and therefore there is only frustration and hindrance with your understanding of the earth. This understanding of the earth of emptiness and its purpose, the purpose of emptiness and the significance of emptiness is incorrect, as a consequence you are harmed by it, harmed by your understanding. These first chapters, these first six paragraphs are the opponent's criticism and questioning of Nagarjuna's teaching about emptiness. I was touched to find a reference to a place where Buddha was criticized and where he asserted

[01:11]

this position in the face of criticism, for a very similar teaching of the non-inherent existence of the human consciousness, human being. He did not accept that there was a permanent, inherently existing being, human being. So, during his lifetime apparently he was criticized and heard about, and he said, referring to this, saying bhikkhus, so proclaiming these things, I have been facelessly, vainly, falsely and wrongly misrepresented by some recluses and brahmins, thus, the recluse Gautama is

[02:15]

one who leads astray, who teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the extermination of existing beings. As I am not, as I do not proclaim, so I have been facelessly, vainly and wrongly misrepresented by some recluses and brahmins, thus, the recluse Gautama is one who leads astray, who teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the extermination of existing beings. I am not, as I do not proclaim, so I have been facelessly, vainly and wrongly misrepresented

[03:24]

by some recluses and brahmins, thus, the recluse Gautama is one who leads astray, who teaches the annihilation, the destruction, the extermination of existing beings. What I teach is suffering and the cessation of suffering. If others abuse, revile, scold and harass a Tathagata for that, the Tathagata on that account feels no annoyance, bitterness or dejection of heart. And if others honor, respect and venerate the Tathagata for that, the Tathagata on account of that feels no delight, joy or elation of the heart. If others honor, respect and revere the Tathagata for that, the Tathagata on that account thinks

[04:33]

thus, they perform such services as these for the sake of what had earlier come to be fully understood. And what that means is, they come to perform such services as these for the sake of what we have earlier come to understand as the five skandhas. So, if the Buddha gives a talk, if he teaches about suffering and the cessation of suffering, and if some people revere, honor, respect and venerate the Tathagata while the Tathagata speaks about the suffering and the cessation of suffering, if they venerate and so on,

[05:35]

they do so for the sake of what we Buddhists have previously understood as the five skandhas. In other words, they are venerating the five skandhas, which are not talking this way. They are talking, the five skandhas are going, suffering, the cessation of suffering, here is how suffering is caused, here is how suffering, here is how cause is dropped away, here is how suffering ends. This is five skandhas talking, right? And sometimes people venerate the five skandhas when they are talking like that. So, if that should happen, when that happens, the Tathagata thinks, oh, these people are venerating what I have previously understood as five skandhas, therefore I do not become delighted and so on with this veneration of the five skandhas. Similarly, if they harass, revile, scold and abuse the Tathagata, I would also understand

[06:40]

this in the service of what has previously been understood as the five skandhas, and therefore I do not feel rejected. This is one of the main stories that I tried to present in the form of Hakuin, when he was, first of all, reviled, harassed, abused, criticized, put down and punished. And he said, you know, ah, is this happening? And then later he was revered, honored, venerated, and pretty much he understood the same thing, he did not get overjoyed with the veneration. So, you know, there we go. Therefore, bhikhus, bhikshunis, monks and monkesses, if others abuse, revile, scold,

[07:41]

harass and nickname you, on that account you should not entertain any annoyance, bitterness, rejection of heart. And, on the other hand, if others honor, revere, respect and venerate you, on that account you should not entertain any delight, joy or elation of the heart. If others honor, respect and revere or venerate you, on that account you should think thus. They perform such services of these for the sake of what had earlier come to be fully understood as the five skandhas, which means, you know, you don't take it personally, but also you don't take it, you know, dis-personally either. They're not talking about somebody else, either. Sort of like somebody else, they're talking about five skandhas.

[08:43]

Anyway, so, when the Buddha teaches, the five skandhas teaches selflessness, gets reviled, and then when reviled practices selflessness, continues to practice, does not get excited or enjoy the Crest. I misunderstood, he didn't mention it. Which is nice, because it shows that even the Buddha had kind of got some harass, some hassle, some flack for this teaching that he was giving, just like Nagarjuna was giving it, six hundred years later, for basically the same message. That's a good thing, isn't it? The question, is it a good thing? Are you questioning me? Is it a good thing? Well, that's good, but I'm not going to get elated about it, right?

[09:46]

Because you're doing this in service of what had been previously understood. Well, I think it's good not to do anything like that. Forgetful, or non-factual. You don't have to go and attach yourself to it, you don't have to come back and attach yourself to it. Well, the Buddha wasn't accusing those people of being attached, he was just saying that I was reviled and so on. Was he questioning them, or did they really attack you? Well, he said reviled, he didn't say they questioned me, but they might have done that too. He didn't maybe mention on that list that they questioned me. In this text here, where Naradjuna is quoting, it's not really reviled, it's more like questioning. Okay, he's not agreeing. In this text, it's kind of like questioning and not agreeing, but Buddha apparently got a little rougher treatment. And it's comforting, for me anyway, to hear that Buddha got his reviled, harassed and

[10:53]

abused. Even his cousin tried to become mobbed. We shall see. Anyway, then the next point is the teaching of the Dharma by the various Buddhas is based on two truths, namely relative worldly truth, and the Vedanta says absolute supreme truth. The word absolute can just mean complete, you know, but some of the reading we've been doing makes us sort of sensitive to the word absolute as though there's something substantial there. Another translation is Buddha's teaching of Dharma is based on two truths, the truth

[11:57]

of worldly convention and the ultimate truth. Another one is the teaching of the doctrine by the Buddhas is based upon two truths, the truth relating to worldly convention and the truth in terms of ultimate fruit. Those who do not know the distinction between the two truths cannot understand the profound nature of the Buddha's teaching. Those who do not understand the distinction between these two truths do not understand the profound truth embodied in the Buddha's message. And then number ten, without relying on everyday common practices, the absolute truth cannot

[13:11]

be expressed. Without approaching the absolute truth, nirvana cannot be attained. Without relying on worldly convention, the ultimate fruit cannot be taught. Without understanding the ultimate fruit, freedom cannot be attained. Without a foundation in the conventional truth, the significance of the ultimate cannot be taught. Without understanding the significance of the ultimate, liberation is not achieved. Does that kind of make it sound like there's a lot of preparation you have to do for liberation? You have to study, if you want to call study preparation, but you don't have to study with a sense of preparation, you don't have to think of it in those terms.

[14:12]

You could, but you can just think that study is necessary, because without study, liberation is someplace else. Study is what brings you into, is what realizes intimacy with Dharma. Okay? Appreciate? Pardon? Is it like appreciating? You mean like study appreciating? Yeah. Study, if you appreciate Dharma, you might study it. If you study it, if you study it in an effective way, then you would appreciate it. It wouldn't be that you would study it with some prejudice against it. And of course, true study would actually be, you wouldn't even have prejudice for it. But you might start with prejudice for it, that's what a lot of people do, but that becomes later something that you have to drop, in order to really begin with the Dharma.

[15:17]

So, you can see that preparation, you can just see it as the way to enter the realm of realization. It's like just taking your seat. Now, realization is all over the place, but if you don't take your seat, somehow it's going to be remote for you. So, if you want to say, taking your seat is preparation for it, it's okay to see it that way. That's, we need to stop here for a second so we have... We have the worldly truth, or the worldly convention. And, so, studying this character makes me think a lot about the book, about the book

[16:27]

on the precepts, because there are, there are worldly conventions in terms of, in terms of what we call conduct or normality. So, the Buddha said that, you know, he defined good as, good is that which is fruitful, and bad is that which is unfruitful. Yes? Is that, that's a more helpful way than I've ever heard before. Maybe, Thurman has that passage that's called, Do not do anything evil. And, it doesn't seem like he's talking about what we would call conventional good. But, on the other hand, he is saying there's good and evil. Pardon? He does, maybe, say that there's good and evil. There's another chapter, there's two other chapters which are related.

[17:30]

One is Deep Faith in Cause and Effect, or Condition and Effect. And, the other one is called Karmic Retribution in Three Times. And, in there, the conventional, the more conventional way of putting it is, in the classical, you know, don't do anything evil or refrain from all evil. That classical deals with those three precepts. I mean, refrain from all evil, practice all good, and benefit all beings. And, in a sense, it is more the ultimate perspective. Or, you could say, it's the teaching about moral principle from the point of view of ultimate fruit. That chapter in Shobo Genzo is teaching the moral principle which you need to understand in order to realize awakening and liberation.

[18:36]

So, in that chapter, Dōgen says that the awakening of all Buddhas is refrain from all evil. And, if you don't have refrain from all evil, then you don't have the awakening of the Buddhas. So, the perspective of that fascicle is like the perspective you need to have in order to attain liberation. But, before you read that fascicle, that fascicle teaches the significance of the ultimate. Before you read that fascicle, you need to understand the conventional. Which, he didn't mention that you need to read other chapters before that. But, you do, actually. And, that's what this verse is saying. That you need to understand the conventional truth before the ultimate significance is taught to you.

[19:37]

Or, another way to put it, the moral principle in terms of the liberation is taught to you. So, a functional tribal story among Buddhists about conventional people would be that which does not lead towards fruition? Well, not fruition, but fruit, I think. Because all actions have fruition. But, the quote here is saying, fruitful and unfruitful. And, the Buddha recognized that views about good and bad are, in most cases, relative conventions. Most of the time, views about good and bad are relative conventions. And, you know, so kushala and akushala

[20:38]

are conventions that vary depending on the situation. So, these are ways of the world, and they're characterized as, in Pali, characterized as Samantabhadra. And, Samantabhadra is [...] conventional. This way of history is conventional. So, in his translation work,

[21:50]

Guru Pahana feels that the way to understand this is that the conventional situation is how you define, in different contexts, the kinds of behaviors or whatever that leads to a fruit. And, the way in which the conventional situation One of the words for fruit is partha, in Sanskrit, or hatha, in Pali. So, the conventional, there's a conventional truth, which is about things that are fruitful, that have fruit, hatha. And, then there's the teaching about what has the ultimate fruit, which is paramattha. Paramattha, or paramattha. Ultimate fruit. And, so, Guru Pahana wants to emphasize that paramattha is about ultimate fruit rather than about ultimate reality. The outcome?

[22:55]

Yeah, yeah. Outcome. Yeah. So, Yeah, outcome. Yes. Is the ultimate fruit a karmic fruit? That's the truth of karma? Or, being the ultimate truth, it's not the ultimate truth? Conventional truth is often in terms of karma. Ultimate truth is usually not in terms of karma. But, before being taught about an outcome that's not karma, we need to understand the rules of karma. So, we need the we need the conventional moral teaching, and we need the ultimate moral teaching, the moral principle. So, there's an ultimate moral principle

[23:56]

that guides you into perfect alignment with awakening. But, it has to be, you know, according to the Buddha, this ultimate principle that guides you, that the significance of which guides you to achieving liberation. It still has to be refrained from all evil, and practice all good, and a clarified mind. It still has to be in its precepts. So, that's part of it. You know, I'm struggling with this how to, in discussing the precepts, how to lay a foundation of discussion about these precepts, these moral issues, according to conventional way of understanding. And then, how to use that as a base for the discussion

[24:57]

which is necessary in order to give discussion on the principle as necessary to achieve liberation. You could also use a conventional, you could have a conventional understanding of other things besides moral issues for behavior. But, it turns out that, in some sense, the way Nagarjuna uses this term about conventional truth is kind of focused on moral issues that wouldn't have to be necessary. But it is, these texts which is both very helpful to me and very challenging. And now I have to like to deal with this truth. Yes? I'm just a little confused about what truth means. Whether it means something that leads to wholesomeness,

[25:58]

or whether it means something that implies like a sense of liberation from a substantial view, or what and how it would be differentiated between a conventional and an ultimate reality. Well, in the conventional world, if you do bad, it has results. But, I guess, in some sense, in the conventional world, fruitful means maybe something that you appreciate or something that you would intend. So, again, you know, the word kushala means skillful. And akushala means unskillful. So, when you're skillful in the conventional sense, that goes with, in a particular context, skillful means you learn the rules and the conventions of the situation and apply them skillfully,

[26:58]

and that's fruitful. Your intention is realized in the conventional world. I think you can take it on that conventional level. But we can also discuss further what that means and arrive at, in this situation, we can arrive at another situationally determined understanding of what truth means or what skill means, and so on. And that discussion, that discourse, is in the realm of conventional meaning. And you can't skip over that and think you can understand without understanding that. You wouldn't be able to understand the ultimate. If you think about that, you make a kind of interesting thought. Try to think how you heard in the teachings about the ultimate. In the teachings about things from the perspective

[28:01]

of the ultimate. Try to imagine how you would understand it if you had no understanding of the conventional. Imagine what kind of mind you'd have if you had no understanding of the conventional, or you had no fluency in conventional discourse, or you were unwilling to participate in it. Imagine how wacky you might be in your interpretation of the ultimate. And if you heard a straight line ultimate message, can you imagine how you might get into kind of a crazy space? Some people reject, they will not listen to conventional truth. But they are willing to listen to ultimate truth, or ultimate teaching, or the truth from the perspective of liberation. Some people are willing to do that because for some reason it doesn't irritate

[29:02]

some kinds of attachments that they have, or doesn't bring up some conditioning that's very annoying for them, which they don't want to deal with, which comes up when they start discussing things like these acts could be the result of something. Are you following me? And then, somebody who refuses to deal with conventional reality and stops right there, this is just a resistant person who's in trouble because they won't face, they won't study cause and effect. They're in trouble, but in some ways not in as bad trouble as if then they would jump into thinking that they were enlightened. It's pretty bad to not be willing to discuss and not give them credit for cause and effect. That's a pretty bad situation. It's considered to be a very bad situation for human beings to be in, but it would be even worse than if you had been heard some rumours about some

[30:03]

ultimate message and thought, oh, I'd be all right with that. And then you get into a very crazy place. In some ways, if you don't recognize cause and effect, you get into a very miserable situation, but the misery is in some ways something that you can deal with. But if then you sort of skip over even the misery and go into some elevated state, then you're maybe even more remote from assistance. That make sense? That's why we don't intend to bring up the ultimate teaching until the person is grounded in the conventional truth or the ultimate or the teaching of the truth from the point of view of the ultimate attainment before the person is willing to deal with the truth in terms of conventional discourse. Well, that's the only way to understand it is

[31:06]

nothing special means you should be willing to deal with conventional reality as a basis for the final instruction. I wonder if you would agree that I think you brought up the example before about some of the Middle East terrorist organizations that are associated with some fundamental religious groups seem to be, to me, in that group where they've skipped over conventional reality and ignored that and think they have some absolute truth that they're acting upon and therefore whatever they do is justified. Like they can blow up airplanes with innocent people on them and so forth. So they seem to be, to me, in that group. I don't know what's going on in their minds whether they're skipping over the conventional truth or not. It might be that they're still involved in conventional truth and they're saying we will, in a conventional world,

[32:08]

do these things which are, according to conventional truth, what do you call it, bad, and we'll do that for the sake of this. They might be saying that way, in other words, not ignoring it but being willing to do that for their religious conviction. But I think that, you know, again you might say that they're not skipping over it but they may not understand it. But it's hard for me to assess their understanding. I don't know. I haven't actually talked to them. You can find out if you can speak to them. You can find out pretty fast where they're coming from if you talk to them. You can assess, you know, where they stand. Stuart? It just occurred to me what Colonel was saying that in the Theravadin tradition we tend to use the term mundane and super mundane. I think it's the point of the same distinction between conventional and ultimate. In this case, though,

[33:22]

in this discussion, I don't see the term as laukika. The word loka which means worldly and laukika means of the world and then there's lokottara. Lokottara. Loka plus uttara which means beyond the world. Lokottara and laukika. Of the world and beyond the world. That particular terminology is not being used here. The word loka is not being used here. The word that's being used here is samuti or samvritti. So they're using the word conventional rather than the word worldly. They're using conventional for worldly but they're trying to emphasize convention. Because convention is like, you have a convention, right? You get together and you have a discourse and you talk about what these mean. So, part of the conventional meaning is that we convene, we have a discussion, we have some commonality of discourse

[34:25]

and according to that we have truth. And that truth is relative to the discourse and it could change. And the truth there is not universal. It's not universal truth. It only questions the situation. In this case, when they're not translating the absolute that's one of the few instances where I don't think the translation to me doesn't seem inelegant. It just seems to me really off the mark because of the connotations of absolute in English. You can't combine supreme or truth of the highest meaning or ultimate truth or something like that but absolute seems to suggest exactly the opposite of what that paraphrase is trying to say. That emptiness as a concept is universally applicable and is a higher concept than all the others and is always fixed and it's exactly what Margaret Beeman seems not to be saying and I don't know if you would agree with that but it really seems to me off.

[35:27]

I agree with you. You're a little bit more vehement vehement? vehement, yeah. You seem more vehement than I am but I agree. I like these other translations better that's why I read them in addition rather than I like ultimate in the end and ultimate also means in the beginning ultimate or final the point of it all more like the point of it all rather than something substantial or something real so again I think it's from the point of view of cessation of suffering so what is the meaning of certain things from the point of view of the cessation of suffering so what's the meaning of a phenomenon from the point of view of the cessation of suffering the meaning of one meaning of phenomenon from the point of view of cessation of suffering is of no self from the point of view of liberation from suffering

[36:35]

from that point of view you teach no self from that point of view you teach no suffering you teach no other and so on that's the kind of But before that, you have to tune in to the teaching of self, and the teaching of suffering, and the teaching of separation, and the teaching of anxiety, and the teaching of fear. Those truths have to be accepted. And those truths are not inferior to the other truths. The truth of that there is suffering, and that there is self, and that there is attachment, that truth is as much of a truth as that there isn't. It's just that that truth will not get you liberated. However, if you accept that truth wholly, the other truth will either be given to you by somebody, by somebody who will say it to you,

[37:38]

or you open a book and it will say it there, or it will come up in your own mind. You really didn't read a book that said no self. You were just looking at the self, and suddenly, I don't know what happened, no self popped up in his face. And that is the truth from the perspective of what liberated him. Now that that happened to him, it's like, it's kind of like, what do you call it, it's on the grapevine, this thing about no self. So you can hear it all over the place. And if you've accepted the teaching of self, the teaching of the truth of self, it means the truth of suffering, if you've accepted that and settled into that calmly and serenely, then you've done your job with the first truth. Then you're ready for the significance of the ultimate truth.

[38:39]

Okay, quiet before we go on. There's a lot more here, but we can go on. You can come back later if you want. Wrongly conceived sunyata can ruin a slow-witted person. It is like a badly seized snake or a wrongly executed incantation. A wrongly perceived emptiness ruins a person of meager intelligence. It is like a snake that is wrongly drafted or knowledge that is wrongly cultivated. So again, you know, it's interesting that the word kushala, as I mentioned to you before, comes from the word kusagrasa. And kusagrasa has a real sharp edge.

[40:16]

And Buddha recommended that people use kusagrasa for meditation. So, collecting this grass, this kusagrasa, it became, gradually developed the word, they coined the term kushala, which meant skillful at collecting this grass. And in skillful at collecting kusagrasa, kushala became the word for skillfulness in general. So you see that learning the conventions of collecting snakes and swords or sharp grass, learning how that works in the conventional world, whereas in some districts you use kusagrasa, in other districts you use something else for your seat, like maybe in North America, instead of using kusagrasa, instead of using kusagrasa, we use another Southeast Asian product, kapok, which draws on freedom. But if you don't handle kapok properly, you can do damage to your lungs.

[41:20]

So, you know, we could develop a new word for skillful called kapakala. And it would come from working with the conventions of the materials of our environment, and by learning how to handle this in a way that was fruitful, so that you could collect the stuff, get in your zaap and sit on it without getting sick, like collecting the grass without getting your hands cut up too much. What that involves though, part of what is involved in learning conventions, is maybe just somebody found out that kapok inhaled, after a while makes you sick, and somebody found out pretty quickly that, you know, you can cut your hands on kusagrasa. So that's a convention. And by learning that beforehand, you can learn how you can handle snakes, if you learn how to handle them. You can handle swords, you can handle incantations, you can handle emptiness. Because emptiness is closely associated with phenomenon. And if you handle phenomenon very skillfully,

[42:27]

very intimately, very respectfully, thoroughly respectfully, the emptiness of the phenomenon is revealed. But if you were exposed to emptiness before developing intelligence, by working with conventions, emptiness could be harmful to you. Does that make sense? This bottom translation is, shunyata should be handled with skill. It does great harm if wrongly understood. So that's a skillful way of handling emptiness. What?

[43:36]

Empty hands? Don't grasp? What else? To know what it's for. To know that it's not outside of convention, or to refrain from making it outside of convention. In other words, study convention, take care of convention thoroughly. Okay, number twelve. Thus, the wise one, that is the Buddha, once resolved not to teach about the Dharma, thinking that the slow-witted might wrongly conceive it. Thus, the sage's thought recoiled from teaching the doctrine, having reflected upon the difficulty of understanding the doctrine by a people of meager intelligence. Thirteen.

[44:40]

Having repeatedly refuted... Oh, you have repeatedly refuted shunyata, but we do not fall into any error. The refutation does not apply to shunyata. Furthermore, if you were to... Yes, there's a lot of taiko here. If you were to generate any obsession with regard to emptiness, the accompanying error is not ours. That obsession is not appropriate in the context of the empty. If you were to generate any obsession with regard to emptiness, the accompanying error is not ours. The error, I guess, the only error in this case,

[45:45]

is that if you bring up emptiness in your own company, then if a person has obsessions, certain obsessional tendencies, or hysterical tendencies, too, I think would be okay, but anyway, if they have obsessional tendencies, probably worse. We'll get into that. Well, then it's not my fault, you know, that you get harmed by grabbing emptiness, and dealing with emptiness in an obsessional way. That obsession is not appropriate in the context of the empty. Please follow what you say. Well, I was wondering if there's even any concern that all dharmas are marked with emptiness, because if you just turn away from them, in fact, there's a saying, all dharmas are empty.

[46:45]

Well, I could take away the mark, I could just turn, if I could do something with it. There's almost no way to have this discussion without an obsessional tendency finding some foothold. Because, because what? Because these two truths are not, you know, they're not really separate. They're kind of victory, in a sense, from the point of view. But, you know, just take one step back to what Jack said. He said that he felt that maybe the reason why this, the obsession, the obsession is not appropriate in the context of the empty. He's saying that perhaps because the point of emptiness, or the point of the teaching of emptiness, or the virtue of the empty, is that it relieves, the teaching of the empty, the emptiness, is given to relieve obsession. Obsessions are relieved by the empty.

[47:51]

But, that's true. But, I was kind of thinking of it more in the context, not so much of the problem, of what would your way of being with the empty, and, you know, in an obsessional way, how would that be a problem, and what would the other way of being with the empty be, in such a way that the empty would work for you? Do you understand what I'm talking about? This carpet seems to be pointing to the, if you're ready for it, you know, if you have enough background in the conventional, then you can contemplate how would you be with phenomenon, if they were empty, how would you be with them? Or, how would phenomenon be in such that you're obsessing with the phenomenon? Either way. Now obsessing by obsessing, what's it like when you're doing obsessing by obsessing? It's cool, you're cooler.

[48:55]

Everything's cool. It's a cool situation. You have a cool head. There's this poem where Lujan was sweeping the ground, and his friend said, is that what you're doing? Yes. And he said, and he said, there was one who went crazy. In that case, there's two. It's reality. And Lujan said, what's reality? It's this, this, and this. So, there are no marks, apparently. So, when, you realize phenomena are empty, everything is gone. I mean, that's right, I'm just sort of letting it sink in. So, this story could be interpreted in this context, too, as one is busy, as a conventional one, and as one is not busy.

[49:56]

But they're both holding the thing. Well, from the point of view of wisdom, or from another point of view, these are two different realms. But it's hard to say which one is which when you're in a boomer. You can say whichever one you want, but really, God didn't answer the question. He didn't say which one it was when he raised the boomer. It's walked off. So, I guess I'm, what I'm trying to do is, it's kind of difficult to retreat into this meditation on, on, you know, if you bring up the topic of emptiness and its obsession, you can have a problem with that. And he said, meager intelligence, so, maybe what that means is that you know, somehow I guess meager intelligence goes with obsession. Well,

[51:07]

I mean, where's the good obsession in that? Furthermore, if you generate obsessions with regard to emptiness, the accompanying error is not yours. Previous, previous Carter said, those with meager intelligence will have a problem dealing with. So, somehow the meager intelligence goes with having obsessions. But, you know, we all know there's some very intelligent people that have obsessions, so, what's his saying? But, yes? Well, this to me kind of refers back to Carter's point, you know, the first point. If I remember, I think it was 20th century. Um, one of the phrases that I say to last night's talk is follow these instructions. And, um, the way I've been thinking about that is that in, um, our everyday common life, we have these, what we call here in Copenhagen,

[52:10]

forms, which are how we wear our clothes, and how we do our oriolking, and how we greet each other in a certain way, and, if, it seems to me, if I can follow those instructions, then those everyday common practices show me all my obsessions, essentially. They, you know, my discouragement or my distaste for being told how to do something or when to do something, and all of the, you know, sort of ego-defensiveness that has come up around the simplest things like eating. You know, that's, that's what is odd about the forms, is that they're so simple, and they're the same, you know, focus things, they're both keeping you home. But, all of the instructions seem to be about being how these little things bring up my obsessions about how I want to do it, how I want to wear my clothes, and how I want to, and it's

[53:11]

that, you know, sort of reflects the obsessions of anything. That makes, that's how these relate. Well, it makes sense to me. Can everybody follow what you said so far? Can you, but you, what I don't think was clear necessarily is how that applies to the next thing. You see how it applies to the next thing? So dealing with, working with conventions, if we have some conventions here, that's a heart, for example, some clear conventions, obviously working with conventions, the obsessions may surface. Does that make sense, that heart? She said obsessions like how she wants to do things, that's one obsession, that's an obsession that surfaces for her, right? Another obsession is how you are doing it. You have a certain understanding of how you're doing your work. I'm really good, some people think I'm really good at Oreo, and some other people think I'm not so good at Oreo. Right? These are all obsessions about how you're doing it. Huh? They're about who I am.

[54:13]

They're about who I am. Yeah, right. How I look. Right. What I think. Right. What is it? How does it work? Now, who's looking? Right, so that part most people forgot probably about how our forms bring our obsessions to the surface. I guess most people have some. Does everybody kind of follow that part? So the next step, then how then would that kind of practice be a basis for practicing emptiness? Once you're aware of your obsessions, then how does that prepare you in a way that prepares you for getting emptiness? Yes? Well, they're just conventions that we've set up. And then we attribute our identity to them and cling to them and form fixed views upon them. But they're just kind of the story that we've kind of gathered around together to kind of follow for a short period of time. And then really the obsession has no basis upon which it can really hold on to. Because then it's just like

[55:15]

it's imagining a thing that we do every day. So, what does that mean? It leads to just realization that there's no basis for the story. It's not really a substantial thing that we're following them and it's really good that we're doing that. That's not really a substantial story anymore. So, it sounds like you're going off in one direction. I feel like you're going off in the direction to see the dependent co-arising of the convention. Is that what you're going? And therefore to see its emptiness? Well, I'm not necessarily seeing the dependent co-arising of it. I'm seeing that it's not a substantial form. I'm not necessarily seeing like it's dependent co-arising. I'm not perceiving its substantiality. See, he said he wasn't seeing his dependent co-arising. But I heard him talk about dependent co-arising. But he didn't necessarily... In other words, it's okay that you didn't hear yourself do it, but I heard you do it. It's like that thing, you know, excuse me for saying so, but it's like Sherlock Holmes talking to Dr. Watson and Dr. Watson says,

[56:15]

blah, blah, blah. And Holmes says, well, of course, that's it. Because you describe the process that you went through to arrive at the facelessness of the form or the facelessness of the convention. Right? Namely, that the convention arrives by just various conditions coming together to make the convention. So you just described the dependent co-arising of the convention, the story, the history of the convention. And then you did that and then you said, and therefore it's faceless. But you didn't notice that you were using dependent co-arising to empty the convention. Right. I guess it's mainly because I don't see it as like something that I imagine dependent co-arising would be like if that were to be presented in front of me that it would be different

[57:15]

than what it is now. What it's more like is just that I'm not perceiving it as a real, the right way to do it. You're not perceiving the convention as the right way to do it. Yeah, yeah. So then I guess that's the same as seeing it as a dependent co-arising. No, that's not the same, no. That would just be that you would just sort of say, well, what you just said there would be just, would you say nihilism? And what you just said there was nihilism. Wait, that I'm not perceiving the, I'm not perceiving that this is like the right substantial thing or way to do something is nihilism? Yeah. That sounded like that in a way. The first time you went through and you emptied it by dependent co-arising. The second time, then you said, well, I don't see it as dependent co-arising, so you took away the argument of dependent co-arising and just took away the existence of the thing and then sort of moved over more towards nihilism. No, I think we're not

[58:17]

hearing each other clearly. It's just your language. It's just your language. I don't know what's going on with you. So then I... We have it on tape. It sounds, first of all, it sounds like dependent co-arising. Second of all, it sounds like nihilism. And it's hard to hear yourself when you're talking what school you're representing sometimes. Right. Well, you also, well, We can go over this again, but I wanted to point out something else, which was, you brought up this other, he did this other thing, which was fine. He emptied, he just went ahead and emptied it by, he emptied convention by an argument of dependent co-arising in a story. And he's speaking the story by which the convention was arising. It's just a story. I mean, you could tell a million stories for a million conventions and, you know, that's why it's empty. But what I was trying to do is draw out what Wendy said and that is if you can become

[59:18]

aware of your obsessions by studying the conventional world, then when you, then if you should happen, if you should happen then to experience, hear about emptiness or see emptiness, you would be well aware of the fact that you're an obsessional being and then you would watch yourself obsess about emptiness. So it'd be like if you were, you know, I don't know, if you were working with something and suddenly it turned into a snake and you knew your obsessions and were working with other materials, then when suddenly a snake appeared, you would be somewhat familiar with your unhealthy responses to things and that would help you not obsess about the snake and then be skillful with the snake too. Because you develop skill under the circumstances of your obsessions. You can get skillful at oriology, you can get skillful at language and so on while at the same time and being aware of your obsessions plus the skill also surfaces your obsessions. So then when you move beyond skill, you move into

[60:19]

a realm where skill's got no meaning anymore. Where there is no skill and non-skill. Where there's no you as skill and there's no thing being done. And that's the realm you have to enter into in liberation. But if you haven't become aware of your obsessions through working with the realm of skill and non-skill, your obsessions are still there. They will be applied to the realm beyond invention and you get in big trouble. That's what I was drawing out from what she was saying which I didn't think was drawn out. And David moved over to another aspect of this thing and he first of all gave an example of how to empty the conventions by meditating on their dependent co-arising which is good. But even if you empty them in the process of studying them if you haven't become aware of your obsessions and then you empty them without becoming aware of your obsessions then your obsessions will come over and jump on the emptiness or jump on the empty. And when you jump on the empty you turn the empty into emptiness. When you

[61:21]

turn it into emptiness then you can grab it. When you grab the empty turned into emptiness you're in trouble. You're hurt. You're abusing yourself. Okay? That's why you have to do that previous practice of working with convention. But isn't that an argument that it always has to be at the same time? The absolute and the... Let's not use absolute otherwise we're going to get some DMF reactions. The absolute and the conventional because you always go back and you have to pay your money. I was hesitating. First you said you first have to know the conventional and then you can go to the ultimate. Yes. And I thought no, I think it's always at the same time because...

[62:21]

No. No? Not really. If you get to the ultimate at the same time as the conventional you won't be able to follow the conventional. It doesn't go ultimate to conventional. It goes conventional to ultimate. Once you get to... You always bring the conventional along with you. Yes. It doesn't go in the other direction. When you get to the ultimate, the ultimate meaning for the truth, the truth from the ultimate point of view, once that conveyed to you and you can achieve the ultimate, when you achieve the ultimate you can dive back into the conventional. But that's not the truth going backwards. That's you being able to re-enter the world. But when you go into the ultimate the, what do you call it, the conventional is the basis, but the conventional is not the same as the ultimate but you're understanding and embracing both. So they're both there. Yes.

[63:22]

But you can have the conventional there without being able to see the ultimate. As you look at the conventional more and more clearly, the ultimate comes forth from the vision of the conventional. Like the story of that Sufi who got, when he was in prison he got a prayer rug and he bowed in the prayer rug and bowed in the prayer rug and he kind of was upset that they sent him a prayer rug instead of a saw or a camera. He just kept bowing in it anyway because, you know, why not? Gradually he realized that there was an interesting diagram in the prayer rug, a little unusual. He kept bowing in it and kept studying it. Finally he realized it looked like a diagram of some kind of machine or something. And he kind of realized it was a diagram of a lock. A diagram of a lock he just set up. So the ultimate is like that. It's like if you just keep bowing in the conventional the pattern of liberation starts to surface to you. And the pattern of liberation is not nothing,

[64:23]

it's the interdependence of everything that's in the conventional world. So the emptiness of all the things you're clinging to starts to come forth but through the things and the way they're related. And similarly as soon as it appears, and I've seen this many times, people are taking good care of the conventional. I don't know if you used the word obedient, did you? People who are following instructions. She said following instructions and I heard obedient. Some people are very obedient to the instructions. They listen and they accord with the instructions very nicely. And through that obedience the emptiness of the instruction comes forth. But they have not become sufficiently familiar with their obsessions that were with their obsessions. So when the emptiness comes forth their obsessions come into play and there's a big reaction to the revelation which comes

[65:25]

to them through their obedience. Following that? What kind of reaction? Well, like they're terrified. Terrified of the abyss, right? This happens to some people when you're making love. They're very obedient to the process of love-making and as a result the emptiness of their meaning opens up. The fact that there's not really somebody there or somebody other there either opens up and then they freak out because they have not been observing sufficiently their obsessions while they study the conventional world. So they put their obsessions onto the empty and turn the empty into emptiness and grab the emptiness and then they're in trouble. Fortunately, a lot of these people then go and report their trouble and their terror and they're told what is wrong. And then they go back and meditate with more

[66:25]

awareness of their obsessions and then they realize that it's not the emptiness that's the problem. Emptiness is no problem at all. It's a big relief. But if you make it into something it's the most terrible monster of all. So, you know, you do well to be terrified of it. Because it's not just the no-self, it's the annihilation. It's exactly what people criticized Buddha for when they heard his teaching. These people apparently were not aware of their obsessions so when they heard Buddha's teaching they went, yikes! They said, this guy is annihilating human beings. Annihilating human consciousness. He's really misleading people. And, you know, he responded very nicely by saying, you know, when we speak, when this five-spirited produces, when this thing that's empty of us in itself produces this kind of thought

[67:25]

people will revile it or praise it but, you know, there's nothing there inherently to get depressed or excited about it. Because we previously, before we started teaching this stuff, we previously understood this. So you disciple, before you teach this, of course you previously understood the emptiness of this thing before you started teaching it. And he carefully reviewed the whole thing before he started teaching. And still he got in trouble with him, but he didn't like, you know, get vicious in response. He did very nicely. Of course, he said what he said. He seemed to be a little terse with people now and then, but not usually with these, with these opponents. He got terse with the disciples who were maybe going out into the mountains or something. I saw two trips and it seems kind of like the four people

[68:25]

stable at the burning house and there being only one thing, but he had to invent four things to invite people out of the burning house. He invented three. Sorry. It's okay. He had one, but he told them he had three. And when they got out, they found one. And they felt okay, it wasn't a question of whether he lied. You feel an echo here? Yeah. Yeah, there probably is an echo here. There probably is an echo here. I just want to point out to you because it's getting close to the end, just something for your use between now and the next class, and that is that in the first part, in the first six characters, the criticism, and particularly the final criticism, which says

[69:26]

delving in shunyata, you who have destroyed the reality of the truth for attainment, proper and improper acts, and all the everyday practices relative to the empirical world. Okay? So, this criticism is saying not only is it not only destroying these ultimate goals of the ultimate fruit of practice, but you're also eliminating the conventional morality of good leads to good and bad leads to untruth, and you're denying the processes of conventional reality. Because of that criticism, he needs to respond to this business about separating the two levels of reality. Apparently, in the

[70:35]

early teachings, the four noble truths dealt with conventional reality and the ultimate fruit. But it looks like maybe by the bringing up that not only does his talk of emptiness bother the ultimate, but it also bothers the conventional. In other words, they probably wouldn't have to mention the conventional, except that they now have a different understanding of early Buddhism. So he could just apply his teaching of dependent co-arising directly to the four noble truths, but he needs to deal with the two levels of reality to make sure that his opponents understand that he has these two truths in mind. Because he wants to, rather than teach on different levels, he wants to put everything in his one teaching. He wants to bring everything together and have one response, namely, dependent co-arising.

[71:36]

He doesn't want to teach on different levels. But in order to bring everything together, he has to go through this process now of teaching the two truths, so he can unify the conventional and the ultimate levels and then deal with them both through the dependent co-arising, rather than doing two different presentations. That's part of what he's doing here, is to combine the criticism that he destroyed the high and the low. He's going to bring the high and low together and deal with them both in terms of dependent co-arising. That's the technique that he's going to use, which in a way is beneficial for us because now he's teaching the two truths, which might not have surfaced here if they had been in a unified way. So in this text, we not only get the teaching of co-arising, we also get the teaching of two truths. So it's kind of

[72:36]

fortunate in a way that criticism is... Whatever anyway, because it's a two-level attack, and so you have to do two truths to unify his presentation. But I still leave you with this interesting question, and that is, what would it be like to meet things without obsession? Because if you meditate on what it's like to meet things without obsession, that's the way you would meet things in the context of emptiness. So rather than try to imagine what emptiness is, you can imagine the way it would be appropriate to be with emptiness. Now,

[73:42]

since most of us are not without obsessions, it's not that I'm asking you to imagine what it's like to be without obsessions. So rather actually imagine what it's like to be with obsessions. And when you imagine what it's like to be with obsessions, you have a chance to imagine what it's like to be without obsessions. And or, if you see how you are with obsessions, what wouldn't it be good to be with if you had obsessions? This kind of thing. Because the way we are with our obsessions is not the way we should be when emptiness is around. So in some sense we're not suited for emptiness with our obsessions. So then we're really in the conventional world. And again in the conventional world our obsessions should be flaring up very nicely. So are they? If so, you're in

[74:44]

good shape. Then the teaching, the ultimate teaching can come to you because you've engaged, you're aware of your obsessions. So are you aware of your obsessions? So that would be a good thing for us to meditate on is to what extent are we aware of our obsessions? So now we can sit for three days. Maybe you can become aware of your obsessions. the last question. I'm sorry that I missed. You suggested that you read the Mahayana Pure Yoga Charita but I'm unable to determine what it was you suggested Does anybody have that book here? The one from... Dowling? My John and Mary Charles book? No. I know which two articles... I have the book and I think I know which two articles there are. Okay. So...

[75:45]

I will write them on a piece of paper and I'll post them somewhere... Perhaps, if we're lucky, they'll be written in the sky. In silver, at least. Yeah. I remember at the beginning of... I think... the practice period you said that... it's that saying... What is it? The horse arrives before the donkey leaves. And it seems to... that really is such a wonderful saying and as I'm applying it correctly to the context of what you're saying right now, what you've been saying. Right. So... keep track of the donkey. If you're on the donkey when the horse arrives, you know you're... in good shape. If you don't know you're on the donkey when the horse arrives, you'll misconstrue the horse for the donkey.

[76:47]

Which would be... kind of a problem. And then... if you were reviled, abused, and so on, you may not be able to get a good response. So now we go into the pit, right? The three-day pit? Yep.

[77:23]

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