This weekend, today and tomorrow, we're having a little different kind of Sashin, a study Sashin, where we sit Zazen in combination with study. We did this last year, and I have done this in other places very successfully. It gives us a nice way to concentrate on the subject when we sit zazen at the same time during the day. So the subject that I've chosen for this study session is called, in Pali, pratītyasamutpāda. In Sanskrit, I think it's pratītyasamutpāda. Anyway, slight difference, meaning dependent origination.

[01:28]

Dependent origination means something arises dependent on something else. Nothing arises by itself. Everything that manifests manifests in combination with something else. So if you think about it, this is why in Buddhism there's the concept of no self, no inherent self, no separate self that is not conditioned by something else. So in Buddhism, there's no first cause. So this is why people call it the devil. There's no deity that is a first cause in Buddhism.

[02:34]

is simply endless risings due to causes and conditions, and just endless transformations of phenomena. But there are many levels, several levels of what that means. So this paticca samudpada, dependent origination, co-dependent origination, is at one and the same time the simplest and most complex and difficult of Buddha's teachings. And it's actually the heart of Buddha's teaching. And although we talk about it in many ways, And we don't necessarily recognize it as such. When we study it in a very concentrated way, we see that, begin to understand how this all came about as a teaching.

[03:48]

So, Pajita Samudpada is the explication of Buddha's Four Noble Truths. the unfolding of Buddha's Four Noble Truths. As you know, Buddha's Four Noble Truths are the truth of suffering or unsatisfactoriness or difficulties that we're all prone to. The second truth is that there's a reason why this is so. And the reason is given in various ways. Desire, mindlessness, ignorance, delusions and so forth are the causes of our suffering. So this is the first part.

[04:52]

The first two truths give the disease, the dis-ease. The second part is the cure. It's called the Dharma gates are endless. All you have to do is open them up and you'll find the truth of the Dharma, which helps you to deal with your suffering. And then the way to do that, which is the fourth truth, is to follow the Eightfold Path. right view, right feature, and so forth. So the first part is the disease, and the second part is the cure. People often talk about Buddhism as if Buddhism is only concerned with suffering. Buddhism is all about suffering.

[05:53]

But actually, Buddhism is all about how to deal with suffering, how to not get caught by suffering. That's what Buddhism is really about. But in order to talk about that, you have to talk about how it comes about, in order to talk about how to let go of it. So these are the two sides, two aspects. I'm gonna look at my notes. So in Buddha's first sermon, he talked about the Four Noble Truths, and he talked about the Three Dharma Seals. The Three Dharma Seals are the three legs of our understanding.

[06:57]

One is that there is suffering and also that there is nirvana. And the second one is that there is no inherent self in things or people. And the other is impermanence. Everything is impermanent. I remember my teacher Suzuki Roshi always saying, there's only one main understanding of Buddhism, which is everything changes. If you realize that everything changes, then you will understand, they'll give you the foundation for understanding how things work. So there is no permanence, and there is no inherent self, but we create a self. So this is, the creation of a self is directly related to paticca-samudpada. which is how we create an ego, a false sense of being, which leads to suffering.

[08:10]

So there are different kinds of suffering. There's the kind of suffering where you break your leg, and so you have a lot of pain and a lot of suffering. That's not paticca-samuppada. That's simply suffering from an injury. Paticca Samudpada comes up when you say, I broke my leg and I really feel sorry for myself. As soon as you say, I feel sorry for myself, you've created a self. If you simply said, this leg is broken, there is no self. No self has arisen. And the suffering which is caused by the arising of a self is not there. Only the suffering of the leg, of the condition.

[09:15]

So that's When there is no arising of a self through self-conditions, self-forming conditions, then there is no self. So it's possible to live our life without the creation of a self. when Buddha Shakyamuni was sitting under the Bodhi tree, he realized how one thing leads to the next, to create a self, which leads to suffering. And then he eliminated all those causes, and people will say, well, if that's so, why is he still alive? And we think that because we are so dependent on the self for satisfaction that we can't imagine what it's like not to have one and still be alive, which is called the greatest happiness.

[10:32]

So usually we're involved in the pursuit of happiness, and it's in our Bill of Rights And so we're greedily pursuing happiness, which never arrives, because it's not something you can pursue. You can pursue it, I mean, but it's not something that you will grasp. So a self arises through attachment. As soon as we attach to something, that's the self. When we don't attach to something, then the self doesn't arise. even though we walk and talk and do all of our work and interactions and so forth, that self is not arisen because there's no attachment. There are many views about paticca-samutpada.

[11:44]

And a lot of those views have arisen, which are considered not really Buddhism, for various reasons. I tell you, this is difficult. subject. So I've chosen two texts. One is by Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, who was a Thai monk who died recently, and he was considered a kind of maverick, kind of like our American teachers, we consider kind of mavericks, but being a Thai Buddhist and yet and Zen, and emptiness, the concepts of emptiness and so forth. And he has very strict, pure understanding of paticca-samuppada, and I like his stuff very much.

[12:49]

And then Thich Nhat Hanh, who has also a very similar view. And the reason why I kind of trust these two views is because to me they accord with Suzuki Roshi's views. So I'm going to read a little bit, comment a little bit on some of his things he says. Buddhadasa Bhikkhu, he talks about the origins of paticcasamutpada. So he says, now I'd like to talk about the origins of dependent origination. How did dependent origination come to be formulated? How did it originate? In the 10th sutra of the Buddha's sutras, the Buddha told of his own life as an ascetic monk, how one day he discovered what we now call paticca-samutpada.

[13:52]

And now I will quote the Pali scripture for the Buddha's own story. He says, bhikkhus, before I became enlightened, when I was still a bodhisattva, I had this feeling. All beings, without exception in this world, suffer. They are born, get old, and die, and are born again. When the beings of this world don't know the method to free themselves from suffering, that is from old age and death, how will they be able to escape that suffering? Bhikkhus, I wondered what it is that must be present for old age and death to arise. What is the condition of old age and death? Bhikkhus, this supremely clear-sighted and wise knowledge arose in me by means of my wise mental training. Well, I'm sure he didn't say that exactly like that. People like to put words in the mouth of the Buddha. but you get the picture. And then born again.

[14:54]

So this born again is a big subject. In paciccasamutpada, in its pure sense, it's not the birth and death of this body. It's not concerned with that. There are two levels. One is our usual, way of thinking about our life. We were born in a certain date from the mother's womb, and we lived our life, and then one day we died. That's one, we think in terms of that cycle. And then, people often think in terms of, well, then there's a rebirth, right? Things go around in a circle. That's not what pratityasamutpada is concerned with. Paticca Samuppada is concerned with the birth of the self as ego, as a phantom, as a fantasy. And the death of the I, me, mine, as a fantasy.

[16:02]

That's what it's concerned about. It's about suffering and it's also about happiness. It's about how we can let go of suffering by letting go of attachment, and happiness is the result. It's not about in the precepts, Buddhist precepts. The precepts are, when you see them literally, they're about morality. That's the lower form of precepts. And when people usually discuss precepts, that's the level on which we discuss them. Don't kill, don't steal, and so forth, which is important. But this is on a different level. This is on the level of ultimate reality, Prajnaparamita, and on the level of non-duality.

[17:09]

So this is what makes it a little bit tricky. So when you say old age, birth, old age, and death, talking about the birth, old age, and death of the arising of the I in one moment. So this is the, when we say conditioned arising, there are the whole list of conditions that lead to a result. So the usual stereotype is the 12 conditions, sometimes 11 conditions. He speaks of 11 conditions. Sometimes there are six, nine. But it doesn't really matter how many there are. But this is the usual stereotype.

[18:13]

Because birth is, old age and death are. So old age and death are conditioned by birth. So old age and death have birth as a condition. Birth has becoming as a condition. Becoming has attachment as a condition. Attachment has craving as a condition. Craving has feeling as a condition. Feeling has contact as a condition. Contact has the sense bases as a condition. The sense bases have mentality, materiality as a condition. Mentality, materiality, has consciousness as a condition. Consciousness has mental concocting as a condition. Mental concocting has ignorance as a condition.

[19:15]

Then the Buddha reviews what he said in another way. Because ignorance is a condition, the mental concocting arises. because mental concocting is a condition, consciousness arises, and so forth. So he says, the whole mass of suffering arises in this way. One aspect conditions the next. This is one way of thinking about it. that there's a kind of progression of causes and conditions that lead to suffering. But actually, the other way of thinking about it is that within one moment of the arising of a self through a cause, the whole circle arises at the same time.

[20:19]

It's all there in each moment of self. Well, that's a good point, because this is not the same as a condition creating, or a cause creating a condition. The cause and the condition arise at the same time. So, there is a distinction and there isn't a distinction, because they arise at the same time. It's not just one thing, there are two things, but they arise at the same time. So the cause and the condition, the condition conditions the cause, and the cause conditions the condition, the other way around. Oh, a condition, say, desire is a condition.

[21:23]

Any aspect of desire is a condition, and it's also a cause. I want something, so want something, want and something are causing a condition. Well, it becomes a cause. the condition becomes the cause and the cause becomes the condition. So if you don't separate them, you can't talk about it. We always separate things that seem to arise at the same time in order to be able to talk about something. But I'm not done yet. So when we have our class, We'll have a discussion, but this is my introduction.

[22:27]

The public lecture is my introduction, although I'll try to leave a little space for some questions. So he says, this is the discovery, paticca samudpada, by the Buddha before his enlightenment. We can call it the discovery of the links of the chain of suffering. It was discovered that suffering arises by means of these 11 conditions or stages. When there is sense contact and ignorance is dominant, when mindfulness is not present, then consciousness arises immediately. So this is an important point. Mindfulness is the important factor here. When mindfulness is present, when contact of an object is there and mindfulness is present, then that's the possibility that the I will not arise.

[23:36]

When mindfulness is not present, then the sense of I arises because there's nothing to interrupt it. Mindfulness is what keeps the eye from arising. In other words, when contact and an object give a rise to consciousness, there's a choice to either allow the eye to arise or to let it go of it. Mindfulness is the key. So there's a lot of technical language here, which I'm trying to avoid. So suffering, he says, is dependent on

[24:46]

Origination must always depend on attachment. So attachment is the key. There's a passage that I want to find here, an example. I want to give you this example. Okay, here's an example.

[25:49]

Let us suppose that a young lady sees her boyfriend walking along with another woman. She immediately becomes inflamed. Within that space of a brief moment, she becomes so enraged that it is just as if she had passed through 10 hells so burned up is she. And all this because she saw her boyfriend walking together with another woman. What has happened is that her eyes have seen the form of her boyfriend with another woman. Now, let me explain something. In order for consciousness of something to arise, there has to be a sense door and an object. These are the three factors that are, if there's no object, there's nothing seen. And if there's no eye, there's no means of seeing.

[26:54]

So there has to be an eye to see and an object in order for consciousness to arise. Otherwise, it does not arise. You may say, well, it's dormant or it doesn't exist. It only exists when there's an object and a sense door. either one of the five senses or the mind. So what has happened is that her eye, which is the sense door, has seen the form of her boyfriend, the object, with another woman. This causes eye consciousness to arise immediately. Before this moment, this kind of consciousness did not exist. There was only a functionless consciousness, a consciousness without any duty to perform. You could say there was no consciousness. But now, this kind of consciousness arises with just that form and these eyes, and together they make contact.

[28:01]

Just a moment ago there was no contact. Now there is. There is coming together of the I and the object of form, the I of consciousness. So this is conditioned arising. All these conditions are present for something to manifest. Contact arises and causes feeling, craving, and so on to arise. Or to put it in more detail, one consciousness arises. It causes a newly conditioned kind of body-mind to arise, which in turn gives rise to the kind of sense bases. He's going through all that litany of conditions that are arising. Eyes that can experience suffering. So this is followed by a feeling of suffering and a restless craving. Then arises attachment to the I concept. I, I, I'm so mad. I could die."

[29:03]

And it all arose by way of the I. This is birth, jati. It is a suffering-prone ego. An I that can experience dissatisfaction has arisen and will become subject to suffering. We can simply say that it is an ego so attached to its suffering that it's arising that it suffers. It is the passing away of this ego that is suffering, sorrow, and frustration. In other words, with the ego passing away is also suffering, because we like our ego. This is full-blown paticcasamutpada, 11 conditions, all within the mind of this young girl. This particular example of paticcasamutpada arises by way of the eye. Now let us suppose that this young lady was fooled by one of her friends.

[30:05]

In fact, her boyfriend is not going with any other woman. But someone decides to play a trick on her and tell her that her boyfriend was seen going with some other woman, and she believes it. Now there is ear contact. She hears that through the ear. Sound comes in by way of the ear, and ear consciousness, accompanied by ignorance, is present. Because there is no mindfulness, this air consciousness gives rise to mentality, materiality, in other words, body and mind. Her body and mind are newly primed to give rise to the sense bases, which will function in a way that leads to suffering, as in this example. Once the sense bases have arisen, there is complete contact, and then the feeling appropriate to the situation, namely, an unpleasant feeling arises. Restless craving then arises, which gives rise to attachment. Then there is the full-blown becoming of the I-mind concept. It is the birth of the I, which has suffering, grief, and lamentation.

[31:10]

Suffering has arisen in accordance with the law of dependent origination by way of the ear, and so forth. Now, there's another example. I would like to talk about people in general when they are chewing some very tasty food. Most people become unmindful when they are eating delicious food. They are forgetful and ignorance is in control. Let this be a given. When eating something delicious, mindfulness is absent because of the delicious taste. And so ignorance is present. We may think that's not necessarily so. And it's true. It's not necessarily so. But it is so. The thoughts of the person experiencing, in this way, something very delicious, are a complete manifestation of paticcasamutpada already, in the same sort of way as in the previous examples.

[32:12]

When the tongue and one of its objects, in this case, taste, come into contact, tongue consciousness arises, which creates a new mentality, materiality, in the sense of changing ordinary mental material into that kind of mental material capable of experiencing suffering. There then arises the sense basis capable of having contact and feeling, which can experience unpleasantness or pleasantness from the present situation. If the experience is one of good taste, then the average run-of-the-mill person calls it pleasurable feeling. But as soon as the good taste is clung to, there is attachment, which then transforms the feeling into one prone to suffering because of the tendency to want to sustain that good taste and make it last. People cling to and grasp after it and begin to worry and become anxious about it. They become attached to it. And all in this way, the good taste or pleasant feeling instantly becomes a manifestation of suffering.

[33:18]

This is delicious. I'm happy. I'm really happy. But the mind is a slave of pleasure because it is aflame with attachment. to the pleasure. So this is about how to not become a victim of your own senses, which is the hardest thing, because we think, we talk a lot about how we're victimized, but really, our biggest tendency is to victimize ourself, to set up the conditions in ourself to be a victim. when you think about it. We don't usually think about it, though. Innocent delights. This happened a few years ago when I was visiting the Plum Village in France and I was invited to join them for a potluck dinner.

[34:23]

And I remember a few of the nuns just ran to the table. And they were just kind of like drooling over the food. And this head nun looked at them and said, what, you've never seen food before? So I knew exactly what you were talking about. Well, we're all victims. I have to admit my own self-victimization. I really like food. But we should realize what we're doing. The main thing is unaccompanied by mindfulness, we lose it. So this whole thing is the same. We learn all this in Zazen. We attach to our feelings, we attach to our thoughts, we attach to our, and we create a self in zazen where there is none.

[35:35]

So this is a great place to study selflessness, self and selflessness. So he keeps on going on about this. And it reminds me of a story Suzuki Roshi once told about this Zen master who loved smoking. He used to smoke a pipe, I don't know what he smoked, but he was a very good Zen master. And one day he took a hike up the mountain and it was very foggy at the top of the mountain. And I don't know how Suzuki Roshi knew about this, but he said, You know, when you smoke in the fog, it's wonderful. And if you've ever been a smoker, you realize that when you smoke in the fog, there's something about the way that smoke blends with the fog that's really satisfying. And so he went up the mountain and lit his pipe and it all comes out and it's beautiful.

[36:44]

And he enjoyed it so much. that he gave up smoking. He had the ultimate satisfaction and then let it go. So, I don't know how long I have now. Times have changed. I don't care, okay. So, Do you have time for questions? Yeah. Well, it becomes not helpful when you go back for seconds.

[37:56]

But deep appreciation is great. It's really about how you really appreciate everything without attaching. It's very simple and complex. Yes, well, ignorance is the beginning only because everything arises. Ignorance is not a cause. It's not a first cause. It is a cause. but it's not a first cause in the sense of origination. Ignorance means not understanding how it works.

[39:12]

So not understanding how it works is the cause for all of the problems. So knowledge and wisdom are the opposite of ignorance. So there are two wheels. One is that wheel that I mentioned, that I went through. That's the wheel of ignorance that leads to suffering. There's another wheel, which is the opposite of all of those conditions, which is a bigger wheel, which leads to enlightenment and liberation. I didn't talk about that one. You have to come to the class to know about it. Well, death and ignorance? Well, when there's ignorance, there's the idea of birth and death. When ignorance is absent or becomes wisdom, then we're not fooled by the ideas of birth and death.

[40:22]

Right, that's because birth and death, if you think about it that way, then that's annihilationism. And the other side is eternalism. So what Buddhism avoids is those two extremes. One is nothing, and the other is everlasting, right? So those are the two extremes that Buddhism avoids. because in the eternalism, it means that there's something that goes forever, that's you. And in annihilationism, it means there's nothing at the end, but the truth is in the middle. It's both and or neither or. And this is the title of Suzuki Roshi, that we gave Suzuki Roshi's book, Not Always So.

[42:02]

It means not necessarily so, but he said not always so. And this is the truth of the middle way. If you say there's no self, that's not quite right because there is a self. If you say there is a self, that's not quite right because there is no self. If you say there's birth, Well, that's not quite right because there is no birth. And if you say there is no birth, that's not quite right because there is birth. If you say there is no death, that's not quite right because there is death. But if you say there is death, that's not quite right because there is no death. This is the transcendent level that pratītyasamutpāda is on. This is called enlightenment, to understand this thoroughly. I mean, to really know that. But we get stuck in opposites.

[43:07]

We get stuck in the dualism. And rightly so. But getting stuck helps us to get unstuck. by working with the problem is what gives us the impetus to get free of it. Be Thine...

[43:53]

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