I want to describe a picture of how I'm drawing a picture. I was thinking about how I'm presenting these Four Noble Truths to you in the classes. I got the image of the way I learned a little bit about how to paint a thangka, to paint a picture of a Buddha. Actually, the way I learned it was you can break up the surface you're writing on into different sections. vertically and horizontally, and the head fits into a certain size, and you just kind of draw a circle in this certain shape, kind of like a oval thing inside of that thing.

[01:08]

That's the side of the head, and the torso fits into a certain thing that they give you, and then you can modify it and soften the edges a little bit. You get the basic shape of the Buddha that way. And then you draw on those outlines, and then you go over it again in a little more detail, the whole thing. I'm going to go over the whole thing again with Buddha. It's just like one of those traditional tankas. You can do it that way. But the main point is that you do the outline, the next level of detail, and there's indications of how much detail to go through as you go through each time, rather than doing the head first and then the arms or something like that. And then I thought about the Zen way of doing paintings, which are usually like that so much, particularly they're kind of like what we think of as, you know, the... prototypic Zen style of writing, which is just oftentimes doing like one stroke, right?

[02:16]

With no different levels of detail, you know, one time, and that's it. And what you write there is basically not really the point. And the point is all the negative to painting. Painting is sort of what happens in relationship to what you do. So you draw a circle or whatever, and then all the subtlety and so on starts to gradually come out as you meditate on what you did, or what is there. So I thought my talks, my Dharma talks, were more like just a one-stroke kind of thing. I wasn't really necessarily going into different levels of detail are going over the general outline and filling in. It's just more like the other way is just presenting something, understanding that that's it, and that's it in terms of presentation.

[03:28]

But what's all around that? And I'm doing both these ways, so you can maybe see that there's two different ways of presenting this teaching. And in fact, I am saying that I'm going over the Four Noble Truths now. I'm not going like... I'm not intending in the classes necessarily to go completely thoroughly into the First Noble Truth, but go over the whole thing and then maybe go over again and again. Because in our Zazen practice, it's more like You know, the whole teaching is like one time, and then again, one time, and again, one time. And all of it's contained in that, but not articulated, but implied, or inferred, or implied and inferred, referred, this kind of thing.

[04:29]

So these are two kind of different ways of expressing oneself. and of practicing, in a way. Also, I wanted to say that the Four Noble Truths are kind of like an abstract of Buddha's upright sitting. a wonderful abstract, one of the greatest abstracts that has ever been written on any kind of anything, that this wonderful, wonderful practice and realization could be expressed in this fourfold simple way. that the whole thing could be reduced to these four truths. And it's a kind of reduction. It's a reduction. But it's reduction which includes what's being reduced.

[05:34]

Reduction that leaves things out is not really a reduction. It's, I think, sometimes called reductionistic as a negative thing, that you're reducing but leaving something out. The Four Noble Truths include everything, actually. But still, it is an incredible reduction. Not incredible, a credible reduction. Extremely wonderful thing that he was able to reduce his zazen practice to these four truths. And then, these four truths, he then puffed them up again, and gave all the discourses, all the sutras, come back out of the Four Noble Truths. The vastness of the practice realization of the Buddha comes down to these four, and then all the discourses of the Buddha come back out of the four. But also they come from the original practice realization.

[06:39]

In some sense, they pulse down to the four and then back up into the discourses. So, in a sense, the four noble truths are the abstract of Buddha's practice realization and all of his discourses. Just a little footnote to his practice realization. For example, the second noble truth, of origination, all the teachings of dependent co-arising come out of that. There are so many wonderful sutras that are about dependent co-arising. That's really the second truth being now unfolded, so you can get into the details of that. But no matter how much he unfolded it, it never could be unfolded completely, except through direct realization. And again, I'm saying practice realization of the Buddha.

[07:42]

Because for the Buddha, practice realization are identical, because the Buddha's practice is selfless. And therefore, practice and realization are the same for the Buddha. The Buddha's practice realization is inconceivable. And although it's inconceivable, it can talk, it can walk. But when he spoke, when the expressions that came from him, when he just expressed his realization, because they were coming from inconceivable place, he didn't originally necessarily or always translate re-translate his words into conceivable form. So then that's why he taught the Four Noble Truths are conceivable and rational and graspable for us to get a foothold.

[08:47]

Once we have a foothold with the authentic presentation, Then we can start working that foothold, moving on that foothold, sitting on that foothold, walking on that foothold, talking on that foothold, more and more actively until finally we lose the foothold, which we eventually have to give up because he didn't have a foothold himself. His realization doesn't need a foothold. If you need a foothold, it's not practice realization. It's not liberation. But to get started, you have to stand someplace, get people to stand someplace with the Buddha, and then start moving. You see the inconceivable realm of Dharma from some conceivable realm, most of us. So, a conceivable realm is

[09:54]

that, as I told you, the first two truths are two names for the same situation. Situation is clinging to our life. not trusting this opportunity, thinking we have to control it, or that we can control it. And if we look at the opportunity, it can be discriminated into vast complexities, but so to try to grasp and control that complexity is the situation which is the first and second noble truth. Trying to grasp this extremely complex dynamic situation which you can experience in all the varieties that you discriminate.

[10:56]

Everything you discriminate is that field. Simplify the discrimination in terms of five aggregates. So, that's the way the Buddha put it originally is, to grab those five aggregates, which means to grab that complexity, is suffering. That's the first truth. Second truth is that the suffering originates But what is the actuality of the situation in which the suffering originates? Same situation. Grasping is life. That is the origination right there. So when you look at the results of the grasping, it's the first truth. When you look at the grasping as the condition, that's the second truth. How is this grasping a condition? That's the second truth. How is this grasping What's the result of this grasping? It's the same situation. So you can see there that first and second truth turn on each other.

[11:59]

They pivot on each other. So again, I quote that verse appreciating the third case of the Book of Serenity. In the subtle round mouth of the pivot, the spiritual work turns. There's a pivot there between the first and second truth. It's one situation, right? The situation is clean. The situation is you don't trust your life. You don't trust it. You think it's dangerous. It is dangerous, it's right, but your response is to try to get it under control. Right? Don't you do that? Get it under control. Plan it. I know. deliberate it, make sure it's okay, and then they give it a little room, see how it goes, pull it back, pat it on the head, whatever, you know, this is like the program, right?

[13:05]

This is suffering. But also, this is the cause of suffering. There's a pivot there between the condition for suffering, I said cause, I think that cause, this is the condition for suffering, this is the result of that condition. Same thing, same situation. There's a pivot there. If you can see the pivot, that's where the spiritual work turns, is in watching that pivot. If you can see the result, good. Then look at the result. If you look at the result, you'll notice conditions right in your mind, because the results connect, hooks into the pivot. The pivot is in the middle of the situation. It's the place where the condition and the result turn on each other. You can't have a condition without a result. That's not a condition. You can't have a result without a condition. That's not a result. They're pivoting on each other all the time. Usually, it's hard to see. I mean, it's hard to see both at the same time. You can see one. If you see one, you're looking at one, watch it, and if you're patient and quiet, it'll flip to the other.

[14:10]

You watch the other, it'll flip to the other. When you start settling into the pivot where they turn, that's where the spiritual life is, in that pivot. one or the other, but you have to look at one or the other under most circumstances. But if you stay with one, you don't pivot to the other. You get a feeling for the pivot. And then it says, in the subtle round mouth of the pivot, the spiritual work, this is that same character. In the subtle round mouth of the pivot, the spiritual opportunity returns. And again, as we pointed out, It is suffering, in a sense, is when you try to control the opportunity. You try to control the working. If you watch how controlling the working is a condition, you see how controlling this working is a condition, and then see how

[15:15]

that condition turns into the result, and then watch the result, and see how it depends on the condition. How everything pivots on this point, then that's where the spiritual work will turn, right there on that opportunity. So this is to give you a foothold, okay? This is suffering. Or the other foothold is this clean. You probably have a sense of both. Many people are able to say, basically, I don't trust my life. I don't think I can actually just be present and let it be. People do not trust that. You're punished for what life does in their neighborhood. People say, you're responsible for that. You did that, so reign it in. You're a good girl. You don't cry. You're a big boy.

[16:17]

That didn't hurt you. Shut up. Don't let those tears come. Don't let that voice talk like that. All that stuff we learned, so now we're always trying to control and deliberate and plan and calculate what to do with this opportunity. You can spot that, right? There's the condition for suffering. Watch that. You can see that. That's a foothold. That's a thing you can notice. Not only the experience of pain, pleasure, sadness, grief, anger, lust, blah, blah, blah. Not only that, but that you try to control this stuff. You can see that. Or you can see the suffering. Then you start watching it, and then, in that observation, things start moving. And as they start moving, you start to enter into the inconceivable realm of liberation. But it's hard to stay with it, because if you stay with it, you loosen your grip on the controlling.

[17:22]

So again, go back to the case where this thing appears. What does Prajnapthara say? He says, this poor wayfarer, when breathing in, doesn't dwell in realms of body or mind. Literally, what it says is in the five aggregates. He's sitting there in the middle of the five aggregates, just like us. But as he's breathing, he's not dwelling in the five aggregates. Not dwelling means I'm not controlling. I'm not pushing. I'm not shoving. I'm just in the midst of the five aggregates. They're just going pop and poop, pop, pop. He's sitting there in the middle of the situation, not dwelling in it. not running away from it, not jumping into it, not pushing it, not shoving it, not meddling, just there, present in the five aggregates. That's what he does, that's his practice. In that situation, with that attitude, you can see, you can observe this pivot. With that attitude, you have given up.

[18:25]

That attitude gives up. They're trying to control the dwelling in the five aggregates. And then you can see this pivot where the first and second truth are pivoting is also where spiritual life lives. Same place. Liberation happens at the pivot between the first and second truth. Or the third truth arises in the pivot between the first and second. The cessation of the sufferings place where suffering and this condition are pivoting, are dancing, are dependently co-arising. That's where the third truth comes up. In order to be present in that, again, in order to be present there, you have to not be dwelling.

[19:29]

If you're dwelling, then you're going to get dizzy. Even now listening to me, if you're dwelling, you're probably getting a little dizzy. If my language turned up to the juice of your normal daily life, you'd have to really stay present or you'd have to get thrown off by some typical force of your mind trying to get a hold of what I'm saying, or get a hold of this process. Just as you don't try to get control of the viscondas, you don't try to get a control of the mind. five skandhas as they come to you in the form of instruction about how to meditate on the five skandhas. So when you meet each other throughout the day, every time you meet somebody, five skandhas comes up. Unpredictable five skandhas. Very intense. How do you stay present with that and watch? How are you trying to plan what your response should be? How do you present yourself to the person?

[20:29]

When you meet a person, you think, how do I present? Do I smile? Do I smile a lot or a little? Is this the time of day when we're allowed to smile? Should I look at the person? You know, they look sad. Will I offend them if I smile? What should I do? How should I control myself? What should I do with my cheeks? Should I salivate? Should I blink? Should I take my glasses off? Should I shake? What should I do? All the time figuring out, this is suffering. And meeting a person, You feel that suffering. You maybe don't notice how much you're trying to control yourself, but you feel the suffering. Or, you may notice how much you're trying to control yourself. That's good. If you notice, I'm trying to figure out how to present myself to this person. You feel it. And you'll notice, if you are trying to present yourself in some way, some favorable way usually, if you are concerned, or some way that favorable means that they won't hurt you, if you are doing that, If you are aware of doing that, then you'll notice. Just watch that for a while. And it won't be too long before you notice that this is uncomfortable.

[21:33]

It's uncomfortable to be concerned how to present yourself. And you see. I'm trying to grasp myself. I'm trying to present myself. I'm trying to coordinate myself. I'm trying to package myself. And that's suffering. Watch that. Stay present with that. You see. There it is. There's the pivot. Now I'm suffering. Now where's the suffering? Is the thing still there? Yeah, it's still there. So you go back to the other one. Is the controlling still there? Yeah, it's still there. Controlling should happen to drop away. You'll notice suffering drops away. And there you are, not being concerned with controlling, not trying to not control, just standing there in the middle of five aggregates looking at somebody. No suffering, no origination of suffering. But to let go and stop, you realize they're not controlling and also they're not suffering. You have to be present there. you have to be able to be in this five aggregates, and then the five aggregates that are suffering, and then the five aggregates which somebody's trying to control.

[22:35]

You have to be there in that mess. If you're willing to be there in the mess, and notice the five aggregates, trying to control them, and the suffering. The five aggregates and grasping them and the suffering. The five aggregates, grasping and suffering. Pretty soon, as you see the pivot more and more, the grasping and the suffering drop, and there's just five aggregates. That's Prajnatara. He didn't say... He says, in the midst of breathing, I don't dwell in these five aggregates. Therefore, there's no suffering. I'm always doing that. He's always chanting that. He's always reciting that scripture. Don't dwell in the five aggregates. Not even don't. Not dwelling in the five aggregates. And again, even if you're... Yes. The second truth. Dwelling in five aggregates. The condition for suffering. Even if you are... You don't dwell in the five aggregates. You stay upright in the middle of dwelling in the five aggregates.

[23:36]

You just observe. I'm dwelling in the five aggregates. Observing clearly observing that you don't trust your life and you're trying to control yourself in your presentation and you're trying to get yourself away from the situation or in the situation and comfortable with all this stuff to observe that that is not dwelling in the five aggregates. And that brings light into the same condition for suffering. So then you're there. Now you're present in the condition for suffering. Then it turns. You see the condition for suffering, you say, oh, the condition for suffering, there's suffering too. Not only do we have the condition for suffering, but it's working. I'm miserable. Now you're present. in the five aggregates, not dwelling, and observing the suffering of the five aggregates, which is a result of this condition, which is still operating. Nothing's changed, really, except your present. And so you don't dwell, even in no matter what's going on.

[24:45]

And then it turns again. And then it changes again. And then the five aggregates change, and the pivot turns, The five aggregates change and the pivot turns. Turning, turning, turning, change and turn, change and turn. Stay present in that. This is a multi-dimensional pivot. This is just one aspect of the pivot. The pivot pivots in this way between the first and second cause. It pivots between the third and the fourth. It pivots between the third and the first and the second cause. It pivots between the fourth and the first and the second pivoting on there. The path, the fourth truth, is to be present in the middle of the pivot I just described. And then that presence pivots between that situation and the practice. So all these things are pivoting on each other. And here's another pivot. Here's another turn. In the middle of

[25:50]

in the middle of the suffering is the condition for the suffering. Instead of saying there's suffering and then over here is the condition, right in the middle of the suffering is the condition for the suffering. So you'd be present with the suffering, and you'll see in the middle of the suffering, you'll see the condition for its arising. In the middle of the suffering, you'll see this clean, this solid self. It's right in the middle of the suffering. There won't not be a solid self in the middle of the suffering. If you've got suffering, you've got a solid self in there. Now, if you are looking for the solid self, that will obscure it. So again, that would be dwelling again in the five aggregates. That would be dwelling in the five aggregates in terms of the aggregates fourth aggregate problem called trying to find the solid self in the middle of the suffering.

[26:56]

Indulging yourself in that kind of greed. Watch the suffering and the seed in the middle of it will pop up. You'll see it. The seed for the arising. Then, if you see the seed for the arising, then you watch the seed. Not You just be present, you'll see the seed. And you'll see it arise, sort of, with the seed. And when you see the arising, then there's another pivot. Because in the arising, inside the arising, is the seed for the ceasing. As soon as you see, if you can watch, you can see the seed... The condition for the suffering, and then watch the suffering arise, feel the suffering arise. In the experience of the arising, which you can experience the arising, in the middle of the arising is the seed for the ceasing.

[27:58]

So now you're watching the suffering. Now you see the condition for the suffering. Now you watch the arising of suffering. Now watch the arising of the suffering. just because it's arising. Don't go look for the arising of suffering, but when you see the arising of suffering, stay quiet, and right there in the arising is the ceasing. Another pivot. Right as you watch the arising, you see the ceasing. If you see the arising and don't pay attention to the arising, you will not see the ceasing. If you look away from the arising, you can't see the ceasing. If you pay attention to the arising, when it's arising, you will see because whatever is arising contains the ceasing. That famous same Buddha, whatever arises ceases. But another way to put it is in the arising is the ceasing.

[29:00]

But again, in order to watch this, you have to just There has to be just the arising. You have to give yourself entirely to... Some part of you has to just be... There's the arising, and then there'll be just the ceasing. If I'm with the arising, I'm watching the arising, then you don't see... You just have to be the arising. In the arising, there's the arising, and in the ceasing, there'll be the ceasing. The arising, there must be the ceasing. There cannot be any arising without the ceasing. But now you're looking at the arising. If you watch it faithfully, devotedly, you will see the ceasing. And not only that, but you'll know that you saw the ceasing which came from observing the arising. It isn't the spiritual process that just goes, the arising, then you see the ceasing and that's the end. No. Watching the rising, seeing the ceasing, and in the ceasing, it goes back to the rising.

[30:07]

Keeps turning. And again, just to sort of... I don't know. When you observe the condition of the clinging, clinging to the five aggregates, or clinging to the idea of itself, Again, it's not that we deny what you're clinging to. It's not that we deny the five aggregates or any feeling or the self. It's the clinging that's the condition. So you don't have to move the thing that you're clinging over at all. No matter what it is, Whatever it is, it's fine. It's life. It's a manifestation of life. The problem is it's not trusting it and thinking you have to control it.

[31:12]

That's the problem. That's the condition. It's that get rid of what we're clinging to along with the... Then there'll be a reaction against that, which is part of your life system telling you this is not... Okay, call the whole thing off. Leave Tassamara. It's better to give it up than to mess with the life itself, to hurt the life. It's better to be deluded than to hurt life. Just suffer and be deluded rather than try to get rid of your life. Once you see that your life has now been infected with this terrible disease of not trusting it. So don't hurt life because you don't trust it. Just go ahead and don't trust it until you're ready to trust life and not mess with it and drop the not trusting part. That's the part to drop, the lack of trust. Don't drop the thing you're trusting.

[32:13]

I mean, don't drop the thing you're not trusting. Don't punish it because you don't trust it. Punishing it enough already by not trusting it, but don't do any further damage to it. So, again, so the main thing is presence in this process. Which, you know, in most of my conversations, I've been talking to people about that. That's the main thing, just presence with this process. And this is just, all this talk is just to warn you ahead of time of the kind of trouble, the kind of stuff you're going to run into if you're present. and to encourage you to be present in this process and trust presence. Trust uprightness. Don't trust good or bad feelings. Don't trust the appearance of Buddha or the disappearance of Buddha. Don't trust the appearance of monsters or whatever.

[33:17]

Don't trust friendly faces. Don't trust hatred. Don't trust greed. Don't trust kindness even. Trust being present with kindness and present with unkindness and present with pain. And then this pivot will reveal itself. And then again, it's especially hard to stay present with that because things are getting so dynamic. We have usually, because we can't stand that intensity, we have moved away from that dynamic because we're so frightened when we're there. And as you start coming back and settling in and opening up to this, you know, this is what you've been running away from. This is what you thought you couldn't handle. This is what you thought you couldn't control. And you're right, you can't. The only way you can control this is by dreaming about it. The only way you can dream about it is to get out of there. Distract yourself from it. In the suburbs of that intense place, you can pretend... Yeah, I got it under control.

[34:23]

When you're real close to it, you don't any longer think you can control it. So then again, you think, I've got to get out of here. And all you've got to do to get out of there is just don't be present. Just turn a little bit, one way or another, lean a little bit ahead, lean a little bit behind, and you've distracted yourself. And then you can go, and then you can pretend all kinds of things, like you're controlling it, and then you can stop it. So, that's, I think, enough. All right? Yes? Well, you know, that's, you know, to pivot with what you just said, I would say that's kind of an interesting way to put it, rather than maybe even more than life, even more than not trusting life, we don't trust spiritual liberation. You know, maybe we trust life slightly more than liberation from life and happiness. Because, you know, this is about happiness.

[35:28]

This is not about how to promote life. Because you can continue life. You can continue life while ignoring it, right? You can do all your life-sustaining processes with no attention, right? So it's really necessary to damage life that badly by ignoring it and controlling it in the dark. I mean, and dreaming that you're controlling it. You still go on. You can eat with almost no attention, right? You can defecate with almost no attention. You can have sexual relationships with almost no attention. You can be cruel with almost no attention. You can protect your body from other people with almost no attention. All the stuff you can do, all the basic things of life that people think are important, you can do with no attention. Almost no attention. Or, in other words, they can be done almost totally unconsciously. But to see life as it is, which is the same as seeing it in such a way that you're happy, that takes complete attention.

[36:31]

So, yeah, I think we have trouble staying present with that. And the reason why we have trouble staying present with it is because of our habit of not staying present. What are the four forces in physics? Weak and strong force, is that right? Electromagnetic force, gravity, weak and strong forces in the nucleus, right? Okay, those are the four forces in the world. in physics, but one physicist said, I forgot his name, he said, but there's one more force, and it's the most powerful of all. It's the force of habit. That is the most powerful force in the universe. That is what creates the world, is the force of habit. So we have the force of habit, which keeps the universe going and keeps life going, but that force of habit does not make people happy.

[37:38]

The force of habit is the habit which keeps things going. That's the powerful one. Now we have this other one, but that doesn't make people happy. That sometimes really trashes people. And when people get trashed, they trash other people and trash plants and everything, right? So, that's powerful, and we got that established. Now the question is, how can we be happy under such circumstances with this huge, powerful force, which is Don't pay attention to anything that won't promote this life system. That's the basic policy. But the Buddhism is pointing you in a direction which is quite difficult. It's not a habit. but which makes you happy, which sets you free from various terrible side effects of this powerful, selfish habit of promoting individual life.

[38:39]

And the key here is, first of all, number one, the first thing to understand is that there is this thing to deal with called suffering. There's also this thing to deal with called pleasure. You have to face that too. If you don't face pleasure, you're going to have trouble noticing pain. Sorry. But also, if you don't notice pain, you're not going to be able to notice pleasure either. But the important thing is that you won't be able to understand the first truth if you can't Face your pain. And facing your pain again means not looking for it, not running away from it, just be present. Don't go looking for your pain, just be present. The real pain will come and visit you. Then you continue to be present. This is not our habit. This is not our habit. We think we have an alternative to being present with our pain, don't we? We think we do, and even those who won't admit they think they do, in fact don't. Unconsciously, they feel they do, and they dream of something else in this intense pain.

[39:42]

So they do. They dream that way, and they're awake. We have to bring ourselves back and be present with this first truth. And then the second one dawns, and the pivot dawns, and then the third one, and so on. Things start turning. And again, as you... you will experience more and more how difficult it is to stay present. As you experience how difficult it is to stay present, and you stay present with it, you'll be encouraged, and by that encouragement, you'll open up to even understanding that it's more difficult than you thought. If you can be present with that, then you'll see it's actually more difficult than that. But there's an end to this difficulty, and you can arrive at a place where you actually don't succumb to the habit of distraction from this presence. You don't succumb to the habit of what will promote self-cleaning. Yes? I was wondering if you might tell us more of an elephant thing for us.

[40:46]

I think it's very elegant, yes. I think the Buddha, you know, in some sense the Buddha, they say, you know, the Buddha had various... The Buddha even said that he attained, on the night of his awakening, supernormal, not supernatural, supernormal powers. Powers that most people don't have. He attained them. One, two, three, you know, he attained them. And the final... And then after the list of powers, he... he attained this knowledge of the ending of the outflows of truths. But he did have these supernormal powers, and so he could do very fancy stuff if he wanted to. But of all the supernormal powers, I think the greatest one that he had was the ability to teach. His most supernormal power was talking. And the Four Noble Truths is like, you know, there have been a number of fantastic musicians and magicians in the world, and he's one of them.

[41:48]

But none of them produce these words, the Four Noble Truths. That's the greatest, wonderful creation. Very elegant, very brilliant. But again, I told you this before, but watch. Supernormal powers, supernormal powers, finally... The supernormal power of what? Of no outflows. Supernormal power of what? Supernormal power of being present. That's what ending outflows means. It means you're not distracted by these leakages anymore. You just face a situation. Then you'll see the first truth, the second truth, the third truth, the fourth truth. Partly you'll see them because you already heard about them beforehand. So you're probably going to see him. But you still might see him just like Buddha saw him, because he said he saw him. So, unfortunately, you can't be the founder of Buddhism. But you can re-find it, or re-found it.

[42:55]

You can actually see suffering, origination, the pivot, cessation, the path. You can see that when you're outflow style. Anything else? Yes. Yes. I couldn't hear that. What? Is it the same? She said, what is it that's present? And is it the same as what? So is if there was something is what's present the same as what's not present?

[43:59]

Right. Is what's present the same as not present? No, it's not the same. What's not present is the idea that what's happening is not happening. It's a phenomenon of feeling that you're turning away, that you're getting away from the situation, that the situation isn't trustworthy, that you have to do something. That's a certain kind of phenomenon. That is what we mean by not being present. But it isn't like there is something that's not being present. Not being present is just the idea that you can't trust what's happening. You've got what's happening, right? Then you add on top of what's happening, this can't be trusted. I can't. I can't. One can't. We can't. Let's get out of here. That's what not being present is. It's something that's not present.

[45:02]

There's just this formation of turning away from what's happening and denying and not trusting what's happening. That's what not being present is. It's not something that is not present. Now, what's being present? Being present is not something that's present. Being present is just what's happening. That's it. Something's happening, right? Being present is just that. It's like, usually what's happening, we've got something happening. It can't be just this. We have to like put a little tag on it called you stay there or you move. Somebody's watching you or whatever. This is not just left alone. This not leaving it alone is called not being present. But there's not something that's not leaving it alone. There is just the, there's only the not leaving it alone. There's only the mental activity of distrust. There's not something Now, there is also the mental activity of saying that there's somebody who distrusts.

[46:05]

That's another mental activity, but there's not actually somebody there. It's just the presentation. Somebody doesn't trust this, and somebody's watching over this. That's another one. But you don't have to say somebody. You can just say, this is no good. Fix it. That's turning away. Not turning away and being present is just not fixing things. It's just pain. Pain. Pleasure. Feeling pain. Feeling pleasure. That's it. That's presence. There's not something or somebody that is present. If you think there's something that's present, there's thinking that somebody's present. There's just five skandhas. One, two, three, four, five. Corresponding to you know what. That's all. There's not five skandhas plus something that's five skandhas. And in the five skandhas, everything you tell me about, everything you ask about, is in the five skandhas, and so can you. That's it. Being present is not something present in the five skandhas, it is the five skandhas.

[47:09]

Something present in the five skandhas is dwelling in the five skandhas. Something controlling the five skandhas is something in the five skandhas called the fourth skandhas. It's the fourth skandhas saying, talking about controlling the other three, the other four. or including itself. Because it doesn't realize it's in itself, it thinks it's outside of itself. So the fourth thinks it's outside and looks back at the other five, which is itself. This is called not being present. This is called dualistic thinking. This is called the seed for attachment. Then you have attachment, and attachment is built on this, too. Being present, you see this, and you see, actually, there's just that. There's just what's happening. That's all. And in the seed of that, you see that what's happening is there is a turning away from what's happening. And there is a trying to mount happening. That's this going on. But there's not something that's doing that. You'll see that. Okay? When you see that, then you say, well, that's it.

[48:11]

And then it flips. Well, how does it flip? You see there isn't anything And there isn't anything it needs to control. It's just life. That's all. How do I what? Well, see, now you're posing a true self over here in relationship to this. I don't want that. But you did it anyway. You didn't do it. The language did it. Some language did that. The true self in relationship to the five aggregates. Presence in the five aggregates, presence in your feeling, presence in your emotion, being present with that, is just presence. What about the true self? What's that got to do with this? When they're just present with the five aggregates, the true self jumps up and says hi.

[49:13]

But the true self is nothing but that presence. That presence is unfabricated. The presence is not like you've got one, two, three, four, five skandhas, you've got an experience, okay, and then you build this presence on top of it. And then there's somebody who's present that way. And there's not some presence on top of the five aggregates. Presence means there's just feeling. When there's presence, if there's pain, when there's presence, there's just pain. There's not somebody who's pain, or there's not presence with the pain, or there's not even awareness of the pain, there's just pain. That's what pain is, is awareness of pain. You can't have pain without awareness. So there is awareness. That's what pain is. So the five aggregates are there. Not four, not just, they didn't just pull the feeling one up by itself, and now we have feeling aggregates. You have feeling, you must have consciousness. That's feeling. There's the five aggregates.

[50:15]

What's present is the five aggregates. There's nothing constructed. The unconstructedness, the unconstructedness of the five aggregates is presence. All right? The fact of the five aggregates being the five aggregates, that's not constructed. The five aggregates are constructed. They come together and construct this feeling. Then they change and they construct another feeling. The five aggregates are relating in order to construct experience after experience after experience. And there's a force that makes this keep going. It's not going to stop, basically. Don't worry about that. Also, don't try to stop it. You can't stop it. However, the five aggregates being the five aggregates is unconstructedness. It's unmade. The thing being itself is what we call unborn. That's unborn Buddha nature. Worries about the true self. What does the Julemir Saman say? Although it's unfabricated, although it's not made, it's not without speech.

[51:17]

This unmade-ness can... You know, and it can say, Hi, my name is Bono. It can wave its arms, it can do anything, and anything comes out of the incredible, inconceivable liberation which is based on this presence Suchness. The true self emerges from that. The true self happens to have an empirical, ordinary self like Eva, Rebecca. It has those things too, right? Because that's five aggregates. It has all the equipment of five aggregates. Anything you need, five aggregates. Everything that's ever been in the world is there. It's five aggregates. From your point of view, it's five aggregates. If you always have it, that five aggregates can make anything. And when the five aggregates are just the five aggregates, then what comes out of there is the true self. But the true self doesn't exactly come out, it's just the blooming of the five aggregates.

[52:19]

But the blooming is not like something something, it's the five aggregates bloom when they're just themselves. When they're not just themselves, when you don't trust them and you think you have to modify them, the bloom is squashed, and it's painful. Leaving them alone, they bloom. You know, we have the five petals of Zen. It's not a coincidence, right? It's five schools of Zen. Which is the five flowers of Zen. Five petals of Zen. One flower, five petals. Your life is one flower and five petals. If you let the five petals be the five petals, it's unconstructedness of the five symbols. Realizing the unconstructedness of it, that one flower blooms. And if it's a self, it's a true self. It's a walking, talking Buddha self. But it's not someplace in relationship to the five skandhas. But who trusts the five skandhas?

[53:24]

Only Buddha trusts the five skandhas. If you want to be Buddha, trust the five skandhas. Buddha trusts the five skandhas. If you trust the five skandhas, I want to. I vow to present with my experience. I vow to feel my feelings and my emotions and let it be that. I vow to settle into the situation without dwelling. That's my vow. Sounds like a good idea, but it's hard, especially if you get close. It's so dynamic. What are you doing? Let's get on with the program. I wouldn't have time for this intense painting activity. Let's add something to the situation, huh? Is there a pause? Well, I'm a little confused. That's fine. Let it be confusion.

[54:27]

Don't try to clear it up. Well, then, you decide if it's clear or not. One of the five aggregates seems to be to construct an idea of the self. So what I'm confused is a sense of being present, being in unconstructedness with this constant construction of myself, of this idea about who I am and what I'm doing and other things. The construction of self being the construction of self is unconstructed. The way the self is constructed Being that way, that's unconstructed. That's the same unconstructedness for everybody. The way everybody's constructing themselves, the way that everybody is constructing themselves that way is the same thing. There's no way to tell the difference. That's the same unconstructedness. Constructedness is different. And the way you verify that the unconstructedness is such is by looking exactly at how the construction's happening. So presence isn't just like, okay, okay, fine.

[55:29]

There's construction of a self. In order to realize the unconstructedness, there has to be appreciation of the way the self is being constructed. So the presence is that the self is being constructed. It's like, you know, if your kids are away in college in the same foreign country, it's not so difficult. But if they're like right under your nose, where you can see what they're doing... So if you actually watch, if you get close to what's happening and then leave it alone, that's what it's requiring. So you want to know how? The how is leave it alone. In other words, the how is you don't do anything, and yet you're totally present with it, and you know all about it. And I say you know, but there is complete awareness of it and leave it alone. Sometimes we can leave things alone a little bit by just not paying attention to them.

[56:30]

We think, but actually, we're, you know. And the five skanas are aware of themselves. I mean, because one of them is awareness. So, what it is. To make a self, you've got to have awareness. The self is not made. Self cannot be made unless you're in a special trance where the materiality has dropped away. Unless you're in one of those trances, all five are there. And even in that one, all the mental stuff's there. You can't be doing something without consciousness. You can't imagine that you're doing something without consciousness, and you can't have consciousness without imagining you're doing something. This is the deal. There's all this stuff going on all the time, and you can't have part of it going on because If you're conscious, you've got one skanda, right?

[57:35]

That's the consciousness skanda. You've got that. And if you've got all four of them there, you've got this, for the moment anyway, you have quite a bit going on. And the pattern of what's going on The shape of what's going on has some kind of tendency to it. The tendency of what it's doing is called doing. The tendency of your experience is the definition of karma. So there's always some tendency in whatever experience you have, and so there's always, in that sense, that's the karma of the situation. Sometimes the karma is indeterminate karma, but otherwise it's going in a wholesome or unwholesome direction. There's always some wholesome or unwholesome tendency or will in a moment of experience, if there's consciousness. Now, if there isn't consciousness, there isn't that, because you can't have that without consciousness.

[58:39]

I'd rather just, you know, that's the fourth truth, right? So, yes, definitely this will be related to the Eightfold Path. This is totally contained there, for short, how that's the case. I think it'd be good for us to bring that up. And yes. Well, yeah. So unconditioned. I mean, I'm not going to say that's wrong, but when you say unconditioned, sometimes people think means means unconditioned. It means it doesn't have conditions. OK, that isn't what I'm condition means. If it doesn't, it's wrong. There's nothing. There's no thing that doesn't have condition conditions. There's no such thing as conditions. There's nothing like that. Nothing. There are no things that don't have conditions. So what? So how the the the Chinese character, which was translated by somebody, I don't know who. As unconditioned characters.

[59:42]

This means nothing. There isn't any. This means made. In Sanskrit, it's asamskripta. That's translated as made. Now, you can use the word unconditioned if you want, but what that means is that you have something, right? Whatever that is grows in conditions. You have that. That thing being that thing is unconditioned. That's unconditioned. In other words, it's unconditional. There's nothing you can do about it. The entire universe has made this present experience that comes from causes and conditions. All conditions are dependent on other conditions. All events are dependent on conditions. But the fact that things are that way, that's not made. That's the unconditioned. And if you understand that unconditioned, then the real use is asamscripta. Asamscripta means ah, not.

[60:53]

Sam means put together. Asamscripta means to be made, not put together and made. That's what it means. But you're made, but the fact that you're made is not made. And the way that you're made, being the way that you're made, that's not made. That's unconditioned. Because, you see, that's the same for you as it is for Jeremy as it is for Barbara. It's the same. It's the same way to tell the difference between the different unconstructedness. There's no marks, there's no characteristics. You can't make that. But it's not a thing. It's not a thing. It is freedom from things. It is the nirvana of things. It is the freedom and liberation and joy of each thing. You can call it unconstructed, unconditioned, but it means unconditional freedom is what it means.

[61:54]

And this unconditional freedom, you can trade with other people, you know, like baseball cards, except you don't get it. Your freedom is the same as my freedom. Your freedom is a freedom from you being you. Mine is a freedom from you being me, but it's the same freedom. That's what unconditional is. The Sanskrit word is chaitanya. Chaitanya is the overall pattern of a given moment of experience. You wonder how that arises? How it arises. How the chaitanya arises? Yeah. Well, like when the mountains come up, you know? out of the ground, and the rain falls on them and they make valleys and stuff like that. As soon as the mountains rise up, there's a pattern.

[62:56]

So the pattern of the mountain co-arises with the shape of the mountains. So, you have a mountain here, and a mountain there, and a mountain here, so that creates a certain pattern. Like, if you poured water on the mountain, the water would flow a certain way. That's the Chaitanya. It's the pattern that seems to have an implication of the pathology. That's the way you read. The tendency of the consciousness, the reading of it, the shape of it, is the Chaitanya. And that would be the definition of karma. And what about to make things happen? The energy is manifesting as these mountains and rivers. The energy is manifesting as greed, anger, and control. The world arises from this volition. The world arises from karma. That's right. The world of illusion arises from karma. That's not this. This is how you build the basis for the need to be free.

[64:03]

Karma is the basis for the world of suffering. That's how the world of suffering is created, through karma. And when you have no outflows, when you're just present, you do not any longer have any karma. You just see this as a pattern of your consciousness, and you don't attribute reality to it. You just observe it. Therefore, if there's no karma, the world is no longer creating karma at that point. There still is the results of karma, various things happen to you, but you're no longer creating the world when you don't have outflows there. The pattern is still there. We still have five skandhas arising, and every time there's five skandhas, one of the elements in the fourth skanda is this chetana. And the chetana is actually put there. You can put it anywhere you want to, but you can make it a sixth skanda if you want to. And actually, they did have it be the sixth skanda for a while. They thought, actually, let's put it in the fourth. Because it's just the pattern of the other ones. But if you're not upright, you don't just see it's a pattern.

[65:07]

You think it's actually something you can do. And thinking that way creates the world. You never can do anything, but thinking that you can creates a world of I do this and all that. You cannot, if you believe in a sense of self, you cannot resist attributing reality to that chetana and falling into karma. If you don't believe in yourself, in identity to yourself, you can leave the chetana alone and see it's a pattern of consciousness and there's no karma. So you don't develop the chaipana. You develop the presence, which is to let chaipana be chaipana. It's just a pattern. It's not an action. There's no movement. But if you're not present with your presence, and you look to the side, don't pay attention to your presence, then you think your presence is doing something. And then you create karma, and the karma comes back and says, okay, you created this, now you don't pay any more attention. You didn't pay attention, and while you weren't paying attention, you did this karma, so now don't pay attention again. Understand that you create karma when you're not paying attention.

[66:13]

And the force of karma is to tell you, since you did this thing when you weren't paying attention, you have to stay or weren't paying attention to take care of what you created when you were paying attention. It's irresponsible for you not to leave the world of karma and go off into the world of presence. You can't go into the world beyond karma because you have to stay in the world of karma and take care of the karma you created when you weren't present. You see, that's a positive force. So the karmic world is pulling you back to say, stay in the world of what you created out of delusion. Don't leave and just be present. So you have to decide whether you're going to like... Stand up and say, excuse me, but I think it'll be all right if I just stay present with the stuff I've created through karma and don't create any more. I think I've done enough. I don't have to do any more. I know you're asking me to do more because we've been doing this together all this time, but I'm actually dropping out. But I'm not leaving. I'm still here. I'm just not going to believe that I'm doing this.

[67:16]

I'm not going to dwell in chaitanya anymore. I'm just going to watch it. I'm not going to control it. I'm not going to stop it. I'm not going to be pushed around by it. If it pushes me, I'll be moved, but I'm not going to run away from it. I'm not going to run after it. That's how you cultivate freedom. The habit is to say, don't be present, don't be present, because if you're present, the whole system is going to fall apart. The karmic world is going to come tumbling down in the most horrendous way if you don't stay here and play the game. But in fact, of course, the karmic world is coming down in a horrendous way already. That's the problem. It's bad enough, isn't it? It doesn't need to be any worse. Can it get worse? Maybe. Maybe it could. I don't know. But the point is you can become free of it And you can lead others to freedom from it if you would switch from being itself, which means fighting it or indulging in it, to being present with it and studying karma.

[68:25]

Studying karma, studying cetana, is liberation from cetana. And the way to study is not to try to make it different, but just clearly observe it. If you clearly observe it, you'll see It's not action. It's just a pattern of consciousness. It's just kind of like a little kind of an intention. It's an intention in the moment. That's all it is. It's just where the moment seems to be going. Maybe we need a series of classes on karma, but maybe a whole class would be good at some point. What is it? It's unconstructedness and stillness. It's like in the middle of an experience. No matter what it is, you're always the same person.

[69:26]

That's freedom. Intentions. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've got intentions, okay? Intentions, what else did you want to say? Intentions. Okay, and are intentions by themselves? No. Where do intentions live? They live in five skandhas. They live in five skandhas. You've got all five skandhas. You've got a very busy, happy family here, okay? And the intention is the fact that a lot is going on. The intention is you've got this big, complicated mess. That's the intention. That's where you live. Moment by moment, a whole universe comes up. There you are. Now, did you say you don't have that? No, no. You said something like when you're coming from that place, you don't have intentions. Didn't you say that? You know, I need to be very specific about this question because otherwise I won't get my answer. What is it that people have the ability, like cities, you know, people have the ability to, you know, sort of break?

[70:40]

I don't know. Okay. What I think those are, what I call, those are those supernatural powers I told you about that are lesser than the power of being present. It may be a good kind of practice so much, but you could do it. He mostly recommended the higher development, which is this presence without altruism. Now, if you have the presence without outflows, and you really do need to make things fall off the wall, you might be able to take some, what do you call it, adult education classes in that topic. You would be able to do it. If beings needed you to learn that, you could learn that. But the point is, the most important thing to teach people is not to get stuff to come off the walls, but how to be free with stuff on the walls or off the walls. And you said, I heard you say, when you're coming from this place, you don't have this intention and stuff.

[71:44]

But this place is right in the middle of all this intentions and stuff. You're in the same place. You're completely in the same place. But you're just not manipulating it. You're just present with it. That's all. You have no uphills. You have no desires about what's happening. And you don't have any desires for it to be different. You don't have any fixed views. you don't have any perverted views, you're just present with it without any of those outflows, then the person is free. And if the person wants to make things fall off the wall, they can do that. If that isn't helpful, it doesn't matter. The point is you've got a free person, and that person naturally is forced to teach others to be free. It's just they're connected into the freedom dimension, and they just are forced to share that and convey that to others. and they have no intention to do so, except that they want to. They really want to.

[72:44]

But it's not like to make things different. It's just that that's the way they are. They want other people to enter this dimension. Whatever is happening, including that you're running away from what's happening, including that. You're very much in the mud. In the five skandhas, the question is how to be present with them in such a way that the five skandhas bloom. It's the blooming of the five skandhas. And when five skandhas are blooming, many things can happen. So, Suzuki Roshi's way would be more making something fall off the wall. He would help you take something off the wall. If you needed to be a magician, he'd help you. fundraising campaigns, you can go to magician school, or whatever you're interested in. In Zen, the main thing is, you know, to follow the schedule at Tassajara. That's the most miraculous, fabulous thing that's possible in the universe, you know, in order to take a pee in San Francisco.

[73:54]

This is miraculous in Zen. Right? You know that story. Other yogis made this huge rainbow from Japan over to Korea. The Zen master just made a rainbow from the end of his urethra into the lake. One is freedom. You can be free and make rainbows over to Korea, and you can be free and make rainbows over to the toilet. The point is, what's freedom? That's what it's all about, freedom from suffering. These four truths are about freedom from suffering, and that's really the main thing. There used to be some supernatural powers, supernormal powers, in and out of the situation occasionally. That's only manifested if it gets people's attention towards the practice of freedom. Enough for now?

[74:57]

Okay. We're going to have some classes on karma, more classes on karma. That's part of this course.

[75:05]

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