I want to taste the truth and learn some Tagacella's words. Tonight I thought I would offer the opportunity to discuss or ask questions about how to practice a meditation on the other dependent character of phenomena.

[01:25]

Some of you have already been asking me questions about it, but Perhaps some other people have questions about how to practice meditation on this character of phenomena. Yes? I think last week you said something like this meditation is something like honoring the other dependent. And if that's so, you can't quite see it, but you can honor it. Or if there's other verbs, you could use it, or other ways to relate to the other dependent, but honoring it without knowing it. In the sutra, it says that, what it says, initially, I teach

[02:38]

the lack of own being in terms of production to beings who have not yet planted roots of virtue and then who don't have conviction and so forth up to have not accumulated the who have not accomplished the accumulation of wisdom and merit. So, in other words, for people who aren't pretty well trained, the Buddha begins teaching the lack of own being in terms of production. And he says, and what is lack of own being in terms of production? It is the other dependent character of phenomena. So... we're meditating on the other dependent character means we're also meditating on the lack of production, the lack of one being in terms of self-production.

[03:47]

And that also we can't actually see. So we honor both of these things. Whenever we experience some object of knowledge, we honor this teaching, we honor this character which this teaching tells us about. And we honor this character of things, which means we also honor that things have this particular type of lacking own being. There's other types of lacking of own being which we will also learn to honor. The other types of lack of own being, however, you can actually see. But this one I don't think you can see. So then he says, after saying that he initially teaches this lack of own being in terms of self-production or other dependent character, then he says, when beings have heard this teaching, he doesn't say when they know it, he doesn't say when they see the other dependent character, he says when they hear the teaching about it.

[04:58]

So part of honoring the other dependent character is to hear the teaching about it. And of course you hear the teaching until it's in your heart, until you hear it all day long. So when he says when they hear it, I think he means when they hear it pretty often. Either you've got somebody whispering in your ear all the time, Every time you look at something, somebody's in your ear saying, this thing has an other-dependent character. This phenomena has other-dependent character. This phenomena is a lack of own being in terms of self-production. This thing can't produce itself. This thing can't keep itself going another moment. Until you have a little Buddha in your ear telling you that, you sort of have to remember the teaching. Until it's like running through your head all the time. This is the basic meditation. And when you move on to the other meditations, this meditation should continue.

[06:05]

After a while, it's just like your heartbeat, or just like your circulation. So I think maybe, if I could ask, do any of you feel like you're more aware of this, because you hear this teaching more often than you used to? Right, so you hear it more often, right? And do you feel like there's kind of like, you hear it more often, you heard it more often and then you heard it more often, then after then, first you heard it more often, then you heard it more often than that, do you feel like that too? Like it's getting thicker? So that's partly because of the causes and conditions of talking about it so much and chanting it and so on. So in fact you are hearing the teaching more. And you're hearing it with your ears, but also you're hearing it in your head, too. Sometimes. Yeah. So, that's one way to honor it, is actually to listen to it.

[07:08]

Read about it. Recite it. Talk to others about it. This is a way to honor the teaching. And, yeah, honor the teaching. And in that sense, you're also honoring this thing the teaching is pointing to. And honoring this, what the teachings point into, means honoring, beginning to honor the way phenomena really are. This isn't the whole story about how phenomena really are, it's the fundamental character of the way they are. So we're starting to train ourselves by meditating on this teaching, training ourselves to open our wisdom eye to the actual nature of phenomena, to the properly conceived nature of phenomena, rather than misconceived or mistaken way that phenomena are.

[08:12]

So maybe you can think of these other ways to honor the teaching. to listen to the teaching that you might be able to think of. So being creative with it is being creative about it. For example, I suggested to you that in the presentation of The Essential Art of Zazen, by the Zen Master Dogen, and in the presentation of the way the mind of one who is sitting still works by the ancestor Yaushan, they recommend the basic method of non-thinking as the way to understand the thinking of the Buddha. And non-thinking, I think, is another way to say meditating on the other dependent, or non-thinking meaning beyond thinking,

[09:24]

So meditating on being beyond thinking, meditating about what is beyond thinking, is another way to honor the other dependent character of phenomena. Yes? That is not purifying, so it is. That meditation is not purifying, right? It's not purifying, but it is transforming. It does transform you. This way, this meditation initiates an ethical reformation. Your conduct will start to change as you do this meditation. So when you see people and you have the thought... that this person is saying something really horrible, really outrageous, unbelievably shocking.

[10:29]

For example, you might think that about somebody. If you bring the teaching of the other dependent character onto the scene, bring the teaching onto the scene that has appeared out of your dreaming process, then you might not do anything unskillful based on believing that this person is really acting horribly, selfishly, the way you think they are. That will temper your wrath. protect you from acting in a cruel way, probably. Or it will tend to develop your ability to not act in a cruel way to beings that you think are really deserving some cruel treatment.

[11:36]

So it doesn't purify your mind quite, but it tempers your mind so that your behavior starts to become more and more virtuous. which is really a lot to accomplish. But the further meditations are necessary in order to actually purify the mind so there's no confusion at all. There can still be confusion, so you're still tempted to believe this person is acting in a very, very self-serving way or something. You still may kind of think, gee, it sure looks like that. And you still may feel bad about it, but you start not to take your thoughts so seriously. Yes? Does that lead to paralysis, sort of paralysis of action in certain situations, where it might be, there might be something skillful you could do?

[12:45]

Actually, yes, this question comes up quite often in relationship to this. Does it lead to paralysis? Does it lead to passivity? Passivity is an action. You don't get excused from the indictment of acting just because you're being passive. Passive is a type of activity. Okay? So, make an example and tell me what passivity is. Please. I'm walking along and I see someone beating an animal. There might be something I could say, something I could do to intervene to mitigate this suffering that's being caused.

[13:56]

Right. But maybe I say to myself, well, this person is... whatever is going on here is beyond my... conception of it. This person doesn't exist from their own side. I could tell myself, I really don't know what's happening here. Yes, you could tell yourself that, right. And then you might become passive? And how would you imagine the passivity would manifest? Or the paralysis? I imagine it would manifest as a hesitation, feeling uncertain that I could trust myself to take skillful action. So I might do nothing. Before you make this mistake of saying that you're going to do nothing, which is something...

[15:01]

we've got this thought to deal with, namely, you mentioned a thought which was uncertain about what? Uncertain about... About whether whatever action I might take would be skillful. I might be aware of some anger, a lot of anger in myself. You know, present at the same time as this whatever thought. So... Perhaps, in this scenario you're saying, is that before you had a chance to bring the teaching to your thoughts, you did believe that you knew what was going on, and you got angry. Very quickly. Yeah. So, in that case, you didn't practice the teaching, and you weren't passive, you got angry. Now, the question is, are you going to bring the teaching in now? Let's just say we don't. Then you just sort of attack the person. So then the person's being cruel, and you beat that other person up. Right? Just try and separate them. You might try to separate them.

[16:02]

The person might punch you when you're trying to separate them. You might say, well, this kind of thing happens, right? Especially when I'm the virtuous one trying to protect them. How dare you? How dare you now attack me? Something like this shouldn't be happening. something that shouldn't be happening, and, you know, I'm the one, I'm the arbiter of ethics here, and this person might have some words to you about this. So now he's not being just cruel to this other person, he's being cruel to you. Plus he's affronting your excellent work. But you're already angry anyway. But you forget to disqualify yourself. You were virtuous and then you became angry. Now, not all anger is non-virtuous. But if you were angry in such a way that everybody involved, the two people you're talking about, and everybody in the neighborhood, if everybody thought that that anger was really helpful, that anger would be good. So everybody says, thanks, Rick, that was terrific.

[17:07]

That anger really straightened everything out. That anger could be good. But anyway, you could change the story and not get angry. So your teaching came in before you got angry. Because the teaching, you don't probably get angry because you're applying the teaching. I take it back. Applying the teaching might give rise to the proper type of anger. So what I'm proposing is actually... that the virtuous response to the appearance of cruelty in the world will emerge from this meditation. If you see, and the virtuous response might be, before you do anything with your body, your body might stay kind of not moving too much, but your thoughts might be, I'm not sure I know what's virtuous. That thought is, if you excuse the expression, kind of a liberal thought. Conservative thought is, I do know what is right.

[18:13]

What is right has already been established, and this is it, and I know what it is. A more liberal view is like, well, I think this is good, but I could be wrong. on Prairie Home Companion. There's this skit a couple weeks ago. This guy's in a bar and this very beautiful woman comes in and says, well, what do you think about the possibility of war? And he says something like, well, you know, it seems to me that to do something violent because you think it might possibly do some good may not be worthwhile. But then he says, but I could be wrong. And then this gorgeous woman says, oh, another liberal, turntailed, wimpy, see you later, bud. So anyway, it's kind of liberal to be open to that you might be wrong.

[19:15]

But aside from saying that, I would just say that being open to that you're wrong, I think, is very close to being virtuous. People who are not open to being wrong are in a state of non-virtue. When you're not open to being wrong, you are excessively involved in thinking you're right. And being excessively involved in thinking you're right is non-virtue. I would say that. But I could be wrong. I don't happen to be, but I could. See, I'm not taking myself too seriously. You don't have to either. So anyway, you see this, you see something which appears to be cruelty. You could be wrong. You could be wrong. You could be right.

[20:17]

I mean, it might be that both parties would agree, yes, this is cruelty, but even though they agree, still, what is going on is beyond your idea and their idea. However, your idea and their idea are part of what's going on, but they're not the other dependent nature of what's going on. The other dependent nature of what's going on is beyond everybody's story. And when you tune into that dimension of what's beyond the story, your story is constantly evolving. That's what you were saying. You turn into, when you see this thing, whatever it is, you say, this has a character. Whatever it is has a character of being like a dream. In other words, I dream of it being this way. So it does have a dreamlike quality and I can see the dream quite clearly because I'm sleeping. Again, this is like admitting that we're sleeping, admitting that we're not completely enlightened.

[21:18]

When you're completely enlightened, you see all three characters. You see the other dependent, you see the fantasy or dreamlike quality, and you see the ultimate way that things are, which is freedom from the dream. When you're awake, you see all three. When you're awake, you see the dream, you see the other dependent character, and you see freedom from the dream. Prior to being awake, you see the dream primarily. You can't see the other dependent. I take it back. If I say when you're enlightened, you've got to be super enlightened to see the other dependent, but you understand the other dependent when you see the dream and see the freedom from the dream or the absence of the dream. Then you understand the other dependent, but you really can't see the other dependent until you have omniscience. This other dependent is inconceivable. Only a Buddha knows it. We'll start with the other dependent.

[22:18]

But one of the fears people have of the other dependent is that some of the ways of teaching how to meditate on it make you sound like you wouldn't be self-righteous. And some people think that without being self-righteous they wouldn't be able to act in certain situations. But you will act. As a matter of fact, self-righteous people are often paralyzed by their anger, by their, you know, shaking, by their sense that they're going to cause great damage because they can feel this this self-righteous ire, this wrath of God rising in them. They have become inhabited by God. I will now strike out against the other ones. This happens to people. Now, if you meditate on the other dependent, that might not happen to you, and they might think, well, then I wouldn't be able to do anything because I wouldn't have that like... Serious consequences would not be said by me. I would just say, I might say, somebody might hurt you if you keep that up.

[23:23]

Or, you know, my other example that I often get, when you see somebody being cruel to somebody else, you say, you intervene by saying, excuse me. You go, have you heard of SARS? Have you heard of SARS? I got it. I got it. Well, you go up and you say, I don't have SARS. I don't have SARS. Let me get a little closer to you. I don't have SARS. And then you start backing away and you say, excuse me, do you think it's all right to pet on the first date? The girl's on the bus, you know, she's real cute. She's on the bus and all these boys get on the bus and they're not so cute. There's a gang of them and they're kind of drooling and they're moving in on her.

[24:31]

They're moving in on her. It's dark. There's a bus driver up in the front and there's five big boys and they're coming to get her and she just goes... reaches up into her nose and pulls out a nice big one and pops it in. Send the big tough boys get off the bus. Where does that come from? It comes from the mystery of the other dependent character. You don't meditate. You meditate on that thing. You keep tuning in that. You will respond in a virtuous way, a way that doesn't harm others, doesn't harm you, that discharges the aggression in the situation. You don't meditate on the other dependent, and when violence comes up, you get polarized by it. You like, you know, and polarized means you join it or don't join it.

[25:33]

You fight it or give in to it. That's polarizing. But when meditating on the other dependent, you start to become like a wind bell. You move with the flow of the situation, and you make these incredible skillful responses can come. You don't get paralyzed because you're not believing in your dream. When you believe your dream, you are paralyzed. You are manipulated. You can't move. You're under control of your dream. Because you believe it. You're a slave of your fantasies. Generally speaking, we're slaves of our fantasies. We have to bring this teaching to our mind to counteract this fantasy. The fantasy thing is not going to stop. It's not going to stop. but we can stop believing it. The beginning of eroding the belief in it is to remind ourselves that there's another character phenomenon besides the dreamlike quality, this character which is beyond our dream, which is beyond our thinking.

[26:35]

Meditate on that. And people are repeatedly asking the question you're asking, because people think that you'll go limp. And actually, it's good to go limp in a lot of situations. Good to go limp. Then you can move. You can twist. You can turn into the appropriate response. If you're tense, you don't learn. Like in judo, I've told you this many times, and I practiced judo when I was in college. Some of these guys were big and strong, and you'd go up to them and you'd try to move them, and they wouldn't move. And you couldn't move them, they were so strong, but they never learned anything. People who learn things are people that you can move around, you know, and throw them through the air. The best person is like the great masters like this. take a hold of the drape master and you go like this and you go and then at a certain point suddenly you find yourself flying through the air they said playing with the founder of judo was like playing with a towel a little towel

[27:54]

Huh? Yeah. This cow has no idea, you know. It doesn't believe its own ideas of what to do. So if you pull it this way, it goes that way. Pull it that way, it goes that way. Now sometimes, when you pull it this way, you know, sometimes it says, this little bit goes, sometimes it goes, bup. Because you're going this way because your energy throws you across the room. It doesn't do anything. This uses your energy. If you try to push it real hard, well, just move out of the way and you fall on your face. So there's a little bit of kind of like, well, maybe do this. So this is martial arts. Meditating on the other dependent. Martial arts means doing the virtuous thing when interacting with people. The skillful thing. You know what geisha means?

[29:04]

Geisha? You know what geisha is? Geisha means skillful person. They know how to interact with samurai. Calm them down. Calm down, big boy. Come over here. Come on up here. Just sit down and relax. It's okay. Here, have a little sake. Give me that sword. You don't need that sword. This is a geisha. Is that for sure? Anybody have a question? You already got one. Okay. Okay. Did you get one? Can I get one? Yeah. Could you talk a little bit about developing antipathy toward compounded phenomena? That's part of the meditation on the end of... It isn't exactly what you try to develop it.

[30:08]

It develops naturally. Right. And antipathy, I think antipathy, I get the impression that antipathy... has the connotation for people of not liking something. But it actually doesn't mean that. It may become that, you know, and more and more people have their understanding. But if you look it up, it doesn't mean not liking. I mean, it doesn't mean disliking. It means that you're not attracted to it. And so, also, antipathy, right? So antipathy, I think the other word was, what was it? Aversion. Aversion, yeah. And, but here's some other ones, other translations, fear, and another translation is discouragement, and another translation is disenchantment, another translation is disaffection. So... Well, I mean, is it also sort of developing discouragement with your kind of previous relationship with... That's really what it is.

[31:08]

It's that you become kind of afraid of the way you used to relate to them. So you know that they have a potential because they still have phenomena. You know compounded phenomena have a dreamlike quality, a fantasy quality. So you know that you're vulnerable to falling for the fantasy you have about these things. And you know that you in the past have thought that things, compounded things, would give you happiness. Yes. As you start to meditate on the other dependent character, you're more and more discouraged that compounded things are going to give you happiness. So basically, no things, no impermanent things give us happiness. Even beautiful grandsons and granddaughters do not give you happiness. They don't. They are unreliable. They're not worthy of competence. My grandson's busy right now. He's really mean to me tonight. Really mean to me.

[32:10]

Really cruel to me. But what that means is he appears to be cruel. Other times he really appears to be awfully sweet. To think that his sweetness is going to give me happiness, or that his cruelty will give me happiness, That's to believe that he is what I think he is. That does not give me happiness. But to be meditating on the other dependent, in the character of my grandson, that meditation brings happiness. The meditation, the way things actually are, when you tune into that, that brings happiness. Because when you tune into the way things are, you practice virtue with them. you take care of things just right. That brings happiness, being devoted to people in the proper way. That gives rise to happiness. But the people don't give you happiness. The people are impermanent, unstable, changeable, unworthy of confidence.

[33:14]

And as you transition from thinking that things give you happiness, like oil gives you happiness, when you transition from that view, to realizing that oil does not give you happiness, then you develop actually some disenchantment towards wealth, towards health. But as you're making the transition, you're still a little afraid that you're going to slip back into looking to impermanent things for happiness. You're still a little bit Or disenchantment doesn't have maybe that... Disenchantment may be like disappointment, yeah. So these various words, I think, cluster around giving a feeling of the emotional transition you go through as you move from wrongdoing to virtue. Wrongdoing is, again, relating to impermanent things in terms of your dreams of them.

[34:16]

So basically, straight on. And all the trouble you get into that and to the transition of relating to things appropriately in terms of their other dependent character. Now, the sutra goes on to say that still we're not completely disenchanted, we're not completely disaffected, we're not completely averse. There's still a little bit of attachment because the dreamlike thing has still a little bit believed. So you have to go on after that and study the dream process, the imputational fantasy, conceptual clinging part of a phenomena in order to be completely disaffected, completely averse, and completely not attached and liberated. But this first part makes a big step in that direction. But it doesn't mean that you hate things. It just means you don't look to them for your happiness. You look to reality for your happiness.

[35:23]

You look to treating beings in a truly compassionate way, beyond your ideas of compassion, as happiness. And you do become quite a bit more happy as you make this transition, but this transition has these little guardians of disaffection and discouragement and disappointment in certain other modes. Disappointment like you don't make appointments with things anymore. Because you know they're not going to be there. They're not going to show up for the appointment. They just appear for a flash and that's it. You don't get another chance. They're gone before you have a chance actually. Okay? Yes? You asked me to remind you about the question I had earlier this week about the perfection of wisdom. Oh yeah. There's this hymn we do This is a hymn, it's not a sutra. It's a hymn written by some poet.

[36:27]

The perfection of wisdom, the lovely, the holy, you know her? She has a clear knowledge of the own being of all dharmas. People say, well, she knows the own being. She knows the own being means she knows the way that things don't have own being. They lack own being. She knows the way they lack own being. Yes? It would be possible to go in a situation that was volatile to protect some other being or creature, and not hurt anyone, including protecting oneself. I'm just wondering whether if you deal with a situation like that, and you have a motivation to protect oneself in the midst of that situation, Aren't you hamstrung at the outset, trying to protect yourself from being hurt, trying to protect somebody else?

[37:30]

Well, actually, we're in a situation right now like you described, right? And we've done OK so far, haven't we, tonight, in this room? If you have some idea of protecting others, that can also hamstring you from protecting others. If you have some fantasy about or some dream about what protecting others would look like, then that will hamstring you. The dream you have about protecting yourself or protecting others could hamstring you if you believe that your idea of how to protect things is the way that things are protected. Of course we want to accomplish the protection of all beings. But the protection of all beings is primarily accomplished by admitting how mistaken we are.

[38:39]

By confessing, you know, I don't know what's going on. And even though I don't know what's going on, I think I do. That confession protects beings. Not me. It doesn't say you protect beings by noticing how you understand things properly. You don't protect beings by going around saying... I don't make mistakes, and now I'm not going to make another mistake. I'm going to do another unmistaken thing now. It doesn't say that's how you protect beings. Beings are protected by admitting your shortcomings. So we've got a situation right here. I'd like to protect you all, but if I'm aware of my shortcomings in protecting you, your protection will be accomplished. I think I'm kind of aware of my shortcomings in protecting you right now. And you're being protected. See? All nice?

[39:43]

Do you also feel... Any of you feel your shortcomings in protecting everybody in this room? Anybody feel no shortcomings in protecting the people in this room? Where are you? That's it? Okay? Yes, Elena? Some time ago, years ago, I was... I studied for a while to be a psychologist. Yes. And I was an intern. Once a week all these senior psychologists got together and discussed the cases. And sometimes they were discussing abused children, sexually abused by their own fathers, for example. And it was so liberating and eye-opening to me to see how the psychologist, there was one psychologist who would be taking care of a child, another psychologist who would be seeing the father.

[40:49]

And they both talked about their clients, saying, love, and with so much compassion about both. And so for me an abuser, sexual abuser of a child, a monster, and all of a sudden there was a woman talking about this man like his mother would talk, with the same attention that he gave me, protection of his family, but the other one who was talking about the boy was still well balanced. Yes? I was just wondering what you said, because one of the... Can you follow the age for a bit? for pitfalls, then I'm having to see other people in meditation.

[41:53]

The H word? Moktai? Hand strength? Hogtai? If you need a minute, I'll be with you. This meditation is that once It's very liberating in a way of being peaceful and not attributing, getting beyond that person's an asshole or something like that, when you're attributing really quick negative attributes to people who are the other dependent of the patient. So it seems like that's the actions of these parts. But it seems like the flip side of that is to be overly empathetic and thinking that you know what the other dependent is that that person comes through. And I wouldn't let the psychologist have a hard time with it, because the role is to figure out what other dependents may have personally... That's your idea.

[43:04]

That's your idea that that's their role. Well, right, right, right. Some psychologists might not have that idea. Right, and I'm sure that's true. Or I kind of see it that way. No, I'm serious. Oh, you're serious, are you? The other dependent, meditating on the other dependent will liberate you from being serious about this. This is like a pitfall. What's a pitfall? To think you understand the other dependent nature. Yeah, right. That would be a pitfall. And also to think that you don't understand the other dependent nature would be another pitfall.

[44:08]

In other words, to believe what you think is a pitfall. That's what the other dependent meditation is for, is to relieve you from believing what you think. If you believe what you think, then what you think has become, we say it's a pitfall, but it's not, the thing isn't a pitfall, it's believing it that's a pitfall. It's not a pitfall unless you believe it. It's like, you know, there's this, in Zen we have this, you know, like there's this, what's it called, it's called the gateless gate, that famous koan collection, mu mon kan, mu mon kan. So mu is no, there isn't any, mo, mon is gate, and then kan is barrier. So it's the no-gate barrier. It's the barrier that's not a gate. But there's also a term like in Shobo Genzo, zenki, there's a term in there called kikan.

[45:10]

And ki, like in my name, zenki, ki means working or turning or function. Kikan means a functioning or turning barrier. A barrier that's turning, a barrier that pivots. So your dreams, like whatever they are, thinking you're helpful, thinking you know what's right, this is a barrier. But if you deal with it properly, it turns. But if you take it for real... It's just a barrier, a barrier to correct behavior, a barrier to healing, a barrier to compassion. But if I bring in the other dependent to the barrier, the barrier can start turning. Now, further meditations will assure you not to believe your dreams anymore. You will be permanently cured of believing your dreams. Dreams will still arise. but you will not believe them anymore.

[46:14]

When do we get that one? When you're really good at the other dependent, I'll give it to you. But that's meditating on the thoroughly established. When you meditate on thoroughly established, you don't... Then when a dream appears, you know it's just a dream. And that dream is based on what's happening, but the dream does not apply to what's happening. It's based on it. You wouldn't have a dream if there wasn't something happening. But the dream is not actually in what's happening. What's happening is actually always free of the dream. When you see that, when you see the absence of that dream, then you're cured. You already had one. Yes? In thinking that you're right, it's a barrier.

[47:16]

Thinking that you say it right. Yeah, it's a barrier, right. And if you believe it, it's a pitfall. And if you think that you're wrong, that's a barrier. And if you believe that, it's a pitfall. Again, it's not really that a thing's a pitfall. It's not really the things are the problem. It's your attitude towards them. So again, like with Brian's question, it's not that compounded things are a problem. It's just that if you look to them for happiness, suddenly you've got problems. compound things, we should take care of them, like people are compounded things. Buddhists love compounded things, but Buddhists do not misrelate, misconceive, misjudge, and improperly relate to compounded things. They relate to them in the most skillful possible way. So whatever you think, it's a barrier. If you don't believe it,

[48:18]

the barrier turns and opens up into wisdom. If you believe it, you just fall in your face. Whether you think you're great or lousy, if you believe that idea of yourself, that's a mistake. Now, you can learn from that mistake. It's not so terrible. You can learn from falling in your face. And we do fall on our face. So that part's taken care of. The question is learning about it. Say, oh, yeah, I fell on my face because I believed what I thought. I believed this person was really like a terrible . Like the worst. I mean, like the worst. I believed that, and so I fell on my face. I did that before a few times, too. And I still haven't gotten over it. But every time you learn a little bit when you believe your dream. Bad dreams, nice dreams, believing, benefits. But when you get up, you learn something.

[49:21]

That was a big mistake. And also that, couldn't take that too seriously. Because really, why is it that story, right? That Zen story about the, the Chinese guy who had a horse and the horse ran away? Your horse ran away. How terrible. Maybe so. Maybe not. What's actually happening beyond the idea that the horse ran away, And that is terrible. And then the horse comes back with a whole herd of wild horses. And he says, that's really great. But it's really good that the horse ran away, because now you have all these horses. And that's really good. Maybe so. And then his son gets on one of the wild horses and falls off and breaks his leg. People say, oh, it's so terrible.

[50:24]

And he says, maybe so. And then the army comes to get the son. And they don't take him, because he's got a broken leg. People say, how wonderful. And he says, maybe so. So... So when you... Can I just finish my question? And myself. Yes, isn't the next question... Did you say one? Yeah, I didn't get it. What did you say back there? Is this the same one? This thing laughed it all the way over to here? Oh, my God. She disproved the teaching. I don't have to ask you. It's okay. You don't have to ask him? No, it's okay. Great. Do you want to?

[51:26]

Maybe so. Any other first-timers? Yes? Are Buddhists compounded things? Yes. Definitely. They're impermanent. Unworthy of confidence. Unworthy of confidence, right. And unstable. Unstable. Any other quick timers? Yes. I don't know how to have a practical question, but make decisions for your life because you don't know it.

[52:32]

If you're never really aware of a thing that you should pursue, maybe, or not, they call it a job. How about eating? How about eating? What do I mean? I mean eating, like eating food. Take that example, okay? So you don't know if you want to eat or not? Oh, okay. So what's the problem? Well, the problem is if I feel like it would be a good thing, they do. Wait a second. When you eat, do you think it's a good thing to eat? I don't think it's good or bad. Okay, well, and that's, well, before you say necessary, you don't think it's good and bad? And then what happens when you don't think it's good and bad? What? Nothing happens? You don't eat? Oh, yeah?

[53:36]

Yeah. You do eat? Yes. Even though you didn't think it was good or bad? Yes. Okay. Do you understand? No. Okay. What's the next example? What's the next example of something else that someone might do? Tell me the example. Anything. I have my head, for example, and I feel like He desired to go to college. Okay, so there. You think it's good or bad? I wouldn't say it's good or bad, but I do feel into that. I feel like it would be... That's when you get confused. I didn't say it's either good or bad. I didn't say that. That's another one. I'm not going to work.

[54:40]

Anyways, I don't know if you saw it. Everybody else did. Did you see it? If you're going to dinner and you're into good and bad when it's time to eat, you're going to be confused. You're going to be in anguish about eating. and people who are into good and bad about eating, trying to figure out whether it's right or wrong, they have eating disorders. If somebody wants to go to college trying to figure out whether it's right or wrong, they have education disorders. If you just sit in there and you look at the food, it's like lunchtime, and you put aside, you don't get involved in good or bad. Maybe the thought, I think it would be good to eat arises, but if you get into that, it's going to make it very difficult to eat. But you don't get into that, right? So that's not a problem. But if you did, you'd have the same anguish over deciding when and how to eat. Would it be good to have another bite?

[55:42]

But if you just look at the food and you start salivating, it's time to eat. Now, another question about whether they're going to let you have the food or not. And the same with everything else. If you get into your thoughts about it, you think your thoughts about it are true, then you're hamstringed. You're hog-tied. You're a hole in one. And you need healing. Because you're getting caught by your thinking about X. Eating, going to college, joining the Marines, going to war, You're operating from your ideas and your dreams about what's going on. So then there's confusion, basically. Period. Forever and ever. It's like damage control. but there is going to be damage. You're going to be unskillful when you believe you're thinking about things.

[56:49]

You do have thoughts about things, but if you don't get into them so much, and you meditate on the other dependent character, then the thoughts don't block virtue. And some of our thoughts about things, generally speaking, we have lots of thoughts about things, Washington lots, but we have a few thoughts about things, a few ideas about things, which are actually wrong. We think, for example, that things are permanent. We think that things exist on their own. We dream that about things on an ongoing basis, moment after moment. So we not only get caught by our ideas which aren't wrong, but we get caught by our ideas which are wrong. So this meditation is to help you behave in a virtuous way. which doesn't mean that you're actually thinking that this is good and believing the thought that this is good.

[57:50]

But if you think something is good, I wouldn't say believe that it's good. I would say do it. If you think it's good, do it. But I'm not saying believe that it's good. And if you think it's bad, don't do it. But don't believe your thought that it's bad. If you think it's bad and you don't do it, that's good. But if you believe that it's bad, then even if you don't do it, you goofed up. You hurt yourself. Because you believed your thinking. So she got it. Success. Any other first timers? Yes? When you were saying that happiness doesn't come from things or people, but it comes from a proper relationship.

[58:57]

And I was just noticing in myself that I didn't want to grasp that proper relationship. But that seems ungraspable to me. The proper relationship is definitely ungraspable. Improper relationships, though, are kind of graspable in a way. But even improper relationships are not really graspable. It's just that by grasping, you will get an improper relationship. That's pretty sure. But proper relationships, of course, are relationships where neither one of us, if we have a proper relationship, that's a relationship with neither one of us own. Neither one of us got the corner on the market. Neither one of us is better at it. Neither one of us own it. That's a proper relationship. So it is ungraspable. And finding that proper relationship also is opened up by letting go of our various ways of dealing with our relationship, but not throwing them out the window. just not taking them as the relationship.

[60:01]

So I have my idea of the relationship, my fantasy, you have your fantasy, and then we have to share an understanding about what our relationship is, maybe. Do we? Yeah. What is it? How about if you what? I thought we were on the right track here. Okay, so just a second. I just heard you say that you're confused. Is that right? OK, so we agree on that.

[61:02]

OK. And you agree, too. No, I don't agree that you're confused. You agree that we. I agree that you said you were. I agree with you that we're in agreement in the sense that we both seem to agree you said you were confused. That's the level we're sharing, you know. But still, you and I both have our own ideas of our relationship, which we don't share, we can't. So I'm just saying, not taking any of that as real, like not taking it as real, that we agree even that you said you're confused, not to mention we also don't take it as real that you are confused. Even though we both might think that, or one of us thinks it, and I understand that you're the one who thinks it, and you agree. We all still have our ideas. Our actual relationship is not my idea. It's not your idea. It's y'all.

[62:04]

It's y'all. But still, you and I both have our own ideas of our relationship, which we don't share. We can't. So I'm just saying, not taking any of that as real, Like not taking it as real that we agree even that you said you're confused. Not to mention we also don't take it as real that you are confused. Even though we both might think that or just one of us thinks it and I understand that you're the one who thinks it and you agree. We all still have our ideas. Our actual relationship is not my idea. It's not your idea. It's beyond. It's beyond. However, our ideas are the imputational aspect of our relationship. Our relationship keeps having a dreamlike quality, your dreamlike version of it, my dreamlike version of it, and also we have a dreamlike version of our agreement about it. All that's part of the dreamlike thinking part of our relationship. But also part of our relationship is beyond all that, and that's the initial meditations.

[63:09]

that kind of, like, softens up, gets us ready to, like, meditate on our dreams in a successful way, to analyze them until we are not fooled by them anymore. Is there anything that's closer in dreams that... I'm just thinking, when we're hurt, you know, sometimes... sometimes we can believe... I can believe my thinking that, well, maybe... Maybe if I don't understand what feels like the hurt, I can understand or try to be present with the hurt feeling. The hurt feeling is not a dream. Our relationship is not a dream. but we dream about our hurt feelings, and we dream about our relationship.

[64:13]

We do have a relationship, and it's a beautiful thing. And it has this beautiful, inconceivably beautiful other-dependent character, our relationship does, according to this teaching. And our relationship all has a dreamlike quality. And if there's pain in our relationship, there's another dependent character of that pain, and there's a dreamlike version of that pain, namely what you think about the pain, or your mental version of the pain. But that's not the pain. That's just this dreamlike fantasy about it that you can get a hold of. The dream is actually, I mean, the pain is actually an ocean of, it's just, you know, it's not a circle of water. It's an ocean. Its characteristics are infinite in quality. Do you have to be willing to be it without... The meditation order dependent means you have to be with it and sort of be with it beyond the descriptive form.

[65:21]

Be with it in a way that's beyond the way of being with it so that we can talk about it. So our dreams and our fantasies are a way to be with what's happening in such a way that we can talk about it. And you know, negotiate and all that stuff we do. But the meditation we're starting with here is a meditation beyond the usefulness of our experience. Actually the actual fundamental function, which is beyond our grasp, but is actually the relationship. To start training ourselves to ground ourselves in that way of being with things. That's what we're trying to talk about too, how to meditate that way. Maybe one more from Rosie. I am wondering about a belief in the things beyond what you believe.

[66:26]

And like, why do you hold this teaching I'm pretty confident and pretty sure about this teaching, yes. And this is a teaching about how what I'm talking about is an impermanent thing. ungraspable. So I'm confident that part of the meditation is to open up to the ungraspable, inconceivable nature of phenomena. Phenomena also have a conceivable nature, a conceivable aspect. But I'm saying a fundamental meditation is to open up to the inconceivable. And then we can move on. And then our behavior starts changing in that meditation. And then as we become more virtuous, we're more successful at looking at the the way conception works.

[67:29]

So I'm confident that that is a path. However, I'm also fairly confident that it's kind of rough for people. Lots of emotional difficulty in the transition from our untrained state to our trained state. So people are pretty freaked out during training. And then I have to watch the freak out and watch my dream about what the freak out is and not go fall for that. That's my challenge. And that's really hard. That's what I'm talking to you about tonight. And I'm confident that it's a difficult study. So when people are having a hard time, I say, yeah, it's difficult. It's hard to make this transition from believing what you think to opening to something beyond what you're thinking. It doesn't mean trashing what you think. It just means don't believe it's real. Just understand it's what you think. It's conception. And then we can study that later.

[68:33]

But now it's kind of like wean ourselves from grasping it so tightly and taking it so seriously. And then let me know if you think you're becoming immoral. But I haven't noticed that people stop caring about people when they stop believing that people are what they think they are. There might be a little emotional squall there, you know, or say, well, if I can't believe what I think of people, then I'm not going to care about them at all. Okay, okay. People get over that. They pout for a while. I can care about them if I get to believe that they are what I think of them. But if I can't believe that, then I don't think I'll care about people at all. I'm just going to have no feelings anymore if I can't believe that people are what I think they are. Okay, yeah. So when I hear that, then I have to go, you're not really what I think you are right now. And I can keep caring about you even though you're not how you appear to be pouting about all this.

[69:44]

You're beyond that. So then if I don't pout because you're pouting, then maybe you can say, well, maybe I don't have to pout either then. I'll do a little bit more pouting and then I'll stop. But how can you be confident? How can I be confident? Yes. I don't know how I'm confident. I can have an idea about how I'm confident. You want to hear about it? Yes. Later. When we're studying fantasy. What I think about how I'm confident or how I come to be confident is a fantasy. We can study those stories. But how I'm confident, we're studying the other dependent character of how I'm confident. And I don't know how I'm confident. But she asked me, and I said yes.

[70:49]

I don't know how that happened. You can make a story. Each one of you can make a story of how that happened or didn't happen or whether it's true or false. That's where the contradiction can be. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but My understanding of the teaching is that we are to understand that the imputation, the other dependent is beyond our imputation. And so that this teaching is just an imputation onto the other dependent, actually. So we can't actually then, based on my understanding of it, even believe this teaching. because it's merely an imputational overlay onto the other. Therefore, it would be difficult for me to comment on it. I don't know if you have to believe this teaching.

[71:51]

It didn't say when they believed this teaching, it said when they hear this teaching. Maybe you say, well, you have to believe it and not to listen to it. Okay. But... I think what I've seen anyway is that when people apply this teaching to their experience, they start to act differently and feel differently about their experience. It seems to be the case. And people seem to pretty much follow right along with… This group of people here at Green Lab seem to be following right along with what the sutra says, what happened when people listened to this teaching. their behavior changes, and also they start to get new kinds of emotions in regard to compounded phenomena start to arise. Just like I said, rather than becoming more angry about compounded phenomena or more attached to compounded phenomena, they start to become a little bit more confused and disoriented about them. Like it says. The other way is they're confused and disoriented, but really it looks like they're locked into some habit.

[72:57]

So to me it seems like what the sutra says seems to be happening in this group of people that are listening to this teaching and who are actually listening and applying to it, applying it. And as I do it myself, it seems to work. It seems to work when I think somebody is really, really outrageous. and I apply this teaching, then I, it helps me not take that seriously, and then I stop, and then I'm not going to act towards this person in a way that might not be very kind, because I think they're so terrible. I mean, like, you know, and actually, of course, they're a bodhisattva who is just, like, testing me, right? Okay, you think, okay, how about this? Can fall for this one? really it's a bodhisattva, you know, this inconceivable presentation, you know, in such a way that I'll come up with this dream about it.

[74:01]

It'll be very tempting for me to believe. It's so seductive. It's quarter of nine, and I appreciate that there seem to be still quite a few people, first timers, who have questions, but I also feel like because of the lateness of the hour, it might be good to stop, if that's all right, for the people who are raising their hands. Is that okay? So during Sashin, I'm going to change the vocabulary a little bit and more talk about non-thinking. Because there's some new people coming to the Sashin who haven't been initiated so much into this teaching. So I think the language might be a little bit different. But if you hear the word non-thinking, non-thinking is training in meditating, also another way of, Dogen's way of talking, and Yashan's way of talking about meditating on the other dependent.

[75:15]

But if I feel somehow that the new people coming to Sesshin are capable of hearing this teaching in its more classical form, I might bring it up again, but The language might change. Did you not understand that, Grace? You look like you thought it wasn't clear. No, I was going to ask that. So when do you even get back to this teaching? When? Yeah. Well, I don't know. But if I see myself getting back to it, I'll try to give the same word to you. They are in tension with an inequality in the country to be in that place.

[76:27]

With the truth, they're very tough with their level of strength. Being a child of our own race, I am able to say that the English names of our priorities help us to grow. I don't know what to do right now. I don't know what to do right now. People in practice period don't know. There's a very powerful kind of pulmonary virus coming from Asia that is deadly in some cases. Rarely.

[77:30]

Rarely. Rarely. But more often than most diseases. Rarely. Anyway. Three or four percent. So about five percent, less than five percent die. And so there's a big concern, you know. People are, this is a really good time to go to Asia if you want to because you can fly round trip to Asia. Everybody's afraid to go to China and so on now because of this. But anyway, that's what SARS is. It's severe. Sudden acute. Sudden acute. Respiratory. Respiratory syndrome. And there was a plane that landed at San Jose Meta Airport yesterday. I don't know if they had one. Five people were suffering with it. and I don't know where they went.

[78:32]

So anyway, temporarily, if anybody tries to mug you, just say you have SARS. If they listen to the radio, get back off. And pause.

[78:39]

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