Or let's see the flip chart. Maybe at the moon. So, because I thought I'd give you... Hi. Good afternoon. Good later morning. I thought I could give you a very short conceptual history of Buddhism. Okay. I pretend to be a real teacher. So first is the view, the recognition, the experience that everything changes.

[01:03]

And that leads to interdependent origination. Okay? Or interdependent causation. Arising. In other words, what's happening with this is Yeah, everything changes, but then you see everything changes in relationship to everything else. And what's important here is, you know, this is real simple.

[02:07]

Obviously, this is simple. But what's important here is that... is that... is that we recognize this and really it's settled in as the view that's prior to perception. Because perception sees things through the categories supplied by, inflicted by our views. Okay, so now the question is, yeah, everything changes, but so what? How do I relate to it?

[03:09]

Yeah, so... Everything changes then leads to related view. There's no permanence, no inherence. Okay. Now, that leads... There's... Nothing can be grasped.

[04:24]

And we can also say a no reference point world. Okay. And... Yeah, these are all, can be experienced, but they're also ideas. But when you actually experience the no reference point world, then you've got emptiness. Okay. So, through the view that everything changes, you come to the view that everything is empty.

[05:35]

Now the word sunyata actually technically means no boundaries. And you can see if everything is interdependent, then there's no boundaries. You can't say where one thing really begins and another. So the question remains, okay, so what? I mean, how do you live this? So enter Nagarjuna. And there comes Nagarjuna into it. who, as I said, is sometimes called the second Buddha.

[06:38]

And so what Nagarjuna says that there are two truths Okay. So, maybe I should go to the next page. And he says there's two truths. Okay. Now these two truths have become the basis for all of Mahayana Buddhism.

[07:40]

Okay. Now, if... In order to practice, And it's implied in this koan about the one who's not busy. You have to enter into the details of your life. Or the particulars of your life. Details in English is a kind of nice word because it means the tails part means to tailor. So it's a tailor who cuts up things, the details, the Schneider. And related to that, it's the word consciousness has scissors in it, S-C-I, and conscious is that mode of mind which cuts things up into parts.

[08:51]

But the problem with consciousness, and consciousness is wonderful, but it's deluding, allows us to function. And But the problem with consciousness is it divides things up into entities and makes them look predictable. Consciousness creates a kind of container space, as if we were living in a container. And the problem is the way consciousness divides things up is actually the way they are divided up. Or how they're related.

[10:09]

Okay. So, now these were, you know, I'm giving this to you in ten minutes or so, but these were very perplexing problems for centuries. How do you relate to the details of your life? Now, another turning point in the development of Buddhism was a philosopher, a logician named Dignaga. And his logic, and he had a number of successors, but the logic he initiated transformed Indian Buddhism, but not much Chinese and East Asian Buddhism. But he wrote a book called The Investigation of the Object.

[11:19]

The details, the particulars. How do we know? Yes. You know, there's a saying in England, I don't know who said it first, but the genius is in the details. The genius is in the details. Well, how do you enter into the details of your life? If we tend to see them as permanent, and yet they're impermanent. We need to provisionally see them as permanent while knowing they're impermanent. So Nagarjuna transformed everything changes. Into the two truths.

[12:41]

Which are that everything is in fact empty. But at the same time they are apparently permanent. Okay, so his two truths are the absolute, which means nothing beyond, Or we could say fundamental. And the other truth is the imperative. And the other truth is the obvious.

[13:53]

Or the relative. And they're called truths because this is what we live. We live, whether we know it or not, we live in a world that is best described as empty. And it's here where the term form and emptiness comes from. I think it's first in Xuanzang's, he's the person who went to India, who the novel Monkey is based on, the Chinese novel.

[15:04]

There's a novel called Monkey, a Chinese colloquial kind of novel, based on this guy who went to India. Some people know it. Yeah, that's Monkey. There's movies, all kinds of things, you know, China and Japan. But he wasn't a comic figure. He was not a comic figure. He was one of the greatest and perhaps most accurate of all the translators. And these translation programs were sort of like think tanks. They were sort of equivalent to immense Max Planck institutes. And they went on for centuries.

[16:13]

And they sometimes had up to 15,000 people working. Because they were trying to bring Indian ideas into China. And India didn't have the language for it. China didn't have the language for it. So every concept had to be thought... First they borrowed Daoist terminology and ideas. And then after a couple centuries of that, they got rid of the Taoist terminology. I don't remember exactly, but they increased the Chinese vocabulary by something like 30 percent or something like that.

[17:17]

There's an immense effect on China. I don't remember exactly, but I think they increased the Chinese vocabulary by 30 percent or something like that. and their emphasis on sound and aesthetics also was a significant part of the development of the tonal system of Chinese. So they had a whole system, getting oral transcriptions, checking... Do you mean that the sound was in the tones in their speech? Yeah. Oh, okay. So anyway, they had a whole system of first transcribing... then checking, then finding words, and the top translator would do the final thing. So they were literally creating culture in China.

[18:18]

And at some point China said, enough, we're going to have our own culture, and they began to give their own interpretations to these things. And at some point China said, it's enough now, we want our own culture. And then they added their own interpretation. And Zen is one of the schools that really tried to make Indian Buddhism its own. In a Chinese way. So... How, again, do you relate to the details of your life? The path begins in the details. Of course you need mindful attention, developed mindfulness or mindful attention.

[19:22]

You can't do any of this unless you can really bring attention into your life, into your lived life. Because there's no belief system, there's no outside anything. It's just you in the midst of your lived life, swimming in your lived life. And, yeah, you can take various suggestions and all from the teachings, but in the end you have to discover this for yourself. What exists? How do we exist? I mean, all of Buddhism comes back to not only everything changes, But how do we actually exist? So Buddhism is a book of suggestions, but not a book of rules. Okay. Now, it's particularly difficult. Well, now, Chen Dai is one of the main Chinese schools.

[20:36]

and Tien-Dai, one of the biggest Chinese schools. Tien-Dai, Tien-Dai in Japanese. And Mount Hiei, which is next to Kyoto. Which is, you know, in the city of Kyoto, it's a pretty big mountain sticking up there. But you can walk to the top of it. It doesn't take too long. No, it's right beside Kyoto. What did you say? It's beside Kyoto, next to Kyoto. Okay.

[21:53]

And there were at one time, I think, thousands of temples there. There's now maybe, I don't know what, but a hundred or something. And it's where most of the founders of the Japanese schools of Buddhism studied. And most founders of the schools of Buddhism studied there. Including Dogen? Including Dogen. So the Tien-Dai tried to take the two truths of Nagarjuna. And turn them into the three truths. The first truth is emptiness. And emptiness understood as unperceivable. And we don't notice emptiness.

[23:23]

You have to really, one way to notice emptiness is to enter, as I said this morning, into the experience of duration, how we establish duration. So, you know, we're standing here, I'm standing here by this pillar. And a fly flies by. So I see the fly and I feel the space, the fly just... But what's my reference point? Well, my standing here, my location, and this anthroposophical pillar. Yeah, but this is also a constructed object. And it's moving like the fly, it's just moving slower.

[24:37]

So there's no real reference point here. Everything is moving. Why do you bother to know that? Actually, life is better. And there's less suffering. Okay. Now, this unperceivable, imperceivable, even I make this mistake, imperceivable, this is Yeah, this is also presented in koan 20, just before this koan 21, which has the phrase in it, the acu-phrase in it, not knowing is nearest. And it also says in the koan, just hold to the moment before thought arises.

[25:50]

Have you tried that recently? Well, it's possible. Just hold to the moment before thought arises. Look into seeing and see not seeing and then throw it away. Okay. It also says in this koan, in the eyes it's called seeing. In the ears it's called hearing. What is it called in the eyebrows? Yeah. What is it called outside the categories of the senses that divide the world up into a sensorial pie, which is not the whole of the pie?

[27:07]

So... This Tendai view is we need, which is also Zen, we need a mind which knows, but also a mind which doesn't know. is actively attentive but with not knowing. I forgot the middle part of what you said. It's not important. I don't remember either. Okay, the second truth of these three is the world is momentarily perceivable. So, in fact, we do see things, we do notice things, but they're actually just momentary.

[28:11]

So the Tendai school emphasizes developing a pedagogy and a practice which emphasizes knowing that we're perceiving things in a momentary way Simultaneously knowing that we're only knowing part or something like that. Like from our own experience, if you hear a bird... As I always say. You hear the bird. But actually you're hearing your own hearing of the bird. You don't hear the way another bird hears that. Birds have much more complex ears than you do. or ability to hear.

[29:33]

Birds can sing in a much wider range than our human ears can hear, and they can sing two or three notes at once, I believe. So whenever you hear a bird, if you simultaneously know you're hearing your own hearing, which is quite blissful, Which we could say is a way to enter accurately into the details of your life. Because if you think you're hearing the bird, you're wrong. You're hearing what your own hearing can hear of the bird. Now that's intellectually obvious. But when you experience it, and feel it all the time, it's transformative.

[30:53]

And you know then a certain mystery. Everything is a mystery. Because you're only knowing part of the pie. So we're continually living in a mystery. And so to remind ourselves of that, we have this phrase, not knowing is most intimate. Not naming, etc. So that's the emphasis of the first two truths of the Tendai revamping of Nagarjuna's two truths. Restating Nagarjuna's two truths Restating Nagarjuna's two truths So that we can really

[31:57]

enter into what it means that everything is changing and is not graspable. This all has also a soteriological meaning. It's a teaching that leads to realization or enlightenment. And beneficial because it leads to less or the elimination of mental suffering. Okay, now, as you remember, As I said the other day, yesterday, it says, when we, oh good people, when you eat, boil tea,

[33:24]

so sweep, know the one not busy. This is the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality. So this statement makes it clear that this koan is trying to deal with Nagarjuna's two truths, mundane reality and enlightened reality. So knowing the one who's not busy doesn't just allow you to be happily busy. It also creates a basis for realizing enlightenment, the conditions for realizing enlightenment. Now, there's three truths, so the third... combines these two.

[34:54]

The union is suchness. Or thusness. So this statement goes on, is the union of mundane reality and enlightened reality. In the Dongshan, that's the person who's called the founder of our lineage, our school. In the Dongshan progression, this is called mutual inclusion. And it has this wonderful phrase, naturally not wasting time. And this is probably a little, you know, it's good advice, it's true, but it's probably a little dig at the Tendai school.

[36:04]

A dig is a little criticism on you. Yes, because the Tendai school had this rigorous practice. The Zendo in the big Tendai monastery on Hieizan, it's this kind of black pit they sit in, you know. I mean, that's an exaggeration, but it's sort of like... And they combined practice with lots of philosophical refinement. And Zen says, just do it in your daily life while you're sewing, sweet thing. So Zen says, yes, it's good to go to a monastery. But practice has to be in every situation in your life. You're wasting your time to create an artificial situation for practice.

[37:09]

So Zen tries to make these teachings something you can do in any situation. Okay, so the pedagogy of the Tendai school is based on the imperceivable emptiness, the momentary perceivable, and knowing the two as... What was the beginning of the sentence? It's the imperceivable... No, that I know, but the beginning of the sentence. I don't know. Oh, the Tendai school... pedagogy is based on these three truths. I'm going to end in a little while. Why not end sometime? Yeah. So the Yogacara Zen school, what do they do?

[38:50]

They turn Nagarjuna's two truths into the three natures. And Yogacara is the root... Zen is a combination of Huayen, Madhyamaka and Yogacara, but its practice, its basic views are rooted in Yogacara with Madhyamaka. And Zen is a mixture of Yogacara and Madhyamaka. And Huayen. And Huayen. But the fundamental cycles come from Yogacara and Madhyamaka. And Yogacara and Madhyamaka are Indian schools. And Huayen is purely a Chinese school. And Yogacara and Madhyamaka...

[39:54]

You know, in the UN, translators only take half-hour stints and then another one plays for half an hour. You're amazing that you can just keep going. And the Huayen school tries to take, just as an aside, interdependence and turn it into interpenetration. So what are the three natures? The imaginary nature, Or we can call it constructed duality. Okay. And the dependent nature And the third is the, we could say, true nature.

[41:24]

Or the absolute nature. Okay. So, they call them natures. The Garjana calls them his two truths. truths because it is in fact how the world exists, how we humans exist in the world. And understanding how we exist in the world has many benefits. Okay. Okay, so now Yogacara Zen changes these two natures, two truths, into the three natures. What they mean by calling them natures is that they are not only the truth by which we live, it's kind of like our nature to live in these three categories.

[42:49]

So the imaginary nation is anything constructed. Anything constructed. Or entities, to see things as entities. And we can say the dependent nature sees things as non-entity. Non-entity, that's an English word, non-entity. Or activity. Now, in your practice, you can try to really see everything as an activity. So we could say the imaginary nature sees the tree. The dependent nature sees treeing.

[43:58]

And sees that we are interdependent with that treeing. We are also, you know, a kind of treeing. Kind of me-ing. Dying. And the true nature is no reference point world. Emptiness. Okay. And as I've often pointed out, Entitylessness is basically a synonym for emptiness.

[45:02]

Now in Yogacara Zen, which always emphasizes practice, this is not so much presented as a pedagogical philosophy. but a pedagogy of practice. Okay. Now, one reason I'm presenting this stuff is because in the introduction to the koan 20 about the one who's not busy, it refers to this. It starts off with cutting off, no, shedding delusion and enlightenment. Cutting off ordinary and holy.

[46:06]

When you do this, there are not so many things. Because you take the hierarchy and preferences out of things and we have a different world. So we can draw lines between these three natures. It's running out. This ain't so good either. It's nice of the kids to put themselves on. Okay, so most of us, and imaginary we can also see,

[47:17]

as anything that wouldn't exist for you if you died today. All those things you imagine. Well, you know, we create our life that way. But if you died today, they're imaginary. And then, you know, I imagine if you're on your deathbed, if you really, which is a medieval European view, tradition and yogic view, is that you intend your own death. When you know you're going to die, you don't resist, you leap into death. There's this Memento Mori postcard I have from Italy I mentioned the other day. There is this idea that if you see your death coming, if you know that you are dying and you don't build up any resistance, then you jump into death, like this Memento Mori postcard that I have from Italy.

[48:43]

It's a big wall painting in a tomb in Italy. This guy has... jumping with his full almost exultation into his death. So it doesn't mean you decide arbitrarily. It's when you're close to dying, weeks or hours, you then intend to die. And I mean, in some ways, we're always on our deathbed. I always imagine, you know, the lamp beside you or the vase of flowers or a friend has a wonderful particularity if you know you're going to die soon. But then there's, you know, what Oscar Wilde supposedly said just as he was dying.

[49:59]

He opened his eyes, looked around and said, either that wallpaper or I have to go. So... No one knows if it's true. Well, a woman reports it. So we actually tend to see entities. And as I say, it's not just because we're deluded. Consciousness itself is constructed to see entities. So let's say this imaginary nature sees entities, which are imaginary. Then you start practicing, and someone tells you, you know, everything's changing, there's no entities, and you go, Jesus, I was happy before.

[51:25]

So you have that problem. There's that nature. And, you know, sometimes when you're meditating or sitting in a sashin, well, you really hear the hearing of the bird. You hear your own hearing and you don't feel the bird is out there. It's in here. Okay. That would be your dependent nature. You know how you're dependent on everything and the mystery of that dependence. So you have some feeling for that, but then you go back into your daily life, you get up from Zadazen and you're perceiving entities instantly.

[52:40]

So this is a kind of tantric use of busyness. This is a tantric use of our tendency to see entities. Okay, so you're dependent nature, very quickly, you're, I don't know, what? I'm dependent on the income. Lead you over here and what do you see? Entities. But then you practice again, you practice again and you end up over here. And then, you know, it's back here again.

[53:58]

And you begin to feel this tension with the tree or the tree. How do you deal with that? And the more you practice, you have this tendency between our habit to see entities and the yogic experience of seeing entitylessness. And part of this is psychological because you need the psychological familiarity of this worldview, this nature. You're not comfortable here. You can't organize your world this way. Your job doesn't... Your people you work with are in this world. So it's helpful to practice with a Sangha where there's more of a shared sense of this

[55:06]

dependent nature, interdependent nature. And by going back and forth between this usual world and mundane world and the interdependent world, You begin to reformulate your way of thinking. It begins to change your views, as in the first of the Eightfold Path. And you begin to feel more comfortable in the interdependent sense of the world, the treeing sense of the world. So in a simple sense, here you keep seeing permanence and here you keep seeing impermanence.

[56:27]

In a sense, build up a head of steam. Does that make any sense? A head of steam means like a train builds up steam and then it can go over the mountain. You build up a strength. So making use of this permanence, impermanence, permanence, impermanence, entity, entity, you suddenly go, boom, right across into emptiness. So if you really enter into the details of your life, they're permanent, they're not permanent. At some point, you're freed from the whole thing and you realize your true nature. And now that we've realized our true nature, it's probably time for lunch.

[57:46]

Lunch is at 1 or 1.15? Right now, I hate to be on time. I have such a bad reputation to keep up. Okay, so we'll sit for a minute and then your true nature, all of you, your true nature will sit. Simone's true nature just came in the door. Um, yeah.

[58:49]

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