Now to the second paragraph, where it says, to carry yourself forward and experience myriad things is delusion. By the way, it says to experience, but another translation of that, which is more literal, would be to carry yourself forward and practice and confirm myriad things is delusion. So the translation you had translates those two characters, which one means practice and the other one means realization or enlightenment. to carry yourself forward and practice and enlighten all things, that all things come forward and experience themselves as awakening.

[01:06]

When all things come forward and practice and confirm themselves, that's awakening. So this is, in some sense, a basic definition of illusion and enlightenment. So delusion means you've got a self already and then you carry it forward and experience all the things. Sound familiar? Got myself, I go to the yoga room and experience the class and the people in it. Got myself, I go to the supermarket and experience all fruits and vegetables. that perspective, although it is delusional. The other perspective is when everything is happening and realizing itself, or when all things are happening and realize themselves, that's enlightenment.

[02:22]

Just being in all things realizing themselves is enlightenment. It isn't even saying, you know, when you see things in that way, when you understand that, then you're enlightened. Then you have to still put yourself outside. When all things come forth and realize themselves, when all things come forth and practice and enlighten themselves, and that's how it is. you could say for you without even saying for you in other words you're just part of everything realizing itself you're not something in addition to everything realizing itself you're not something in addition to everybody practicing themselves you're not in in addition to everybody realizing themselves that's what and that's that's enlightenment in addition to the world coming forth moment by moment So you're being invited actually to imagine that, to imagine the world as usual, right?

[03:36]

The world is coming forth and realizing itself. We carry ourselves to that and upon the world realizing itself, we practice and confirm the world or we experience the world which is coming forth. So the world is still coming forward, but we're not there beforehand in bringing that a priori self to the events of the world. It's just the events of the world realizing themselves. That's it. And you're there. You are there in that, in enlightenment. Not so much even when you are enlightened. but you are totally included in that enlightenment. Because you're totally part, of course, of all things coming forth and practicing and realizing themselves. So a living being who has this, who is

[04:52]

involved with this delusion is called, you know, a living being. Because they've been caught up in this illusion. A Buddha is not caught up in it. And even a Buddha, even Buddha, I say a Buddha, but even Buddha is, is that beings who are imagining themselves to be before events arise, those sentient beings are also coming forth and realizing themselves. And sentient beings coming forth and realizing themselves is also enlightenment. So sentient beings or deluded beings are enlightenment. They're not enlightened because they're caught up in delusion. But the way that they are functioning actually is enlightenment. the way we don't actually come forth and make ourselves deluded, but actually all things come forth and make us somebody who's deluded, that's enlightenment.

[06:11]

So enlightenment's your actual state even in the midst of delusion. And then it says, those who have great realization of delusion are Buddhas. Those who even in the midst of delusion see that delusion is not. I come and discover what delusion is, but all things come forth and manifest innumerable I mean, all things come forth and realize themselves. And one of the ways they realize themselves is as a person who imagines that she's carrying herself forth to things. That happens. Not all that happens, but that's an important thing. Buddhas who understand this. So Buddhas is a little bit different from Enlightenment. Buddhas are those who are Enlightened. And what are they enlightened about?

[07:12]

They're enlightened about how delusion works. And people who are not enlightened are deluded about enlightenment. They think enlightenment is something, for example, out there, separate from themselves. They carry themselves forth to get enlightenment. So that's an Enlightenment is that it's something out there that you can go and practice, rather than it's something that is all things coming forth and practicing you. So enlightenment even practices deluded beings. So that's basically it on that one. That's what enlightenment is. That's what delusion is. And delusion is, of course, I would guess that delusion is quite familiar to you.

[08:19]

You may not notice it all the time. When you hear about it, you can probably say, oh yeah, I kind of think that way. Like when I say that example of there's the universe plus something, isn't there? there's the universe and there's the entire universe and me that's got in all things does that sound familiar to some of you there's california and me there's my family and me whereas that's delusion it's really that's delusion doesn't sound so bad right most people say me and me right Right, that's delusion. I mean, right, that's delusion, and the fact that we think that's right is delusion. Actually, it's that when your family comes forth, when the family members come forth and realize themselves, it's not that that... Yeah, that's what enlightenment is.

[09:21]

If you go to a family event and the family event comes forth and realizes itself, that's enlightenment. And, of course, that does happen, doesn't it? except as one drawback, is that and me. Family comes forth, realizes itself, that's enlightenment and me. Enlightenment and me. That's like the name of a short story or a novel. Enlightenment and me. My life as enlightenment, I think, is okay. That doesn't necessarily mean that your life is separate from enlightenment. But, in fact, enlightenment is not separate from your life. Do you have any questions about this definition of delusion and enlightenment? Any questions about it? Yes. I have some confusion about the area of pain.

[10:28]

You have confusions about the myriad things? Yeah. Yes. is enlightenment. I said, yeah, it's awakening or enlightenment. You know, yeah, so when, for example, the dharmas in the room are all the people and etc. When all the people come forward and realize themselves, that's awakening. You could call it awakening in the sense that Usually it's not the case when you're in a group of people that what's happening is all the people coming forth and realizing themselves.

[11:33]

That's not usually the way it is. Usually it's that you're there experiencing the people, right? Me and the people. Me and my experience of the people. That's the usual way. That's delusion. Me and my experience of you and you and you or just one of you. That's delusion. But when you come forth, when what's happening is that you're coming forth and realizing, period, not and me, and not me doing that, or not me practicing with that, but I'm part of all things coming forth and realizing themselves. Then it's like waking up. You wake up from that delusion. So you can wake up from that. So when you see things that way, it's kind of an awakening. Because we don't usually see things that way. Usually we're in a trance of me and the world. So when it's not me and the world anymore, but the world including me by chance, by circumstances, by circumstances I'm always included in the world.

[12:46]

The world deigns to never forget me. Doesn't try to remember either. It just always does include me and it always never forgets you. And the world even makes never forgets you as somebody who is always remembering you in addition to the world which includes you. We are imagining ourselves as being in addition to what includes us. We imagine ourselves additional to what makes us. And what makes us does make us into a being that imagines in deluded ways. The world makes us into sleeping giants. The world can also make us into someone who wakes up and then there's the world realizing itself.

[13:50]

then that's awakening. That's waking up from the of a separate self. Each of us is totally darling to the rest of the universe. But the rest of the universe does not think we're separate from it. We are the rest of the universe's baby. We're, you know, we're its baby, we're its babies. It doesn't think we're separate from it. It thinks we're it, and in a very important way. The same way all other beings are it, but in a unique same way. Any other comments before we plunge forward to the end of the text? Yes? In the late 60s, I wrote about a gentleman as opposed to neoclassic generalists, and I'm trained as a participant observer.

[15:03]

Yes. You're trained as a participant observer? Oh, a participant observer. Yes, right. A participant observer. We're participating in the world and the way we're participating in the world and the way the world makes us an observer. But we can imagine that we're somewhat outside of our participation, that there's me and my participation, rather than I am a participating observer. So why does the universe need some people who are awake and . Don't you mean how? I think that my theory is that the way the universe made living beings was living beings could know themselves and know the world

[16:30]

that they were part of. Without the imagination of certain living beings, as far as the universe was not aware of itself. So the benefit of this awareness was knowledge. dualistic knowledge with the benefit of ignoring interdependence. Before ignoring interdependence, the universe was interdependent and wasn't ignoring it. By ignoring it, by looking away from it, there could be knowledge of something out there separate. So living beings

[17:32]

as far as I can see, have served this great purpose of the universe being able to become aware of itself rather than just be itself. And the universe kind of wanted to do that because it didn't make creatures like us who would do that for it. But all the things in the universe wanted that to happen so they made beings who could make that possible. However, because of ignoring interdependence by which we were made into beings who could imagine independence and therefore have dualistic awareness, consequences is this kind of suffering, a new kind of suffering. And this kind of suffering is, turns out, turned out to be dispensable. uh... the suffering of uh... the the suffering of having a broken leg dispensable but it's not uh... you know it has you know there's all kinds of problems that you don't can't tell that you have a broken leg like you try to walk if it wasn't painful like when i broke my leg i would have gotten up and got back on the bicycle if it wasn't painful and then of course i would have died uh... pretty quickly because

[19:02]

the broken bones in my leg would have chopped up my femoral artery. Eventually those two swords in my leg would have started moving around and I would have bled to death as I was riding the bicycle happily watching things protrude all over the place because why not? You shouldn't do that, but So we kind of need a sense of pain for our body. It goes on all the time and leads to fear and anxiety all the time. And the universe also then responded to that by giving rise to a teaching now to supplement our ability to know things. that the belief in the way we know things objectively is a belief in an illusion.

[20:06]

The universe actually isn't separate from the beings who can imagine it as separate. The universe made it possible for us to do a job for it, and it minded a little bit that we suffered, and so the fact that it minded a little bit, it created beings who, based on that feeling sorry for us after we did this great service, re-entered the reality and taught others how to re-enter. And the re-entering is what we call awakening. To wake up from the dream by which the universe used living beings to become conscious. And to wake up from the dream of the universe itself in various places. The universe is separate from itself at the place of each unenlightened person.

[21:09]

Each unenlightened person or each unenlightened being is a place where the universe is imagined to be separate from itself. Flies imagined to be separate from the universe. Cockroaches, lions and tigers, humans, bears, amoebas, all these beings imagine themselves as separate from the universe. The universe is imagined as separate, but all these places and all these places suffer because they've cut themselves off from their true nature. And they're afraid. They're all afraid. Amoebas are afraid. Rats are afraid. Rats are afraid. Mice are afraid. Dogs are afraid. Tigers are afraid. Lions are afraid. Elephants are afraid. Whales are afraid. Birds are afraid. Gophers are afraid, yeah.

[22:10]

I don't think a rock is afraid. A rock is, as I said last time, A rock is an intersubjective phenomenon. It's not a subjective phenomenon. A rock isn't a consciousness, but rocks are intersubjective. Rocks are made by you and me. Rocks and walls and trucks and stuff are made by imagining beings who do karma, who do actions based on false imagination. That creates the physical world. Before that imagination, the physical world was an eternal world. Again, I think modern physics now upholds this, that phenomena prior to being observed are probability distributions.

[23:17]

When you don't look at them, they create a number of possibilities with different probabilities. When you look at them, they turn into phenomena. All phenomena depend on mental imputation and all physical phenomena depend on the mental imputation of all of us. Physical phenomena are very solid and highly concentrated because they're produced by innumerable conscious beings. That's my theory about the reason for false imagination, delusion and believing it, imagining things that don't exist to exist and believing it. The believing it, though, I don't think the world necessarily wanted us to believe it. But by repeatedly serving the universe in this false imagination, our minds became... Now, this is not a theory, this part.

[24:22]

This is a theory, but not mine. The next part of the theory... Actually, the first part wasn't my theory either. It's found in the Bible under the Garden of Eden. It's found in Greek myths under Amor and Psyche. It's found in various traditions, but I'm just putting it that way. It's my way. The Buddhist scriptures say that after imagining this way for a long time, then our mind becomes infused with tendencies towards this imagination. So then because we have the tendency, we don't just imagine things falsely, we also have a tendency to believe them. But the universe also allows us to do this repeatedly, and the universe is responsible for making us also believe it. So then we compulsively believe it, and then we compulsively suffer. But then again, I said the universe, I think the universe felt a little bit bad about using us that way. So then it like said, okay, I still want you to keep, we still want you to keep doing this, but we're going to wake you up from the delusion.

[25:27]

And then you can like breathe easily and be fearless and, you know, enjoy the show more completely. So here's the teaching. When the whole universe comes forth and realizes itself, period, that's enough. Just stop there, and you don't need to say enlightenment, but I'll just let you know for future reference, that is enlightenment, but you don't have to say that. And as it says later, when you're totally enlightened, you don't say enlightenment. When Buddhas are truly Buddhas, they don't think, They don't say that last part. They just are in that realm of enlightenment. And once in a while, for the sake of enlightenment. But they don't really think it's that enlightenment because they don't put themselves outside of it.

[26:31]

there's an invitation there's an implied open to this realm of enlightenment which is always things happening realizing themselves that's always the way it is of course and just opening to that and letting go of some things too which haven't been mentioned like having a self already in addition to that that invitation is there moment by moment sort of pivot, sort of turn around, and there it is. And I guess there's a why implied that the universe wanted to know itself. But again, I think it's just the nature of the universe that it wanted to top itself off that way.

[27:39]

In this neighborhood of this planet, it seems like this feat is fairly new relative to the length of time the planet seems to have been here. It took a long time to make a planet, took a long time to make living beings, took a long time for living beings to... well actually not so long for living beings to evolve to the point of being afraid. So a long time ago living beings were aware and the universe could use that to have this place of consciousness. But then a long time, but these beings were afraid for a long time before the Buddhas manifested. Does that make sense? According to this story, animals and plants were around and afraid for a billion years or so, right? We have life for a billion years. for a billion years of the six billion years of the planet we've had frightened beings on the planet and then for the last few thousand we've had some fearless beings buddhas and bodhisattvas kind of fun for me to imagine that we're in this new experiment of being free of fear and anxiety it's quite new

[29:15]

And it's a growth industry. New generations of deluded beings are constantly being born, which also is why it's a growth industry. Always plenty of job security for studying the process of awakening because everybody really wants it. Because everybody wants to be free of fear and full of love and full of love and giving it. Everybody wants to open to how the whole universe is embracing and sustaining them and how they're embracing and sustaining the whole universe. But because of fear, we think, well, what will happen to us if we do that? But the more we study this teaching, the more we dare to open to all things coming forth and realizing themselves, including us. Any other questions? Yes? Flies being afraid?

[30:23]

Well, it's hard to see that a fly is afraid. And for some people, it's even hard for them to see that tigers and lions are afraid. But a lot of people who work with tigers and lions come to sense that they're afraid. There's certain things that they back away from. Even though there's something they want over there, like they're afraid of fire. And even though there's something over on the other side of the fire that they want, like escape from hunters, they move away from the hunters, they seem to be afraid of the hunters. Then they come to fire, so the hunters make a fire on the other side, right? And the hunters come this side, and drums and stuff seem to frighten tigers. I'm just saying, it's hard to even see the tigers are afraid, right? It's hard to see that animals have fear of fire.

[31:35]

But they do seem to want to eat us sometimes, but if we have fire, they... So something about the fire... which makes them withdraw. Even though they're big, powerful beings, the fire, they're not so afraid of us, actually us in that case, because they're really hungry. But people who work with these animals seem to develop a sense of them being afraid. There's other ways of testing that they've done, you know, to, I think, sense that they're afraid. Like they defecate or, you know, they sweat or something like that. You know, my dog, for example, is... It's really easy to see when she's afraid. In one sense, she's very fearless because she thinks she weighs 150 pounds. She only thinks she weighs 150. In other words, she will go after a 150-pound deer until she realizes that the deer is 10 times as big as her. But if the deer is running away, she'll run after the deer. But if the deer stops and turns around and comes at her, she will start acting very afraid.

[32:37]

Tail between the legs, shaking. It looks like you. It looks very much like fear. But I think people who work with animals sense that they're frightened. So I'm saying that I work with flies, and I can tell that they're afraid of me. Not only do they move away from me, but they shake, and they lose their courage when they see me. They're afraid. The barley. Pardon? The barley. Barley? It's harder to see that plants are afraid, which, you know, isn't why Buddhism has been able to go on, because the Buddha allows disciples of Buddha to eat vegetables. But, you know, certain research indicates that vegetables are somewhat afraid, too, but they seem to have, partly because they don't, they aren't so...

[33:39]

I think their fear response is not as exaggerated. They don't seem to scream out when they're cut down and so on, the way... You ever heard... I've never seen in person, but I've seen films of pigs getting slaughtered. I mean, they... louder than almost any human can scream. Really. And they don't scream... They scream because... Well, I mean, they really are afraid And they're very intelligent, and you can't, like, trick them. It's very hard to trick them. So they seem terribly, terribly, terribly afraid. And afraid and angry. Anger and fear are very closely related. Anger is a little easier to stand than our fear, as we know. Same with pigs. Pigs are smart, like us. Dogs also anger and fear very close, because they're smart. Flies, it's harder to see how their anger and fear is related. But I feel That's the case and also I've heard from the ancestors of our tradition that the realm of animals is the realm of fear, and we're in that realm.

[34:53]

We have other problems too besides fear, but I just suggest to you that the more evolved the animal, the more elaborate and multifarious are the modes of fear and anger. We can be angry and hateful. in many ways beyond our ancestors were able to. We've developed sicker and sicker ways of being frightened and angry. But a frightened person is more dangerous than an angry person in a way. Jung said the most dangerous people on the psych ward are the frightened ones. And same in prison and those kinds of situations. And animals, of course, are generally frightened, but the more frightened they are, the more dangerous. A spider's not an insect. A spider's not an insect. Well, you said insect. I just want to point out to you a spider's not an insect.

[35:54]

A fly is an insect. An ant's an insect. They're arachnids. And spiders are afraid, too. All living beings are afraid. But all living beings can become Buddha. That's the magic message from the Buddha is that sentient beings can become fearless. It's possible. And because they have the nature, they all have the same nature. Namely, every living being, everything in the universe is the coming forth and realizing of the entire universe. Every being has this enlightened nature and function. we have the opportunity to wake up to that. It's right around us, through us. It's how we actually are all the time. It's a question of waking up to it. That's what he's talking about here. But he's also pointing out that the universe makes beings who are asleep.

[36:58]

And he gave you a theory about the reason for making sleeping beings. But the universe has also made awakened beings and they've given teachings to sleeping beings. And their awakening is that they totally love all sleeping beings and they want all sleeping beings to wake up and they feel totally, totally intimate with sleeping beings and sleeping beings feel more or less intimate with them. But sleeping beings are at least a little bit feel separate. That means they're still a little bit asleep. When you wake up, there's no separation between you and enlightenment. But, again, it's hard to... That's what you think. Yeah, I know. We're supporting you completely. Yes, Reed. Correct.

[38:09]

Buddhas do not feel fear. I mean, they feel fear in the sense that if you're afraid, the Buddha is totally open to your fear. But like in the Heart Sutra, it says, without any hindrance to knowledge, fear does not exist. When there's no hindrance to knowledge, fear does not exist. Yeah, if it wanted to, right. And it might want to, you know, just to show you that you can do that sometime, but it's not a compulsive fear. It's not a fear arisen from obsessions and compulsions. It's just something they could imagine. They could do a thought experiment with you and show you how to imagine fear, and they could demonstrate to you how your fear is connected to imagination, and they could think up different kinds of... They could say, just a second, they would dial in fear and say, oh, that's how you do it, and they'd say, here's how you do it. But they aren't like, you know, caught in fear.

[39:12]

People who have obstructions to... When we have obstructions to this vision of interdependence, we are afraid. When we ignore interdependence, we're afraid. More or less, we're afraid. When a truck coming at you and you don't see the interdependence of yourself in the truck, you're afraid of the truck. And people say, well, you know, you wouldn't move if you weren't afraid. You might be paralyzed by your fear. You might be paralyzed by your fear. But a lot of times you might move because of the fear too. But some beings nicely move out of the way of trucks without being afraid of them. matadors you know they did you know and and many athletes can get out of the way of attackers without any fear and matter of fact they're very good at getting out of the way of attack there's no fear and therefore they don't get tired of avoiding attacks there was a lot of energy meaning they're training themselves from fear fear is not necessary to avoid danger

[40:26]

it serves some purpose, but it's not, it isn't necessary. You can be happy without fear. It's okay. Matter of fact, it's not quite a bit more happy without fear, but we certainly don't need it to be happy and free and creative and helpful. And I guess, again, there are certain things which are hard to help with if you're afraid. Like, if somebody's dirty, it's hard to help them if you're afraid of getting dirty. so the training is so we're not afraid of getting dirty to help dirty people we're not afraid to get shitty to help shitty people you know and some people love their kids so much they're not afraid of getting shit on their hands so they reach in there and wipe the fannies getting their baby's poop on their hand that's because they in that case they understand their interdependence they don't think oh this is not my poop But as time goes on, you think, oh, this is not my poop.

[41:35]

Then you kind of get scared of the poop. Here's some poop. This is not your poop. I'm going to throw it at you. Oh, no, don't. It's not mine. It's not me. So you can take poop and scare people with it. They'll run away from you. I got some poop here. But if they know interdependence, they still may get out of your way, but they won't be afraid. And they say, just a second, can I have that poop? put it aside. So now you're disarmed. And the same with a knife or something else, because they're not afraid of you, they can disarm you. And then once you're disarmed, then you can become fearless too. ...armed that we're afraid. So the most armed country in the world seems to be the most afraid, frightened world. because why else would we be so armed if it wasn't such a dangerous world?

[42:36]

And why else would we try to control it unless the world was really out of control? There's another little part coming up here which is kind of interesting. When you see forms and hear sounds fully engaging body and mind, you grasp things directly. Or you could say you grasp things intimately. So here's that practice, you know. Hear sounds and see colors fully engaging your body and mind. then you do so, then you grasp them directly or intimately. And he says, unlike things and their reflections, things and their reflections in a mirror.

[43:44]

This translation's a little bit interpretive, but I think correctly interpretive. Unlike things and their reflection in a mirror. It says, unlike the reflections in a mirror. So the reflections in a mirror, it's not like those in the sense that a reflection in a mirror seems to be a reflection of something that's reflected. And unlike the moon and water, or unlike the moon and its reflection, when you meet each other, when you meet colors and people and your feelings intimately. It's not like that. It's not like the thing and its reflection. There's no duality. There's just all the things coming forth.

[44:52]

realizing themselves. A color realizing itself is something that's seen. A color means that it's been seen. There aren't any colors out in the world. There's no colors in the world. There's only colors in connection with consciousnesses. But when there is a color, and just a color, That's intimacy with color. Not me in the color, but just color. Color is seen, but not me in the color. Not my consciousness in the color. It's not like that. When one side is illuminated, the other side is dark. Is that not the reality? No. Well, it's more like that's more like

[45:55]

Because non-duality, when you illuminate one side, then the other side is dark. Well, I guess that's kind of like that. Yeah. When you illuminate the universal, then the particular is in the dark. When you illuminate the particular, then the universal is in the dark. So it's not In a way it is. Another way to put it is... Another way to put nonduality is that... So someone sees, I guess the example was, someone saw, a Zen monk saw a peach blossom open. And at that time there was just a peach blossom opening. There wasn't his consciousness also. And he, yes, he awoke, yes, to that. So it's like one-pointedness.

[47:00]

Into one-pointedness. One-pointedness of mind is when the mind is in what we call samadhi, and then the samadhi is like the mental manifestation of that the object is one point with the subject. And when the object is one point with the subject, it's as though it's just the object. There's not me again, me subject and object. There are no objects without subjects because objects are things known by subjects. But when the object and the subject are intimate, then there's just the object. There's no object of knowledge plus I know it, even though, of course, there would be no object if I didn't know it. But in that sense, when the object is illuminated, the subject is in the dark. Subject's illuminated and the object's in the dark.

[48:04]

And you're thinking about yourself rather than the world you're knowing. And the other thing is that in terms of these various dynamics that we're talking about, this one in particular, The ko and the an. The ko and the an of koan. Ko being the public, where all the differences of the world are made equal. And the private, where everything's different. The world of difference and the world of equality. When you look at the world of equality, you don't see the world of difference. When you look at the world of difference, you don't see the world of equality. That's part of the dynamic. Yes. Things in the reflection in the mirror, they can coexist, right?

[49:25]

Like you can imagine the thing, like your face, and its reflection in the mirror. Right? But that's not fully engaging the image in the mirror. When you fully engage the image of your face in the mirror, it's like there's just the image of the face in the mirror. There isn't you over here looking at it. The image in the mirror is illuminated or you are illuminated and then your face is illuminated and then the image is in the dark. It's not like that. So the intimate meeting with things is not like the moon and the image in the water or the reflection in the water or your face and the reflection in the mirror. It's not like that.

[50:29]

Intimacy is not like that. Intimacy, there's only one side. There's not two sides. There's subject and object, but there's not two sides to subject and object. There's only one side to subject and object. There's subject and object, but subject and object is one thing, as it always is. There's never a floating subject or a floating object, but think there are floating subjects and floating objects, that there's actually objects out there without subjects. But there aren't. But that doesn't mean there's nothing. It's just, again, that what there is without subjects is just a lot of possibilities. And a bunch of possibilities are not nothing. All the possibilities of what you can be are not nothing. They're just not something yet. They need an observer to turn into something.

[51:31]

Either you need to look at yourself or somebody else has to look at you, and then you turn from a lot of different possibilities, more or less a very big number of possibilities about what you could be, turn into some particular manifestation. John? Looking ahead, not necessarily beyond what I meant, when it talks about the circular view of the sea, right before that, that there's something missing, is this getting at the same kind of concept? That you see there's the circular view, but you know that where it looks circular. Although it looks where it's, you know, it's like the side is open, but there's something dark. You realize, yeah. You know that there's something missing. Yes, great.

[52:32]

You understand, because you've been practicing, you understand that part of your life is limited perceptions. So you look at things and you... by remembering the teaching many, many times, that what you're looking at is a limited version of what's happening. You understand more and more that what you're looking at is a limited view. Without reminding yourself of the teaching, you see people in a limited way, but you're also simultaneously open to a kind of awe that you can't see because you realize there's something missing in what you're seeing. And what's missing is this unspeakable fullness of what the person you're meeting really is. In other words, you still are looking at somebody and see something, but you realize, well, something's missing in what I'm seeing.

[53:44]

Something about this person is missing. for example all the possibilities of all the other things they could be that are not manifesting right now are missing but they could be all those things but because of the way I'm looking at them and the other circumstances of this experience now they seem they seem to be a round or square or you know just as far as my practice reaches right now You have to make that non-conceptual. You have to means you can eventually. You start by being conceptual, by hearing this teaching, thinking about it and reminding yourself and thinking about it and reminding yourself and thinking about it and thinking about other examples of it and applying it to other situations. Gradually it sinks into you and you become a person who feels that way about everything.

[54:48]

because the practice has filled your body and mind. So now you just basically, with everything you meet, you have this feeling about it. It's not really conceptual anymore. And that will change the way you relate to everything. Of course, you'll be in awe of everything. You really will be in awe. So people who are in awe are not particularly arrogant. And if you're used to being in awe, you won't be frightened. Usually we're not used to awe. So when it strikes, it's like fear. But awe is not dangerous if you're used to it. It's actually wonderful. If you open to awe, you open to dependent co-arising. You open to the way things are.

[55:50]

beyond our conceptual packaging. You still can't conceive of them except by putting them back in a little package that you're more and more open to the fullness of life and less and less afraid of it, which means less and less afraid. So yeah, we want it to gradually become non-conceptual. But we have to start, I think, by receiving teachings conceptually to counterbalance our ongoing conceptualizations which are false. Because we come as powerful conceivers, powerful imagination systems. We have to engage our imagination in new ways that help us stop believing our old ways and open us Not so much to new ways, although that's part of it, but open us to not believe any ways.

[56:55]

All ways of conceiving produce limited versions of the universe. Do we start by carrying ourselves forward? That's what it says, yeah. You start by carrying yourself forward and practicing and confirming all things. you're practicing and confirming the teaching on everything you meet. That's the way you start. And it's a deluded approach. But the thing you're practicing and confirming is telling you that, just told you that what you're doing is delusion. So you're doing that, but you also know, oh, I'm deluded, I'm deluded. I'm doing deluded practice. This is deluded practice. Oh, yeah, now I know what he's talking about when he talks about delusion. I'm doing that, and I'm practicing from that perspective. which is diluted practice. But now I understand that I'm doing diluted practice. And you're always just one step away from pivoting and have awakening.

[58:03]

But even if it does pivot and you awaken, it can pivot back again. So you can turn around and have a big release and say, wow, yeah, this is like freedom and happiness, and then it just turns back again. ...round between awakening and delusion, awakening and delusion. Sometimes staying in delusion a while before you go into the awakening again. Usually the awakening doesn't last because awakening is awakening to that things don't last. But delusion can go on for quite a while because you're being asleep to impermanence. Now, you're not really getting stuck, but you have this delusion that you are. But it could be faster than that after a while. The space between the visitations to and smaller. And then even when they're quite small, you still might pivot back and forth for quite a while.

[59:09]

Because remember, Buddha can see both worlds at the same time. It's just that after a while, the world of delusion is not done compulsively. It's done just to embrace and sustain, be part of the process of embracing and sustaining the delusion process. Buddhists can still do this, but they don't do it compulsively. They do it imaginatively out of compassion. They can imagine what it would take to be afraid. They know the chemical composition of various forms of delusion and they can, when people present them to them, they can show the people what the composition is so that people can do chemical analysis of their own states and say, oh yeah, that's how it works. But they're not doing it from the point of view of them practicing.

[60:11]

They're just being helped by all of us to respond in that way, and they know it. And we're being helped by all of them to respond. We don't know it. And they're trying to, by various means, help us awaken to what's going on. Did you say we had more questions about parts of the text you thought we would never get to? Yeah. Yeah. from far reaches of the text. I think maybe now you can pick these things out, and you can see now maybe you can understand them, even though they're far away from what we've gotten to. Well, the whole text is very, very far away, and there's one line that doesn't have a space. Yes. What is it? No. Oh, it's opaque. One line. Now, if a bird or a fish prowls through the end of its element before moving in it, this bird or this fish will not find its way to it.

[61:16]

I don't know what all the people do before moving. Well, I kind of feel that's related to the earlier part where it says, no matter how far the fish swims, it never reaches the end of its element. No matter how far the bird flies, it never reaches the end. But if you would try to reach the end without moving, you wouldn't realize that you couldn't reach the end of your element. And if you can't realize that you'll never reach the end of your element, then you won't find your place or your way. You won't find your path if you don't realize that there's no end to your element You or I could look at a bird in the air or a fish even in the ocean or certainly a fish in an aquarium can swim and never reach the end of its element.

[62:24]

But if it doesn't move in its element, it won't reach the end of its element and it won't understand its path unless it moves. So we have to work with our element. And our element is like this one. or the world of our imagination. Theirs is, too. But their imagination is water. And the bird's imagination is air. But they don't think of it as air and water. They think of it as their world. For us, it's part of our world, right? We have other things that we're into. And to what we have to work with. Can you call it a state of consciousness? Hm? Can humans ever call it one state of consciousness? It's not just your state of consciousness. It's also all the other living beings that you're aware of. It's not just your state of consciousness. It's all the things your state of consciousness creates. Your state of consciousness creates all of us. And also we create you.

[63:29]

That's not your state of consciousness. The fact that the way you all create me is not just my state of consciousness. It's how my state of consciousness is created. so which is swell but there's also the interdependence of my state of consciousness which is that my state of consciousness is nothing other than all of you but that's not my state of consciousness that's the other dependent character that's the dependent core rising in my state of consciousness that's the beauty of my state of consciousness the beauty of my state of consciousness is that it's nothing in addition to all of you And if I don't move in that, I won't understand my way or my place. If I just stay in, okay, this is my state of consciousness, moving in that, moving in my state of consciousness means I understand, I move to understand my state of consciousness is really made by all of you.

[64:29]

That's moving it. And that's how I will find my way, my place. I have my place and I have my way already because you make my place and you... I can't really avoid my place or my way which you make. And my way is my place which makes you. I can't avoid that. That's my life. But if I don't move in this and you don't move in it, we don't move together because my moving in it is you moving in it. Even if I... that's not really moving it. I got to get you to move in order for me to move. And you've got to get me to move for you to move. That's moving in it. That's your way. Your way is to get me to practice. My way is to get you to practice. And my way is to realize you're getting me to practice by you practicing. And so on. This is your actual way, your place. Your way, your place is not limited to your way and place. That's just, again, a circle of water about your way and place. Okay?

[65:33]

Is it My element changes, yes. You guys are changing my element. All your different movements and everything you're doing, you keep changing my element. Isn't there a progression towards awakening? Yeah. One element is just like fish, water, but then you become a bird. You'll get more of that as you practice. Because if your element includes more worlds,

[66:36]

As you practice more, your understanding may open to how you all along have included other worlds. But it's time to stop. So please enjoy enlightenment.

[66:59]

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