I first heard Tenshin Roshi speak in 1978 and I was astonished and I still am astonished and marvel with admiration at Tenshin Roshi's capacity to synthesize the Mahayana and present it in such a fresh and vibrant practical way. But even more, this time I admire Tenshin Roshi for his training. He broke his leg quite seriously about a year and a half ago. And today, he's sitting full lotus and training in the forms of Soto Zen in really a remarkable way, given the nature of his injury. And I think that is a testimony to as many years of training.

[01:02]

So thank you for coming and sharing your training and teaching with us. Thank you for inviting me to come, you and your whole community. I probably wouldn't have come if you didn't invite me. Also I want to thank you for organizing a dinner that we had with some of the other successors of Kadagiri Roshi and one of the local vipassana teachers. It was very nice for me not just to see these successors of Kadagiri Roshi but to talk with them about and see that they're continuing to practice so wholeheartedly.

[02:06]

And I also know that some of Kadagiri Roshi's successors are in other parts of the country. So it's great that all of his senior students are continuing the practice in their own true way. I'm very happy about that, to see Kadagiri Roshi's work flourish so nicely here in Twin Cities, but also in southern Minnesota and Nebraska and North Carolina and California and Missouri. Iowa. And this Zen Center, as I mentioned before, I've come here four times and I'm very happy to see it flourishing so nicely. The practices, especially the sitting practice, the meditation practices, exudes tremendous sincerity and loving attention and devotion and strength.

[03:23]

So congratulations to this Sangha for a wonderful practice of maintaining you. May you continue for the welfare of this world in this way to protect the Buddha's teaching and practice it. One way to present the Buddha's teaching is that the Buddha saw and shared that human beings and other beings too, not just human, are actually pretty much born with a body and mind that give rise to

[04:25]

a misunderstanding of the nature of phenomena, that we kind of innately misunderstand the nature of our experience. And because we don't understand the nature of our experience, because we misunderstand it, we feel uncomfortable and we have various pain-inducing emotions arise based on this misunderstanding. Because we misunderstand the nature of the people we meet, the other animals we meet, the plants we meet, the material objects we meet, because we misunderstand their nature, we feel greed towards them sometimes or hatred. and almost always confusion. And then, because we experience these painful emotions and confusion, we then act to try to do something about our pain.

[05:40]

And our action is based on this confusion and this misunderstanding. So our actions, which we call karma, institutionalizes the misunderstanding and drives it to go round and round. So the Buddha is totally devoted to us to give us a teaching to help us understand the nature of phenomena correctly because when we understand phenomena correctly then these pain-inducing emotions don't arise and actions, inappropriate, unskillful actions based on them also cease. And we become free of those and also all of our wish to help beings becomes purified of our misunderstandings. So this is what Buddha wants for us, to be happy and free and helpful to all beings and enjoy our actual deep connection with each other.

[06:48]

today by way of summary of some of the things I've been talking about for the last few days, which I started at the Minnesota Zen Center and continued here, is to present a little bit about Buddha's teaching about the nature of phenomena and about how we come to misconceive it and be misled by our misconceptions, or rather misled by our belief in our misconceptions. Misconceptions are fine if you don't believe them. They're actually kind of fun sometimes to misconceive things if you don't believe it. So the nature of phenomena for us is that there's basically three natures or three characters of phenomena.

[08:05]

One character that the Buddha points out is kind of a character called a fantasy character or imaginary character, an imputational character, namely everything we experience we impute an image to. We impute an imaginary, something imaginary we put on top of whatever we're experiencing. Every moment of life, we very quickly, right along with its arising, we slap a conception on it. And this conception which we slap on it makes possible the use of words by which we can make conventional designations about what's happening. So this imputation of an imaginary character to everything we experience makes it possible for us to talk about what's going on, which as you may have noticed is essential for human beings.

[09:19]

We can't really be human if we can't talk to each other and hear each other language is necessary. But in order to talk about things we have to sort of like put something onto them, a kind of essence. And then we use that essence as a base for putting a word there and having a sense of a conventionally existing whatever. Now what we What we put this word onto is another character of phenomena, the second character of phenomena, which is the other-dependent character of phenomena, or the other-powered nature of phenomena. And that is the character, the fundamental character, the base character of everything we experience, is that everything we experience actually exists

[10:22]

independence on things other than itself. Everything that exists arises in dependence or by the power of things other than itself and it is not produced by itself. That is Buddha's fundamental teaching and that is the fundamental character of all of our experience. The third character of all phenomena is that this fundamental character is not actually touched by our imaginations about it. Or the third character is the absence of our imagination, of our fantasies about what's going on. It's the absence of them in what's going on.

[11:25]

So I'm like, I'm actually sitting here, something's over here talking to you right now, but me and each of you are imputing some image to this event here, this event which is arising and ceasing moment by moment, this phenomena which I call me and you call you, This phenomenon over here is arising and ceasing in dependence on things other than itself and it's not producing itself. But in order for you to talk about me and grasp me and know me and identify me, you need to project, which you probably are, some image on me. And in particular you need to project an image of me having an essence and attributes so you can talk about me, so you can identify me. Without projecting that on me, I'm still here, but you can't identify me.

[12:33]

I'm still here, and you have a relationship with me, and you're affecting me. As a matter of fact, you're creating me. All of you are creating me, moment by moment, and all of you are... ceasing me moment by moment. I'm being born through you, by your power, not by my power. You're making me moment by moment, and that's part of your life function, and you actually have that relationship with me and I, along with everybody else, is making you. This intimacy is actually how we come to exist. However, you can't grasp this intimacy, you can't grasp this other dependent way we are, unless you project essence onto it. And this essence isn't there. It's totally imaginary. It doesn't exist at all. So you put the essence on me, I put the essence on you, I imagine that on you, and then I can use a word, some words which we work out, say woman or man, and your name, and then suddenly I can get you. And you can get me, and I can talk about you and to you, and you can talk to me, and we have a conventional world.

[13:39]

It's conjured up that way. The fundamental world, the basic world, is ungraspable and it's inconceivable. However, you can conceive of it, but when you conceive it, you get a different world. You get a packaged version of it. And the only way we can, like, grasp that we can know in a grasping way this other dependent nature that we all have every moment, that everything has. The only way we can grasp it is by seeing it as our ideas about it. So by holding to this other dependent nature as our fantasies about it, we can know it and grasp it. However, this just happens to be the source of misery. This is the main root cause of human suffering in the form of greed, hate, and delusion.

[14:45]

Because when you laminate things with the essence, you naturally want to get them, hold them, grasp them, or you want to get rid of them, or you can't tell which, or you want to do all of them. And then you want to do something to enact these painful motions, and this is the story of suffering. The third characteristic is that actually these imaginations don't actually touch our wondrous intimacy. the way we are actually co-creating each other. No images that anybody has about what we are or what it is actually reach it, actually touch it. They're actually absent. And seeing that absence purifies us of our tendency to believe that this misconception about the way things are is the way they are. You can still see this appearance, this imagination, this image, this story, this picture.

[15:52]

You can still see the picture of people looking like they're independent, like this person's independent of those people, independent of the wall. They still look like that, but because you have actually seen the absence of them in what's actually happening, because you became intimate with them, the dependently co-arisen nature of things. And in that intimacy you looked and you couldn't see really anything identifiable. You saw, you witnessed, you witnessed the absence of imagination in what's happening. And then when the imagination comes back you go, hi, you don't fall for it. They often use the example of a magician conjures up a show, and the audience thinks it's actually so, but the magician, although the magician can see the conjuring, because she needs to see it in order to make sure it's happened, the magician doesn't believe it. But the audience does, so the magician doesn't suffer if the conjuring is in the form of

[17:02]

great misery or hatred or whatever. Those are the three characteristics. You remember them? The first one's called sometimes the imputational character. The second is called the other dependent character. The third's called the thoroughly established character. Is it possible to let the doors open? Is that okay? Will it work? Now another version of this presentation, which might help you remember it because I know people don't like the word imputational character, other dependent character, and thoroughly established character. Another version of that, another presentation of that would be the dream character, the mystery character, and the absence of the dream in the mystery character. One of my friends, he came up with this typification of this presentation, you know, the dream, the mystery.

[18:14]

He said, the dream, the mystery, and the real. But actually, I think it's better to say the dream, the mystery, and the absence of the dream in the mystery. Because this third one, to make it real, is going a bit far. It's rather, it's what is actually called is ultimate, sometimes people call it the ultimate truth, but actually I think it's better to call it ultimate meaning. Because when you see the absence, it isn't that that's the truth. It isn't that the absence of fantasy is the truth. It's rather that when you see the absence, you see what is most meaningful. In other words, you see what will purify you of your tendency to believe that your dreams are what's happening. Just thought of a joke. The world may little note nor long remember

[19:24]

Mr. Reb. But I hope that it never forgets Mr. Reet. That wasn't a pun, so don't hiss. I just want to briefly mention that although they're introduced, the Buddha introduces these three characters in the order I just introduced them, the Buddha teaches the mystery. The Buddha teaches meditation on the mystery, meditation on the other dependent character, teaches that first, and encourages people to meditate on the other dependent character first.

[20:33]

And then once you're based, that's the initiatory meditation. In other words, you're being encouraged, first of all, to meditate on something that you can't get a hold of. The other dependent character cannot be grasped, cannot be conceived of. As soon as you conceive of it, you're meditating on the imputational character. As soon as you conceive of the mystery, you've got a dream. So we're being encouraged to meditate on the inconceivable causal process which is a characteristic of all things. We're being encouraged to meditate on the Buddha's teaching of causation, first of all. Then, when we're based in that meditation, then we turn to look and study the dream. Then we become dream experts. Then, after we know what dreams are and how they work, and all the trouble they cause by being confused with the mystery, then we're ready to discover the absence of the dream in the mystery.

[21:39]

or the absence of the imputation of false imaginations on top of the actual other-dependent nature of our life. Now, I don't know if it's wise to do this, but now I'm thinking of introducing more ways of presenting this. Here's another one, which the people in the retreat are somewhat fluent with, but I offer it because maybe some of you will find this helpful. So this is based actually on a story, a Chinese story, about the duke of some place who loved carved dragons. He had an estate which was full of various carvings of dragons and probably paintings of dragons made of various materials.

[22:44]

One day, a real dragon was flying over his house and looked down and saw all these dragons in his garden and on his veranda and in his sitting room, and the real dragon thought he probably would like to meet a real dragon since he likes these carved dragons. The real dragon swooped down to meet the duke, and the duke was awestruck and fainted in response to meeting the real dragon. So some Zen teachers then follow this story by saying, they say basically, we're used to a groping, trying to understand the carved dragon. We're familiar with the carved dragon. That's our usual world. Our mind is carving versions of the real dragon into these carved dragons. All the dragons that we carved are based on the real dragon.

[23:52]

There really is a real dragon. But the real dragon is kind of like... It's awesome. It's amazing. And you can't take it home with you, and you can't get away from it. What is it, so big you can't get under it, or over it, or around it? It's too much for our little graspers. It's actually our life. It's our real life, but we can't do anything with it and we want to do something with it. Good little dragon. Okay, fine. Now you got a carved dragon. So we're used to the carved dragon. Carved dragon is the imaginary dragon. So a recommendation is move from the carved dragon to become familiar with the real dragon. And also, this does not mean that you trash the Carved Dragon.

[25:00]

Matter of fact, you should love the Carved Dragon too, which you may think you already do, but you may not actually be loving the Carved Dragon. What you may be doing with the Carved Dragon, which a lot of people do with Carved Dragons, is they esteem and despise Carved Dragons. Like the people you usually see, the dreams you have of people, we tend to esteem them and despise them. Have you noticed that other people do that? We believe that they are the way we think they are, and then we value them and devalue them. This is not love, this is our greed and hate. which are arising because of our misconception that what we're seeing here is what's happening. So the instruction, the encouragement is give up valuing and devaluing these dreams you have of who people are and who you are and become familiar, become intimate with who you are

[26:14]

When you give away, when you let go of esteeming and despising yourself, get to know the way you are when you put those on the shelf. And get to know the way other people are when you put away esteeming and despising. When you put away esteeming and despising, then the people you despise, you'll look at the same way you look at the people you esteem. Whereas if you hold on to esteeming and despising, you look at the people different ways. In other words, you don't get to know the dream. In either case, if you esteem them, you get excessively involved and you can't see them. If you despise them, you get excessively involved and you can't see them. So that way of dealing with your dream world then should also be applied to studying the inconceivable world, which is the basis of your dream world. The inconceivable world is the basis for your conceptual activity. Your conceptual activity is not based on nothing. The dragons we carve are based on real dragons.

[27:18]

Now, we also have some pictures about the way real dragons are, and those are not the way real dragons are, but still it's kind of important to mention, or useful to mention what we think dragons are. We think dragons live like in the ocean, and that they dive down deep and come up, and then they fly up into the mist, and then you're looking at the mist, you know, and this mist is suddenly, there's a dragon, and then it's back in the mist. Or like Melville said, and then suddenly there was a whale. A whale. It's like that. The dragon could pop out into your life any minute. You could have a meeting with something that you can't get a hold of, which is your actual life. So the image of a dragon could sometimes be an ocean. You look at the ocean, you know there's a dragon in there somewhere, and any minute you could meet it. However, even if it did come, you usually slap a nice little puppy version of it onto it, so you don't get overwhelmed.

[28:27]

But anyway, we're encouraged to listen to the teaching of the real dragon, listen to the teaching of the Buddha about causation, listen to the teaching, listen to the teaching that whatever is happening, whatever you're seeing, whatever you're touching, whatever you're tasting, whatever you're hearing, whatever you're thinking, whatever it is about you or about me, remember, It's basically something that arises in dependence on something, on things other than itself and it doesn't produce itself. And the more we meditate on that teaching of causation, the more impact it has on us. If you don't think about it very often, it won't have much impact. But if you think about it a lot, it will impact you. And as it impacts you, you will go through a process, something like this. As the teaching of causation, as the causal nature of phenomena starts to seep into you because you listen to it a lot, because you hear it and you remember it and you have a little Buddha in your ear telling you she is arising in dependence on things other than herself and she's not producing herself, he is arising in dependence on things

[29:45]

other than himself and is not producing himself, the more you listen to that and let that sink into you, the more you realize the consequences of that causal teaching, which is whatever you're looking at is radically impermanent. It's changing very fast because it can't keep itself going because it doesn't keep itself going at all. It doesn't make itself happen and it can't keep itself going. As you understand that teaching, you understand, you start to open, it starts to dawn on you that everybody you meet is very impermanent, and your car is too. You start to see that everything actually, because of its causal nature, its fundamental nature, it's unstable. You start to see that everybody and everything is not worthy of confidence. This is not a criticism of people, this is just the way they are. But you're encouraged to love these unstable, impermanent, other-powered, unworthy of confidence creatures.

[30:53]

You're encouraged to love them, not to esteem them or despise them, but to get to know them. Because getting to know them, as you get to know them, in this way you will start to treat them appropriately. But if you don't listen to this teaching, then you naturally think that people, you naturally believe the appearance that people are permanent and independent. That's the way they look. to our false imagination. And when we believe that appearance, when we believe that image, then we don't relate to people properly. We relate to them excessively. And that excessive relationship is harmful to us and to them. Listen to this teaching, listen to this teaching, your behavior will be transformed, first of all, by understanding their nature. Second of all, the next thing that happens is you become disenchanted. The image is still there, but the enchantment that comes due to not listening to this teaching starts to wane.

[32:06]

And when the enchantment starts to wane, again, your behavior becomes reformed into more and more virtuous form. This basic practice then becomes the basis for then later studying the carved dragon rather than just, you've been loving it, but now you can turn and study it and go deeper into understanding the carved dragon and then understand the abscess of the carved dragon in the real dragon. And we're not saying exactly that enchantment's bad. It's part of the deal. But we also need to take a break from enchantment quite frequently in order to behave appropriately. So your mind may still enchant, But then you listen to the teaching and the enchantment loses its grip on you.

[33:09]

You're no longer an enchantment slave. You may be an enchantment scientist, an enchantment artist, but you're not an enchantment aficionado. Still, you know. Some enchanted evening. You may meet a stranger. You may meet a stranger across a crowded room. And somehow you'll know. You'll know even then that you will be meeting again and again.

[34:16]

Therefore we must listen to the Buddha's teaching, to the Buddha's teaching across the crowded room. And somehow we'll know, we'll know even then That we will not be fooled again and again That worked out okay, didn't it? I didn't know that was going to come like that. So we are being encouraged by the Zen ancestors and the Indian ancestors to study the dependent, co-arisen nature of all phenomena.

[35:24]

We are being encouraged to study the real dragon, which is the basis of all of our little car dragons. We're being encouraged to study the mystery, which is the base of our dreams. That's the basic practice, and that practice goes on and on. This practice is not the complete practice. It isn't sufficient for total liberation, but it is sufficient for a deep transformation of our behavior, of giving up unskillful action and practicing virtue. And it sets the base then, not only does it transform our behavior, but it sets the base for the study of the other two characters and the final liberation. during this time, this short time I'm here, I wouldn't have had time anyway to get into studying how we study, how we struggle, actually, in our study with the carved dragon, to get to know it really well.

[36:24]

And then how we understand the absence of the carved dragon, which is called emptiness. The absence of the carved dragon in the The real dragon. It's not that the carved dragon is not around, just like the Duke. He still had his carved dragons all over his house. It's just that when he met the real dragon, there was no carved dragon in that real dragon. It's like just real dragon. Hi, real dragon. Can I reach for one of my old friends here? No. Just make me straight out. Actually, you can't get them in here. They don't belong here. that more profound meditation, I think, you know, see you next year. Work on this for a year. And if I come back next year, we can take a few steps deeper into the mystery and see if there's any car dragons in there. Just work on the... Real dragon. Meditate on that.

[37:26]

Listen to that teaching. Listen to that teaching. The basic teaching of the Buddha. Listen to it. Listen to it. Listen to it. Let it sink in. Let it transform you into a virtuous being. And based on that, you can go into even deeper realms, more profound realms of the mystery. And then one more version of this for the hardcore Zen students. is that the juxtaposition of the imputational character, the fantasy character, his thinking, the other dependent character, the dependently choralism character phenomena, his non-thinking, and the thoroughly established character, absence of the fantasies in what's happening is called thinking of what doesn't think.

[38:33]

Or thinking of that which doesn't think. But really I'd like to say better, think of the absence of thinking in that which doesn't think. Because in the realm of non-thinking there isn't really thinking. So you think of that realm but also you find out that there's no thinking in there. This is the essential art of sitting meditation. In one of the works of Dogen Zenji called Zazen Shin, which means the needle, and actually it's an acupuncture needle, It's a bamboo needle, but they used to use bamboo needles in acupuncture in China. It's the acupuncture needle of sitting meditation. And in that text he wrote a poem where he said, the essential function of all the Buddhas, the functioning essence of all the ancestors.

[39:44]

And then he says, it is presence without thinking. Presence without thinking. That's the real dragon. Presence without thinking. Thinking is around in the garden someplace, but the central hub, the central point where the essence is functioning and there's a functioning essence of all the Buddhas, that point is the presence without thinking. Ultimate meaning, however, is actually to seek to look at the lack of thinking in the presence. Okay.

[40:46]

Looks like you understood really well. Was that a nice summary for the people in the retreat? Did that help? And did new people understand something? Anyway, I pray that you and I listen to the Buddha's teaching on causation. The Buddha's teaching is basically a teaching of causation. And he tells us the way things are caused, but he also tells us that any idea you have of how that process works is not in the process. So it's a causal process that transcends all of our conceptions about how it works. So things arise in dependence, but the way that happens, nobody knows in terms of any concept of it. However, we are actually in that soup of causation all day long, every day of our entire life. That's where we really live. So we can become intimate with that

[41:50]

But it may help to become intimate, to remember that that's what you're trying to become intimate with. So when you look at anything, just remember the teaching that what you're looking at has a nature which is far beyond what you think it is. In other words, really respect every person you meet. You look at them, hide, but then look again. So there's Nancy. Look again. It's not just Nancy. There's Laurie, but not... There's another character of Laurie, which isn't just my idea of Laurie. Yikes! And so on. Everybody, keep listening to the teachings. Apply it to every person you meet and every inner experience you have. I would beg you to do that for the welfare of the world. So anything you want to bring up before I fly back to dragon land?

[43:00]

Yes? I'm studying a common character and in the middle of that work, which is called the diet and product, Michael Roach talks about emptiness, the hidden potential, and everything, just as he talked about, that no one's, no way to go within, you can't travel. But there's also a lot of working with karma, with really the main practice that's presented here, a practice of noticing all of the imprints that are coming up from your past program, and working with you by practicing people. I guess what I'm wondering is, the model that I understand from that book is that this experience that I'm experiencing

[44:11]

really one after another on past imprints, past karmic effects of the fruition. That's an example. These effects you're talking, these conditions which are manifesting as karmic effects, that's an example of your experience being other-dependent. Those are some of the conditions your experience depends on. That's one of the ways that shows you that your experience can't make itself because it depends on all these past actions That's an elaboration of the causal process. So, do you want to say more? And I also didn't mention here, but this meditation that I'm talking about, about meditating on the nature of phenomena, to study the nature of phenomena is a wisdom type of practice. But we also have a parallel practice which Tom mentioned as the paramitas, but actually this practice that I'm talking about here is called the prajnaparamita, the wisdom paramita, the wisdom perfection, the wisdom practice.

[45:26]

But there's five other ones, and those are the compassion practices. So those should be practiced in conjunction with this wisdom. So you should be practicing giving. Bodhisattva precepts, patience, diligence, and tranquility or concentration. Those should be done alongside the wisdom practices. And then the wisdom practices should be applied to all those practices you're doing. In other words, when you're practicing preceptualized, I have a carved version of these precepts, but the precept, for example, of not killing appears to me as my idea of it, but the actual precept of not killing has this other dependent character, which far transcends my little pipsqueak version of it. That softens my enchantment with my idea of what that precept means and starts to cure me of self-righteousness about my understanding of what the precepts mean.

[46:28]

So I have my idea of what not killing means I have my idea what not stealing means. I can't help it but have that because the actual practice of not killing has this imputational, has this fantasy character. However, it also has another character which is totally untouched by any idea that anybody has about the precepts. So we all have our ideas about these precepts. We all have our ideas about what giving is. We all have our ideas about what patience is. Fine. But the actual practice of patience, the way it actually is, the sum total of all of our conceptions can't reach it. But we deal with our conceptions, we take care of our conceptions, we must do that in order to practice the precepts. But then we also bring wisdom to the practice of precepts, wisdom to the practice of patience, which says this patience practice has this ineffable, ungraspable, Take away ineffable.

[47:32]

Ungraspable. Because you can actually talk about it. Ungraspable nature. And that softens and helps you be more skillful in the way you relate to these practices. They should be done together. Thanks for bringing that point up. Yes? Do you have any advice for dealing with the fear when you meet the real dragon? What advice would you give when you see the real dragon? You see it, it's very scary. The thing that's scary about it is that when you look at what's happening, and you're looking at what's happening without, you know, kind of like, taming it by your conceptions, it looks like nothing's there at first. Because what you usually think something there means is that you can identify it. So when you first start to meet the real dragon, you can't really see anything.

[48:37]

So then you might think that since you can't see anything in terms of an identifiable object, that there's nothing there, that can be scary. That's why you need to practice compassion alongside of this so you can run for the cover under the compassion. Would it help me? And actually Dogen says that in non-thinking, when you're actually meditating on non-thinking, when you're actually open to that realm beyond your conception where it's kind of like an awesome openness, which you could misinterpret as nothing. It's not nothing. It's just not been converted into graspable entities. So when you first, or when you're not real familiar with that area, you may interpret it as nothing, and like know you there, that you're being annihilated. This can be very scary, okay? So Dogen says, when you're in non-thinking, there is someone who sustains us,

[49:40]

There is your enlightened nature who is holding your hand there. All the Buddhas are actually cheering for you to sit still and relax in this new world of dependent co-arising. But if it's still too scary and you don't trust the Buddha, then just run over and practice some tranquility meditation for a while. Just forget this teaching, just relax, let go of all your thinking, just calm down. And when you're calm again, you say, maybe I'll go back there now. I'll listen to the teaching and re-enter. So we go back and forth, most of us, between compassion practices and wisdom practices. Because if you don't get a little bit scared when you go into this new world, you probably haven't really entered. When your first excursion is in there, usually you are a little bit scary, at least. There's a little bit of fright of, you know, well, where... Where am I? What is this?

[50:41]

Am I still here? That is part of the Course. That's again why we need a teacher in Sangha to help us enter the realm of mystery, enter the realm of the inconceivable. We need help. We need the teaching, which tells us beforehand we might get scared, and we need somebody to hold our hand and say, remember when you read about the scary part? This is it. It's okay. It's normal. It shows you're really opening to this. Okay? That's a good question. Thank you. Anything else today? Is that enough time for the children? Yes. It does, yeah. Would you say impermanence, impermanence, dissatisfaction, and selflessness?

[51:47]

Yeah, it is similar, right. Well, they're not quite the same because they direct your attention differently. But in fact, it's not so much that the imputation, they're not the same, I would say. Because the fantasy character of things itself is not dissatisfying. It's not painful. What's painful is when you misconstrue your imagination as, when you impute essences onto impermanent things then that gives rise to dissatisfaction. It's a superimposition of essence upon something that doesn't have it that is a source of these unpleasant, painful emotions. So they're not quite the same, because again, fantasy, even fantasies of essences are fine if you don't believe them. They're kind of handy. Buddha actually had to use them in order to talk to us. You have to, like, put a little essence on things in order to slap a word on it and make it appear in the world as a thing.

[52:48]

So Buddha does that, but Buddha doesn't believe it. He's sort of going through the motions of fantasy but doesn't believe it. But Buddha still has to put an essence on the thing in order to put the word on it in order to talk to us. But you don't have to fall for it. If you fall for it, you suffer. If you don't, you're free of suffering. But it's hard not to fall for it, as you may have noticed. Is that enough for today? Aren't you going to ask me to sing another song? Really? This one... I practiced. I practiced. I wrote part of it. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

[54:00]

Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can do what I want. I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I got a mind of my own. I'll be alright alone. Don't need anybody else. Gave myself a good talking to. No more being a fool for you. But then I see you and I remember how you make me want to surrender to other power. You're taking myself away. Other power. You're making me want to stay with other power. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. I can do what I want.

[55:08]

I'm in complete control. That's what I tell myself. I got a mind of my own. I'll be all right alone. Don't need anybody else. Give myself a good talking to. No more being a fool for you. But then I see you and I remember how you make me want to surrender. To the real dragon Taking myself away Real dragon You're making me wanna stay With the real dragon Boom, poops Boom, boom, boom This is good enough for the kids

[56:00]

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@Score_90.63