Welcome to the class on the Heart Sutra. What we're going to do is we're going to study this sutra section by section. So each of the four nights we're going to talk about a different section of the sutra. And tonight, just for a couple of minutes in the beginning, I'm going to give a little background and context for the Heart Sutra. And I'm just curious, who here is unfamiliar with the Heart Sutra? Who has never chanted it or only chanted it a couple of times? And who... Is anyone new to Buddhism? a lot of advanced students here.

[01:04]

OK, well, I'm going to just talk about some really introductory information. After that, we will chant the Heart Sutra. People can ask questions and then we'll talk about it. OK? Yeah. What we're thinking is that that each night what we would do is maybe take half of the evening half of the class time and go through more or less one quarter of the text or so and then the other half of the class we would have discussion on a particular focus so it may not work out that neatly But that's kind of the idea. We don't want to just have the whole class be just a commentary going through line by line. So it's not going to be like that.

[02:06]

And yet, it is necessary to do that. So we're going to sort of do it half and half. And also, we've talked, Karen and I have talked about it, we'd like to have a lot of dialogue in this class, not just us lecturing. On the other hand, we don't want to get off and start for longer and go off on endless tangents because we only have four classes. So we have to find that balance of having discussion but kind of keeping it really to a point. OK. Well, I'm sorry, but this is so funny. So by way of introduction, what is a sutra? And sutras claim to record the events and teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha.

[03:10]

So they're considered to be the direct teachings of the Buddha himself. And in Buddha's time, there were only oral means of teaching. These talks that he gave were not written down for hundreds of years. So Buddha was born around 550, 560 before the common era and this oral tradition continued on and then around the second century CE there was a proliferation of written material of which this is one. The word sutra actually means thread and it's related etymology. Thank you to our word sutra. And it refers to keeping things together by a thread because in the olden days they were actually written on leaves and palm leaves, parts of the sutras and then they were tied together.

[04:21]

So, sutras tend to be repetitive, which you've probably noticed having read the Heart Sutra or chanted it many times. And this was probably a way to help people remember what was being taught, because that was how you learned by repeating it over and over again. And they generally don't contain a lot of rhetoric, and they don't appeal to the emotions, but very often what they contain are dialogues. Very often the Buddha is correcting a student and the students are discussing their beliefs and Buddha comes in and corrects them and tells them what the Dharma is. And the Heart Sutra is a bit unusual because in this case we have Bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara actually giving the teaching as Buddha sits by and listens.

[05:31]

So, the Heart Sutra is part of a great body of literature known as the Partner Paramita Sutras. And this These prajnaparamita supras are part of what's known as the Mahayana tradition and it forms the core of what's known as the second turning of the wheel of the Dharma. So the first turning of the wheel was right after Buddha's enlightenment and those first teachings were about the truth of suffering and the cessation of suffering. And then later he gave teachings and they were called the second turning of the wheel of the Dharma. And those teachings focused on emptiness and that is a lot of what we will be talking about in this class.

[06:37]

There actually is a third turning of the wheel which we really won't be talking about much but it's based on later on scriptures such as the Buddha Nature Sutra and Nagarjuna's collections of hymns. Anyway, these Prajnaparamita sutras were given by the Buddha at Vulture Peak Mountain and the Heart Sutra is really a condensation, the heart of Prajnaparamita literature. The Prajnaparamita sutras themselves are One version is a hundred thousand verses, and then there are shorter and shorter ones. This is the most condensed. And the first Prajnaparamita in writing was known as Practicing of the Way, which appeared around year 172.

[07:41]

And as you probably know, Prajnaparamita means wisdom beyond wisdom. So prajna means wisdom and paramita means that which has reached the other shore. So when we talk about prajna paramita we're talking about the wisdom which takes us to the other shore, the transcendental wisdom, that which relieves us, liberates us from suffering. The Prajnaparamita literature, which is part of this Mahayana tradition. Mahayana tradition has a couple of aspects to it, which are developments from earlier Buddhism. And one of them, one of them is the path of the Bodhisattva.

[08:48]

which is emphasized here. The path of the Bodhisattva is really the path of compassion and the intention to liberate all beings and to continue to help all beings. And earlier on, a lot of the practice was somewhat more oriented towards getting off this wheel of birth and death and attaining Nirvana. But the Bodhisattva path is really more about being in this world and helping others all the time. Another aspect of this Mahayana tradition is that there's some mythological figures some of the Bodhisattvas like Avalokiteshvara that we hear about eventually become, in some traditions, celestial beings, but they become objects of worship in different Buddhist traditions.

[10:04]

And then the third aspect is really the doctrine of emptiness and This is really what the Heart Sutra addresses. So the Mahayanists talk a lot about emptiness, which is moving on a little bit from the earlier Buddhists who talked about human beings having three marks or aspects to their existence, which was, as you probably know, the three marks were suffering but we all suffer impermanence and everything changes and no self there's no solid self and so in early buddhism the emphasis on suffering and impermanence

[11:12]

motivated one to seek nirvana. But later, the Mahayanas, through their teachings of emptiness, wanted to get away from that and to get beyond this dualistic distinction between this life and enlightenment or nirvana. they really strove to teach an understanding of liberation within this world rather than escaping this world. And so we will not make tons of generalizations about these different schools, but one of the best-known people, philosophers, who spoke about emptiness was Navarjuna, who lived around 250, the common era.

[12:18]

And he was one of the most known teachers of the Madhyamaka school, one of the Mahayana schools. And one of his, he frequently said no to everything. So that's something that we hear a lot in the Heart Sutra. He said, no to all things and no to no. And so he believed that to say reality did not exist would be just as absurd to say you did. So I don't want to say any more about this We want to discover together more what the heart of the teaching is. Would you like to add something? Yeah. Well, I think the way that I understand the importance of the Prajnaparamita literature and the Heart Sutra in particular is that

[13:31]

And the reason for its creation is that I don't think that Buddha preached the Heart Sutra, although some Mahayanas probably think he did. I think it was probably created later on after the fact. That's speculation, but the way I envision it, and correct me if you think I'm wrong, is that the Mahayana came up and developed or brought out the Prajnaparamita literature, as Karen was saying, as a response to what they thought was a kind of a dogmatic and rule-oriented and dualistic trend which had developed in the earlier teachings. And so there's this kind of schism that develops. So the Prajnaparamita literature, and the parts which are in particular, are a response. I mean, that's a, they're a response they're true in themselves, but they're also, they have a role of being responding to another way of looking at Buddha's teachings, which is much more rule-oriented, and kind of clinging to categories, just being obsessed with all the different variables of consciousness and categories.

[14:51]

And then the Mahayanas, some of them, some of us, tend to think that the Hinayanas, or the old school, was just... didn't really understand the nature of emptiness. And we Mahayanas do. But it's not really... from my reading, that's not exactly so. There was definitely a tendency among some of the earlier schools to just see emptiness in terms of a person. But in terms of dharmas or elements of reality, they thought that those were sort of the core elements of reality, and not necessarily empty. But Buddha himself did not say that. So I think that there's some misunderstanding, and we tend to paint all of the Hinayana development with one brush, like we all thought the same thing, but they didn't.

[15:55]

And the same way that the Mahayana has different schools, So, I think it's important to give credit to the earlier schools for not foreseeing that all things are empty, as well as some of them being carried away with only thinking that it's the person and not a phenomena. I thought I could just read you just a very short piece of the sutra These are from the Middle Length Sayings. I think it's a person's name. So the question is, the person who is challenging Buddha is saying, how does Master Gautama discipline his disciples?

[17:00]

And how is Master Gautama's instruction usually presented to his disciples? And Buddha responds, this is how I discipline my disciples, Agapatsana. And this is, that's his name. And this is how my instruction is usually presented to my disciples. Bhikshus, which is monks. Material form is impermanent. Feeling is impermanent. Perception is impermanent. Formations are impermanent. Consciousness is impermanent. Bhikshu's material form is not Self. Feeling is not Self. Perception is not Self. Formations are not Self. Consciousness is not Self. All formations, all formations are impermanent. All things are not Self. So, you see, he's talking about all phenomena, not just the person. And so, the Mahayanas talk about shunyata, voidness, emptiness, and think that that's different from anatta, which is emptiness of a self, of a person.

[18:12]

So there's kind of a distinction between these two words. And so, you know, when you read about Prajnaparamita literature, you keep running into the word shunyata. And we'll talk about that a little later. But the distinction between these two words, shunyata and anatta, is that the Mahayanas tend to think that shunyata is voidness of all phenomena, whereas anatta is more emptiness of a person. And there's just differing ways of looking at that. And then, also, just when Karen mentioned the second turning of the teachings, again, there's some question about this, like the Mahayanas think that, or say, that Buddha was, this is another round of Buddha's teachings, but that the old school or the Hinayanas would say, no, you guys just made this up, you just created this second turning.

[19:17]

So, the second turning depends who you believe. But it's not absolute. This sutra that I just quote-quoted is almost universally accepted as being part of the oral tradition of Buddha's actual teachings. The second teaching, the second turning, the Prajnaparamita teachings, aren't necessarily universally accepted in that way, except they are. I think it's interesting just to see how underneath the profundity of Buddha's teachings, we all bring our own viewpoints to it. Collective groups of people bring their own viewpoints to it. And rather than necessarily say who's right and who's wrong, I think it's just interesting to let it all kind of come out. Any questions or comments?

[20:25]

I have a question. I actually read the other day that the word Sutra is only associated with Buddha's teaching, but then I was thinking, well, what about the Yoga Sutras? Or are they just using a... It's not a Sutra. Yeah. You know, there's all these other things that are called Sutra. So... I mean, like you said, it just means thread, really. So is it just... Well, there are certain things called the Buddhist sutras. Right. Are you talking about... I'm talking about the word sutra in general, which... Right. The word sutra, of course, does not mean only teachings of the Buddha. Right. Well, yeah, I thought I heard you... I thought I... I knew you didn't say that, but it sounded like that, and that's why... I was kind of trying... Yeah. This is the other sutras that I've run into. Yeah, I meant Buddhist sutras. Yes. Question from the audience We'll get to that in more detail when we get to that part, which is coming soon.

[22:02]

But yeah, it's important to, at least in the beginning, to say that when we talk about emptiness, we don't just mean some abstract zero. But emptiness is emptiness of the own being, or independent existence, or intrinsic existence. Something which is not dependent upon something else, which is immutable, and is just there, and is independent of anything else. That's what we mean. We're saying it's empty of that fact. So, what were you saying when you were making the distinction between shunyata and anata? That anata does not understand, it does not do what you just said. No, I'm saying it does actually, that some Mahayanas think that... It's a little tricky.

[23:16]

It does mean that. That's what it did mean, emptiness of all phenomena, not just the person. But some people, some Mahayanas think that, and sort of have stressed the word shunyata, because they felt that the word anata was just being applied to people and not phenomena. Well, some were and some weren't. That's kind of the problem. Some more and some more. The implications and duality between them. Right. That's the whole point of the Heart Sutra and one of the reasons for that is the whole development of that emphasis. Is it the same concept to say no self and emptiness? Or are they different ideas?

[24:20]

They're the same. Because self, or meaning by self, it depends how you're meaning self. If you're talking about a human, you could say, no self. If you're talking about phenomena, you could say, no intrinsic existence. If you're talking about all phenomena, no separate self is the same. Yes. When you're talking about never heard somebody speak of this distinction of things being empty versus people being empty, but what comes to mind is that maybe because things don't have to overcome delusion about by himself, there was a need to have the word only for people. It's only people. Good point.

[25:21]

You didn't have words come into being because of necessity. It's like, no one can describe this, describe that. Well, it is true. If you go through, and I haven't read much, but even just skimming through the sutras, you have to look hard to find what I quoted, because mostly it's all about the person. So that's what the Mahiuna is responding to. So do you want to start through the text or do you want to go on?

[26:26]

We're going to just chant it once. Yeah. Oh, is it in one piece though? It's different? Okay, we'll just chant the one. We might forgot if we had to chant something. You're right. We used to say that. Yeah, and we changed it. So we're going to do the orthodox burpees in center position.

[27:38]

And just one thing, also I think we forgot to mention, I don't know how important it is, but just if you like history and kind of chronology, that they think, or Conza, Edward Conza, particularly thinks that this, the heart suture was put together in about, or came to light in about 350 A.D. or so, between 300 and 400. So that's where it goes back to. Common Era. [...] Common Era Great Wisdom, Beyond Wisdom, Art Sutra, ah, ah, ah, ah.

[28:49]

Prajna Paramita perceived that all five skandhas in their own being are empty and was saved from all suffering. O Shariputra, form does not differ from emptiness. Emptiness does not differ from form. That which is form is emptiness. That which is emptiness, The same is true of feelings, perceptions, formations, consciousness. O Sariputra, all dharmas are marked with emptiness. They do not appear nor disappear, are not tainted nor pure, do not increase nor decrease. Therefore, in emptiness, no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no formations, no consciousness, No eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, no touch, no object of mind, no realm of eyes until no realm of mind.

[30:10]

Consciousness, no ignorance and also no extinction of it until the old age of death and also no extinction of it. suffering, no origination, no stopping, no path, no cognition, also no attainment with nothing to attain. And the mind is no hindrance, without any hindrance no fears exist, far apart from every perverted view. One dwells in Nirvana in the three worlds, all Buddhas depend on Prajna Paramita. and attain unsurpassed, complete, perfect enlightenment. Therefore know the Prajna Paramita is the great transcendent mantra, is the great bright mantra, is the utmost mantra, is the supreme mantra which is able to relieve all suffering and is true, not false.

[31:18]

So proclaim the Prajna Paramita mantra. I think we won't be there. It's too late. So we picked out this outline to use. And it's a little bit deceptive because it looks like that why we picked this out may be because it talks about quantum reality. But that's not why we picked it out.

[32:19]

It just happens to be a nice, short, kind of cohesive outline to work from. And the part about quantum reality is interesting, and we could discuss it, but that's not really what we had in mind. It just happens to be a slant that he's interested in. Karen, this Moosong Saneem, Karen has taken a class with him. This was years ago. Basically, I took a course in Mahayana Buddhism, but I really wasn't aware that he was on this track of bringing it into the light of quantum reality. So, this was new to me, reading this particular book. But he's a very eloquent teacher.

[33:21]

So, he was American? He was a Korean? Oh, he's not American, no. He's Korean? Yes. If so, I never knew that side of him. Oh, and also, since we're starting at the beginning, there's another translation of the Heart Sutra. This is taken from the Tibetan. It's not radically different, but there's a few differences. And what the main reason that we picked this out is that, oh yeah. because this version has the introduction and the conclusion of the heart suture that we don't have in the birth presumptive version and the Bay Area version.

[34:34]

Did you say this is a Tibetan text? Well, it comes from the Tibetans. An American translated it. This is one that the Dalai Lama has used or is familiar with. It's kind of interesting to see a different translation. This is a modern translation. It's not old. And just to see a few different words for the same concepts is helpful. We don't get kind of stuck on the words because they're all translations anyway. Miki just mentioned that the title, it seems fairly straightforward. Maha is great. Prajna is wisdom, beyond wisdom. Paramita is a perfection of or a crossing over of Pradaya is heart and Sutra is current explained.

[36:19]

It's interesting there's a there's a kind of a a commentary on the Heart Sutra by Hakuen who's a Zen a famous Japanese Zen monk who lived in the early 1700s and he's got a very kind of contentious poking kind of commentary that's sort of confounding and he starts out by saying, the great wisdom beyond wisdom, the great wisdom, well what's small wisdom? If you think this is great wisdom, well what is small wisdom? Show me some small prajna. He's just trying to provoke us. Well, we're going to mostly go from the text.

[37:24]

But paramita... You know, there are a number of paramitas that we develop as part of our practice. Wisdom is one of them. And some of them include generosity, for example. There are qualities of perfection that we develop through our practice. Prajna or wisdom is considered the most important, really, of all of these things. And often it's talked about as though the Paramitas were a boat, but that which steers it is prajna, wisdom. Because without wisdom, it's hard to be... One can't truly be generous because

[38:28]

for example, or some of these other perfections aren't developed fully without the development of wisdom. We'll get to that. We're starting at the very top. So we're reading the title of the page five. So I hope some of you have read this outline or part of it already and just go through it, we're not going to so much talk about the outline as we start going through the actual text.

[39:35]

But now if you can look over on the Tibetan version, the Tibetan translation, which is a separate handout. This is the intro that's part of the Heart Sutra but is used left off. The Blessed One was staying in Rajgriha at Vulture Peak along with a great community of monks and a great community of bodhisattvas. And at that time the Blessed One entered the meditative absorption on the varieties of phenomena called the appearances of the profound." So that's it.

[40:38]

That's the little introduction that we don't recite or read. And so you can envision that Buddha is there and he goes into this meditative state, samadhi, And then Avalokita is there, Avalokiteshvara is there, and Shariputra are there. So, he's just, he's sort of, he's there, but he's not saying anything. Now, Avalokiteshvara, I mean, he's not associated with a historical person, is he? He's just a Bodhidharma person. Otherwise, is he associated with a real person? No. But Shariputra was. Shariputra was. And also it's interesting that, well we'll be going there in a minute, but Shariputra was known for being the person who was the most, sort of, knew the classifications and categories of the Dharma more than anybody else.

[41:51]

He was like the scholar that you know, he was the real scholar of the early school. So the fact that Shariputra is involved is important because he represents, from the Mahayana point of view, he represents the early school of the Hinayanas. A situation where They knew all of the categories, and they knew all of the different divisions, and they had memorized all the sutras, but maybe didn't really get it, but knew all of the facts. So it says, at that time, and now we'll go back to just the

[42:54]

Let's just use the outline. The outline is the bound version on page 10. Yes. And Karen mentioned, I think, but it's important that Avalokiteshvara, this is the only Prajnaparamita Sutra that Avalokiteshvara is in. And out of all the many volumes of writing, this is the only one that Avalokiteshvara shows up in. That's no accident.

[43:59]

And the reason appears to be that, well, Avalokiteshvara is the personification, the embodiment of compassion. And again, this is where the Mahayana was really big on Avalokiteshvara, whereas the Hinayana and the earlier schools weren't. Avalokiteshvara wasn't that important. But to the Mahayanas Avalokiteshvara was very important. And so here you have the personification of compassion speaking to the scholar, the person who knows all the facts. But the other side of the concept, for example, fairly probable. I mean, it was later on. I mean, it was sort of prior to this, but, you know, in the early days, it didn't have much of an impact.

[45:08]

My understanding is that this really developed around this time, that it was not part of the early traditions. Because really, in the beginning, mostly there were monks and people leaving home and practicing in the forest and things like that, and they really strove to, almost for extinction, that they really wanted to get off of this cycle of suffering. And the Mahayanists later considered that selfish, Now, again, we don't want to generalize that everybody thought this way, and that him, the honest, didn't believe in compassion, but that around this time, really, the Bodhisattva way was the path.

[46:19]

For the mind. For the mind, the honest. But you had to really, this idea of emptiness had to be developed because it got, with the understanding of emptiness, one no longer saw nirvana as this thing you had to strive for, which we'll talk about more as the class goes along. I think as Ron said it was kind of a response to the earlier school of us You could even maybe say a correction to what was perceived as what they thought the Buddha originally taught?

[47:34]

Yes, yeah, right, that's correct. And this is the same thing, you know, the lesser vehicle, the greater vehicle, which kind of has some implications there, just to call it the greater and the lesser, it's part of the whole thing. Right, well that's why it's the maha question. So when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita or coursing deeply the Prajnaparamita. Nusong says in his little commentary here that it's interesting that they're practicing and coursing, not studying, but actually practicing.

[48:41]

There's a feeling of more practicing deeply. There's a feeling of being in it rather than studying it and analyzing it. perceive that all five skandhas are empty. So this is like the first cannon shot. This is probably time-consuming, so I'm going to ask the question of what the skandhas are. Oh, yeah, what the skandhas are. You know, there's Skandhas are the constituents of our personality, according to Buddhism. And they are form, which is basically the elements, based on the elements, but form, every solid physical reality.

[49:51]

Feelings are feelings of liking something, not liking something, and being neutral. Perceptions, which is a our way of identifying what we're experiencing, identifying it and cognizing it. Formations, which are our mental states, which all the things that go on in our mind, go on in our mind, and because of all these mental states creates karmic results, because all the stuff is in our mind. It leads us into various actions, even if it's just a thought. One thought leads to another thought, has a certain tone, certain color to it, which creates karma, which has a result. Karma being a result, or a volitional action that has a cause and effect. And then finally, consciousness.

[50:54]

And we'll go through these a little bit more carefully, but consciousness being the awareness of the external world coming through our organs of ear and nose or our thinking, and the consciousness just the awareness of this contact between the external world and our internal world, but just the bare awareness of it without identifying it and just to bear awareness of those consciences. So, if you really go, you can spend days going into all the details of the skandhas, and we can, if you have some questions, we can go into it, but I kind of wanted to downplay that going into the details of the skandhas, unless you're interested in particular in it, And sort of stick to the main point here that the skandhas are representative of how our personality is constructed.

[52:04]

And the point that skandhas imply, the word skandha implies, the word aggregate is always used. And aggregate means these are a collection of elements that It's just a collection of characteristics. And as I'm saying this, I'm asking myself, If they use the word aggregate, and it's just a collection of elements, why is it necessary to say that they're empty? You could see that the skandhas are just a collection of elements, but you might think that each of the elements has a kind of existence, a fundamental existence.

[53:15]

So the point of the word Skaan is that the original understanding of Skaan is that our elements of personality are just a kind of a heap, a kind of concoction, a confection. I believe Buddha recognized this during his enlightenment. So I think that the that why the Heart Sutra feels that it's necessary and important to say this is that previously it had been thought that the skandhas, each of the skandhas was, you know, a basic unit, you know, an immutable unit of our existence.

[54:42]

It's like, you know, they try to reduce the world to Right, trying to reduce everything into elements. And so that you might think that you're somebody, but if you look into it from the original teaching as well, you're not just somebody, but you're in this kind of collection of elements. There's no place which is you, but you're just this collection of elements. But the Heart Sutra is going farther in saying that each of those that the collection of elements themselves have no center, have no starting point, are just interdependent. So it relates to your talk the other day about finding a self that can be found.

[55:46]

And I was thinking, and this is sort of wordplay, it's because it can't be found. And I mean, it's not there, but I'm just trying to say something that can't be found. The other use of emptiness, which is that it's conditional, or that it's interdependent, doesn't mean that it doesn't exist, but it doesn't exist the way we say it. I think there's been people in trouble saying, well, of course I exist. It's all right, we're in a relative world, we don't exist in the absolute world, we don't. But isn't it partly because They're not saying that they don't exist, but they don't exist in the permanent way we perceive them as these sort of units. They're more transient and temporal, but they do exist in a changing form. Yes, this is really a key point that is really important, is that emptiness is not some kind of abstract vacuum. That emptiness is emptiness of something. If you say the glass is empty, you mean it's empty of something that's inside the glass.

[56:56]

So, now in this particular, it's interesting, in this translation he just says, perceive that all five skandhas are empty, but in ours we say all five skandhas are empty in their own being. What does it say in the Tibet? That even the five aggregates are empty of intrinsic existence. So it's empty of intrinsic existence that's the important aspect here. There are human modes of perception in the world, and they're almost the elements that get in the way of us perceiving reality.

[58:03]

We perceive ourselves as specific selves because of the fact that we're there. Those are our human qualities, the way we interact with the world, but how does it set us up to perceive this information? Because I see the world through my five senses. I see the world through my five senses. So how do I get through this conduct to realize the emptiness? Am I following that? Well, sounds good. It seems like there are the things that It seems like you're kind of dealing with this way of saying, you know, there's emptiness and there's form, and you want to get away from that form and get to the emptiness when emptiness is form and form is emptiness.

[59:05]

So, but I get what you're saying as far as... But if you didn't have the form, you didn't have the influence. It's not like you get away from it. You realize these guns are bad. They're just empty. You can't work without them. That's right. But there is no reason. How about your being not as a separate self, but your form and emptiness, form is emptiness and emptiness is form, then the only thing at issue is this separate self-existence. That's the only thing that creates the delusion, is that somehow you can be separate of things, and you can perceive things from a unique perspective, and have your opinions about it, et cetera, et cetera.

[60:24]

All of that's just a separate self-existence. But without a sign, you can be in it. have form and be empty at the same time. Any time in particular? You're going ahead a little bit. I think we did, what's your name? Shelly. Shelly. Let's go back to what Shelly said, because I don't think we really responded to what he said. You said that because the five skandhas are there, that's why We're deluded. Is that what you meant? In terms of trying to understand what they are and what their role is. In terms of? What are the skandhas? Right. What are the skandhas? And so, Buddha says, here, these are what the skandhas are. And then we look at that, and then we get where the mental happens.

[61:25]

Just my intuitive understanding as an early I'm driving my car down the street, and all of a sudden I think, oh, it's my hands on the wheel, there's people out there driving, they're separate from me. Suddenly it's like, oh, it's my perception of my physicality, and of what I perceive, what I smell, and what I see, and how I interact with language, etc., that causes me to see and my consciousness is separate, and my family is separate, but the reality is that if I were an amoeba organism, without all of these gondas, then I would perceive emptiness. I would perceive the universe as empty. You don't know. You don't know what you would perceive. We pay someone to do that.

[62:30]

Yeah, that's right. You are an advocate. Yeah, that's right. You are involved in the media. Why can't you just be a bunch of sponders? People driving down the street. I am. We are. So what creates the delusion? I guess my question is, why can't I just be a telegrammer on the street? realizing emptiness. Why couldn't I be in your monitor? Why do I have to? Don't blame the scholar. I don't need to be blamed for anything. Does anybody have any ideas or questions about this conference? Well, when I was on a bicycle trip, there was a lot of cars, people talking to us. I always think, I only go around on a bicycle, and there's always car people, and crazy, you know, hurting me.

[63:34]

And they're like, these people are really helping me. So, um... This is related to driving. Ah, yeah. About, you know, like, It's not about, I wasn't thinking about self, it's just like, just, you know, what I think people are doing, they're not, that's not what they are doing. They just go around. So you have a point, you have a kind of a viewpoint, and you're seeing that your viewpoint got switched. I think I understand, I want to respond to this idea that Scott was giving me away, because I think I understand it. I have a body, and you have a body, and it's clear that your body is not my body. It's different. They are separate. But there's a sense in which they are separate, and that's what's obvious to everyone.

[64:39]

There's this other thing that we study, which is about phenomena, which is not so obvious. And that's why we have to study it. It's called emptiness and interrelatedness and interdependence. And from that, in that sense, your body is not separate from mine. As a matter of fact, your body, what makes your body your body is that it's not my body. Right there we're related. Your body is defined as not being mine. And your body is what it is by way of relationship with everything else in the universe. anything changes, your body is changed also. Because you perceive separation. And we're all trained that way from childhood. And because it has survival value. If I feed you and I don't feed me, this body dies. That doesn't have survival value.

[65:43]

The reality of things is there is this interrelationship that is actually not a survival mechanism. Well, I tend to think that the standards are more like people trying to make sense of life and existence. So they created these categories called standards And it's sort of a way of trying to make sense of things. But it's not the reality itself. It's just kind of an analytical framework. It could be anything. It could be fire, water, air, or whatever. It's true. You could make another personality system. And this is a pretty good one. If you really think about it, it's a pretty good one. But yes, you could point out other characteristics. It'd be interesting. If anybody knows another personality system, but don't explain it all right now, it would be interesting.

[66:58]

So there's tons of them. So let's just stick with this one. Well, this two in a sense, you could think that it's arbitrary, But I think most importantly is, do you see anything that is not true about it? Or do you see anything which may be biased about the way of observing? Do you see any bias in the observation? I think that's a fundamental question. And the whole system of squanders in determining that humans are comprised of these five processes, do you see any bias or delusion in that observation? That's the fundamental question. We know it does detail in psychology, feelings, perceptions, when you perceive things in a new space.

[68:13]

Perceiving things and then being aware of them are two different things. The first one might be my stimuli, but it might not be my cognitive thing. It is all about feelings, emotions, and the terms are translated into English. Again, it just says that the main thing You know, because you can go off into sort of the philosophy or the categorization of reality, but in terms of the hard switcher, the main thing is that this system has no, there is no core. That's the main thing, there is no core. And we, as Shelly was saying, When you're driving down the street, if you're not aware of it, you probably have a sense that you have a sort of cumulative feeling of, this is me. And you don't analyze it necessarily, but you have a feeling that there's a core there.

[69:17]

So what they're trying to do is sort of pull us apart and say, if you think that there's a core, there's not. And that's the point of this. So even though you might have this beautiful system of skandhas, which really, you might think, comprehensively defines human process, there is no starting point there. There's not a starting point. Yes. We love our skandhas. I had something to say. I had a breakthrough one day. Maybe this happens to all of you, or I don't know, at some point in your lives, since we're all conscious. I was walking down the street when that group in LA, and I looked up in the sky, and I looked at the tree, and the birds, and the sand, and the dirt, and I wasn't me anymore.

[70:25]

I was everything there was, and it was like, I mean, I can't even say I, because it was like this was the path for one night in my whole life, and it never happened again. From that day to this day. But I knew what it was, but I'm not even an I. I can't, you know, I don't know how to say it. But for one night, there was no I. When I looked at the sky, there was no distinction between myself and the sky, the moon, the stars, the trees, the lights, the telephone, you know the wires on the telephone? It was like the song of the 70s, you know what I mean? One night that happened to me. Some guys were walking across the street and they were having a fight. And as they were walking, I felt, it was real, real heavy. I could hardly walk. Because it was so, so heavy.

[71:25]

And as soon as I left, where these guys were having a fight, it cleared up for me. So I got to feel positive and negative. I could feel. I mean, I saw it and it wasn't a lie. I mean, it was just one night and that was it. It never happened again. Thank you. Thank you both. It's too bad you don't have that one. At least you had one girl. I think we are that all the time, but you perceive when you go around your daily life. Sometimes one time isn't enough. Sometimes people say about Keats and Hale, I'm Gale, who wants to be in this wonderful state, but if you're in that state, you can't function as humans. For some reason, it's like a game. You're supposed to function as a discrete personality.

[72:27]

That's what it feels like. I'm just saying, why don't we just have this global cosmic experience? It's the same. It worries me if you're driving a car, if you're going to feel like shit and all that, because you might run into somebody. Well, I mean, we're limited by our bodies and by our... I don't think there's just a causal limitation, though. Well, it is, because we don't see everything that's out there. We can't. You know, our eyes are limited. You know, we don't hear everything. You know, and that's just the way it is. It's because of our senses. That's the first, you know, response. So, you know, we don't see reality as it is, and that's the thing that's got us, because it's all filtered through these stages. No, I know that, but I think filters are robots again. They're just... Well, filters are robots. They cut out stuff. It's the definition of a filter. Yeah, but it's not a bad thing. No, I'm not saying it's a bad thing. It's just the way it is. I mean, it's unavoidable. It doesn't mean the knowledge isn't there, though, with glass filtering. You're not feeling it through sensitivities, it's just not there.

[73:30]

Well, no, they didn't say that. That's the first guy who goes to the forum. It's all there. Everything's there. It's just when you get through the process, it's not all there. I'm joking when you say you're going to do this. What's happened to you is sort of the idea of the lack of... I keep on going back to the fact that you can't see it. Right. Yeah. That's right. And then if I can't see it, the people of the Central Coalition of Homelessness in Florence. Is it that, or is it our identification of those people as being part of the national community? So this is, it exists, and we want to make sure that we have value for our people.

[74:36]

So that's why I'm passionate about it. Well, your phrasing is a little confusing. You're right. The first thing that you said is, in my understanding, is absolutely true, is that when we start talking about the word emptiness, or to say emptiness as its own being, we start to set up a kind... we almost can't help but set up a kind of a... like a mood or a tone. You know, like this is some kind of a metaphysical reality, a reality of emptiness. But it's actually... it's because we assume other that we have to make a big deal about it. And this emptiness is... it's just the way things are. It's not... it's not some...

[75:41]

It becomes more complex when you start thinking how everything is interrelated as a result of that. It's not like there's this vibration of emptiness which is going on in the universe, you know, holding everything together somehow. It's just a lack of the way, it's just a removing of this way we tend to think of things. So then the second thing you said was... to my limited experience of, you know, the position of work, sort of the limits of what you can do on that. And, um, it might be good, but then it's, you know, it's not, it's almost as if it's dragged up on you. It's not, you know, like, on this way, you know, probably, you know, you're going to have to, you know, deal with it. You don't have the patience to try to identify with what you're looking for.

[76:58]

You don't have the right mind to do it. I see a lot of this sort of going on to repeat existence. To make it all in one phrase instead of just a more vague sort of more emptiness. Emptiness of a separate self existence. It helps me hear. And that's what we know often also. We have to know more about this, you know, interchangeable, and that, for me at least, never fails. Yeah, I think the word emptiness, for me, I read the diamonds which are also in English, but it seems so negative to me because It was empty. Everything was nothing. And I just kept putting on emptiness, creating this idea of nothingness. So if I say, OK, this being here is empty, then I'm saying this being here is nothing.

[78:02]

And that's problematic, partly because I think also conditioning, especially as a woman, I think women, well, and men, too. Some people are really conditioned to believe that they're nothing, so that you feel like there's a negative experience. But it's not that emptiness doesn't mean nothing, it doesn't mean something. Everything is kind of from the top. I understand. by saying this being is empty, what I'm saying is this being is empty of separation from all things. So that helps a lot. But sometimes I think also about that feeling of emptiness, that sort of emotional feeling of emptiness.

[79:04]

Oh, no. Oh, no, it's nothing. I think sometimes I think maybe that's the fear of the ego, that that's actually a sneaky way that ego is afraid of being found out. So maybe that word emptiness is actually useful because it triggers that fear. Well, I think it's right to say emptiness of own being or emptiness of intrinsic independence and emptiness of intrinsic nature. It's good to say that. Probably not so good to say emptiness, because it does give us, in our language, just gives us a feeling of nothingness. Although, you know, there is a feeling when you start to see that what you thought of as your kind of core identity doesn't have necessarily a core, you do feel like there's kind of nothing, like the thing that you thought was there isn't there in the way that you thought it might be, then there is a feeling of nothing.

[80:07]

Whether you thought there was something wrong, maybe, but the thing you thought of isn't there. It feels like nothing, although it's really nothing. Well, I think it's very useful to use the five skandhas as a way to understand emptiness. that it's really through... it's through forms, as we go on in the Sutra later, that we can understand emptiness. It's through these feelings that seem so real when they arise, but then when you really study them, study them in a profound way, That's when we understand that they don't have any own being. I forget, was there another question?

[81:22]

Most of the points have been stated, but for example, you can't talk about a lung, unless you talk about the body, or you talk about blood, you talk about... None of these things really, as people have said, have this independent existence or an existence that you can describe as being it. And I realize that there is this fear often, I think in the West, When we hear emptiness, so many of us hear nothingness, voidness. But fortunately, later on in the Sutra, voidness is also denied in its own reality, which is somewhat of a relief. I just wanted to say that the experience of samsara

[82:28]

that produces some kind of effect that seems to be altering consciousness towards lack of something. It's the returning to the breath, no matter what. And continually coming back. You just build up over and over again. It seems to affect I didn't revel in true spiritual existence. It was non-rational. Disgusting. Sleeping for years with me. That's my experience. Well, I think with Zazen, when attachments arise, and one keeps making an effort to return to the breath and not grasping, that's That's when it's an understanding.

[83:33]

He said, I want to talk to you. [...] give rise to the level of experience that a human being can have. It's not that we live in a society where we give it, that we give it, we feel it, we experience it. What is happening is a judgmental thing. You have people who don't have any experience, just a very peculiar kind of left-professional, left-minded human being, right? And then, when there was a fire and so on, fear came in and everything.

[85:08]

So, it took me a couple of years. I don't know if I had a... I wasn't disturbed. I wasn't disturbed. I was not an item. I wasn't people. If I could just add a sense of open potentiality and that when I'm not full of myself I actually can be more intuitive. It's 9 o'clock. I have one last word. So please read this outline, and we will continue next week.

[86:27]

Thank you.

[86:38]

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