A couple sittings ago, I didn't do much interviews. Remember that? Were you here? Did I do zero? I did just one interview, so I was able to sit much of the day. I wish I had two bodies. I had a body that had two parts, one that could be in this end and another in another room. Great. So I was here with you? Wonderful. Earlier today, I shared the ancient teaching that, putting it negatively,

[01:05]

so long as we do not actually situate ourselves in the realm of conscious construction only, so long will we be inclined towards grasping, towards believing duality. On the other hand, once we have entered the realm of conscious construction only, by practicing the six perfections, then bodhisattvas attain the six perfections of a purified aspirational disposition. Therefore, even if they do not make much effort in the six perfections,

[02:09]

their commitment to the true dharma of the great vehicle, and their reflections of spiritual relish, pleasure, delight, their contemplation of kindness, acceptance and rejoicing, will be continuously cultivated without interruption. Without even making an effort to practice the six perfections, their aspiration will be unhindered, uninterrupted, unstoppable, and pure of any grasping. So this teaching is kind of a tough teaching, to imagine that you would actually enter the realm of realization of just conscious construction, but once we're in there, the practice really flows forth in a wondrous and unhindered way.

[03:13]

And then there's a verse celebrating this situation. This is written by our ancestor Asanga. Bodhisattvas accumulate the pure dharmas, cultivating radiant qualities to perfection. The bodhisattvas attain a subtle patience and keen acceptance of the great discourse on the perfections, the profound and vast aspect of their own vehicle. So they are aware of only ideas. They see merely one single concept, and they attain a wisdom that does not cling.

[04:17]

The purity of their commitment is described as a stage of purified aspiration, purified faith. Living in the unfolding of the dharma, abiding in this dharma, the bodhisattvas see all the buddhas, now and those in the past and future. Meeting the buddhas, they know that awakening is near. Without difficulty, they attain it easily. In the presence of the buddha, of course, buddhas nearby. And the practice is not difficult. But what's difficult is to be a human being.

[05:22]

It's not so difficult for a fish to be a human being, or a dog to be a human being, but very difficult, much more difficult for us to be a human being than to be a dog. That's why a lot of people like dogs better than humans. It's okay that you like dogs better than humans, that's a common human characteristic. So the job is to really be totally ordinary human being, and that's really hard, and you need to practice the six perfections to do it, and if you can practice the six perfections to do it, and you can really be a human, then you will find out that you're living in the realm of mere concept. That's the kind of mind human beings have, is they generate concepts, they generate objects, minds arise with objects,

[06:26]

which look like they're separate from the subjects, and it's natural for us to be fooled by that. That's our situation, and it's difficult to live in accord with that, but if you're really kind you can, and if you really do, then your practice will really be unhindered. Your aspiration will be purified, and this will be extremely joyful, and you'll have tremendous enthusiasm, and it will be uninterrupted. The text goes on from here to elaborate on this in wonderful detail, but today we don't have time to go into that, but there's wonderful discussions of various aspects of these practices of Bodhisattvas, elaborating on what it's like when you actually accept conscious construction only.

[07:33]

Some of you are familiar with the description of what's called self-fulfilling samadhi, or self-receiving and employing samadhi. The amazing, inconceivable realm of the workings of the Buddha, that's what it's like after you accept being a human. So again, our difficult job is to accept our humanness, our human delusion, our human vulnerability to being duped by our mind, which creates false images. So basically the principle again is, by immersing ourself in the flow of the unreal, we realize the real. But that's not easy to do, and so we have practices of kindness and patience for ourselves and others

[08:37]

who are trying to do this difficult work of being ordinary. Yes? I'm wondering when you say that human mind generating concepts, I think sometimes that my mind does a lot of story creation. Yeah. When something, when there's an event, it's very hard to just see it as what happened without attaching some sort of story around it. Is that a similar thing? He just said it's very hard to see it as what's happening without creating a story around it. It's impossible to see it as what's happening without creating a story about it. As soon as you see that something's happening, you've just created a story. In reality, things do not fall into happening and not happening.

[09:39]

In reality, our life is free of happening and not happening, which is similar to saying birth and death. We have a life that really doesn't fall into the category of birth and death. Birth and death is the way life is when you make something happen. And so you tell a story like this is happening and now it's over. So it's impossible to live in the realm where things are happening without telling the story that something's happening. And you can elaborate on that story quite a bit, and that makes it quite entertaining. A movie about where nothing happens might not attract a lot of people. But a movie where something is happening, then people can come and tell stories. We do do that, and we're not trying not to do that, we're trying to completely immerse ourselves in what we are doing.

[10:44]

And what we are doing is we're elaborating on reality. That's what it means to be a sentient being, to elaborate on reality. And the true body of Buddha does not elaborate on reality, and therefore it's very difficult for us to understand it. However, it compassionately is sending us messages from the realm of non-elaboration, which we then elaborate into language, but still the teaching gets through in this elaborated linguistic form, and still guides us to be kind to our elaborations, our stories, in such a way that we can be totally engaged in our stories, and thereby transcend them by that total engagement. So the Buddhas are teaching us how to engage in the unreal in order to transcend it. So the funny thing about these six perfections, or six transcendent practices,

[11:46]

is there are six teachings about how to engage in the unreal so you can transcend them. There are six ways to engage so that you can transcend. Most people are, what do you call it, a little bit, everybody's a little bit engaged in their life. Almost nobody can avoid it 100%, because then they wouldn't be suffering, if they could avoid it 100%. But our inability to avoid it entirely is enough to make us miserable. And doing it half is miserable, doing it 29% is miserable, 75% is miserable. We actually have to get to 100%. So we're not being the least bit stingy about being ordinary, and those practices help us do it. So the practices of transcendence are really practices, at the beginning, before enlightenment, they're practices of total engagement in non-transcendence.

[12:51]

But that's difficult, to be totally engaged in non-transcendence. But these practices are how we can be totally engaged in non-transcendence. I remember one time I read, Kurshid said something like, something like this, you have to understand that you're in prison. People have to understand they're in prison. And that's not a nice thing to understand. Here we are in this beautiful temple of no abode, and Kurshid is saying, you have to understand you are in prison in no abode. And then you need somebody who was in prison, who got out, to instruct you how to get out. So the Buddhas have been in prison, and they were in prison in such a way that they got out of prison,

[13:56]

and now they're sending us instructions about how to be free of prison. And the first instruction is, you have to admit that you're in prison, and use what's happening with you as your way out. Use what's happening with you, not what you'd like to be happening, not what you used to be happening, but what's happening now, which just happens to have the virtue of happening now. It's not better than what was happening yesterday or tomorrow, it's just most relevant to liberation. Again, that story about the Muslim who was put in prison, and one of his friends sent him a prayer rug, and he was really disappointed with getting a prayer rug. He wanted a bomb, or some money to bribe the guards, or a saw to cut the bars,

[14:59]

but he got a prayer rug, and he really was upset. And after some time, he calmed down enough to figure, well, since I'm in prison, maybe I'll just use the prayer rug. And he bowed in the prayer rug, and bowed in the prayer rug, and he started to notice the pattern in the prayer rug, and he noticed that it was a very strange pattern in the prayer rug, he'd never seen one like that before. And the more he looked at it, the more he realized how strange it was, he realized that it was actually a diagram of something. And he realized, finally, it was a diagram of the lock of his cage. And so then he knew how to unlock it, because he paid attention to where he was. So our way to help all beings be happy is actually written in our situation right now. And our situation right now is that we are ordinary.

[16:02]

And that means we have a story that we're telling right now, which looks like something other than a story, looks like actually something true about it. And we can prove that it's true, too, probably, to the satisfaction of ourself, anyway. Yes? What chapter are you reading from? I'm reading from chapter four of the Embracing the Great Vehicle, which is called the cause and fruit, or the cause and result, of entry into the realm of conscious construction only, the realm in which enlightenment lives. It enters the realm and then gives up the entry in the realm.

[17:02]

And it enters by the six perfections. That's the cause of entry. And the result of the entry is the six perfections. So the same practices cause the entry and are the fruit of the entry. It's just that afterwards, they're effortless, and before they're a bit of a struggle. Afterwards, it's easy to be an ordinary person. And Bodhisattvas want to be ordinary people because they're teaching ordinary people. They don't want to be liberated sages because they're interested in helping ordinary people. So they want to be in the realm of ordinary people. And once they accept being ordinary, it's actually not so difficult to be with these ordinary people. But before we accept being ordinary, it's kind of difficult to be with ourselves and with these other people who are so ordinary. Actually, they seem kind of extraordinarily ordinary. All right. Yes?

[18:11]

Why do you call it the practice of the perfection? Are you saying that the practice of the perfection is ordinary or leads to being an ordinary person? How is that ordinary? Well, it's extraordinary for somebody to accept that they're ordinary. And these perfections are called perfections, but perfection partly means that they're complete. Through these practices, you can completely accept being ordinary, which is rare. You know, it's kind of extraordinary that a sentient being would accept being ordinary. But still, they've just accepted being the way they are, so it really is ordinary. It's just that they accept it. So it's unusual, it's extraordinary, but they're completely ordinary, just like everybody else, except that they know it. They really know their ordinariness thoroughly.

[19:14]

And then they can drop that, get over their thorough realization of being ordinary, so that their realization of ordinary isn't something out there. And then they continue to be ordinary and show other people who are having a hard time being ordinary how to do it. Because that's what everybody's problem is. It's so hard to be ordinary. But the great bodhisattvas are the ones who are the champion ordinary ones. And they've got all kinds of encouraging ways to encourage us to follow them in being ordinary. Ordinary human, ordinary dog, whatever. There are beings who completely accept being in a claustrophobic situation. To encourage the other people who are in a claustrophobic situation,

[20:21]

who are having trouble accepting claustrophobia. The days are becoming autumnal, more and more autumnal. I hope you enjoy the autumnal days. They help us get ready for the mind of winter. The mind of winter is the mind that accepts conscious construction only. But we have to kind of like die into it. So let's die into it. May our attention equally extend to every being and place with the true method of Buddha's way.

[21:24]

Beings are numberless. I vow to save them. Delusions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The world's way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it. And one more thing. They're called perfections because they enable us to be completely imperfect. Thank you all very much for the great day. Thank you.

[22:31]

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