In the first 500 years of the Buddhist tradition, monk scholars came up with a overview of the path to liberation, and they envisioned the path as having five stages or being five paths. And these paths were called in Sanskrit, sambhara marga, which means the path of equipment or path of preparation. Prayoga marga, the path of concerted effort. Darshana marga, the path of vision. Bhavana Marga, the path of meditation or the path of becoming what was seen and the path of vision.

[01:12]

And finally, the path, the Ashaiksha Marga, the path beyond training. And later, as the Mahayana developed, monk scholars and lay scholars also came up with the same five paths which they applied to the bodhisattva path, the path to universal liberation. I feel that we are now, in a sense, in terms of these wisdom teachings, we are in what we might call the path of equipment or the path of preparation. We're building a foundation for the wisdom practice, particularly the wisdom practice of studying these teachings of the nature of phenomena in the Mahayana tradition. As part of that I'd like to give you some more vocabulary to help you work with these three natures.

[02:24]

And first to just tell you these three natures in Sanskrit. The first one is called Parikulpita. It can be translated as the imputational character or the imputational nature. It can be translated as conceptual clinging or mere conceptual grasping or the characteristic pattern of clinging to what is entirely imagined, or simply the imagined. The second nature in Sanskrit, or by the way, the word parikalpita, I think, is the past participle

[03:35]

parikalpa, and parikalpa means imagination. So the past participle of that parikalpita has also the connotation of clinging to what is imagined. The second character in Sanskrit is para-tantra, which literally means, para means other, and tantra in this case means power, so it means other-powered, powered by other, by another, or other-dependent. And translated as other-dependent, other-powered, dependent origination, the pattern of other-dependency. The third character in Sanskrit is parinispana. It can be translated as the thoroughly established character, or the perfected character of reality, or the pattern of full perfection, or the consummated character, a consummated nature.

[04:53]

In the last practice period, one of the people in the practice period came up with calling the first character maybe the dream, the second character the mystery, and the third character, I think, the reality. I would suggest that that's pretty good, but I would say the dream, the mystery, and the absence of dreaming in the mystery of the three characters. Everything in our life really Another dependent phenomena is a dependent co-arising, is something which dependently arises for us.

[06:10]

And as you just read, I think it said, Something like, because of tendencies towards conventional designations. Remember that part? In the top of the second page? Yeah, good. So gunakara, for example, you should see that in the same way that a very clear crystal comes in contact with a color, the other dependent character comes in predisposition, a predisposition for conventional designations that are the imputational character.

[07:48]

So part of what's going on here is that because we are predisposed to making conventional designations about what's happening in our life, we impute or project an image or an imagined thing upon our life so that we can talk about it. So we falsely imagine we falsely imagine some phenomena. Some phenomena, some event, something happens for us, and then because of a predisposition towards making conventional designations happens to us, we project a false imagination upon the event.

[08:52]

and then we attach to it. And then the way the thing exists becomes veiled or negated by this projection. So in that way, the imagination itself is false but useful. It's false particularly because it is an imagination. How does it say at the beginning? It says it's something that's imputed to what's happening, and it's imputed to what's happening because of predispositions. And in particular, it's imputed to what's happening because of predispositions to make conventional designations. So it is imputed to phenomena as a name or a symbol.

[09:59]

But it isn't the name or the symbol that's the imputational. It's something that's imputed as a name or a symbol. to events so that we can, so in order to make conventional and it's imputed to events as words and symbols in terms of essences and attributes. And those essences and attributes are purely imagined. They're not actually in the phenomena. And by projecting these onto the things and then attaching to them, the things become obscured. Maybe like almost always, living beings are projecting this false imagination

[11:12]

onto the other dependent character, projecting the false imagination through our dependently co-arising life. Now this event that's happening right now and this event that's happening right now, this dependent co-arising that's happening right now, in each moment, what's happening right now, is originally free from these projections which make it possible for us to talk about the thing. You can say it's originally free, but actually you can say really it's always free. And yet, once we project onto it, it doesn't seem to be free anymore. It seems to be defiled by them. So in a sense, the actual world of dependent core arising apparently changed, covered up and defiled by these imaginations.

[12:20]

Defiled, believed in and attached to. And because of this covering, believing and attaching, the suffering of the world arises. The way things actually are and the way things are happening is actually beyond these projections. The projections don't actually reach the thing, but by interposing the projection, the world seems defiled. So we're suffering sort of at a distance from the world. because of our veiling of it and relating to it in a dream.

[13:28]

Someone said to me in the koan class, we're studying a case which takes place in a dream. We're studying a case of a Zen master's dream. Someone said, aren't you worried about people misunderstanding this teaching? And I said, I don't actually, I'm not into worry. I don't want people to misunderstand, and they might misunderstand. So one of the ways that people might misunderstand is to say, well, life's a dream, so it doesn't matter what you do. Right? Is that one possible way that people get in trouble when they hear that we're living in a dream? That teaching might be then lead someone to say, well, then it's just a dream that I'm punching you in the nose. Or just a dream that we're going to war. So who cares? But another way to see the dream is if you're dreaming you might actually drive off the road because you're dreaming that there's a road where there isn't a road.

[14:34]

Or you're dreaming that there's a door where there's a wall. You're dreaming that someone wants you to touch them when they don't. So actually recognizing the dreamlike projection on everything, one would then become suspicious of one's beliefs. And one might find a more appropriate way to relate to what one sees. the world of dependent co-arising, or the dependently co-arising world, or dependent character phenomena, when there's understanding of there being no projections on it,

[15:58]

to be nirvana. In the sense that the purified of the projections, which means they're purified of the beliefs which lead to attachment. So it's the world just as it always has been, but with no attachment, so no suffering. The same world that's always been, just no suffering, just liberation. So it's the world of liberation. It's better to do it like this.

[17:11]

How does that work? How is that? Guess what? It's painful for me. Painful, but I'm not suffering. I'm having a good time, but it's painful. I'm not going to go to sleep during this talk. You think this is funny, huh? Well, I think that's enough for tonight.

[18:13]

There's one point that's really subtle and that is some very, very, I would say, brilliant Buddhist scholars have the opinion the world of dependent co-arising or the world of how things are actually happening, when it's purified of the projection of false imaginations and the attachment and so on, when things are . I agree that that's nirvana, but they sometimes think that that is the thoroughly established character. And I'm not going to be absolute about this, but I'm more of the opinion from reading the sutra that the thoroughly established character phenomena is not that they're purified. The thoroughly established character is the absence, not the phenomenon of being free.

[19:42]

It's not the phenomenon in the absence of the projection. It is the freedom, or the absence, or the emptiness of the projection. So the other dependent character, meaning the thoroughly established character, or the perfected character of every phenomena, the thoroughly established character of this world, is that which, when you look at it and meditate on it, looking at that will purify your vision of seeing the projections on the world. When you look at the thoroughly established character, you will see that the world has never been touched by the dream. So you look at the absence of the dream and then see that the world is free of the dream. By looking at the absence of nirvana, by looking at the presence of the imputational, by looking at the presence

[20:49]

of conceptual clinging and taking conceptual clinging as real and attaching to it, you're looking at the world of samsara. So when we look at what's happening but take it for what we imagine it to be, we have affliction. When we look at what's happening and as we look at what's happening we actually see the absence of our fantasies, then we get to see freedom, a world of freedom. So the third is not really the purified other dependent character. It is not the dependently co-arisen world or dependently co-arisen events in the absence of conceptual clinging, in the absence of contaminated by false imaginations.

[22:05]

Rather, it is the thing we look at to realize The uncontaminated world. And the Buddha teaches that all things that are contaminated by false imaginations are suffering. So as I mentioned to the practice prayer the other night, in the beginning of that book, A Road Less Traveled, is that what it's called? I think the first thing it says is, life is difficult. And there's a asterisk, and down at the bottom it says that this is a great truth, As a matter of fact, the Buddha taught the Four Noble Truths, and the first truth is that life is suffering. What he said was contaminated life is suffering. Life contaminated by false imaginations is suffering. But life in the absence of contamination is suffering.

[23:20]

But as you see from reading this chapter, in order to see the absence of the contaminating false imaginations, you have to understand the false imaginations because they're operating all the time already. So you have to notice what you're already up to to notice that what you're already up to is not really registering on what's happening, even though it's not. You think it is. And it's so natural for you that you don't even notice what you're thinking it is. So this is like a hard course of study. Somebody brought me an example the other morning. Some of you may not know, in the morning when we first start sitting, and most of you do know that in the morning when we first start sitting, usually one of the people in the community, on behalf of the community, does a little circumambulation of the temple.

[24:42]

So he or she goes and offers incense around the temple. for the community. Part of the path of preparation involves preparing a space to meditate and part of preparing a space to meditate in is to have a kind of quiet space, a clean space, and a place that you kind of like make offerings to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas to help us have a nice place to meditate. So rather than have everybody... like if we have 50 people here or something, everybody offer incense before we meditate. To reduce the air pollution, we just have one person offer. So there's one stick offered in each room rather than 50. And one person bows rather than 50. So anyway, we... So after the person comes in here and offers incense and does bows, then that person walks around the hall and does what we call kentang.

[25:50]

walking around the hall literally, circumambulation literally in Japanese is pronounced jundo. Walking around the hall is called jundo. And we sometimes do jundos, which means we walk around the hall. But the person who's opening the hall does what's called a kentan. They're walking around the room, but they're also doing kentan, which means they're looking at the palm, which means they're looking at the people. So one person comes in here, looks at each person. They're not here. They're asleep. Somebody's looking at you. Every breath you take will be watching you. That person's walking around you. Sometimes this person is your boss, right? This is your guru. Anyway, it's dark so they can't see too much, but anyway. They have these new glasses that you can wear so you can see in the dark very deeply into the mind of the students.

[26:58]

So this is called Canton. So someone told me that as I was doing the Canton, she was aware of me coming in the room. Somehow she was aware of this phenomena of ... And then there was the phenomena of the person coming into the room, and then there was the phenomena of the person doing the bowels, and then the phenomena of the person walking around the room. And then where the person was in the room, the person felt at different positions. So as the person approaches, the person felt So if someone comes closer to you, they feel different. They're a different person because they're not the person they were when they were 80 feet away. Now they're the person that's two feet away and one foot away, and now they're the person right up close to you.

[27:58]

So this person is feeling that phenomena and feeling the approach of this person who is me. and feeling sort of an escalation of the experience was getting more intense as I came closer. But she was also aware that the experience was really having a lot to do with what she was thinking about me, that it wasn't just that I was getting bigger as I was approaching, but that her thinking was evolving, that really she was really aware of her thinking. And then when I got to her, it was like at the maximum, sort of the maximum, and then as I moved away, things calmed down again as I got farther away, even though I was still in the room. So she was asking me, well, how do you meditate on the other dependent? Because it's like it's covered over by all this imagination, all this projection of this person.

[28:59]

How can you see the other dependent? And what it says here, what you just recited there, is by adhering to the actual phenomena of this person, this constantly arising phenomena of this person, by adhering to that person, by imagining that thing, by having an imagination of that thing and project and taking that imagination to be that thing, that's how you know the other dependent. So there is actually something arising and ceasing. How do you know it? By taking it for your imagination of it. And then you can talk about it. So how do you meditate on the other dependent? When basically, when you know the other dependent, what you're really knowing is you're taking it for the imagined.

[30:04]

It's kind of how do you see under the imagination in a way. And if you could see under the imagination, then this thing would be purified of those things you project so that you could talk about it. So if you could see under it, you wouldn't be able to talk about what you saw. And why wouldn't you be able to talk about it? Because you would be projecting nothing onto it, no essence or substance by which you could get a hold of it. So when this thing's coming to you, this person or this, any experience, how do you look at the quality of this thing, the character of this thing, which is, depends on other things? How do you look at the way the thing is powered by something other than itself? How do you meditate on that? Well,

[31:16]

One way is you just listen whenever anything happens. If you can see it and talk about it, then you hear the teaching which says, if you can see it and talk about it, then you have just taken what is happening to be your imagination of it. So part of the teacher is telling you you are looking at a defiled version, a contaminated version of whatever this thing is. Probably almost all the time you're looking at a contaminated version. And then there will be suffering arising from that. So that's part of what you're aware of. But that's actually more meditating on how you know the other dependent. Knowing the other dependent is a little bit different than meditating on the other dependent, because knowing the other dependent means actually you're taking the other dependent to be something it's not. So you're not really meditating on the other dependent, but that's what you're seeing.

[32:19]

It is a misconstruing, a misperception, a mistake. You're seeing a mistake, and you think it's real, and that's why you're suffering. Still, we haven't gotten to meditating on the other dependent. But I just mentioned some teachings which come up to my mind as I'm talking to you about how to meditate on the other dependent. Now what is the teaching about the other dependent? The teaching of the other dependent is that it's like a very clear crystal. So when somebody comes to you, can you see the very clear crystal? In other words, a crystal that you cannot, you can't see. And a crystal is a mystery. What is it? It's a mystery that actually and always is beyond your dreaming. So when somebody comes to you, what's there that's beyond your projection?

[33:23]

Can you see it? No. Can you look at it? Can you look for it? Yes. When somebody comes, you hear the teaching, this thing that's coming, the actual thing, not your imagination, but the actual thing, is how it's dependent on other things, and that it is dependent on other things, and how it's dependent on other things is the way it really is. And each thing is dependent on other things differently. So you're listening to the teaching about this thing, but you can't see it, probably. But you still listen to the teaching, and the teaching changes the way you look at the thing. Maybe you're already changing by hearing this. So you're not looking at the image

[34:28]

You're listening to the teaching. And as you listen to the teaching, then you also... As it applies to things, you also understand that this thing which you have images about, like, for example, images that it's substantial and permanent, you still see it that way. But you're hearing the teaching that it's other dependence, so you understand, although you can't see this yet, that this thing is really unreliable and not worthy of competence. And then you meditate on the other dependent. And there's also another dependent phenomena of being aware of, having it aware of.

[35:33]

There's the other dependent phenomena of imagining. That's another thing you can be aware of. To you, you have images of how you're imagining. But there also really is an imagining going on. Any hands coming up in the air? Yes? See, I could say hands coming up in the air because I imagined something so I could make the conventional designation hands. Yes? Did you say different levels of coming out of your imagination? What do you mean by coming out of your imagination? you might say spacing out, and then and then everything looks different than it did before, more real, so to speak.

[36:46]

I suppose you could say more poetic, and you have a sense of the whole environment. and the relationship between things, that things are clearer and... But still there's... In that case, you haven't really got such a good object yet. You haven't... Doesn't sound like it. As a matter of fact... Well, it sounds like you're being mindful of your fantasies in the case you just gave, where before that you weren't even noticing how your fantasy process was going. Right, and what are you waking up to? You're waking up to, what you just said sounds to me like you're becoming aware of strongly adhering to what's happening as your fantasies about what's happening. That's what you became aware of. You weren't aware of that teaching, but in fact you were now aware of your fantasies.

[37:53]

And before you were fantasizing too, but you didn't even notice what you were fantasizing. Right. But that moment, you said, oh, I've been spacing out. I've just been thinking here. You said, I've been spacing out. Okay, what's actually been going on is beyond The imputation to what was actually happening and what is actually happening, but what you say was happening, is beyond the imputation that your mind makes on what was happening such that you could make the conventional designation, I was spaced out. So that's the level that's not being addressed. When you just wake up and say, oh. You said wake up. but what you did is you woke up to what? You woke up to not what was happening, you woke up to the fantasy. You're saying that what you didn't wake up to was the whole process of, you know, the real base level process of invocation, which is hard to understand, hard to see.

[39:06]

In the story you told, I didn't hear an explication of understanding, a deep understanding of the process of imputation. I didn't hear that. But I've heard a waking up to. I thought that was a good example of demonstrating the way that you actually thought that you woke up to what was happening. That's what I thought you were saying. I was imputing that I was imputing? No, you weren't imputing. You were imputing reality. You said, I woke up to and I thought you were describing what you thought was true or more true than usual. But actually, when you woke up and you saw what you saw is what you think was true and what you thought was true, what you were imagining so you could talk to me about it. And what you really imagined... you know, the words spaced out and so on. Those are just words. But you imagine there was something there and you put a little essence into it such that you could use the word spaced out onto that thing.

[40:16]

But the thing actually has, there's nothing there to put the word spaced out onto. But once the word, once you put that thing in there on what was happening or what is happening, then you can land the word spaced out onto it and believe that that's what you saw, and that that was more real than when you weren't even noticing what was happening. So we can fantasize without noticing that we're fantasizing, and then we can wake up to, oh, this is what's happening. But when we wake up to this is what's happening, at that very moment that we say, this is what's happening, we have just contaminated what's happening. In order to say, this is what's happening, in order to say, this is a color, we have to contaminate the color. There is a color there. And the word color is fine for it.

[41:19]

But color onto the color, we have to defile the color by projecting a landing pad of essences and attributes. We need the essence to have something to actually be there. that is there, and then we have attributes to get the right word, you know, line the word up with the thing. And this is something that's developed in our group here through eons of talking. So, if there's some moment, right, if there's some split second before the invitation came back, there was a throttling wave, I didn't hear about it, about any dropping away. Of course, what I was saying was dropping away, but not what you were saying. No, you're not experiencing a different level of temptation.

[42:25]

You're experiencing... What I heard you say was experiencing some awareness of what was happening. And what was happening in which... What I heard you say was happening was you were telling me about the way the world looks when it's contaminated. Namely, I was spaced out, or I wasn't, or I woke up. This kind of thing... What I hear you describing is you're describing the world of dependent core arising when it's been contaminated so that we can talk about it. And in order to talk about what I heard you say, I had to also project onto what I saw in what you said in order to talk to you about it. But the way you actually were is beyond my descriptions of how you were. You know, what I had to do in order to talk to you about what I saw there, then I suffer.

[43:28]

Then I'm anxious that this person, by the, you know, imputational, that this person is really that way, then I suffer. So how can I point out to this person this function I see without getting caught by myself? Yes? Is thinking in language impotential? No. But thinking about something, you can talk about it, requires the imputational. So, for example, just sitting, you know, just like sitting in meditation and thinking, blue.

[44:33]

That thought blue is, you know, is a word, but blue. Now, if you think, I'm sitting here thinking, blue, then you're like putting that imagination of what you're doing there onto what's happening. And that's, in order to say, I'm thinking the thought blue, in order to do that, you'd have to improve to who you are, that person who's sitting there going, blue, blue, blue. In order to talk about yourself, you'd have to get back into it. But just blue, it's just a dependent core arising. A lot of things that happen, as you may have noticed, and every single one of them is a dependent core arising. And every single one of them is actually untouched by anybody's fantasies or anybody's dream about what they are. That's actually their thoroughly established character is that there's an absence of

[45:46]

the fantasy, the imagined in them. But because of our predisposition to being social animals of the human variety, we project something onto what's happening, not just so we can say blue, but so we can say blue about something. It isn't just people walk around and go, blue, green, red. It's a blue. And that's green. And people say, it's not blah, blah, blah. Anyway, we work it out, you know. But the thing is, it's blue about something. That's where the imputation starts working. That's where you make your money. You don't make any money just walking around and saying, blue, blue, blue. Make sense? A little bit? No, no, not you.

[46:51]

Him. Yes. Excuse me, could I say something before you go on? About the relationship between wisdom teachings and the chain of dependent core arising? Oh, okay. So you have a question about the wisdom teaching of dependent core arising and what? Same. It said it. The other dependent character phenomena is simply the dependent core arising of phenomena. And then it said,

[47:51]

And what is that? It's that when this arises, in dependence on this, this arises. In dependence on this, that's the basic principle. And then it says, like in depending on ignorance, karmic formations. So it just said it. That's exactly what the other dependent character is. It's how... Everything arises in dependence, and it's also, in particular, they give an example there of how, depending on ignorance, suffering. That's also suffering of the dependent core is a phenomenon too. So the story, the way suffering arises is another teaching of dependent core. Basically the same thing. So what questions do you have? Yes? Yes? that would be and sometimes it would not be it would be at the wrong time

[49:28]

Okay? So in this sutra is saying that what you first are saying, positioning yourself at that place, okay? Say, please notice that you are now involved in the imputational. That you're taking the imputational as though you're going to actually be at that stage by talking about it that way. That's what this sutra would say. However, the sutra could also say, maybe that would be a good imputational for you to work with for a while. There is no stage there, what this sutra is saying. There's no stage of being at the stage of, you know, what do you call it? Did you say craving? Contact, yeah. There is no stage like that. Excuse me. It doesn't say there is no stage. I take it back. There is a stage. To approach that stage by the way you can talk about that stage is that you're actually getting caught and distracted from that stage and you're defiling that stage by that approach.

[50:33]

That's what the sutra is saying. The sutra is saying, Already you can study not so much that stage, but you can study how you treat that stage with your imagination in such a way that you defile that stage and cause yourself suffering at that stage. And any stage would be equally good to defile in that way. And any stage would be equally good for you to catch yourself at defiling. But before you can study that phase, he would say, rather than put yourself at these different phases, study dependent core arising and realize from the beginning that if you try to study dependent core arising in any way that you can talk about, you're really not studying dependent core arising, you're studying the imputational. But you can't study the imputational until you're more grounded in the other dependent meditation. Which means you learn how to meditate on what you can't see. you can't see the other dependent because you are constantly dreaming.

[51:40]

So you have to start by confessing that you're constantly dreaming of the other dependent as being your dream. You have to learn how to meditate on the other dependent before you start trying to actually study the other dependent or phases of the other dependent. That's what the sutra is saying. The sutra is teaching you how to meditate on the teaching of the pinnacle rising in such a way that you don't confuse what you're thinking with what's happening. In other words, you have to learn how to identify that you're confusing what's happening with what you're thinking or dreaming is happening. that's how you'll realize what's happening. But you have to be grounded, not in your thinking, first of all, but in listening to the teaching about how what's happening is happening, which you cannot see.

[52:51]

You cannot see how things are other-dependent. But you can hear the teaching about how things are other-dependent, even though you can't see it. And hearing that teaching, your relationship with what's happening and your relationship with your dreams about what's happening start to change. And as that becomes developed, you become more and more ready to actually turn around and study the dreams you have of, for example, some stage in the process of dependent core arising of suffering. And then it might be good sometimes to study a particular stage, but it might not be good to study that stage because you might not be ready to study that stage without getting more and more confused. In other words, you might study the stage and think, oh, now I'm studying that stage, rather than study that stage and say, now I'm dreaming about studying that stage.

[53:55]

But if you already know that basically the only way you could study those stages would be to study your dreams of the stage, Then you probably say, am I ready to study my dreams of the stages? And I would say, you know, what do you call it? Convince me that you're ready. Show me how you're grounded in meditation on the other dependent rather than grounded in your dreams of the other dependent. Show me your virtue. Yeah. Yes. Did you say sometimes being aware of the decision?

[55:02]

Uh-huh. I didn't understand that last little... Isn't it at that point what? Well, yes, but you're... You are all the time. Yeah, you always are. Isn't it an advantage point? No, because every point is an advantage point. You agree? Pardon? You just understood. Yeah, there you go. Learned something. Yeah, they're all, this is like, all equally good.

[56:07]

Yes. Yes. Yeah, basically. At the beginning. You mean beyond that, what else? Well, after you understand all grounded in that teaching, then you can turn around and start looking at the imputational. Like, for example, you can look at your dream about what stage you're at. Well, probably means in your case that I tell you you are. And then I watch what you do when I tell you. And see if you like, you know, go for the imputational version you have of what I said.

[57:11]

Did you go for it? You can't really know you're meditating on the other dependent? Well, it doesn't matter whether you know or not that you are. What matters is that you are, and that you're being transformed by the meditation. And as you're transformed by the meditation, you will start to be able to make some inroads into being aware of your dreams and start understanding your dreams as dreams. The more you practice meditation, the more you realize the dreamlike quality of your confusion of the imputations with the other dependent.

[58:13]

You still can't see the other dependent, but you can start to become more aware of your dreams. consequence of meditating properly on the other dependent. So you can know the other dependent by misconstruing it as your dreams, right? And you start to be aware that that's how you know the other dependent, and also you become more and more aware you can know your dreams because they're like big, chunky images. Like, yeah, this is happening. Wow, this is like really happening. Now you know you're dreaming. But if you don't practice virtue enough, you don't know what to dream. You think it's true. And you're in trouble and so am I if I'm anywhere near you. But in fact, whether you know it or not, when you start to practice meditation on the other dependent, you will start to wake up more and more to how deluded you are. Now you can infer then, accurately, that the more you realize

[59:19]

and how you're dreaming, and how you muck up everything with your stuff, you can deduce, you can infer, hey, maybe I'm practicing, maybe I'm in the meditation of the other dependent, because I'm starting to see what you can see when you meditate on the other dependent. You don't see the other dependent, you just see more and more how... And then, now you're cooking, now you can start to look at your delusions. You can become really good at them, and as you start to become good at them, you get to see that they're not really making it to anything that's happening. They're just like totally politely. That will be part of what you will come to understand. You can never see the other in the sense of knowing it as an object, but you can understand it, because that's what it says.

[60:28]

When you know the other dependent as it really is, you know the afflicted quality. You know how things are afflicted. You understand then. See, as you meditate on the other dependent, you see what a mess you're making, and you see what a mess it makes. You understand the afflicted quality. you see, oh yeah, wow, this is, not I, but this is really causing problems here. This is really causing pain. And you can see that because you're well grounded in the other dependent meditation. And then as you get more, you start to like discover that there's something that, you know, actually there's not really a sticking to the This superimposition isn't really being believed anymore. This overlay, this projection is like, it's a . And then when you abandon that, you realize the purified nature and so on. Cool, huh?

[61:29]

Well, let's see, it's getting a little on the late side. Is there any really good questions? Ah, there's a good one. Oh, you have a good one, too. Wow. What's your delusion? Is working with the know a way to work with the other person? [...] I'll think about that. Any other excellent questions? That was very good, thank you. Yes? Back to blue. Yes? Okay, just a second now, okay? Boom, I got a picture of blue. I'm not imputing anything. It's just an image.

[62:35]

It's not the imputational. Unless I say that is. Yeah, just the blue. But the thing is, usually as soon as you see blue, you say, that is blue. Before you have a chance, you couldn't get there. But anyway, but if you actually just saw blue, but you didn't say it is blue, then there'll be no imputation. Yeah, pretty rare. Pretty rare. The big question is, can a Buddha talk without getting kind of confused? I'm not so sure. It's possible, but anyway, it might be. Basically, whenever you're doing that, it's going to... So let's get used to admitting that we're pretty much nonstop imputing, believing, and attaching and mucking it up. That's just sort of like And then, just as an idea, accept that.

[63:40]

And then meditate on the other dependent. As you meditate on the other dependent, you'll start to see that that's so. You'll catch yourself in the act of screwing up a perfectly good life. And I say catch yourself. It's not really you that's doing it. It's just the predisposition to lay out these projections so we can talk to each other and, you know, make a buck. or make a duck. So, you start catching yourself at that more and more. The more you meditate on the other dependent, the more you're not, you know, the more you meditate on the other dependent, the more you realize you have nothing better to do than to practice meditation. And if you're just practicing meditation rather than, like, getting somewhere, then you can, like, look at what a jerk you are and how confused you are and how deluded you are. No problem because, you know, why not?

[64:41]

Why not study what's happening? Why not study these teachings? But if you're not meditating on the other dependent, you're sort of like moreover to like, what did my delusion say I should be doing? Like Ben's saying, I should probably be at this stage right here because then I'll really make progress. Meditating on the other dependent, you're like, who said that? Where'd that come from? Whew. Suspicion. This is like really a good practice over here. Meditating on the other dependent is when you think it's good to meditate on the other dependent, you realize, well, there's the imputational again. I'm not meditating on the other dependent. I'm meditating on a good way to meditate on the other dependent. This is the fantasy again. Meditating on the other dependent, you don't know what you're doing. You don't know what you're doing, and you don't... and you don't know what you're looking at. What you are looking at is a fantasy, but you don't know what you're actually looking at, and you kind of recognize that.

[65:46]

And recognizing that, you're meditating on the other dependent, sort of. Okay? All right? Is there an antithesis, an antidote to false imaginations? Is that what you said? Yes. And you said, is there a... Yes. False, yeah. Are there true imaginations? Not that I know of. Well, basically, yes. I mean, they're false in that they were applied to anything. Images are not false. It's just false to apply them to anything. That's all. The false part is to think that an image or an idea or a concept actually belonged on something.

[66:52]

That's the false part. False imagination, like blue is not false, but to think the projectile, that's the false part. And what's true, what the antidote to false imagination is to actually understand that these imaginations aren't actually ever making it, that really the way things are is actually and there is an absence of these things. That balances, that antidotes it. But that takes quite a bit of work to see that because you have to like really become familiar with false imagination. But again, just to sort of dive into false imagination land is pretty hard unless you're already grounded in the other dependent. Because otherwise, as you dive into studying your false imagination, you might think that you're actually seeing your false imagination correctly, which of course you can't do. But as you're grounded in the other dependent, the virtue you develop, you have the ability to start to come to see the falseness of your imagination.

[68:04]

And then to be able to see that actually there's some place where you can't find it, and you're sure you can't find it, and then things start getting cleared up. then you actually find and realize that the world is actually free of these overlays. You start to actually see the way the world is without the obscuring and contaminating confusion of our imagination with what's happening. You see the peaceful world of liberation through seeing the absence of this contamination. . I said, what did you say?

[69:22]

That that would be a true imagination? I can imagine how you thought I said that. But I'm not saying that space is real. I'm not saying space is real. I would say space exists and that it's permanent, you know, but it's a phenomena. But using imagination space seems to me would be again to obscure the dependent co-arising of that phenomena. But space is an imaginary thing, but we don't project space onto blue.

[70:24]

That's not the reason why we're suffering, projecting the concept of space onto blue. But to project the image of space onto space so we can talk about the process. But the concept space, that's fine. There is such a thing as space. And we have a concept for it. But to think that the word, that the thing we put on the phenomenon in order to get a hold of it, that that was a space, that would be a mistake. But the projection that we have the problem about is the projection of essences onto all phenomena so that we can make conventional designations. That's the one that's causing projecting of essences and then believing them and attaching to them. But again, I'm not strongly encouraging you to start looking at this stuff yet.

[71:30]

I'm more encouraging you, I'm talking about this to get you ready for this teaching, but I'm actually encouraging you to meditate on the teaching of other dependent character. I'm encouraging you to get better at that now before you actually intensively start looking at the imputational. Try to find that and examine that. We will get to that later. We actually already are getting to it. I'll keep talking about it, but I'm not actually suggesting you meditate on it. I'm suggesting you learn about it at this phase by talking to me about it. And learn more and more before you start pondering it. I don't think we're generally speaking as a group ready for that. But prove me wrong if you want. I'm not sure. Some of you may be further along in this meditation than I know.

[72:33]

Is that enough for tonight? How's it going in this teaching thing? Is it going really well according to your imagination? What's your imagination of this process? It's false, he says. Yeah, so I don't know. See, I don't know how it's going. I don't know how it's going. What? It seems that there's something to get, yeah. I know what you mean. It's kind of frightening. What? It seems like a koan. Uh-uh. yes yes Pardon?

[74:05]

Yes, just say, same with the thought? Yeah, right. Yes, uh-huh. Yeah, you ask how it's going, and you said, and somehow, even though we don't know what's going on, sometimes we start feeling happy. Even though that's not really what's happening, that's not really what's happening, we still do kind of feel happy. And we can talk about it. Now, that's not really what's happening, but we are talking about being happy. And kind of like, okay. Okay. We feel kind of enthusiastic and loving of people and stuff like that. That's not . We like it. We want to study more. We want to learn more. We want to pay more attention.

[75:10]

We want to practice mindfulness. We want to be generous. We want to practice the precepts. All this stuff happens. And we feel kind of more relaxed and less attached. That's not really what's going on, but somehow this is what we're, this is what's dependently co-arising, we're having these thoughts. And this is like getting ready for the next, start looking how deluded we are. But if you're really feeling miserable, you're not in a very good position to look at the delusion that you're having about that you're miserable. So thinking that you're happy, feeling happy, thinking that things are going well, feeling enthusiastic, thinking that dharma study is great, that's not really what's happening. But those conditions are the ones that make you more ready to consider that this is all just a dream and you're totally deluded.

[76:13]

Because you're happy. When you're happy, you're kind of like, okay, I'm willing to consider being deluded. I mean, I'm happy enough to consider that. I mean, as a matter of fact, I'm considering and it's not depressing me. As a matter of fact, I even feel better now. Just like it says I would in the scriptures. I have a lot more work to do and I feel good about that. And that's not what's happening either, but that's again, I sort of understanding that what I think is happening is not so. I'm starting to not believe quite so much in what I think is happening. Wow. And that's not happening either, but somehow that's, And it feels really good to think that, and I'm dreaming that, and then that might be a dream too, and that's good too, you know. So you start to get more, you start to manifest less and less attachment, even though that's not really what's happening. Somehow, you know, and then you start to say, well, maybe I should get somebody to do something.

[77:21]

This could be a whole dream that I'm not attached. So you go and see somebody, and they catch you and say, oh, wow, it was a dream. I am attached. And that's cool, too, that I was totally dreaming that I was unattached. I was even more attached than usual, but I'm still feeling good. This is studying. This is studying. And you feel good about it because you have no grounding in the other dependent meditation. And that's how you are. You seem to be almost ready to deal with this. You seem more and more, because you're meditating in the other dependent, you're more and more ready to face how deluded human beings are, aren't you? because you're not grounded enough in the other dependent. So you're still resisting this obnoxious teaching because you kind of want to think, well, actually, I do know what's going on. Actually, I mean, I do. I'm right. It's not that I'm deluded. He's deluded. I'm not. Some of these other people are, but I'm not. I'm actually not. That's what we think, and that's our delusion, right?

[78:23]

And if you're depressed, you don't want to, like, I'm depressed. I'm not going to be depressed and deluded. But if you're happy because you're practicing meditation on the other dependent, you can tolerate a little or quite a bit of confession of that you are one deluded being. And you actually do think that what you think is happening is what's happening.

[78:53]

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