the fighting demon realm, the animal realm, the hungry ghost realm. These are states of mind that we transmigrate through, pass through all the time. So heavenly realm is some place that, a mental state that is produced by our karma. And hell is a mental state produced by our karma. But when the karma, the karmic force diminishes, then we change to some other state. So there's no permanent state in Buddhism called heaven.

[01:03]

But actually, you know, there's popular belief and then there's more reasoned belief. And popular belief is very dualistic, whereas reasoned belief is more looking at reality. So within Buddhism, we have both. Both popular belief based on our wishes, And the other side is understanding based on what we feel is reality. So in the realm of wishful thinking, we have the imaginative nature. The imaginative nature creates various scenarios. in order to satisfy our desires.

[02:11]

So human desire is for longevity. We want to live forever. And this is an aspect of human nature. We don't want this to end. Although we know that this particular section of life, called my life in this world, will come to an end as in this form. This particular form that we call this body-mind complex will come to an end. And because it's difficult to see beyond what's apparent, we long for some assurance called religious security. So people look for religious security.

[03:15]

And the more this religious security is accessible, the more popular the religion becomes. So it's very comforting to believe in a system where you are promised something wonderful after this body comes apart. An extension of life called the heavenly realm. So it's easy to fall into that. And I blame no one for doing that. I might do it myself. We never know what you're going to depend on at the last minute.

[04:17]

But in Buddhism, actually, we talk more about nirvana. Nirvana is indescribable. But it's the nature of reality. We have the three marks of what our life is about. It's about impermanence, it's about no-self, and it's about suffering, nirvana. These are the three marks of reality. Impermanence, no-self, and no-self. In one sense it's called suffering and it's also called nirvana.

[05:29]

So impermanence has to do with time. Nothing lasts for more than a moment. So we tend to think of ourself as a stable, entity, and we tend to think of our surroundings as stable entities, but nothing lasts for more than a flash of a moment, even though when I look at you, and I look at you, then I look back at you, you've changed, even though we don't notice that. But for everyone sitting in this room, there are uncountable changes taking place moment by moment. And we're not the same person that we were a moment ago. So in time, nothing lasts in time.

[06:41]

There's nothing that's repeatable in time. Even though I say I'm going to the store and then I'm coming back home, you don't come back actually. You're only going one way. So we think in terms of going from birth to death in time. And so we see time in a linear way. This is also called the realm of the nature of imagination. We live in a world of imagination which is dualistic and discriminating, and we create our world from imagination. Given the elements around us, we created our world. So we live in different worlds. Each one of us lives in a different world.

[07:45]

Each society lives in a different world. Each group of people lives in a different world. And especially in America, you know, many nations are like tribes and everyone listens to the same music, eats the same food, does the same dances. In America, you don't even know who your neighbor is necessarily. Everyone lives in their own individual sell their own world and we create our own world through our imagination. And life in America is geared toward creating your own world through imagination. So this is called the realm of delusion. Because the more you depend on discriminating mind and see it as reality, the more we're entrenched in delusion.

[08:48]

So the real world, the real realm, the nirvana realm, is to be free of discriminating mind, to be free of delusions or to be free of illusion, the illusory world. while living in the illusory world. This is why even though we say impermanence, no self, and nirvana, nirvana is also within the realm of suffering. So delusion leads to suffering. There's no way out. Even though we may have heavenly realms, the heavenly realm also becomes a realm of suffering. So, nirvana is free of heavenly realms.

[09:59]

Nirvana is free of everything. Nirvana is perfect freedom. but we like to be caught by things. So we, you know, stay in the realm of deception, self-deception, because it's really hard not to be caught by things, not to be caught by our life, not to be caught by wanting and needing and creating a, what we feel is a safe haven, which actually is not. False securities. It's very hard to leave our false securities and depend on reality itself. So, No impermanence has to do with time.

[11:07]

No self has to do with space or with being. When we say a self, we think of a self as something solid, but a self, there's no solidity to a self. The self is just a flowing combination of rivers of feeling, perception, mental formations, consciousness, and a form, which is continually changing and transforming. There's nothing you can put your finger on. You say, point to yourself. There's no special place to point to. But any place you point, if you have right understanding, wherever you point is the correct place.

[12:09]

But we still live in this world of delusion. So it's necessary to recognize that we live in the world of delusion. And enlightenment is the realization of our delusion. If we don't understand our delusion as delusion, then we have no enlightenment. If we actually realize our delusion, that's enlightenment that realizes the delusion. So there's something called the three natures. the nature of imagination, the nature of interdependency, and the nature of nirvana. These three natures are somewhat parallel to the three marks.

[13:21]

So in order to get from the nature of imagination to nirvana, we have to go through the dependent understanding, the understanding of interdependence. Because what is our self? It's not that there's no self. There is a true self. There's a true self and an imagined self. So to get from the imagined self to nirvana, we have to understand the true self. The true self is the self that's interdependent and has no special nature. No special nature means that whatever I believe I am is only there because of everything else.

[14:34]

And if everything else were to disappear, I would also disappear. But the matter of fact, I'm always disappearing. I'm constantly disappearing and appearing. this Heart Sutra says, no appearance, no disappearance. But actually, there is nothing that appears independent. There is an independent feeling. Each one of us can do what we want, so to speak. So we have this independence, independent feeling, but it's totally interdependent. You do what you do because of what I do, and I do what I do because of what you do. If there was nobody else on earth but you, what would you do? We only do, we respond, and we respond to our surroundings, and our surroundings respond to us, and this is called our life.

[15:50]

You create me and I create you. Whatever we address is creating us. And whatever is addressed by us is being created. So we seem independent and we seem to have free will, which we do. We have free will. Life is not determined. determined is fate. We don't have fate. Fate, it does not play. Maybe fate plays some part, but we're not bound by fate. We're bound by our actions, which is called karma. So we're always in the process of self-creation. and we can remain in the state of imagination, or we can investigate the reality of life through studying interdependence, studying the dependent nature of things.

[17:06]

And by studying the dependent nature of things, we can realize nirvana. So we don't talk about heaven. We talk about nirvana. But actually, what we really talk about is being right here, right now. Because if we talk about where is heaven and where is hell, it sounds like you go someplace. When you go to heaven, you go someplace. But in our understanding, there is no coming or going. In reality, there is no coming or going. Everything arises from where it is, and everything comes back to where it is.

[18:09]

It's like the reason we are here is because we have always been here. Something can't just come up. We don't arise new in that sense, because we have always been here, we are here. What does that mean? It means that the elements of each one of us is potential. And when the causes and conditions are correct or come together in a causal way, we arise. And when those causes are no longer sufficient to hold together, we come apart.

[19:18]

So the problem that we have is the problem of consciousness. We don't want to lose our consciousness. And when we think of dying, we think, but I'll lose my consciousness. And what if there is nirvana? So what if I'm not conscious of it? So, If we think about going to heaven, we think, well, in heaven there's consciousness because I'll be conscious of being in heaven. But actually, we're worried about losing consciousness. And so, this consciousness, what we think of as consciousness, is the most important thing to us because we're aware. So our sphere is very narrow, and we can only understand what our senses and our thinking mind can put together, which is very limited.

[20:33]

I remember Suzuki Hiroshi saying, when you sit in zazen, it'll be just like when you die. when you're sitting completely and totally in zazen, it'd be just like when you die. So, you know, zazen is letting go of time, and it's letting go of being. But at the same time, it's letting go of time in time, letting go of being in being. and sitting in nirvana. We don't stand outside of time, but we become time completely, and we become being completely, but without contrivance, without imagination, and without trying to go someplace.

[21:51]

So the nature, our true nature is constant. And the forms of this constant true nature keep changing all the time. So we can't experience nirvana by getting outside of it, but by being it completely. being totally in time and totally in place without ideas about it. Nirvana is letting go all your ideas about it and just experiencing reality with your eyes open. But if we talk about nirvana, it sounds like some heavenly place.

[23:04]

So nirvana is in the midst of suffering. So sometimes people say, Buddhists say, impermanence, no self, suffering. Those are the three marks. And sometimes they say impermanence, no self, nirvana. But I would like to say impermanence, no self, nirvana in the midst of suffering. Which is true. Not by stepping out of our samsaric life, but by addressing it totally. So heaven and hell are places, are states of mind right here, right now.

[24:16]

Whatever we imagine of after dying is just imagination. If we know how to live this life with perfect freedom, then we're already on the other shore. The Heart Sutra says, gatte, gatte, paragatte, paragatte, gone to the other shore. But gone to the other shore means this shore, not some other place. In Buddhism, we have the Pure Land School. Honan and Shinran developed the Pure Land School in Buddhism because they felt that it's too difficult for people to practice and find liberation in the usual, as a monk.

[25:27]

So they, developed a school which based on Amida's vow of saving all beings through chanting the name of Buddha. All you have to do is chant the name of Buddha, which is the most popular form of Buddhism in Japan. Who can say, you know? But our form of practice is to make our effort to really investigate the world of interdependence, the realm of interdependence, to understand reality.

[26:42]

If we understand the realm of interdependence, we can understand how to relate to people. we can understand how, why people, why is someone angry? Why is someone like this? Why is someone like that? Instead of being angry at people, we make an effort to understand what creates the states of mind and realize that everyone is in a suffering position. The aggressors are in a suffering position. and to try to understand the nature of their suffering is the only way to bring peace to the world. If we don't understand that Osama bin Laden is our creation, that's the realm of delusion. We create the things that happen to us even though we don't think we do.

[27:54]

So somebody comes down on us or criticizes us, and we think, well, that's wrong, but actually, there's a reason for it. And when we study ourself, we can, even though we have our, through our suffering, we can transform our life to enlightenment. So our suffering is important. Our suffering is really important. We don't try to get rid of suffering. The goal of Buddhism is to get rid of suffering. That's what Buddhism is about, get rid of, but you can't do that. you can only use suffering to transform into realization.

[29:05]

So suffering is a great opportunity, even though we don't like it. But if we stop not liking it, we can, we're neither liking it nor disliking it, you know? just taking it and digesting it and letting it transform us. Otherwise, we get stuck in suffering. And then we crave heaven. We want to have a place that's wonderful without any of the other stuff. But it doesn't work. That's fantasy. Fantasy is reaching some wonderful state and wanting to be there all the time.

[30:09]

Can't happen. This is what you learn in Zazen. Zazen is a great teacher. It's all about suffering and transformation. Pain is just pain. Not liking it is suffering. Wanting to get rid of it is suffering. Because the more you don't like it, the more you want to get rid of it, the more you suffer. So nirvana, you know, is called the cool state. People say, well, nirvana means extinguished and all this, but actually it means the cool state, the state that's not upset. Settled equanimity and composure in the midst of suffering.

[31:20]

And freedom, freedom from, that's freedom from suffering in the midst of suffering. Not taking your life out of suffering over to this nice place. Doesn't work. Within whatever it is, you have freedom. So there's no end to practice. When we understand the interdependent nature, which is the hardest thing to understand completely, we'll realize that we arise on this place, on this spot, and we disappear on this spot.

[32:29]

It's like the ocean and the waves, as we say over and over again. Our life is the life of the ocean, and the waves are this individual. So the waves arise from the ocean and sink into the ocean, The wave didn't come from any place, and it's not going anywhere. It looks like it has a duration. But the fact of the matter is, the wave just goes up and down while the energy goes this way. Waves don't go anywhere. You see them crash on the shore, but the wave actually goes up and down, and it's the energy that moves. So it's energy is always moving. And this particular wave called me is going up and it's coming down. It's just all the activity of the ocean of life.

[33:31]

And if we know how to rise and fall and realize that we're always part of the ocean, you can't get lost. This is religious security. There's no way that you can get lost, even though you may lose what you think is my individual consciousness. We think that's the greatest thing because it's the greatest thing that we know. But this is where we have to have faith in our nature. Not faith, blind faith, although in the end it is blind. Blindness is real eye-opening. When our eyes are totally open, it's called blindness. But we have to have faith in our nature that we are taken care of.

[34:41]

Because you didn't ask to come here, And he didn't ask to leave. Nature's always taking care of us. True nature's always taking care of us. We call it different things. We call it Buddha nature. Because we're Buddha. Each one of us is Buddha. And we have the same nature. The same basic nature. As someone said, we all belong to the same nose-hole society. We're actually one person with myriad faces. And when we do harm to somebody, we do harm to ourself. Because our true self,

[35:45]

is the whole works. Do you have a question? I'm not sure it really answered the question. So if you were trying to dialogue with someone who had this view of a permanent place with no suffering that they were going to go to, you were talking today a lot about, well, that's just imagination. We create an imaginative place, yeah. So we say that we want to concentrate on reality, which is impermanence or interdependence.

[36:49]

I'm not sure that that person would feel like you were really respecting their view. Right. If you said that to them. Right. That's why I said... That was my first... Right. Then the person said, well, that's not enough. Then you have to start explaining. I mean, would there be a way to explain it without effectively saying that you think that their entire belief system is an imagination? Oh, I would never say that. As a matter of fact, I didn't say that. I said, I respect everybody's way of thinking. I did say that. I said, that's great that people can feel that way. That everyone has to have something, you know. And so like, far be it for me to say that's wrong. I would never say that's wrong. I guess more what I'm asking, is there some common ground that could be found so that someone who... Yes, there could be some common ground, right.

[37:52]

But when I say this, I'm giving somebody something to think about. And if they really take that and hold that, then they can come up with something. I'm not gonna tell them how to explain it to somebody. I'm not gonna tell you how to explain it to somebody. This is like a, you know, an hour lecture, right? I'm not gonna do that. This is like, you know, our understanding. Well, what does that mean? So, that's a koan. That's a gift. And it helps you, well, what does that mean? What does this mean? I don't care how they explain it to somebody. That's not my problem. I'm just giving them something. My understanding. You know, next week my dad will be 92, and ever since my mother died about a year ago, he's told me that he's absolutely sure he'll see my mother again.

[39:12]

And, you know, I don't know, so I don't tell him that that's not going to happen. But what's been really interesting to me in the last year is that he's suffered from two of the ailments that she had in her own life that he had never suffered from. One was depression during the past year. in one of the stages of his grief, he had a really hard time and became clinically depressed. And then the other is diverticulosis, which he had never had, which is kind of common with old people. And so I said to him one day, I don't really know if you'll ever see mom again, but it seems like she's right Yes. And what a really good opportunity to understand what she went through, because although he was really patient, he didn't really understand.

[40:22]

You know, it's hard for us to understand what other people go through until we go through it ourselves. Yeah. For most of us. Right. And particularly with depression, because he had never suffered from that. and has such a strong outlook, he didn't have a lot of compassion for what she went through. Yeah. And so he liked that idea, you know, that she might be right there with him. Yeah. Well, you know, he will meet her, but not in the way he thinks he'll meet her. Because we all meet at the bottom. But it's not in the way we think. Matter of fact, we're all met already and will never not be. You said that there's no same

[41:35]

person from moment to moment. There's something that's the same and something different. Oh, now you're fudging it. No. It's like, you know, when you pass a candle, when you light a candle with another candle. Well, I'll ask my question in a more radical way, though. Okay. Because a candle, then, makes it unclear. not the same person rising at the next second that rose at the last second apparently. And then you also say that our karma causes our suffering or our nirvana or, well, our karma is a cause. Something that happened to me 50 years ago is still operating in me. Well, no.

[42:36]

I mean, maybe. Okay, maybe. So, basically, who is affected by karma? Yes, that's a good point. That's why I say it's, you know, when we say, it's not the same person, exactly. Not the same person, exactly. That's a radical statement. It's the same and not the same. It's like, yes, but. So when we talk about existence and non-existence, it's neither existence, it's in between existence and non-existence, where we live. We think we're solidly living in this moment, which we are, but that moment's already gone. And that act is already gone. So that time and the being are not the same. But at the same time, it is the same and it's not the same.

[43:39]

I know that's hard to get, right? But it's easy to get. It's the same and it's not the same. We want it to be one side or the other. We really have a hard time not being, not holding that space. Have a hard time holding that space that it's, It's not exactly existence and it's not exactly non-existence because we're born on each moment and we die on each moment. And which is it? Is it being born or is it dying? Quick. Which is it? Yes. Being born and dying, same thing. What about stuff from the past? What about it? What you do is called, what your volitional actions are called karma, karmic actions. And then that karmic action has a result.

[44:43]

Every karmic action has a result, which either is immediate, or a little bit down the line, or later. It's not that you're carrying something, it's just that the fruit ripens, and then you feel the result. When you say there's no self, it doesn't mean there's no person there. Self is the one that's creating the karma. Self is the one that's creating karmic actions and to which the fruit returns. If there's no self, you don't get the return. Self comes up through karmic actions. So to have no self doesn't mean there's no person. It means that there's no false self.

[45:49]

There's only the true self. So when Buddha talks about freedom, he's talking about freedom from creating karma, which creates results and keeps the wheel going. So nirvana is described as absence of greed, which is karmic, creates karmic consequences. Freedom from ill will, which creates karmic consequences. and freedom from delusion, which actions create karmic consequences. When those three are no longer operating, a self is not arising, and there's no place for the karmic consequences to ripen. So even though we may be free of, say, for 20 years, not creating karma, so to speak, the results still come to you.

[46:56]

from a past. And they say even Buddha had karma consequences, was not free of karma consequences. Okay, Bill. Oh yeah, bottom means when the ocean is calm, we realize that we're all one thing, one piece. When we realize that we're all one piece, not just individual waves.

[48:02]

When you realize that, then that's where we all meet. We don't meet anyway, but because we have our individuality and we're looking out and see each other, we see each other as objects. I'm the subject, you're the object. As long as we see that way and think that way, then we have separation. So they're called the world of separation. But actually it's the world of oneness when we let go of subject and object. And when I see you as myself, even though I'm me and you're you, I still see you as myself. Okay.

[48:52]

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