsibility, you begin, especially if you see dependent co-arising, you begin to have some amount of space. You stop blaming so much. It's easier to accept responsibility. responsibility because ultimately there is, everybody's forgiven totally from this point of view. So you can start taking responsibility. So the body is really important here because all of the stuck places that we've been resisting and haven't wanted to feel or the pain and the hurt that we didn't know what to do with goes right into the body.

[14:21]

It's in the body. And the process of healing that pain Even that, you know, thoughts that come, that are so, thoughts that are really painful thoughts. What we mean by painful thoughts often is, is that they actually have, they manifest in the body. It feels like you're stabbed or you're whipped or you're crushed or you're, you know, something heavy is happening or sweating or your muscles are tight and it's just painful. And the way to heal it, the healing that happens is simply with awareness. Awareness turns out to be healing. It's magic. It's the way it works. What kind of awareness? Not judgmental, not grabbing onto it, because that would throw you right back up into the poor me thing, and not averting. You simply take responsibility for feeling exactly how you're feeling.

[15:24]

You breathe, you breathe, you breathe, you wait, you wait, you open, you open, you open, you watch until the sensation in your body is passed. And that much of the karma, whatever that was, is released. This is my theory. Reb says I'm wrong, but I am. I don't know what he says. He just didn't like that. He didn't like the way I put it. I put it in terms of energy. I don't know, maybe he can agree with me now. He's always changing. But I really feel it that way. And so that's what I keep saying. If it's wrong, just ignore it. If that's not your experience, throw it out. So it's helpful if you don't struggle. And it's helpful to know that if you're caught, you know, a fallback mode here is, if you're caught, just surrender. Okay, you win.

[16:27]

And then you just open your heart, if you can. It's really important. You can't go forward in practice without developing. At the same time you do wisdom practice, you have to develop wisdom. compassion for yourself first. And the way you develop it is simply allowing yourself to feel your own pain. It's okay to have whatever feelings you come up with. They're not yours anyway, so you might as well let them be there. So you have to have this heart thing and of course in the beginning we don't we hate ourselves so much often that you know we can't even bear to even imagine liking this awful thing that we seem to be so in the beginning the heart is a little bit broken so you take a kind of a broken heart

[17:32]

You're feeling broken, and your heart is broken, and that's the person that you turn to and hold. As an adult, you can hold this person, and you are the one who are responsible for giving to that person whatever that person didn't get when they were broken up in the first place. I have no idea. But this is not analysis. I am not talking about analysis here. I'm talking about staying in the moment and feeling what's in the moment. You do not need to analyze anything. Everything that you're ever going to need to see is going to come up right in your face, right there, if you just are there to see it.

[18:42]

I think I'm in the right place. No, it just is. Okay, okay, okay. You lose both ways.

[19:46]

I don't know what needs to be said about it. It just is that way. First, you have arrogance. Then B, love that one. You see, because when you really are aware, there's a little hair's breadth that you're not actually bought into it at that point. You're watching yourself be this person you can hardly bear, right? That watching is where you want to, that's legitimate. You rest there in that watching. with this tender, tender heart. You watch this person who you can hardly stand. They're so arrogant, you know, but you love that one. Because why? That one is so inside underneath that. Usually the arrogance is as much as it is down, right? You're judging yourself as much as you're judging projecting, right? You know that somewhere. You love that one. That's how it happens. It's all about really just pouring love and warmth and acceptance onto this person that we've tried to keep in the closet.

[20:57]

That's very good. Laughing is good. Let's put laughing up there. I put humor, but I don't think I can spell it. Let's see. H-U-M-O-U-R? O-R. Oh, O-R. This is my excuse. All right. I love the spell check on computers.

[22:17]

It's just the best thing I'm ever there with. Where are we? Loving. So we love. Very important. Now, here's the interesting thing. Let's go to this little part right over here. Body, sensation, perception, emotions, thought, consciousness. Yes. That's okay for now because the one that's broken doesn't have much of a self. You need to have a little bit of stability before you start taking away identity from it. You have to have a good outline at least. Absolutely, absolutely. No, I would just go ahead and completely, substance schmupstance, you know, I would go ahead and completely love that one.

[23:34]

We do have a self, you know. We do have a self. We do have a conventional self. Buddha never said that didn't exist. We're not into nihilism or absolutely nothing there. Okay. Yeah, but for some people it's very hard. Yeah. Oh. Oh. Mm-hmm.

[24:57]

Yeah. I was just going to ask, what are some self-love practices? Is it ? There are lots. You should look up Metta, 11 Kindness, the Brahma Maharas, Tonglen, Lojong practice, the Paramitas, the Four Guidances of the Bodhisattva, Four Methods of Guidance. What is the difference between your awareness and being awake? You mean from sleep? What? It was awake. That's what it means, aware, up, there, present. I don't think so, yeah.

[26:22]

So over here we have body, sensation, perception, emotion, thought, consciousness. These are familiar, right? We know what these are? Descandes, right? Now, what happens, I think anyway, in practice is that we work at really gross things first. And the way we work is by removing our identity. We just remove our identity from these things. That's what happens. you know, first we're totally believe that all of this stuff is me. And then as you sit more and more, you can see certainly then sensations, you know, come and go all the time. It's always changing. And eventually you can see that emotions are always changing and so on and so forth. And some people sometimes get stuck on emotions and less on thoughts.

[27:25]

Some people You can see that thought comes and goes really clearly. But their emotions are really dominant. They really believe the emotions. Or some people feel like the body is really them. They're very identified with the body. But eventually, as we practice our identity with these things, we remove it. And then, at the most subtle level, You do not identify with consciousness. Don't identify with consciousness. The mind, you are not your mind. We are not the mind. Subtle, but true. Let go of All of it. Do not identify yourself in any of it.

[28:28]

Then I wrote, well, how are we supposed to do that? So then I said, Look, I really understand now. Okay. Then I said total 100% engagement in the present. Now you've heard that, right? Isn't that so, Tosin? However, what is the present? People don't know. I was asked that question. Category asked me that. What is a moment? Duh. Every time you ever ask me anything, I didn't know the answer. But it turns out what the present is is activity here and now.

[29:38]

Huh? Whatever you're doing. See, I'm lifting this up. I'm putting it down. Whatever you're doing, whatever you're engaged in. Picking up a cup of tea. You should have seen Suzuki Roshi pick up a cup of tea. The whole entire world was there in him picking up the cup of tea. 100%. It would be, I could do the best impersonation of me picking up a cup of tea. Oh, and this is this. Can you see down here? This is a good news. This is true. And don't believe this. Do not believe this. Do not believe this until you find out. Do not believe this, but know that it's down there. We are already, already what we want to be.

[30:48]

We are already open-hearted. We are. I used to think all the time that my heart was closed because that's what it felt like, because it felt like I had a big iron ball over my chest to protect me. But it's not true. Underneath the iron ball was this big, massive, kind of sentimental, very kind of open heart. What happens is we protect it. We put up barriers. The heart stays open. We hide it because we're afraid. Yes, we do. See? Yeah, but we need to know as kids, you know, we have barriers, you know, for a lot of things because we can't handle it. But as adults, we have tons of barriers for things that as adults, you know, aren't threatening to us at all. And we still have the same barriers.

[31:53]

So the other part is what we are. So we're this open heart. And we are pure, joyous, silent, spacious awareness. It's not ours. It doesn't belong to us. It's dependently co-risen. And it is us. We don't have it. It is who we are. That's what we are. That's what it says at the end of this. It is without thought and without object, just present activity, suchness, things as they are, as Blanche says all the time. It's also the super mundane knowledge through the destruction of the twofold depravities, that's the graspings, of I and mine, there is reversion to the source of such depravities."

[33:08]

Reversion means that the mind simply is returned. Revert means revert back to. It's returned to its original pristine nature. This indeed is the realm free from influxes. It is unthinkable beyond concepts. It is wholesome. It is stable. It is the serene body of release. And this is called the doctrine of the great sage. I think they are influxes. Where do you have influxes? I think the influxes are when we grasp, we recreate another seed. How about that? How about energies that are coming in? I don't know. Let me see if I have it here. Free from influxes. Oh, it's the realm free from influxes.

[34:16]

Influxes, let's see. Free from leaking energy, it says. Without thought, consciousness is gone. They're not looking at anything. They're finding out there's been a tendency to look at it when it's formed. Where it's free from dispositional tendencies and defiling afflictions instead of grasping it. I don't know, it doesn't say. I don't know, Barnaby. Oh, okay. Thank you. That's a definition of influxes? Is that what that is? Free from stress? Influxes? Oh, the description of being free from influxes. What's an influx, though?

[35:23]

I think it's a leak. All right. Here's where that comes from. Nothing whatsoever should be clung to as an iron mine. Let's see. Venerable sir, does the Blessed One recall stating in brief to a certain one of the renowned spirits with a great following, deliverance through the destruction of craving? Yes, this is what I said. I told him, here, ruler of gods, a monk has heard that nothing is worth adhering to. When a monk has heard that nothing whatever should be clung to, He or she directly knows everything. Having directly known everything, they fully understand everything.

[36:26]

Having fully understood everything, whatever feelings they feel, whatever pleasant or painful, neither painful nor pleasant, they abide contemplating impermanence in those feelings, contemplating fading away, contemplating cessation, contemplating relinquishment. Contemplating thus, they do not cling to anything in the world. When they do not cling, they are not agitated. That's kind of neat. I didn't put that in there. When you don't cling, you're not agitated. When you are not agitated, you personally attain nirvana. Birth is destroyed. The holy life has been lived. This is another famous line. What had to be done was done. There is no more coming to any state of being. That is how I recall stating in brief to the ruler of God's deliverance through the cessation of craving. This is the number 37 in the Majjhima Nikaya.

[37:32]

It's number 37, the Kulatanha Sankhaya Sutta. Page 344. And I want to read you from Dogen because, you know, that's our way. And I like our way. Here is, just in case you didn't believe me that a moment was time. This is Dogen's uji, being time. Since such is it not... You're not going to understand this, so don't even worry about it, but it's all very poetic. I mean, you may understand it.

[38:35]

I think Dogen's hard to understand myself. It's so pretty, though. Since such is its fundamental reason, we must study and learn that myriad phenomena and numberless grasses, things, exist over the entire earth, and each of the grasses and each of the forms exists as the entire earth. These comings and goings are the commencement of Buddha practice. When you have arrived within this field of suchness, it is a single grass, a single form. The forms are understood and not understood. The grasses are grasped and not grasped. In spite of this, a person holds various views at the time he is unenlightened and has yet to learn the Buddha's Dharma. Hearing the words, the time being, he thinks that at one time the old Buddha became a creature with three heads and eight arms and that at another time he became a 16-foot Buddha.

[39:41]

He imagines it is like crossing a river or a mountain. The river and mountain may still exist. but I have now left them behind. And at the present time, I reside in a splendid vermilion palace. To him, the mountain or river and I are as distant from one another as heaven from earth. As the time right now is all there ever is, each being time, he uses that as one word, is without exception, entire time, a grasping, a foreign being, are both times. Entire being, the entire world exists in the time of each and every now. Just reflect right now. Is there an entire being or an entire world missing from your present time or not? That's the beginning time.

[40:44]

And then I want to read just two more things shortly. This is from Ikyu, it's One Bright Pearl. This is his statement about, this is one of the ways that he talks about one, we're all one life, lifing. We're just all, we're just lifing, lifing, dying, birthing, deathing. It being thus, it is the one bright pearl, all the universe. So although its face seems to keep on changing, turning and stopping, it is the same bright pearl. Knowing that the pearl is indeed like this, that itself is the bright pearl. In this way, the colorations and configurations of the bright pearl are encountered. When it is thus, there is no reason to doubtingly think that you are not the pearl.

[41:48]

because you think, I am not the pearl. These thoughts and doubts and our accepting or rejecting are but passing notions. It is, moreover, only the pearl appearing as a trivial notion. And this last one I want to read is from the Ganges of God. Some good gifts from the Ganges of God. Yes, nothing is excluded, even our delusions. When it is thus, there is no reason to think that you are not the pearl because you perplexedly think, quote, I am not the pearl. Perplexing thoughts, doubts, and are accepting or rejecting are but passing trivial notions.

[42:53]

It is, moreover, only the pearl appearing as a trivial notion. It really doesn't matter where we start. It really doesn't. It's just awareness of whatever's happening. It's already there. It's just that we're caught. That's all. All right, Ginjo Kakoa. When all things are the Buddhadharma... Well, you know this part. Well, I'll read it anyway. When all things are the Buddhadharma, there is illusion and enlightenment, practice, birth, death, Buddhas, and sentient beings. When all things are without self, there is no illusion or enlightenment, no birth or death, no Buddhas or sentient beings. The Buddha way is originally beyond any fullness and lack, and for that reason there is birth and death, illusion and enlightenment, trivial notions and such.

[44:03]

Yet for all that, flowers fall amid our regret and yearning, and hated weeds grow. Practice that confirms things by taking the self to them is illusion. For things to come forward and practice and confirm the self is enlightenment. That's not a very good way of putting it. It's better in the other translation. Those who greatly enlighten illusion are Buddhists. Those greatly deluded amid enlightenment are ascension beings. Some people continue to realize enlightenment beyond enlightenment. Some proceed amid their illusion deeper into further illusion.

[45:04]

To learn the Buddha way is to study the self. To study the self, then you can forget the self. To forget the self is to be confirmed by all dharmas. To be confirmed by all dharmas is to cast off one body and mind and the bodies and minds of others as well. All trace of enlightenment disappears and this traceless awakening continues without end. The attainment of enlightenment is like the moon reflected in the water. The moon does not get wet, and the surface of the water is not broken. For all the breadth and vastness of its light, the moon comes to rest in a small patch of water. The whole moon and the sky in its entirety come to rest in a single dewdrop on a grass tip, a mere pinpoint of water. Enlightenment does not destroy you. any more than the moon makes a hole on the surface of the water.

[46:09]

Fish swim the water and however much they swim, there is no end to the water. Birds fly the skies and however much they fly, there is no end to the skies. Yet fish never once leave the water and birds never forsake the sky. When their need is great, there is great activity. When their need is small, there is small activity. In this way, none ever fails to exert itself to the full, and nowhere does any fail to move and turn freely. If a bird leaves the sky, it will soon die. If a fish leaves the water, it will die at once. We should grasp that water means life and the sky means life. It must be that the bird means life and the fish means life, that life is the bird, life is the fish. We could continue in this way even further because practice and realization for all that is possessed of life, it is the same.

[47:16]

Because it is just that one practice, Since here is where the place exists, and since the way opens out in all directions, the reason we are unable to know its total knowable limits is simply because our knowing lives together and practices together with the full penetration of the Buddha Dharma. As Zen Master Pao Che of Mount Mayu was fanning himself, a monk came up and said, The nature of the wind is constancy. There is no place it does not reach. Then why use a fan? Pao Che answered, You only know the nature of wind is constancy.

[48:20]

You haven't yet grasped the meaning of its reaching every place. What is the meaning of its reaching every place?" asked the monk. The master only fanned himself. The monk bowed deeply. Verification of the Buddha Dharma, the authentic transmission of the vital way is like this. To say that one should not use a fan because the wind is constant, that there will be wind even when one does not use a fan, fails to understand both constancy and the nature of wind. It is because the nature of the wind is constancy that the wind of the house of Buddha reveals the great earth's golden presence and ripens the sweet milk of the long river. So our way is we practice because we already are what we want to be.

[49:29]

We are already the Buddha Dharma. That's why we practice. But if we don't practice, we don't realize. We have to practice. This doesn't have to be even Buddhism. It's just that Buddhism is very clear. You don't even have to be religious to do this. But it takes a lot of work. It takes courage. It takes determination. It takes patience. It takes kindness and gentleness. Yes, that's right.

[50:30]

Those are all qualities that we have. All right, so I guess we're done. And I don't know really how much I have explained Vasubandha, I think, in some ways, kind of not at all. But this time going through it, I just mostly talked about satsang. So I hope that's okay. And if I told you things that are wrong, then you'll learn what is right some other time. And if there are things in it that are disturbing or that you don't think are worth much, throw it out. And if there was anything that was useful, take it and use it well. And I would like to dedicate our effort.

[51:32]

You know, one time I was with the driver for the 16th Karmapa in Hawaii, in a hotel in Hawaii. There's a big, huge golden Buddha in one of those hotels. It's really kind of, I kind of, feels slightly funny. But there it was. Anyway, so we were having a talk right in front of it, and he said that the thing that he remembered most about the 16th Karmapa was that he dedicated, he offered everything all the time. You know, whenever he did anything, he was offering it up all the time. So in that spirit and in gratitude to all of the teachers that we've had, but I can't say you're all feeling so. I dedicate this to being a complete awakening of everybody and peace in the world soon.

[52:56]

And may we all walk together as far as we go.

[53:02]

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