The farmer Judy Bunce has a subscription to The New Yorker. Is she here? Yeah. And she loves you in the Stone Office. That's what she does. And... ...by Calvin Trillin, and it's called Questions for President Bush's Next Press Conference.

[01:15]

So then it has some, like, friendly questions, and then it has the Zen questions. I have a couple of Zen questions, Mr. President. Sir, the ability of the Star Wars, ABMs, you know Star Wars? Movie? It's a movie, but it's also a... It's a military plan. The United States. The control of the world. It's a... Military domination of the planet. Including Italy. Including Italy. Anyway, that's called Star Wars, ABM. Anti-ballistic missiles. Sir, if the ability of the Star Wars ABMs to hit a nuclear missile is imaginary... You've learned something.

[02:38]

apparently Calvin Schilling has too. His daughter lives in San Francisco, so he comes to Zen Center and meditates on a regular basis after going to La Combre for burritos. Anyway, if the ability of this military program to hit nuclear missiles is imaginary, and the nuclear missiles in Iraq are imaginary, Does that mean that Star Wars ABMs could hit in a rocky missile? And then the follow-up Zen question, if the first question's answered yes, how could that be verified? Did you follow that? And then the follow-up question, if the answer to the first question is no, is, in other words, if imaginary missiles are imaginary missiles, rocks are imaginary missiles, if the answer to that is no, then would you consider that justification for having gone to war against Rocky Rock?

[04:10]

Next ten questions. Mr. President, the interim report stating that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq justifies our having gone to war to remove weapons of mass destruction. What would a report stating that weapons of mass destruction have been found in iraq justified what would a report stating that weapons have been found since not finding them was used for justification to go in it had been found what would be found definitely justified follow-up question

[05:14]

Actually, an alternative friendly question instead of that Zen one. The alternative friendly question is, sir, do you think that the flowers which the administration said the Iraqis would greet are true have ever been found? and in a follow-up alternative to the friendly question, it answered yes, is, then would that justify having gone into war with Iraq? Then the final question that I'd like to read to you all is more, this is called the somewhat off-the-wall question. Speaking of Iraq and al-Qaeda, Sir, do you think that it's fair that parents don't have to use a U after a Q?

[06:24]

And then a follow-up question. If the first out-of-the-wall question was answered, no, would that be justification? If he didn't, would that be justification? Why not? So, let's see, you just finished chanting Chapter 7. At the end of chapter, towards the end of chapter 7, they talk about the three wheels, three turnings of the wheel, right? Now, there's the first turning.

[07:35]

And the third turning. And I guess that this sutra is where the three turnings thing first appears. The first turning actually first appeared in the first sutra. The first sutra is named the turning. That's the first time that that was used. But the expression second turning and third, especially third turning, the three turnings, this sutra is where it's stated. So... Let's see, I thought I might mention that. So the first turning is, of course, the Buddha's teachings. And in Buddha's early teachings, Buddha gave a conceptual approach, offered a conceptual approach to understanding the Dharma.

[08:38]

And the Buddha used the term, for example, used that term Lakshana or characteristics of things. I don't know actually myself if the Buddha actually used in the early sutras the term Svalakshana. There's the word Lakshana. And then this goes to Svalakshana. And I'm making this point because Chapter 7 starts out by saying that the Buddha first taught the svalakṣina of various things, the svalakṣina of the skandhas, the svalakṣina of the Four Noble Truths, the svalakṣina, the own characteristics. The characteristics of that, I don't know if the Buddha actually did,

[09:44]

Does anybody know? The Buddha did teach the Lakshanas of these things. The Lakshanas of the Skandhas. The characteristics of the Skandhas, he did teach that. The Svalakshanas, if the Buddha didn't teach them, then certainly his disciples did. So as the Buddha's teaching developed and became conceptually organized, and written down and so on, conceptually organized, the idea of svalaksha and her own characteristics did develop in Buddhism. So the Buddhist tradition developed a very nice conceptual approach to the practice, and it was very successful in a lot of ways, the practice. The practice based on a conceptual presentation. and in particular a conceptual presentation of the five aggregates, and a conceptual presentation of consciousness, vidhyāna.

[10:53]

Early Buddhism taught about the nature of mind, taught that mind had objects, taught that mind arose with organs interacting, healed of the organ, and that consciousness arose and that consciousness had objects, taught those kinds of things. And people meditated on this, and this helped them become free of belief and, you know, the independence of their personhood, of themselves and others. And this was actually a very effective practice. People became great sages through this method of the first turning. Okay? So the part I'm not so sure about is, did the Buddha actually ever teach Svalaksana?

[12:05]

In other words, that these things really have their own characteristics. He said to, but no. So in the early first turning we have that kind of thing. Then in the second turning... Pardon? How much own do you mean? What, like? Well, for example, on would be, for example, the on characteristic of an object could be seen as the object exists out there separate from the subject. This is one of the key things. An object would have its characteristics independent of the vijnana which knows it. That would be a key point. Like a person having the characteristics of the five skandhas.

[13:22]

A person having the characteristics of the five skandhas. They would say a person does have, yeah, a person does have the characteristics of the five skandhas. If you actually look at your personhood, you can see that everything that you experience could be accounted for by five aggregates. Or every experience could be accounted for which knows a vijnana which knows I'll use the Sanskrit just to get you used to it. They would talk about, you have an experience of yourself, of your life, and that experience is a consciousness, a vijnana, knowing an object, which is an alambana, a consciousness which knows an object. That's the way that they would talk about experiences. And that if you looked at the experience, you wouldn't find any kind of self in addition to like a consciousness knowing an object. Make sense? I mean, this is early Buddhism.

[14:22]

Have you got that down? Have you got that down? Huh? So it's not question and answer time yet, but I appreciate your question. But maybe I should just have a question. I was telling you this is here uh and i think actually i will zip through the first turning that's the first turning the first turning is consciousness knows objects consciousness has its own characteristics objects have their own characteristics live with it okay the next turning says uh things says uh No. No. Things don't have their own marks. No to any kind of conceptual approach to dharma.

[15:26]

All these dharmas, like these skandhas, like the skanda of jnana, it's empty. of independent existence. Objects are empty of independent existence. Subjects are empty of independent existence. So the first phase of Buddhism turned into, whether the Buddha meant to or not, turned into a saying that the person didn't have a self, the person didn't have independent existence. For example, the five aggregates did have independent existence. Persons don't have selves. Persons are consciousnesses knowing objects. That's what a person is. They don't have a self, but the consciousness kind of has a self. We don't usually say it has a self. We don't say the consciousness has a self. We don't say that the object of consciousness has a self.

[16:29]

But we say that the self does exist. I mean, the consciousness does exist. There is consciousness. There is consciousness. That's a basic truth of the early Buddhism. There is consciousness. There is objects of consciousness. And the objects of consciousness can be the other skandhas, colors, sounds, smells, ideas, feelings, and any kind of thing that you would know would be one of these other fourth gandhas. Those subjects and objects exist. They have own characteristics. The next phase deconstructs this essentialist view. And the truth is the emptiness of all things. Now, somebody asked me at a retreat one time, outside a Zen center, you know, what's the difference between Theravada and, I think they said Theravada, Mahayana, and I think that's what they said, and I said, well, there's no difference.

[17:34]

And they said, well, if there was a difference, what would it be? And I said, well, Theravada, but early Buddhism developed this idea that that the person lacked own being, or lacked a self, but the dharmas didn't. And someone then called a Theravada teacher, and the Theravada teacher got with me for saying that, and shot back that there's a sutra where the Buddha says all dharmas are empty. So there is an early sutra where the Buddha says all dharmas are empty. However, the Buddhism that actually lived was a Buddhism which said not that these diamonds were full or had self, but that they actually existed and the self of the person didn't. So even though the Buddha may have said all diamonds are empty and it's a very sexual tradition, it didn't talk that way.

[18:44]

And so the Mahayana starts, in a sense, with the Prajnaparamita literature. And the Prajnaparamita literature is different from, for example, the Lotus Sutra. The Lotus Sutra actually was composed approximately the same time as Prajnaparamita, maybe the first century B.C. or B.C.E. Okay? But in a sense, the Lotus Sutra doesn't really signal the Mahayana, the way the Prajnaparamita does, because the Prajnaparamita relates right back to the first one, the first turning. The second turning is the Prajnaparamita, which relates to the first turning, which deconstructs the first turning. It says everything they taught there lacks one being. All those dharmas which they used as a substitute for the self of the person. Denial of the validity of conceptual structures, which the Abhidharma, the scholastic presentation of wisdom, was a great conceptual structure by which one could practice.

[19:57]

Abhidharma is in the first turning, right. Prajnaparamita really talks right to the Abhidharma. is trying to free us from the realistic view. Now, the Abhidharma isn't quite naive realism, common sense realism. It's a cultivated realism, a sophisticated realism. And the Prajnaparamita is to liberate beings from the realism of the first turning. The first turning doesn't have to be seen as realism. In this sutra, we look at the first turning, but we understand that, you know, we wonder, what did the Buddha have in mind when you taught that way? Yes? So would Nagarjuna be an example of like... Nagarjuna is an example of second turning, yeah.

[21:03]

Well, he's an example of a person who responds to the second turning. He didn't write the Prajnapamita texts. but he's coming from them. And so Nagarjuna is a person who spends his greatest work, I think, on the middle way, mostly dealing with Abhidharma conceptual structures. He's deconstructing them one after another, taking away any... independent existence in any of the elements of the Abhidharma categories which had been used by beings. And then, and using emptiness as the basic truth to empty or to deconstruct any kind of essentialist view or substantialist view of the categories of analysis of early Buddhism. And then he also deconstructed so we don't make that into another substantiality.

[22:04]

So again, early Buddhism, the first turning said, we're not going to let there be a self to the person. People can't be independently existing. And the way we can realize that and understand that is through this conceptual analysis of humanity. And if you meditate on this, you will see that there's no self in addition to this analysis. And when a sense of self appears, you can look at it and find out that actually the experience of the self is actually one of these phenomenological categories. And you just plop the self in there and you see that it's just a form or a feeling or something. And it really was very effective. They had very good practitioners. However, there was a need felt to deconstruct this, and probably the reason was that it was Buddhism. Maybe you could say that the... I just got the impression that the booster rocket of the first turning had pooped out.

[23:10]

It was losing its life. Buddhism was becoming rigidified and stale and crunching. and it was to turn the second rocket on and leave the first one behind. But based on the first one, pushing off from the first one, the second one uses the first one as the point of departure, talking to the first one. However, the Prajnaparamita and the... developed the most important school based on the Prajnaparamita, which is the middle way school, the Madhyamakas, led by Nargajuna, They just deconstructed the old one and they didn't build a new one. They didn't build a new conceptual structure because they said conceptual structures aren't appropriate. The way to enter is to let go of conceptual structures, to let go of views. But they didn't give you anything. So old Buddhism was basically just left in ruins.

[24:13]

looking through that lens. Of course, old Buddhism still went on very nicely at the same time. But the people who followed this Mahayana, which is arising with the Prajnaparamita, they had no philosophy anymore, except the philosophy of deconstruction. And then we come with a sutra like this one, where... The bodhisattva says, there's a bodhisattva, there's a Mahayana person who is accepting the prajnaparamita and says, but first you taught that all these things have own characteristics. Now you teach that everything lacks own being, lacks inherent existence, produced, unceasing, quiescent from the start and naturally in a state of nirvana. What are you thinking of when you teach that? Well, in the Prajnaparamita, the Buddha would have just said, well, I was thinking about, that's what I was thinking about, how all those things are empty.

[25:18]

All those things which have their own characteristics, now I'm thinking about how they lack own characteristics, how their characteristics are empty of any inherent existence. A characteristic is also not out there on its own independently existing. That's what I'm thinking of. But he didn't say that, because... this is the third now he's going to tell us that he actually had three kinds of lack of own being in mind okay so you know that chapter a little bit now right that's what he had in mind when he taught that one kind now these three kinds are related to something else which he mentioned earlier in chapter 7 namely that in chapter 5 which was chanted this morning we'll do it again tomorrow for anybody who missed service And we did it in class the other day. Chapter 5 offers another version of vijnana. And this other version of vijnana is actually partly to help us have another understanding of emptiness, but also to help us have a more dynamic understanding of vijnana, which goes with vijnana of inherent existence.

[26:41]

the dynamism of this multilayered consciousness. In a dynamism of that, one can have a philosophy which deconstructs existence in things, but grounds the deconstruction in studying the structure and function of consciousness. So now we have a philosophy by which people can actually understand how this deconstruction applies to our . So in some sense, the Majjamaka wasn't exactly a Buddhist philosophy. It was more like a philosophy which liberated Buddhism from believing in itself, which is important. But it didn't leave it with much. The third turning is a way to relate Buddhism, which has just gotten over itself, to Buddhism.

[27:46]

So the third turning integrates the first and second turnings, but makes some adjustments to do so. It doesn't just import the early understandings exactly as they are. into the second turning and try to harmonize them. It modifies the early teachings so that they will harmonize with the second turning's emptiness and suchness. So this sutra actually modified early teachings so that the early teachings could be integrated with the second turning's teachings. And then even changed the story about emptiness to make the to make the integration of the first and second trinities more thorough. So, I also wanted to say this, which just struck me today, that the way Suzuki Roshi taught me to bow during the chanting of the ancestors of this Zen lineage was to bow on the seven Buddhas.

[28:59]

to bow there and bow to all the seven Buddhists through Shakyamuni and then to get up and bow again on Vasumitra Dayo show which is Vasumitsu is what we say but the usual way of saying it is Vasumitra that's the person I told you about before who was the president of the Abhidharma He was the president of the great convocation that occurred with all the scholars got together and they made this huge compendium of Abhidharma research. Vasumitra was the boss. So he stands up as a historical figure before Vasubandhu and other masters. And we bow at that point. And the next place we bow is for Nagarjuna. And the next place you bow is for Vasubandhu. So it struck me that we bow, because that's what he instructed me to do, we're bowing at the three turnings. Now there just happened to be evenly spaced, but also fairly evenly spaced, but I just thought, yeah, I'm bowing to the three turnings.

[30:10]

Of course, you could say the Buddha had the first turning, but actually what became of Buddha's teaching was represented by Vasumitra. After three or four generations, maybe is it five, three or four or five generations, you have at that point this Abhidhamma thing happening. You have this, the first turning has been systematized and is very strong. Then you have Nagarjuna, then you have Vasubandhu. The three turnings. We could also have You know, we could also make another lineage of texts, you know, about a text. Another way to do it. So, what else did I want to say at the beginning? I want to say at the beginning also, before going over this in detail, if we ever do, someone came to talk to me about... about how to meditate on the other .

[31:19]

So in terms of the, so we have, in the sutra we have the imputational character, the other dependent character, and the thoroughly established character. And then these are related to the three types of lack of own being. There's the character, lack of own being, clob. There's the production, lack of own being, clob. And then there's the ultimate clob. Black, slain being. Hula. So, but the Buddha recommends starting in practice with the other dependent character.

[32:24]

That's how we start meditating. And so somebody said, well, so how do you meditate on the other dependent character? Which is the same as saying, how do you meditate on dependent core arising? And basically, dependent core rising is whatever is appearing. Dependent core rising is whatever is being experienced. Moment by moment. Each moment's experience, that is dependent core rising. And that is a dependent core rising. ...on whatever's happening, right? This is a basic Buddhist paying attention to what's happening. What appears is the other dependent character. What appears is dependent co-arising, is a dependent co-arising. So how do you meditate on that? You just pay attention to everything that happens and then you can say, you can say or think or remember dependent co-arising.

[33:34]

Or a dependent co-arising. You can just... Be mindful of that. Mindful of the teacher. Or listen. Listen to the Dharma. The pentacle arising. [...] This is Buddha talking to you when you hear that. You can say, you know, Buddha's voice coming through. Sound of your own voice. Sound of your teacher's voice. Sound of your friend's voice. Dharma is coming through. And you're listening to it. And being mindful of that is meditating on the pentacle arising. I would say. Pretty simple, huh? Just hard to remember. Because the pentacle risings are sometimes kind of... So you forget about... Forget about the pentacle rising. I just want to eat that. And then from there, based on that, and when you're grounded in that meditation, when you have a grounded mindfulness in that meditation, then you can turn the imputational character.

[35:03]

One step back. Meditating on dependent core arising, part of meditating on dependent core arising is also, one of your other dharmas you can listen to is plob. Everything that happens, plob. In other words, whatever's happening is also giving you access to a production lack of own being. Namely, whatever you're seeing is not producing itself. It doesn't exist itself by way of itself. You also remember that, listen to that teaching. And when you're grounded in that, then you're ready to consider the next teaching, which is how things are appearing is the imputational character. How things are appearing is the imputational character. So what is appearing?

[36:11]

Other dependent character. How it's appearing is the imputational character. And how does it appear? It appears to be not an other dependent character. That's the way it appears. It appears in a way that it doesn't exist. It does exist depending on things other than itself. It's a dependent core arising. What appears How does it appear? It appears to not depend on things other than itself. That's how it appears. It appears in a way it doesn't exist. So when you're grounded in meditating on the teaching about how things do appear, then when you're really well grounded, then you're ready to hear the teaching on how things appear. And the teaching also that how they appear is non-existent. How they appear is non-existent.

[37:15]

How they appear as... That is non-existent. In other words, how they appear to be external. Their externality is non-existent. That externality is non-existent. That externality is non-existent. That externality. And you're good at externality. Your consciousness is good at externality. at producing an image of externality. Isn't it? So looking at that after being based on the former, then you start training yourself in what is appearing is a consciously constructed non-existence. is a mind-constructed, non-existent thing, an externality. I see an externality. This is totally a fabrication. Now I'm from meditating on dependent core arising to meditating on vijñapti-mātra.

[38:27]

And vijñapti-mātra is the key point at

[38:34]

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