And you can use discursive thought and be a little bit calm, or you can be really quite calm and still use discursive thought. If you get too calm, you can't use discursive thought. But you can get pretty darn calm and still use it. Would you give an example of the discursive thought? It would be like, this is a mystery. That's a little thing you might say to yourself. This is a mystery, this is a mystery, this is a mystery, this is a mystery. In other words, the other dependent character of this person is a mystery. Or this is impermanent? You can say this is true, but this teaching is not so much emphasizing other dependent phenomena. The other dependent character is also the impermanence of this thing. But you're not so much meditating on the impermanence, you're more meditating on that the thing depends on things other than itself. Now, when you meditate on how things depend on themselves, that will lead you to understand that, of course, they're impermanent.

[01:06]

When you learn, hear the teaching and think about the teaching, whatever you're looking at is something, it's a phenomena that lacks self-production. It lacks the nature. It doesn't have its own nature of producing itself. It doesn't produce its own nature and it doesn't have the nature of producing itself. It lacks that. If you meditate on that, that will lead you to understand impermanence from the inside out. Rather than impermanence just by being told it's impermanent, the impermanence coming from the way the thing, the way things happen is why they're impermanent. So usually, you could say impermanence, but meditating both on its other dependence and its lack of self-production, these two dimensions of meditating on dependent core will lead you to understand instability, fragility, impermanence of the phenomena too. It seems to me it's really easy to get stuck in, if you're looking at phenomena and you're considering it and its other productions.

[02:25]

to get stuck in the idea of what being produced by others is. So there's almost immediately a concept of what that would be. Right. And so that just... So it's really... kickstart by saying this is a mystery but the minute that at the moment that that becomes a concept of mystery or not knowing or it's not so much the moment it all starts that way it starts the concept comes right along with it from the beginning but that has to get that engaged in that because that's yes you can get engaged because you are engaged in it but then it gets dropped somehow it drops away it drops away, not by you dropping it, but by you studying it. So you're using your conceptual activity to apply the teaching about the other dependent.

[03:27]

You're using your conceptual activity to study the other dependent. Your conceptual activity is going on still. It hasn't stopped. It's still going on. However, we're not talking about conceptual activity at this time. You're just letting your conceptual activity guide you into meditating on the other dependent character. It's going on. Conceptual activity goes along with the discursive thinking. You can also have conceptual activity and you can use it in conjunction with the discursive instinct of giving up discursive thought. So if I say to you, if you give up discursive thought, the fruit of that will be tranquility, You can use that discursive thought and also the conceptual activity which makes it possible to understand that and apply it. You're using that, but actually that teaching can guide you to give up discursive thought. Now here we have another teaching which is also given to you discursively and you're hearing discursively and you're using the imputational, you're using the fantasy, you're using the dream.

[04:35]

You're using the dream to apply yourself to meditation. You're losing the dream to apply yourself to meditate on the other dependent character. And you don't try to stop yourself from doing that because that would be a dream of not dreaming. You just say, just admit it from the start, I'm dreaming. Emphasize what you're dreaming of. Now you're dreaming of the other dependent character. If you dream about this, if you have this dream, your behavior starts to change. And as your behavior starts to change, then you're getting ready to be able to look at the dream. Not stop the dream, but look at the dream. And will the dream change? Yes. But you can use dreaming about the dream, you can dream about the teaching about how to study the dream. Because there's teaching coming to you discursively which you're going to dream about. And your dream about those dreams can be checked and see if you're dreaming correctly about these instructions about how to study the dreaming process.

[05:40]

And by studying the dreaming process, you can understand the dreaming process. And when you understand the dreaming process, you're understanding the process of dreaming a self. And then you can see what it is you're dreaming of. And then you can look to see if you can find what you're dreaming of in what's happening. But you're not ready for that, really, even though we're talking about it. And you're talking about it as part of the way you get ready for it. I wouldn't recommend anybody do that much right now. Nor try to, like, use your dreaming process to understand what I'm saying and understand what you're saying and try to dictate on dependent core rising. There's a little bit of interest here? I don't know who's next, maybe. I think you might have been next. I don't know if I am. And you don't know who's behind you. I think you said, something depends upon things other than itself and is nothing in addition to those things other than itself.

[06:48]

I may have said that, or I may not have, but it sounds true. Okay, so I was trying to understand that in terms of cause and effect, because it sounds like I could then say an effect is more important than the cause and conditions on which it depends. Well, I am pretty careful of the word cause, because cause has the idea that it has within it the power to make the effect. but dependency is a little bit different than cause. So if you could just take away the word cause, I think then I can go along with this, that something depends on conditions, and then what would you say? Well, I'm thinking particularly in terms of cause and effect, that an effect arises depending upon causes, causes and conditions. I think it's usually phrased that way, that an effect arises depending upon... independent upon causes and conditions. So then it seems if we say that something arises in dependence upon things other than itself, a cause meets that criteria, arising in dependence upon.

[08:05]

But then it's nothing in addition to its to those things on which it arises, which is the conditions, then it sounds like the effect and the causes and conditions are not different. Yeah, so I'm actually not able to talk to you about cause and effect. I'm more talking... that things are dependent on things other than themselves. I'm not saying that those things are... that any one of those things is the cause. If you want to say all... If something is a cause of something, you can make it happen. If it's a condition, it doesn't necessarily make it happen. So I'm not ready for cause and effect myself. I can't talk about that. I don't understand that way. Conditions, though, depending on other conditions, I can talk that way.

[09:10]

But then the thing isn't exactly an effect. It's something, it's a dependency, it's a relationship. Because the way you're talking, it seems like I would get backed into the corner of having an effect separate from the cause. And then there would be this thing here that wasn't, you know, that would stand by itself separate from the cause. I don't want to go and I'm not going to, I don't want to go and get backed into that corner. But if it's a condition, then I don't have the problem. But there is an effect. There is an effect. Well, I'm talking about the other dependent character, and I don't see the other dependent character as an effect. I don't see it that way. Could phenomena be an other dependent factor? Could phenomena be what? Could phenomena have a characteristic of other-dependent nature?

[10:13]

It does, that's what I'm saying. But the way I'm thinking of it is that the other-dependent nature depends on things other than themselves. But I don't see that those things are causes. To call something a cause that can't make the thing happen by itself, I don't think is a cause. And if one thing can make something else happen, then that thing must have that thing in it. So I think the first karaka in the Mula Madhyamaka Karakas, the first verse, doesn't allow that there would be a cause of things. But conditions, I can see conditions. Yes, Grace? Okay, to get really... I walk into the Zen though, I bow to my cushion, I sit down, and I start to meditate. And I'm trying to figure out... Excuse me, before I go on, I just want to say that your question, I feel, was, you know, not exactly meditating on the other dependent.

[11:19]

I was meditating on karma. I didn't feel like you were really looking at the mysterious side of the thing. I felt that your question was thinking about this process rather than emphasizing that the other dependent character is beyond your thinking about it. That's what I felt. I thought you said a minute ago that we should try to understand what you were saying. What I'm saying is that If you are studying the other dependent character, okay, I'm trying to get you to remember that you're meditating on something else. So, use your thinking not in a way to figure out what it is, but in a way to try to tune into that it's beyond your thinking. I'm saying that the thing you're doing is more applicable to the dreaming process. Your more... is more for, like, getting over into discussing the dream.

[12:24]

It's more studying the imputation, the fantasy level. That's what you... You're sort of ahead of schedule there. Okay? There will come a time to do this analysis. Right now, I think we're looking... I'm proposing that we're looking at... mindful that the other dependent character is beyond our thinking to get used to a more humble approach to phenomena. Then later we can be a little bit more, I don't know what, scientific in a way, and analytic, and in some ways less humble, and more like, let's try to find something. Now we're not trying to find anything because we know from the beginning we're just going to be finding our dreams. You see what I'm saying? Great. Okay, so I'm trying to figure out when I'm sitting, I would actually meditate on the other dependent. So two things that come to mind that I could start to look at one would be my breath, the other might be my posture.

[13:32]

Okay? Yeah. So let's do posture. Okay. You talked a little bit about breath. And I'm trying to make it, you know, be what I do when I meditate sometimes. So part of what I often do is to just notice. Let's say, okay, so I'm noticing my spine. I'm noticing I'm actually... I mean, I'm still creating my position in some way. So how can I use that? Let's say I'm noticing the space between my sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae. How can I use that noticing? What would I then do to be meditating on the other dependent character of that phenomenon? Well, one thing you might do is to realize that what you're doing is dreaming about your body.

[14:37]

These are dreams that you have about your body. That's the first step. Second step is, now, what is beyond these ideas, these fantasies, these concepts I have about my body? What's beyond that? What is the body that's Or can I just keep looking at that space and saying, you know, I'm not seeing anything there. There really isn't anything there. I mean, there may be cells, there may be, you know, there are ligaments, there's blood. It's not that there's nothing there. There is something there. Your dreams are based on your body. The other dependent body is the basis for your dreams about it. It's not that there's nothing there. And actually you do know it. However, you don't know it in terms of like vertebras and spines.

[15:45]

You know it in another way, which you can't see because you've got this more interesting way of thinking about it. So I would accept that I had this dream of my body as having spines and arms like that. So that's mindfulness in the body. Okay? Now, then that's the first, that's the first foundation of mindfulness. Mindfulness in the body, like a body that's five foot something and has a certain number of vertebrae and is sitting on the sapu, that's, I'm mindful of that. However, which can also be meditated upon, which is... is closer to the actual physical body, which is the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, the body, and the skin. The eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, and the skin. That's the body which is touched by things. That's another body, which you can also be meditating on while you're sitting. Instead of your posture, you could be meditating on pressure, temperature, kinesthetic things, sounds.

[16:55]

tastes, colors. This is also your body. This is actually a created body. However, we're still dreaming of that one too. The other dependent character of either this fantasy body or this more directly experienced body, both of them we're dreaming about. Meditating on the other dependent is to be aware that what's actually there is beyond these concepts. However, we still do have these concepts. they're still bearing down, we're still laying them over what they don't, what is actually beyond them. It's really hard. I guess in some ways it's much easier to then fall into meditating on the invitation almost than the other dependent. Well, excuse me, you just said in some ways it's easier to fall into meditating on the imputational than the other dependent. Yeah, on the stories.

[17:57]

In a sense, that's like a huge... Because what we're usually meditating on is the imputational. Basically, what we think is happening, we're actually... It's not exactly a meditation, it is our habit. What we're paying attention to almost all the time, what our life is, is basically our life. Our fantasies are about our body. Our fantasies are about other people. Our dreams is basically what we're looking at. But it's not exactly meditation unless we say, this is a dream. Then it starts to be meditation. And in some sense, it is easier to do that, to just keep saying, this is a dream. This is a dream. But actually, what I'm recommending is instead of saying this is a dream, actually start to allude to what is beyond the dream. Because this dream is based on that. Like I dream that I'm permanent.

[19:01]

And I dream that you're permanent. That's my easy habit. But for me to actually dream about now what's beyond my dreams, this is a new thing. This is an initiation. I'm closing the door with and dreaming of what's beyond my ideas. And check it out. Doesn't something change then? I think so. John? Kind of just so it's more familiar, you go on with Grace's issue. and say you notice your posture, and you notice any specific sensation in the body, would an example of meditating with the other dependent be to look at that phenomenon and notice that you're using the imputational, like you've named it, and you know about it, and then also to think that... I don't usually think it's a mystery,

[20:08]

More like it's not really there in the sense that it's other powered and it's not actually like transparent. It's kind of like there's these vertebrae, but... No, I'm dreaming that there's vertebrae. Yeah, okay, so I'm dreaming that there's vertebrae and... But there's something there that's the basis of my dream about vertebrae. Which is... Exactly. But there's nothing about my dream of the vertebrae in the vertebrae. Okay. But the vertebrae are kind of like, you know, what are our dream of the vertebrae? Yeah, I think maybe we're saying the same thing. My dream of the vertebrae is like the way that my mind recognizes the conditions that make that vertebrae.

[21:11]

Yeah, maybe so. But the way your mind, that way of recognizing the conditions is not the conditions that make the vertebrae. That's your dream about them. But that's the way you do think, that what you think about the way they happen is the way they happen. And so that would be... And that's wrong. That's incorrect. But that's what we think. In other words, we think a dream is true. Mm-hmm. And it is easy to meditate on that and it is easy to take it as true. And so what I'm saying again and again, which is hard to get, because it is easy to think about the imputational, is to give that up just for a little while and just do what we call non-thinking, which is Not to disagree with the dream, but to say what's actually happening, which is the basis of this dream, is beyond this dream. So, one other example of something else I do is maybe like with the sapu.

[22:14]

Something like that. There's actually not an essence of a sapu there. you know, these other things, and then also these other things, there's not an essence of, you know, of cloth, you know, that's also made up of... You can say that, and again, that's, at a certain time, it is not so much that you go around saying there isn't essences of Zafus and Zafus. What you do is you try to find out how you try to catch it at projecting an essence in there, and then see if you can find it. But that's, again, that's the next step. The first step is developed this different attitude of meditating on the other dependent character of zafus and spines. That's the first step, which we're having, you know, we're having some difficulty getting a feeling for it and getting settled into it. Let's see, Jane, and Christina, and Mike, and Linda, and Cedar, and Bernd, and Elena.

[23:15]

I got a message from my sister that I felt sad about, and I felt myself turning away from her and thinking things about her. And then I said, well... I said to myself, well, she's got these things about her. She's this mysterious bunch of forces. And I don't know. I didn't get real specific. And actually, I kept doing that for a day. And my resistance softened to it. Why haven't we been taught to make resistance? And I sort of thought to myself that we're just these mysterious forces or something.

[24:18]

And anyway, I felt willing to make contact with them. Yeah, that's the idea, is that by this meditation we give up wrongdoing. like, you know, cutting people out of our life, who deserve it. Christina? This afternoon, I had a conversation, and while... It used to be the case that this kind of became more, became more aware of this. So while the conversation was going on, all these words were humorous. While the conversation was going on? Yes. had some kind of definition, of course, and concept.

[25:28]

There was a sense of the words that were used had something to do with what was going on, but what was going on was like more of beyond the words. It had a sense of understanding more than at the same time. It all becomes much wider than what I understood. And indeed, and reach what was going on, but it had something to do with what was going on. And I was much more aware, so part was like being with the words of that level, but then all around it was this other world.

[26:41]

Well, you're being with the words. and you're being with what the words are referring to, and you're being with what the fantasy... The words are not the fantasy. The words are referring to something, and what they're referring to is the fantasies that you have about this, which are then the basis for being able to apply the words to it. Right. But then there was also a feeling that I understand you're saying beyond, but I would kind of like to say that beyond is the same as something that this... What we're talking about here, it's based on something. What it's based on is beyond the talk and beyond the fancies and conceptions that make the talk work.

[27:42]

Can one have a sense of that beyond? Yeah. Just like when you... Another way to talk about meditating on other dependent is you're meditating on beauty. So like, you know, everybody you meet, you just... beauty. But you can't see beauty. It's invisible. But you sense it. But of course, what we usually do when we see beauty is we take the beauty as our ideas of what's happening. take the beauty as the concept that we're projecting onto the beauty. But the beauty of things is their other dependent nature. So that's very nice because when you, you know, the big problem is when our fantasies make us get into like, well actually, in both cases, both that you think someone's ugly, not beautiful, Or you think someone is beautiful, but you think they're beautiful because they look that way.

[28:50]

In both those cases, this meditation should free you from becoming greedy for one and hating the other. Going along with the level of conversation and practicing, because the calming and By widely or openly? Mm-hmm. But more than calming, I think, is that you'll be, pardon? More than calming and more than relaxing, your behavior becomes appropriate. More than calming and more than relaxing, your behavior becomes appropriate. And you become appropriate, that often is rather relaxing or calming. But in both Jane's example and your example, I feel the taste of the ethical transformation that occurs in this meditation.

[29:54]

This meditation is not so intellectual. What happens in the conversation is it loses a direction that usually stays. Like between a conversation, when that doesn't happen, it's like no one way to reconfirm itself. And that tendency to kind of divide or be confirmed kind of... Yeah, I think that kind of... If that kind of disappears or kind of... It's softened anyway. ...be lurking here and there, flying around. You can grab it every now and then if you want to, but you're kind of letting go of it because you're looking beyond the thinking about this, which is trying to figure out the right way that it should go and so on. This type of meditation can be done in daily life. The Samatha type of meditation is done in daily life.

[31:03]

It's harder to give up discursive thought when you're talking to people. This meditation you can do pretty well while you're talking to people. So what some people are doing is they don't feel ready to apply this teaching in their sitting meditation yet. And I've said, so they're just going to do tranquility meditation, give up discursive thought. I say, fine, do that in a zendo. And you can learn to do this meditation sort of as you're walking around Green Gulch or walking around San Francisco or wherever. You can do it at a peace rally. It worked quite well in discursive land. you're actually like continually going beyond the discursive thought, not giving it up, but going beyond it, while you're still doing it. And you're using discursive thought to remind yourself to go beyond, or to look beyond, but not stop, not give it up. As a matter of fact, recognize dreaming, dreaming, dreaming

[32:06]

Fantasizing, conceiving, believing, and believing my conceiving, believing my fantasies, that's going on too. I'm still totally hooked here. But I'm also simultaneously meditating. And though it's beyond, it's beyond, but it's also the basis of what we're hooked on. They're connected. These are fantasies that are based on what's happening. Let's see, Linda, I think. To ask my question, I need to know if you're using fantasy and concept interchangeably? No, not quite. Concept is like words and concepts, words and symbols. Like blue, or pain, the concept pain, or good, the concept good, which are also words. What I'm talking about is that you fantasize that these things apply to something.

[33:12]

And they do. But the fantasy doesn't. There's nothing that corresponds to the blue. There's no blue in the blue. Even though the word blue does refer to the thing blue. There's nothing in the blue. Blue doesn't have a thing that blue refers to. You said earlier that the concept arises with the phenomena, almost. Yeah, all phenomena have this, not just concept, but have this merely conceptual nature which we confuse with the other dependent character. Are all concepts or is conceptual thinking always imputational? No. How is it not? When is it not? When there's not imputation or superimposition, attributes, so that you put that into the thing, so that there's something in the thing you put in there that makes you feel justified in putting the word on the thing.

[34:32]

That's the part that we're trying, and that comes with things. But there's other kind of fantasies that aren't like that. And those we don't have to worry about. Those we don't have to give up. Those don't cause suffering. But again, you're trying to study the imputational ahead of schedule. It's irresistible. Yes. Sort of back to what Grace brought in. If I'm sitting in zazen and my attention goes to, say, a sensation in my body, and I think, this is a mystery, this is beyond what I think about it. So this thought has arisen. Now, Are you recommending that I just stay with that thought, or I could go... Stay with what thought?

[35:36]

This is beyond what I think about it. Stay with that thought? Why wouldn't you stay with it? Just be mindful of it. Be mindful of that teaching. Okay. What comes to mind is that's a thought which is a phenomenon, and so I could think this thought is a phenomenon that's beyond what I think. Okay. It's getting on the late side now. Bernd? I would like to bring something up where I feel stuck. So when I, especially in sitting meditation, look at what's happening through the light of these teachings, What often seems to happen is a turning, like a vision where I seem to inhabit this, call it before, this autistic universe.

[36:50]

And that's, it's actually a very frightening experience. And so in the process of working with these teachings, it is at this point that I feel stuck. And I wonder if you have some feedback. So what do you mean by autistic university? Well, basically, I'm looking at nothing but my concepts of what has happened. And yes, there is something out there. But for example, I could say out there, but what this is to me is complete, unutterable darkness. So what you're seeing is unutterable darkness, is that what you're seeing?

[37:57]

No, not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing what I'm hearing, feeling, thinking. But they seem to be nothing but like this, well, you asked me what I mean by autistic, like, let's say, an extension of the belief in self. They seem to be nothing but self. Okay. So, and then you're saying that the other dependent is an unutterable darkness? It's dark in the sense that it doesn't have any of this nice light on it, which are these projections of self. Very simple, but it's also… Can I say that again? Can I say that again? Yes. It sounds like what you call unutterable darkness is kind of like the absence of the projections of self. Projections of self are light and groovy, a source of suffering, but very familiar and cozy.

[39:15]

What is of those projections doesn't have any of those nice lights on it. But we don't have to worry about that because we're seeing these nice self-projections over this unutterable darkness. But it's not really darkness, it's actually beauty. It's just that it's darkness because it doesn't have the nice light on it. So that's good. You're not really stuck. No, I don't feel stuck. Pardon? I don't feel stuck. which is a nice bright thing, you know, rather than what you really are, which is an unutterable darkness. ...to this nice comment that you have on yourself. So what you really are is beyond your comment about yourself. You know, stuck, and so on. But it's not exactly darkness, it's only darkness vis-à-vis the nice bright world of...

[40:19]

So, like, can you, like, just simply open up to this area that's sort of, like, dark vis-à-vis the brightness? In other words, like, close your eyes to the nice, bright world of self-projections, which are nice and bright. Die to this other world, which isn't really dark. You've got to go through some darkness to get there. That's fine. Just say, how? That can be shorthand for, it's beyond my thinking. But not how, like how am I going to use my thinking to get there. But I'm just going to use my thinking just to know how. And that's going to be code for it's beyond all this light activity which is really just extensions of the self which make possible all kinds of wonderful things like conversations. So you're based on the way you are. But the way you are is free of being stuck.

[41:27]

I'm sure there's many more wonderful questions coming on the tips of various beings right now. But to the bewitching hour, some people are like giving me a signal like they want to take a little nap. So if it's okay, perhaps we could take a little break now and then reconvene at 10. It's so fabulous. I love it when I want to see them. You've been sharing so much, it's possible. I love it when I want to meet them.

[42:34]

I love it, it's so fabulous. I love it when I want to turn to them. So next week and so on I'll continue to try to work with you on how to meditate on a mystery how to meditate on what is inconceivable incomprehensible and so on as the initiation into this meditation Max, I need to put away my chairs.

[43:21]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_85.06