Maitreya, bodhisattvas who do not fall away from emptiness also do not fall away from all the Mahayana. It is because bodhisattvas, it is because if bodhisattvas were to discard the image of the nature of emptiness, then they would discard the great vehicle altogether. Because if enlightening beings miss the nature of emptiness, they miss the whole great vehicle. Therefore, Maitreya, listen well and I will explain concisely to you the character of emptiness. Therefore, attend well, for I will explain the overall image of emptiness to you. So listen well and I will explain. Maitreya, the other dependent character and the thoroughly established character are observed in all aspects to be a character free from the imputational character, which is either defiled or pure.

[01:15]

This character is, quote, that which has been taught by the Mahayana as the character of emptiness. All kinds of conceptual images, defiled and pure, imposed on the relative and real aspects of phenomena are ultimately unconnected and nothing can be grasped therein. This is called the nature of total emptiness in the great vehicle. Would anyone like to give us some reports on the emptinesses which remove different types of signs that we signed last week? Maitreya know that the emptinesses are in actuality antidotes to signs conceptually imaginative.

[02:55]

And so we have 10 kinds of signs and 17 kinds of emptiness in this citra. And people took like one of the types of signs or one of the types of emptiness. Two types of emptiness. And so if anybody's ready to... report on your meditations. Yes, are you ready? I think I got the first one. Okay. I was given the first one. Would you like to say something about that? Shall I read it? Great. The various signs of syllables and words through which the meaning of doctrine is comprehended. These are eliminated by the emptiness of all phenomena. Just what came to mind was signs of syllables and words not having to do with anything in general, but with particularly the meaning of the doctrine. So the thought that if there's anything that one might tend to reify as real would be something called the truth, so the words of the doctrine.

[04:03]

So to say even that is empty, then there's a blanket, it needs a large blanket of all phenomena as a reminder that Even that thing that one might tend to reify as the truth is empty. It reminded me of the parable of the raft. We use the raft of Dharma to cross the river, but then you need to let go of the raft. Thank you. Any comments? Do you agree with her or disagree with her? makes little minutes. I agree. I wonder if your understanding isn't thorough and complete.

[05:14]

You let go of the raft too soon. And how do you know? You just keep letting go and getting back on, or...? Can you still use the rapt and remember you're letting go as you're using it? Pardon? Can you still use the rapt and let go of the rapt as you're using it? Let go of it as you're using it. Or maybe letting go of the rapt just means that you understand that the way you grasp the raft is really not there. When you see that the way you grasp something is really not there, you can't grasp it. So when you can't grasp it, you let go of it. Does that make sense?

[06:17]

I have a question. This occurs in other places as well. The idea that the sign, we use the sign to comprehend the meaning. We eliminate the sign, but we still comprehend the meaning. You already comprehended the meaning. Right. So we have the meaning. We haven't lost the meaning. No, you got the meaning. the I couldn't repeat back to you what you just said about something about the way you grasp maybe the way you grasp it really you can't grasp it and so you don't grasp it's something that that it made me wonder if if this is kind of a self-fulfilling process in some ways, that if you kind of thoroughly, if you somehow thoroughly understand the meaning or thoroughly understand the signs and symbols, but would you comprehend the meaning, then you naturally let go of the signs and symbols?

[07:25]

Or is there anything other that needs to be done? I mean, is it, does that make sense? Is it kind of built into the process that you would just naturally let go of it once it's thoroughly understood? Yeah, if you thoroughly understand something, you understand something. Just like when you really get intimate with something, you can't find it anymore. You can't really grasp it once you really get intimate with something. It's not out there, separate from you. So in some ways, with that understanding, one would need to worry too much about having to let go of it. Like one might think, oh, I don't want to get attached to the meeting or attached to my understanding or something. But in some ways, if you just kept working more and more thoroughly on your understanding... becoming unattached, it would happen naturally. It's not like you need to make yourself unattached. You need to, like, pull back in some way because you're afraid of getting it. If you just kind of keep trying to get more and more thorough in your understanding, it will happen naturally. Yeah. But you understand that you need to get to that point that's so thorough.

[08:32]

that you go beyond it. And if you haven't got to the point where you can't find what you're studying, you know you have to go further. But it's more like going further rather than holding back from engagement. I think some people might think that, right? That to realize emptiness means that you shouldn't really fully engage with form. back up from that or something. But really it's more like being completely thorough with form. Like Suzuki Rishi says, I don't know if he says, understanding emptiness or emptiness itself is like chewing brown rice. Well, Zazen is like chewing brown rice and understanding emptiness is also like chewing brown rice. You just chew and chew and chew and chew. And as you chew, you get all these new flavors. And finally, you can't find any brown rice anymore.

[09:44]

White rice is delicious for a second there, and then it's gone. It's gone before you realize it's emptiness. And also this thing about once you have a a valid perception or a valid cognition of the meaning, that's actually just a one-time thing, and that makes you know something. So it's okay then after that not necessarily to hold on to that, because the succeeding cognitions related to the first cognition are not the one by which you actually realize certainty about what you saw, what you cognized. So then you can remove the signs by which you had that valid cognition, including the valid cognition about how to remove signs.

[10:52]

Once you understand that, you don't have to do it over and over. Although you can, but the succeeding ones aren't the ones that really are important. Again, that's part of what I hoped to talk to you about this fall. And Charlie found a $50 edition of Dignogon Perception. So maybe we can go ahead and order it from the library. Actually, why don't you order it for... for you, and you can, like, hold it and give it to people and get it back. Because there's obviously to be only, like, two or three left on the planet. Except for the Sanskrit. So, Dig Naga's the guy who... kind of, like, really... sort of proved... you know, the actual means for valid cognition.

[11:58]

So that's part of what I like to look at his teaching, about what is valid cognition. Any other reports at this time? Or, yes? I have a question. Yeah. Would you say it's something like, There's no sense of being lost if you stop searching. There may be no sense of being lost if you stop searching. It's true, maybe, because some people aren't searching and they feel lost. What I'm asking is, is it possible to, related to what you were just talking about, the secret, is it possible to have a sense? It's really, this is, we're talking about the absolute truth here. I'd rather say, for this type, for this truth, I prefer the word ultimate rather than absolute.

[13:04]

Okay, so, it seems like the ultimate is the mystery. It might seem like it's a mystery, but actually it's a mystery that you can know. You can actually cognize emptiness, which is the ultimate. You can actually, again, cognize and be sure that you know this thing so well, you can be sure by knowing this thing so well that it cannot be found. this substance is signed, that it really is ungraspable, and you can actually know that. So, it may seem like a mystery before you know it, but I think more, dependent core arising is more of a mystery than emptiness in a way, because you can't exactly cognize dependent core arising.

[14:08]

She can cognize emptiness. It looks like you wanted to go a little further. Yes, please. In this sentence, would you say that the syllables and words are a subset of all phenomena? Would I say that they are? Yeah. but although they're a subset, they're introduced first, right? I think partly because let's look at what we're looking at right away, that we're going to be approaching all these different types of signs through syllables and words, and also that the imputational character and signs are particularly connected to words and syllables. So I think it's kind of interesting they put that one first. Because really, don't skip over that one, because that's going to be going on through the presentation of all these following ones.

[15:20]

It's kind of like for us, the approach to all these different types of signs is through words and syllables and symbols. That's the way the invitational character comes across to us. And so we can do the imputational character on lots and lots of different kinds of signs. Yes, sure. Nina and I were assigned the third of these, and unless the person who has the second wants to go, I just thought... That person. Oh, that person. Not yet. Is in that little machine. That person's, yeah, in the little L.A. box there. So this... The wording of this feels very convoluted. It says, the signs of discerning true personhood and the signs of thinking I am, through which one comprehends the apprehending object, are eliminated by the emptiness of the internal and the emptiness of the unobservable.

[16:40]

And I found it very difficult to follow to follow the words, and I took some comfort in the fact that this was the very last thing that we studied before we went back to the beginning of the book. And I think, well, maybe all of our minds got broken on that one to start over. But in order to study it, I had to simplify it a little bit. And I think that what this, it seems that what this comes to is the subjective experience of apprehending objects and the tendency to reify the apprehending subject as a self. And it's kind of interesting, the use of the language I am here, because it echoes, it foreshadows the Cartesian formulation of cogito ergo sum.

[17:53]

I think, therefore I am. I apprehend cognizing. event, and therefore there is the identity of me. And I think it's talking specifically about the emptiness of that. And that emptiness So there are the two things. There's the true personhood and the thinking that I am. So true personhood is a little confusing because usually when we talk about the true personhood, we're thinking about the empty or dependently co-arising self. But I have a feeling that in this context, what's being talked about here is the sense, the apprehension of a real self. Not the true, dependently co-arisen self, but true in the sense of there truly is a self here. I can tell. I'm experiencing it. So the self that is experienced as being a real or substantive self is what's meant by true personality.

[18:55]

and the signs of thinking I am through which one comprehends the apprehending object are the sense that there is a true self and that this self, the evidence of this self exists by cognizing or by apprehending objects. And so it's specifically referring to the internal or subjective self. internal or subjective experience of a substantive self and the elimination of this is by the study of the emptiness of the character emptiness of character, that is to say, of persons and phenomena, and the emptiness... I'm sorry, I'm reading the wrong thing. The emptiness of the internal and the emptiness of the unobservable. So the emptiness of the internal refers to this apprehension of a subjective self,

[20:00]

is an entirely thought and feeling state. And like all thought and feeling states, it arises and ceases. And therefore it is a non-abiding phenomenon and is empty in that way. And the emptiness of the unobservable in other translations, it's described as the emptiness of the ungraspable. But it comes to the same thing. It's the unobservable and the ungraspable all arise without form. So it's like the emptiness of the formless. If it's unobservable, that means there's no sensory experience of it, and it has no form. Having no form also has no abiding reality.

[21:05]

Are you referring to the sense of true perspective? Actually, both of them. Both aspects of it. It's all kind of one complicated whole ball of wax. And each aspect of that sentence is eliminated by virtue of the emptiness of internal states which are ephemeral and the emptiness of the formless. Any comments? I'd actually like to make one comment about what I said. Okay.

[22:10]

This is a largely, this is essentially a kind of intellectual description of it, and I really, you can tell from the way I'm talking, I really have to struggle to grasp this intellectually. There is a correlative of this that I have met with in meditation, but I'm not clear enough on the words and intellectual content of it to be able to speak intelligibly about the meditation state that goes with that. Are the signs of thinking I am through which one comprehends the apprehending object, are those the skandhas? No. But there can be signs of skandhas.

[23:11]

Skandhas aren't signs, but we use signs to apprehend skandhas. But when it says here, the signs of discerning true personhood and the signs of thinking I am through which one comprehends the apprehending object. So in the situation of comprehending an apprehending object, that's a psychophysical situation. So when there's an apprehending object, you have the five skandhas are there. But in this case, you're not so much... Well, in a sense, you're apprehending one of the skandhas, whichever skandha is the object that the comprehension is apprehending.

[24:17]

So you're comprehending one of those skandhas at that time. But the thing is here that what you're apprehending is not the sign. You use the sign, some sign, to apprehend the object. And one of the signs you can use in the process of apprehending an object is the sign of a true person there. You use the sign of a true person to get the object. That's the way the Tibetan sounds. Or you can have a sign of I am in the psychophysical process of apprehending some object. But the sign is not the five skandhas. You could say it's one of the five skandhas in the sense that it's an image. You could say the sign is one of the five skandhas about the five skandhas that you're apprehending.

[25:20]

Not quite. But the Chinese, again, as Charlie pointed out, is there is the appearance of attachment to body, or the sign of attachment to body, and the appearance of conceit, I am, because of the knowing of knowing the experiencer. So You can kind of know the experiencer, apprehend the experiencer, but then there's the appearance, you know, of an attachment to the body, which is that, the first one, the true self. Personhood. Personhood. Which is probably what they often, like I mentioned last time, is probably, I think it's a good guess, that's what they mean by sakaya drishti in Sanskrit.

[26:27]

And then there is the appearance of I AM in the process of knowing the experiencer. So you're aware of the experiencer. What is the experiencer? Well, in a sense, the experiencer is the five skandhas. But the five skandhas aren't the sign. It's just that they're in the process of knowing the experience of the five skandhas. In dependence on that, there's the appearance of something that you can attach to. There's something actually that you can attach to. Sakaya means true body. It's like there's a true body or a true person in this process. And that appears in the process of knowing, the five skandhas, or knowing as the five skandhas experience. And there's also the appearance or the sign of conceit, the sign of I am.

[27:29]

So that's kind of like a description of the process of the experience where this sign arises. That's the first part. Any questions about that, or subtleties about that? This seems very subtle. In particular, what I'm struck by is that it's emptied through the emptiness of the unobservable. Because I think there are certain kinds of meditations for dispelling the sense of self that kind of end with the unobservable. Basically, like you look for the self in various ways and you realize you can't find it. And then the idea is somehow, once you realize you really can't find it, that you're kind of dispelled of the sense of self. But this has some feeling of even going beyond that. That's what we talked about last week. Oh, that's right. But the box wasn't here, so you couldn't listen to it. Yeah. Yeah, that's what struck me to it. It seemed like you marked... I was expecting it would say the emptiness of the graspable.

[28:35]

Right. Or the emptiness of the observable. But it's the other way around. So we struggled with that, and Catherine had no problem with it. Right? It's quite related to the one that we all have later on. Yeah. But I also had to take that. Wouldn't it be better to put the other way around? I don't know if it would be better. I mean, it's just a little bit surprising. Yeah, I was surprised too. But then also sometimes they name emptinesses not necessarily by the name that you would, not necessarily by the explanatory name, but some other name. And this name is a surprising name. The other one's not so surprising. Emptiness of character. That one wasn't so surprising. This one I would have thought emptiness of character. Usually it's the emptiness of something. Usually it's not the emptiness of what you can't grasp, because emptiness is that you can't grasp it, so the emptiness. But that's really subtle, because maybe you can't even grasp the ungraspable.

[29:37]

So maybe that really is, although surprising, because we're only on number three, But I'm just saying something kind of accurate about it, that I think even though one might have these periods of, well, I can't find exactly what is myself, we still really have the sense of self. So it's kind of like whatever organizes our sense of self in some ways is unobservable to us, but the fact that it's unobservable doesn't shake our confidence in it. Well, maybe also because we're continually being dependently co-arisen. continuously. So it was always the sense you have this ungraspable event that's happening. Right. You said it doesn't shake our confidence. I think we want to shake our confidence in this appearance of the self. We already have confidence in the appearance of the self.

[30:41]

But that That's a false perception, that's a false cognition. Right. What we need to do is have a different cognition that will refute for us, not just intellectually, but that will refute that appearance. The appearance will still be there, but we want to lose confidence in that appearance. of that true body, that satkaya, in the middle of this process, or that the I am, like the I am really doesn't make sense. We want to shake the confidence of that, and we need to see something. to shake the confidence. And the thing we need to see is these cups of emptiness. When we see them, it will shake our confidence, but it won't take away the appearance, necessarily. It will take away the appearance in the sense that when we're looking for it, we will have the perception that it can't be found, but then it will appear again.

[31:44]

And when it appears again, we won't have confidence in it the way we used to. Why don't you just add one word? If you say, I am everything. I think that's the same, what we already have. We think, we're conceited. We think I am everything. There's a little bit of, when you say I'm everything, it's a little conceited because it sounds a little bit like you're something in addition, which is our usual position. Yeah, right. I didn't mean that. So I'm trying to find the words. What about not I am everything, but everything is one cloth. Okay. Everything is one cloth. That's fine. That's not a problem. We're talking about removing signs. We're not talking about a way of seeing things that doesn't have signs in it.

[32:48]

That removes the signs for me. Pardon? Everything is one claw. Well, are you talking about a way of saying what the experience is? that will refute the sign that you're saying? So you're saying everything is one cloth is another way to say the emptiness? Is that what you're saying? Okay. So does that way of, does everything is one cloth, does that remove the sense of I am or the appearance of I am? If it does for you, then which one of these emptinesses is that? Is that this one? You could have found the 18th emptiness. We need one more. So is everything one cloth of emptiness?

[33:50]

Is that what you're suggesting? And you think that that one would remove the conceit I am in the midst of the process of apprehending objects? Is that what you're saying? I don't think emptiness is anything. Okay, but do you think that that is an emptiness, what you just said? Or do you think what you said is anything? When you said everything is one cloud, is that anything? Huh? Is a thought anything? Okay, so... Thought's not anything, emptiness isn't anything, and everything is one cloth is not anything. My question is now, does a thought, does the statement, everything is one cloth, do the job that an emptiness will do?

[34:55]

Because an emptiness will remove the confidence, will remove the appearance of that sign of I am. That's what's being proposed here. certain kinds of emptiness will remove the appearance and the image of I am in the middle of this, of our life. And in that removal, or in that elimination, we will stop believing that appearance as real. And also we'll remove the sense of a true body in the field of the skandhas. And so, would you say for you that that statement served the function of what we say emptiness serves, or suchness serves, namely eliminating those appearances? Yes? Did you want to say something earlier?

[35:56]

Jeremy just said art, and I felt that he explained about this section five, the emptiness of self-nature, and with what he said, and then you counteracted him. Wait a second. I missed the number five? Well, I'm three. Yeah, I know. It felt like it tied into five. But I'm not unintentionally going to five? Sort of. Okay. But I don't have to. Well, you can. I just wanted to know if you meant five or three. I still want to say something about three. Yeah, we're in three. Believe me. Right, Stuart? I'm still stuck on three. Okay. Back on this thing about the unobservable, it seems the way I was reading this, if the signs of discerning true personhood are eliminated by the meditation on the emptiness of the internal, then there's some relationship between this discerning of true personhood as the true body, or the view of a true body being a true person as an internal thing,

[37:30]

sense or a sense of finding some internal object that the sign is pointing to. And the signs of thinking I am... The sign is that appearance of a... of a kind of a body in that thing. Right, as an internal object, though. Well, it's kind of internal. You know, you have this, like, field of experience, right? Right. There's a true body there. There's some core there. There's some body. Right. That's what I'm trying to point at. Intentionally distinguishing from the external object. Right. That's what I'm trying to point at. And then in the second one, the signs of thinking I am, the unobservable seems to me to be that that I am is ultimately unobservable. Yes, but the other one's ultimately unobservable, too. Well, okay, let me not say ultimately. It is unobservable, as I am. I mean, we think it's true. Do you feel that it's a little bit more unobservable than that feeling of a body in there? Yeah, I think it might be. I think you're right.

[38:31]

It's a little bit more unobservable, in a way, because there is this kind of feeling like something's here. And then I am is like, in some sense, a step further into that, in a way. Yeah, it's like putting an I am on top of that internal sense. Well, like an internal sense is a body. Like the internal sense is a substance. Well, maybe it's a substance. The substance dash body, the Chinese character probably says, it's probably the character, I guess, there's a character between substance and body that they often use at a time like this. Can you find it in the text? It doesn't, of course, say substance, it says appearance, so I don't think it's going to be in there. Yes? Yes? Well, I just, I feel like that there's, in that sense of a body or sense of the internal, there's actually something experiential that, whether it's substantial, you assume it's not substantial, but that it is, there's a sense, an experiential sense, whereas the I am is purely a concept.

[39:47]

The other one's a concept, though, too. Both purely concepts. They're both images. They're both appearances. They're both concepts. They're both signs. But the sense one is more observable. Well, they're both observable. They both appear to be there. It actually seems that there's kind of like a phantom or an appearance in the process of a true body, and there's an appearance of this thing called this feeling of I am. And other religions, they have this chant, what do they do? I am, I am, I am... I am that. Huh? I am that. Yeah, they do that over and over. They have that, exactly, that's a different religion, right? They think there actually is a thing there. So then you don't... They say, yeah, of course, but they say that really is there. We say no. I know that we do. But they're both appearances. And we're not really saying that one's actually slightly more there than the other one.

[40:57]

The other one's not there at all. This one's not there at all, and this one's like super not there. It seems like it's got a different layer on it. Yeah, and that appearance is what we're talking about. And that's the appearance that we're talking about, that sense that one's a little bit less substantial than the other. Well, another step removed. That's what we talked about here, that appearance. But that's why it goes from the internal to the unobservable, when it should what? I see what you're saying. I really don't. I see what you're saying. It's like, there's this one sense that there's something there, you know, in the midst of this, some real thing there, and then there's the understanding that that's not really there. And there's another sense that there's something that's actually even less there than the other one, and then that one's not there either.

[41:57]

That's not what you meant, but that's what I think you should have meant. I guess I'll have to settle for what you think I should eat. In other words, there's always some way to find a self. And one way I can find a self is that this is less of a self than that's a self. That's the one I can find. If I can't have a self, at least I can have one that's less of a self than the other self. I would go the other way, if I may. Yes, you may. One can track this I am thing and... find it fairly droppable, and yet still not find this body sense of self so droppable. So that's why I think they're distinguished in these two ways. That's the difference that I'm seeing there. Or, and that's part of what I brought up before too, that it might be that these Sometimes, what is it, somebody told me that, this person told me that she read about, always in this movie called Terminal, this woman said that Napoleon had such a huge ego that he took so much poison that it didn't work.

[43:15]

He thought, you know, I'm this great person, so he took this huge amount of poison to kill himself, but he took so much it didn't work. It's like the reverse of homeopathy. Macro-opathy. Huh? Yeah, macro-opathy. Macro-opathy. Macro-opathy. If you take enough poison, it won't kill you. Yeah, your body will reject it, eject it. Right. So sometimes, so in this case, in this case, we have these different types of emptinesses, and sometimes emptiness are really huge, you know, really powerful emptinesses, but they're too much for some other kinds of signs. So maybe the emptiness of the unobservable is a type of emptiness that works for some really wimpy little signs, and if you use the bigger emptinesses on those things, it won't touch them. That's what you mean, right? Sure. So you've got this one emptiness that will work on this one that won't work on that one.

[44:21]

So we've got to use this other emptiness on that one. Right? Isn't that what you mean? All emptinesses work on all the signs. Right. You thought you trapped me. You know, I just thought... Yes? Well, I was thinking in relation to that, about the... that you were once teaching about a Vipassana meditation where you distinguish whether the self is identified with the five skandhas or is separate from the five skandhas, and that that second one would be, it sounds like just what you were saying, a kind of a weaker sign or easier to refute in a way. The first is trickier. I wonder how, you know, as you said, Renji, the true person, you have the true person going in and out of the holes in your body. Look, look. So, I wonder if it's looking at the emptiness of the five skandhas?

[45:22]

It's a true person of no rank that's going in and out of your nose, out of your five all-scent holes in your head. It's a true person of no rank that's doing that. I think it's this person that has no appearance is going in and out. It isn't that the appearance is going in and out. The appearance of the true person isn't going in and out. Sensation. The emptiness of sensation? Yeah, the emptiness of sensation is going in and out. Right. Or the emptiness of the true person is going in and out, with the freedom from the signs of the true person. But the freedom of signs of the true person it actually is stuck.

[46:25]

It's not flowing. It's like really there. Whatever phase in the process you're in, you've got this true person in there. But the emptiness is always like offering an opportunity to be free of this appearance of something like in the process at various stages, or that I am through all this. Those are appearances which we need in order to somehow they go with us apprehending objects. That's part of our nature, is that we use those. So part of our nature, we use delusion to apprehend objects. Okay, and then we get meaning. Okay, and then after that, we all want to come through and remove those appearances through which we depend on We want to drop the rafts and the wrenches and the various instruments we use to accomplish certain things we need to do.

[47:27]

We want to drop them so that we have our immediate experience of what we've been able to learn. Whatever the meaning is, it's an imaginary construct. No, we need imaginary constructs to have meaning, But once we have the meaning, we don't need imaginary constructs anymore. We have now been transformed by the meaning. Once you know, for example, that things are impermanent, you don't any longer need the image or the concept of impermanence to know that things are impermanent. You understand now that they're impermanent. But you need the concept of impermanence to understand impermanence. And we need the concepts of many things in order to understand and have meaning in the teaching. But once we have the meaning, we don't need the concepts anymore. But it's not that easy to drop it. We have to actually now... In order to practice the Mahayana, we now have to remove all the appearances that we use to get the meaning of emptiness and not-self and so on.

[48:41]

So we actually use a sense of self in the process of cognizing the teachings of emptiness. And now we need to remove the appearance after we understand. Yes. So it's kind of in support of what was being said before. I think that there is some distinction, a kind of distinction between the apprehension of an experiencer and the... in the apprehension of a personal identity, a real personal identity, in that the apprehension of the experiencer is sort of directly verifiable. There is an experience just happened, but the projection of a substantive self is an inference, so that there is one step of abstraction further from an experience just happened to there is a self that has experienced it.

[49:50]

It's a slightly different order of abstraction concept. So are you suggesting that in this case, we're talking about first example is perception and the next one's inference? There is some level of inference in both of them. In the first one, there is a movement from... a perception, that is to say, a perception or a sense experience to this was experienced. There's that movement. And then a further step from this was experienced to there is an identifiable experiencer. So there is just a further step of abstraction. If I didn't follow that, maybe some other people didn't. Is that possible? I followed it, but it was different than what you said the first time. Because the first time you used the word experiencer, what you were saying, you said there's a distinction between experiencer and a personal identity.

[51:00]

And you said because the experiencer happens upon contact with experience. But I would say that that's the same inference as you were attributing to the second one of saying personal identity, and then you said it differently the second time, which is you said there's an experience, and so then the inference is to this was experienced, but you didn't use the word experiencer, and then you said the second inference is that there's an experiencer, so you kind of changed what you said when you reiterated it. So that's so, and there is a subtle shift in there, and that's exactly... It's hard to keep it straight. It is exactly the issue that I'm talking about. There is a secondary movement from an experience arising to an identity of one who experiences it. And also, one other comment about it.

[52:03]

This is the very subtlest, in some ways, the very subtlest nub of the arising of self. And it's very difficult. I referenced Descartes. It's been a long time since I read Descartes, almost 50 years. But I think what I remember was that Descartes went through this process of of I think, therefore I am, or their cognition arises, therefore I have a personal existence. And yet he knew that although this had some logical form, that it was not irrefutable. that that also could just be an appearance. He was kind of unraveling it. What is it that we absolutely know? And that was what he hit on. This is the rock bed. This is the thing that I know, even if I don't know anything else, that if I can think, then I exist. But even that, he said, you know... It has the form of logic, but it isn't really completely, absolutely irrefutable.

[53:06]

And that he used as the basis for his belief in God. He said, it would be too horrible if this weren't true. It would be too horrible. So God must exist to guarantee that this is not a false perception. And this is... Can you stop studying when you're 15? 19. I thought it was silly. But at the time I was too young to realize how desperate he was. I'm just wondering, in listening to us, when I experience my teenager, I don't know if we haven't created this self-experience here by our study.

[54:12]

To study the self is like an instruction. And then that self-perceiving entity does seem to exist because I, in a way, have been instructed to hunt for it. So it's almost like inserting a slide in there, which, you know, with Sabrina, I think that's just hers, and there isn't this kind of self-quality that I feel like we're all kind of conversing with in some way. It's almost like putting the thorn in in order to take it out. We're studying an illness that we've created for an ultimately good outcome. I'm not sure if you would agree that for a child, at what point in the development of a human being do they necessarily consider the perceiver, or even imagine that there is someone here? That seems like a big step, is to turn the light around and consider that there's an observer.

[55:20]

of self, a person, perceiving objects? For me, it happened when I was about four. I remember. If it's true for everyone, that's a natural course of development. The research that I studied recently was around 18 months. It starts about six months, and for most kids, it's fairly well-developed, like 18 months. There's this and that. Well, yeah, and they can actually have little conversations between the two parts and stuff like that. And I think it develops. But if you get them to study it at that age, it may be destabilizing. because they sort of need that to carry on their social life because the other kids have got it. So usually you can't get people to turn around and study it until they're already destabilized and experiencing the suffering of it, which usually takes a little bit later in the teen years is sort of the minimum.

[56:39]

Of course, there's exceptions like Rambo He seemed to be, like at seven, he seemed to be deconstructing. He seemed to be studying himself at seven. Rimbaud, French poet. All I could think was Rambaud, and I thought, no, where did that come from? No, no, it was the other one. Stallone? Stallone. She doesn't want to deconstruct you to other people. But I did, I do remember that at the age of four, maybe as late as five, I had the experience of realizing that I had a sense of self. A sense of a separate self.

[57:43]

I saw that. Do you mean the mind? That this is mind? No, I had mind long before that. But I could see it. I had a perception of myself having a separate self. That I saw myself as separate. I experienced myself as separate. I had a cognition of that. Yeah. I think I told you before, when I was studying Japanese, I was learning the possessive marker. which is no, you know, like, tension, tension no, tension no hon. Tension's book, tension's book. So she'd say tension no is like apostrophe s. So I learned that, and it was kind of difficult to be fluid with that, like, tension no ratsu, tension no atama. But this little kid who could barely walk comes into the dining room at Page Street and says, You know, referring to his toys.

[58:53]

I said, I think six months to a year, I think by a year, kids can barely talk, but as soon as they can talk, one of the first things they can say is, mine. But they seem to have the concept of mine even before they can say it. So I think even before they're one, a lot of kids anyway have the sense of you know, which are their toys and which aren't. They have their own theory, right? Not everyone agrees with what they think is theirs, and there's some disputes. But they have that concept of some things being theirs, and they go to visit other kids' houses, they don't necessarily think those are their toys. Or, you know, this thing, that story about Maceo and the orange, you know, there was his orange, and he didn't want me to put my mouth on his orange. But he could do that when he was under one. But I think at one and a half, kids are not aware, oh, I have a concept of self.

[59:55]

But at four or five, I think kids do kind of like, oh my god, I think there's somebody here. It's me. Yes? Oh, it's before the concept of self. Maybe it's not so pretty. We should just come back. It was a three-month-old observation. Oh, it's okay. Okay, so the three-month-old... This is what I saw my daughter do, which seemed to be like a coming to awareness of mind at a very primitive body level. Sitting in a little chair and the arms are going like this and it's no big deal, you know. And then she started to watch them. And there was a very deliberate point where it became clear that they weren't just something to watch, but that she was discovering that they were connected to her movement. And you could... watch this change take place while she discovered, I just happened to be watching her at the time, that these were hers.

[61:04]

Some channel opened there, and that seemed like a real discovery of my body. So I was taking it back for six months. Well, this is not unrelated to this. We're in this field, right? of experience, and then we come up with a sense that there's a body in it, or there's an I am in it. So how this process works is how it starts and so on, if not unrelated. So I think... I sort of share the view that the view of things having self is innate, but being innate doesn't necessarily mean that it's fully developed at birth. But it isn't like it's there right away.

[62:06]

It's just that it's not fully realized. people who observe children say that there's a at first it seems like there's a sense of like everything is everything is me and then there's a sense but there is a sense of me it's everything and then there's a sense of something is not me so at first it's mother is mine And then it's like, my mother, yes, but now my mother is separate from me. Well, first, it's not so much my mother is mine as there's no differentiation. Mother and me are fluid. Mother and me are fluid, but it seems like it's still like that has a substance. Right. But the first step isn't mother is mine, because that already kind of implies that mother is something other.

[63:08]

And it's more like mother me. There's a dyadic... There's not that differentiation? There's not a strong differentiation? Yeah, there doesn't seem to be a differentiation. But there's still some sense of this thing in there, of this substance. And then there's a sense of separation, and then there's the struggle to get it back. And there's this kind of a trauma at that point, and that split that occurs. And then it starts to come back to more and more sense of being over here and developing that sense of being over here and trying to work with what's over there. And that just goes on. And it seems to be pretty well developed by 18 months for most kids. And it's all an illusion.

[64:10]

But it's You know, it's built up on all this experience and all these styles of, what do you call it, affect modulation. And all this stuff is part of how it's built into it. And it just, you can't, function, except by working with this self thing. And without developing the self, you can't control your... not control, but you can't modulate and interact with your emotional state, which we must be able to do. Otherwise, we won't be able to walk ten feet from our mother. I know we can answer a lot of questions, but when I study this dance material, I do wonder why it hasn't found its way more into human consciousness when it's been... This was written how many thousands of years ago?

[65:19]

So I find that question, unanswered question, very interesting. This teaching is having a hard time getting into the consciousnesses of the priests in this class. It's hard to get this teaching into the consciousnesses of sentient beings, because it requires sentient beings to change a lot. And we've got to get through the day, right, or through the next few minutes, otherwise we might die. And if we change the situation too much, there's a possibility that we'll die.

[66:26]

So we're primarily concerned with continuing to live, and our system says, don't change things too much, otherwise it's very dangerous to change. It's too much, and these teachings keep knocking on the door and asking us to change. to think of things that the system can tell, this is not the usual way, and I don't know if this is going to be good enough to take the risk of putting the effort in this way. So to me, I more and more think, yeah, this is just, it is hard for beings to take this teaching in. And this is very, very few people in the Buddhist tradition have studied this.

[67:32]

And the reason why I'm encouraging you to study is because the leaders of the tradition have studied it. Asanga studied it. And I see it in the leaders of the Zen tradition, too. So, although we may not be leaders like them, I aspire to study what they studied. But when they were alive, almost no one was studying it back then either because it's so, it requires so much change and we don't like to be asked to change too much because it seems so dangerous to our existence. So to me it makes sense that this has not sunk in to the mass of sentient beings much but it's

[68:39]

It's being offered still. And it still exists in the world. It's amazing. And for a while, it didn't exist among the powerful European countries. This was not being read by white people. And now white people are reading it. Yes? I was getting the sense that consciousness needs to be prepared in order to receive it. Yeah, nice. We need to... I was talking to someone recently who was having trouble with this material and other things of this ilk, and it just seemed like the person needed to be more tranquil. But, you know, not just calm, but more... more buoyant and more pliant in body and mind.

[69:41]

Because this material, it's easy for it to run off if you pour it onto a hard body. So I just thought, I think that this person really needs to just become very soft and pliant and calm and relaxed in order for this teaching to get in. But then in order to be calm and buoyant and relaxed, One needs to also be patient with not being calm, buoyant, and relaxed, because one isn't, in this case, in that state. Then you also have to practice patience, and then you also have to be kind of diligent and enthusiastic about practicing tranquility when you're not tranquil, and be patient and enthusiastic about doing a practice that you're having trouble doing. You need to be generous about it, too. Of course you have to practice the precepts too, but... So all that has to be done in order to allow yourself to be transformed through this teaching.

[70:50]

And so if we're not soft and flexible and calm and sort of up for studying difficult things... Anybody up for studying difficult things? Yeah, me. What? Cool. Yeah, me. If we're not in that mood of like, yeah, let's study a real difficult text today. And I'd like to study these emptinesses which remove signs. Yes, that sounds great. And then actually, yeah, we need to be in that state. We need to prepare ourselves in that way. And then return to that ongoing, not just preparation, but kind of nourishment and And what do you call it? Restorative and resting between the episodes of assaulting our establishment with these teachings and meditations. Does anybody want to report on another one of these lovely emptinesses?

[71:56]

I haven't asked. Yeah. Could you hear that, Susan? If you couldn't, it's number four. Do you think that'll record her way over there? Maybe it did go over there. I want to move it a little bit closer to Pat. My head's not here either, but even if you move the thing, it won't make a sound. But I think it could get in your path, or what you're about to say. You don't have to read it, because they can just read it in the text. But if you'd like to read it again, you can. Would you like to? So, would you like to say what you'd like to give your address now? I think I gave my address already, actually.

[73:03]

When I thought about... It was a challenge for me. I started back at the beginning of the chapter and the middle of the chapter so that I could come to this sentence. And I think my overall experience was what I've already described here, which is that When I read this sentence, I thought, enjoyment and non-enjoyment, external, internal. And this is where this notion sprang up in my mind that everything is one. I asked myself if I ever had this experience of everything external being really empty. And I walked around for two days with that question. And I think it's challenging to try to imagine seeing the world in one way or having experience of trying to put a way of seeing the world into the world

[74:18]

when the world is coming back with so many different ways of seeing. So that was my experience. It made me feel very vulnerable in society when I was trying this. Because you feel like external is written out there with great big capital letters. And I... I didn't feel as fluid moving through my life as this question, as I do when I don't have it. What's the question? The question is, what is external... What is external?

[75:23]

What are the signs in the external world and how are you perceiving them? And how are they eliminated? And it's difficult, I think, to break experience down into internal and external enjoyment, non-enjoyment. At least it was for me. So I was struck by a question that I read last week, which is this group of scientists that have been meeting with the Dalai Lama now for about 10 years. They've taken the topic for their study now is, how do we create and maintain a healthy mind?

[76:30]

So that's assuming that there is something called an external concept. Those are my thoughts. OK. The text says, in the first, in the translation from Tibetan, the text says, the signs of discerning enjoyment.

[77:50]

So there's a sign of enjoyment. There's a kind of substantial, something that appears to be substantial called enjoyment or discerning enjoyment. And the Chinese says, images of desired possessions. And the other one says, appearances of attachment to provision. They're saying that there's these appearances of desired possessions. That sounds familiar, doesn't it? Have you ever had something appear to you which seemed to be a desired possession? So, suspect a situation now of the appearance or a sign, something like there's a desired possession, but it's not a ghost.

[78:57]

It's not a ghost of a desired possession. It's not a ghost of your daughter or a ghost of your boyfriend or a ghost of delicious dinner. It's actually like an appearance of an actual delicious dinner. It's like a substantial delicious dinner there. Such things appear. Right? So that's one aspect of the situation. And then, through these appearances, one comprehends the object. So, before the dinner or the daughter or the husband or whatever appears in this substantial form, we don't really comprehend it. But through this appearance of substantiality to the desired object, we comprehend the apprehended object.

[80:04]

They are able to discern and know the meaning of the object because they are able to know the object, they have it. So one way is by having images, we're able to apprehend. The other is because we know and discern, we have the images. So the two languages coming up in two directions. which I think is really cool. So this is a familiar situation, right? Not too difficult to imagine. Both ways. That by knowing things, they appear to be substantial, or by attachment to their substance of these things, we get to know them. Okay? Sounds fine. Except now we're being told to eliminate the key ingredient in the process.

[81:12]

We're not asked to eliminate the object. We're not being asked to eliminate the experience or the knowing. We're being asked to eliminate the appearance or the image by which this process works. So this paragraph is introducing us to a kind of like you know, inducting us into this process and then saying, now, let's remove one of the elements in the process now that it's happened. Let's remove the sign. And while it's happening, let's remove the sign. How do we remove the sign in this particular case? By the emptiness of the external. So again, I'm kind of thinking now, how would that work? How would cognizing emptiness of external, in this case, work to take away that substance from this process, which is also the substance of the thing being out there, right?

[82:15]

See that point? When you say substance, do you mean following? Yeah. It's the appearance of substance. Excuse me. Remove the appearance of the substance. You don't have to remove the substance. There is no substance. We remove the appearance of the substance because, again, we don't desire ghosts. Now, some people, like, see enough substance and ghosts to even desire ghosts, but... We actually, when something we desire is usually some actual, like, puffy, fleshy little thing there, and we think there's substance there, And this is the stuff we really know. I know, this is the, et cetera. So we want to now remove the appearance of the substance, solidity. We want to remove that part. We already got the goods. Now we want to remove this appearance of substance, because the appearance of substance is the source of affliction.

[83:16]

The emptiness is supposed to help us. I was just saying, just what came to mind was that it seems to be undercutting desire, what you're saying, by in a way saying there is nothing external. It reminds me of emptiness of the three wheels, giver, receiver, and gift. And I'm trying to remember also what in the full moon ceremony is the commentary after not misusing sexuality. Do you remember? I think not bringing anything in, I think. Where nothing is... Everything is... Everything is immaculate. Oh. I left my... I left my book at the... My black folder in the book. So anyway... Which has that text in it. Yes. That no... Give a receiver and gift all... There is nothing to be desired in a sense. Right. However... That's right.

[84:20]

So how do you apply that to situation in such a way that you can actually move the substance, the desired object? How do you find that emptiness? Jeremy, I think you're next. Well, I was going to say something very similar to Meg, which, I mean, the thing that's noteworthy to me about the passage is the focus on enjoyment. So it seems to be about desire. And so I had basically made it that somehow the sign of desire, the feeling of desire, I think the suggestion is that it's removed by removing the idea that there's any external or a part that somehow... a feeling of lack is kind of necessary to have a feeling of desire. So if you remove the sense of external, then you kind of, you remove the sense of lack. A feeling of lack necessary for the feeling of desire? That's what I'm suggesting. Yeah, okay. So you said this thing about how you start removing the substance of the thing that's desired, but I see it mostly as about removing the appearance of desire.

[85:30]

That's what I see the passage as. It's the signs of discerning enjoyment, the signs of the desire, the signs of desired, the images of desired possessions, the appearance of attachment to provision. So it seems to me that that's what's being removed, is the sign of the desire of the attachment or the... Yeah, so, and it seems to be the suggestion is the way to do that is by kind of the recognition that it's not a part. Remove the appearance of the desire. That's what it looks to me, like it's saying the sign of discerning enjoyment, the images of desired possessions, the appearance of attachment through translations. So it seems to me what they're focusing on is the feeling of the desire or the attachment or the wanting to possess. Doesn't it also work to say that there's nothing really there to be desired? the thing itself yeah well you could say that but i don't think that's but i mean i think that's another tact right you could say there's nothing there but that but that's not what this passage is saying it's not saying there's nothing there exactly it's saying there's nothing apart from you and i think it's suggesting that that's enough like if you really got that that there's nothing apart from you that in itself would take care of the sense of wanting it because you realize it's not apart from you to want in the first place

[86:41]

So, are you saying that what you think can be removed is the desire? The sign of the desire, yeah. The appearance of the desire. I think it's to remove the object of the desire, not the desire. And also, the Cleary's translation is attachment to provision. So, provision, possessions, and object. three different translations. And then there's desired, there's attached, and enjoyment about this object. I think it's the... I think it's this... I think it's over here that the sign is. And the sign is not to remove the object or the provisions, I say, but to remove the appearance of the substance of this thing which is desired and attached to. And also the word... You know, the word... This basic root, you know, like alambana, the word alambana, it means an object.

[87:49]

And it has this a, this lamb, lamb. That part is also in, you know, like greed, hate, and delusion. The greed, labda. It's this, it's this, the attachment. So desire in object, objects are those things you can attach to. So desire and grasping and attachment. So I'm feeling more like it's not that we're going to remove the appearance of the desire or the appearance of the attachment, but the appearance of that which you can attach to. So I would put more emphasis on the appearance that there's something to grasp rather than removing the appearance of the grasping. And you're saying you feel it more. Yeah, that's just the way it reads to me. The sign is of the discerning enjoyment. It doesn't say the sign is of the comprehended object, which one experiences. So you're looking more at the text, and I'm interpreting it. I think that what the sign is, in all these cases, the sign is this thing about the object that makes it possible to grasp.

[88:59]

If you... But I appreciate the looking at the text. I think the text says... I'm sorry. Just in... In support, though, of the view that Jeremy was bringing up, the next one deals with removing the signs of inner happiness. It seems like there's a progression here of moving from the issue of desire to the issue of satisfaction. And this whole passage is kind of dancing around the issue of wanting. you know, having desire for, lust for, and being attached to gratification. It seems like it's directing us to that issue. Oh, I see. So there could be also the removing of the appearance of the substance of attachment, a substance in an attachment, or the substance of the enjoyment in attachment.

[90:10]

or the substance in the enjoyment of success, of getting a thing. Which is the next one you're saying? I mean, in this case, it could be the substance of the desire. I mean, doesn't it make you think the desire is substantial also? Do you know, we might follow naturally from emptying the object. Yeah, but I'm saying is that the main thing is to take away the color and the blood and to take away the juice in the process by which we grasp And wherever the emptiness can get in there to refute that sense of the appearance of substance, of something independent in the process about the desire, the object, the happiness, whatever, the possession, any of these elements in there where there's an appearance of a substance, that's the part that we need in order for the process to work for us in terms of experience, but then now we want to go through and antidote the process by taking... by seeing that this substance, that this self-identity is not in any part of the process.

[91:22]

And so where do we... which aspect of the substance in the situation are we going to focus on? So these are different dimensions of self or substance or independent existence in a situation that we're trying to, like, eliminate, remove, dispense with. The Kriya says dispense with, right? We need it for a while and then we can dispense with it. Yes? In this case, what's being removed is not so much just any kind of substance, but the external, which really brings the mind, mind only. the emptiness of there being external, substantially external objects. So it doesn't say that, but maybe that would be one way of working with the emptiness of the external. Or substantially internal. Yeah, but in this case it's... Yeah, substantially external.

[92:25]

Yeah, substantially internal or external. So not so that... Mostly the Yogacara seems to be working on... We usually think it's mostly concerned with eliminating the appearance of substantial externality, but they also want to say, but we're also eliminating the appearance of substantial internality also. So we're saying the internal is substantial, but the external is not. So maybe at this level of this kind of emptiness, there might still be signs of the object, but it wouldn't be signs of an external object anymore. It would be like signs of a mind object. Like there's the dinner, you could somehow, maybe one could still see a dinner, but have realized that the dinner is actually a protection of the mind. You can see the dinner and understand the dinner and then dispense with the sign of the dinner by which you comprehend the dinner.

[93:36]

But you could still maybe have some sense of substance of the observer. So then you've got to turn around and do the same thing to the subject. Just dispense with the cooking of the dinner. But then you wouldn't have a job. Which you love so much. I don't know, it seems like it would be impossible at the time of not seeing an editor. Roasted rose fur and Russian banana and potatoes from our very own farm. Sliced potatoes. They're called Russian bananas. Sliced heirlooms, mozzarella. Are we having the science of disturbing each other? Yeah, you can cook the dinner. The picture was very clear. Are you all sounding great? That's what it is. Garlic and rosemary. The potatoes are going to be prepared with garlic and rosemary. Remember the Russian, I mean, I thought it was okay, those rosemary, every one from my soul to Parker's market, they're very creamy.

[94:41]

Yeah. The only kind of bananas Russians ever had. Bananas. We got bananas. Matt, if we empty the externality of those potatoes, will we still have our discerning enjoyment? Still hungry. What is that? But when he says this, there is that image, but it is a little different than the external image. We're not so attached to it. It's just like we can kind of salivate the image, but we can let it go very easily. It doesn't seem to be so substantial. Because it's not on the table? I can see it laid out on the table. But it's internal. You know it's your mind. That's true. It is internal. You're right. And that's the next one, in a way. It's the next paragraph. It's the other side of the story. How you can be as certain of the internal as you are certain of the external. And you can enjoy the internal.

[95:43]

Actually, in some sense, we enjoy the internal. A lot. And that's what gets us to go to dinner, is our image now of this dinner that we have, right? We're all going to be there, right? It's not going to be nearly as good as this image. I have a question that's... kind of basic to all of these. Yeah, okay. So to use any of these emptinesses, you have to have some cognition of emptiness already, right? Already? No, no. The situation, like Jeremy pointed out, we have to study the situation. If we study the situation thoroughly, we will discover that We've got a tip now to look for an emptiness of the situation, and this language is to, in some sense, guide us to find a certain type of emptiness. But we don't really have to look for that.

[96:45]

We can just study the situation here, and if we study the situation thoroughly, we will discover the emptiness by which the substance in the situation will be dispensed with. Okay, so it's not like... We don't already have... Here's some potatoes looking a little... Now let me get this experience of emptiness and apply it to the potatoes. No, it's my study of the potatoes. Study this setup. And it's interesting, I just... I was giving a workshop in Sacramento at a yoga room, And you know, so this is, the chapter we're reading now is called, in Chinese they call this the analysis of yoga, this chapter. And clearly he calls the whole book the Buddhist yoga because of this chapter. This chapter is sort of the central chapter of the book in a way because this is the chapter where you apply all the teachings that came before. in a yogic practice.

[97:47]

So it says, but what is yoga? Yoga is cultivating samatha vipassana in this school. And what is it based on? It's based on an unwavering resolution to expound doctrinal teachings and become unsurpassably enlightened. But Cleary says, the basis of this yoga practice is the provisional set-ups of the ways of enlightening beings. And these are the set-ups. So each one of these paragraphs is a set-up for the cultivation of tranquility. Actually, these are set-ups for the cultivation of samatha. We have other set-ups for the cultivation of tranquility. So studying yoga is to study the set-ups that bodhisattva has used. What? What did you say? Did you say samatha? Well, I said both, didn't I? You said tranquility and vipassana.

[98:48]

Oh, tranquility and vipassana. Tranquility and vipassana. So there's setups for vipassana. There's tranquility. There's setups for vipassana. These are setups for vipassana. Each one of these situations is a setup. And then if you calmly enter into the setup, And then you realize the emptiness to remove the sign which is described in the setup. So the setup tells you an experiential realm which has a sign in it. And then we're supposed to study that and find this emptiness. And I'm kind of asking you to think a little bit about how that emptiness probably would be relevant to this setup if you studied it. But in another way, you don't really have to worry about the emptiness. But I think we should know that the reason why we're studying the setup is to find this emptiness. And this sort of setup is not only telling us the situation, but it's telling us what will be removed, and it's telling us the emptiness that we removed.

[99:55]

Now we probably should just look at the setups and see if we can find the signs, and then just keep studying the setup with the sign until the sign is removed. And then we will realize that emptiness So we are sort of, in a sense, exploring for the emptiness, but not by looking someplace else other than the setup. Because then they say, right in light there's darkness, but don't see it as darkness. Don't try to peel back the light. Don't try to peel back the setup to find the emptiness, which you're told will remove the sense of substance. Well, like it says, right in light there is darkness, but don't see it as darkness. In other words, when you're looking at a setup, a form, or some experiential situation, and you see the sign, don't try to peel back the substance to find the emptiness.

[101:09]

Just look at the... the substance, and right in the substance is the emptiness. And it says it the other way too, right in the emptiness there's substance. But don't try to look behind the emptiness to find the substance. Just study the emptiness and you'll find the substance. So I think, like Jane said, this is sort of fundamental to all of these. So in some sense, in response to her comment, it seems like maybe we should shift gears now to some extent, or pretty soon. Shift gears and forget about the emptinesses and just study the setups and just study the signs again. Because again, it said earlier, it's through the study of signs. And what is the study of signs? to study these images. And how are these signs removed? Through suchness. But we find the substance in the process of studying the images of substance. We find, or another way to put it, is we find the suchness, which will remove the signs, by studying the opposite of suchness.

[102:16]

In other words, the illusion. of the presence of the imputational character in the other dependent. So in each one of these cases, we should look for the imputational character in the other dependent. So we have other dependent situation, and the sign is, in a sense, it's like the imputational character. I can't quite say it's exactly the same, but anyway, because it's more like we can remove it. We talked about dispensing dispensing with the sign, eliminating the sign, but they don't say eliminate the invitational character. It's more like realize its absence. It's a little bit different. How are you doing with all that talk? So we can proceed then to hear other people's way of working with these setups and these emptinesses.

[103:18]

Anybody else want to report? Going in order. We don't have to go in order. I think we go in order of desire. They kind of make sense. They kind of what? I mean, we've been covering. We have been going in order. Yeah, we've been going in order. We skipped one. No, we didn't really skip one. We kind of skipped it. We did. Because we didn't... We just talked about it. We talked about it in imaging. No, no, we skipped number two. We did really kind of skip it, in a way. But, you know, I'm really... It's all about me. Really? Wow, this is amazing. Anything you'd like to tell us more about that? Sure, I'm so glad. And how that applies here? All about me? Yeah, how does it apply to your example? Are you the next one by any chance? Well, I was, but you did a really fine job on it. It was very interesting.

[104:20]

Okay, well, tell us about it. Well, mostly... Catherine wants to go in order anyway. We should always do what she wants. Right, Catherine? No. Oh, say yes. This is your big chance, yes? No, I just... Go ahead, your turn. I really appreciated the part that when you were talking about on paragraph five, Is that your paragraph? That's my paragraph. So I'm in order. There you are. Yeah, there I am. Chinese numbering. Anyway, it was very helpful for when we were talking about the potatoes and the internal and the external. The viewing and when When I was saying to Jeremy, well, of course I've got the little detail laid out, the pile, the potatoes, the colors, et cetera, in my mind, and you said, oh, yeah, that's internal. And that was very helpful for me because I start seeing more of how I live.

[105:22]

I'm always visualizing something. And then seeing if that internal vision satisfies me for me to... pursue it and then what happens when I pursue it either my greed comes in or my attachment comes in everything comes in and then I suffer so maybe I can start watching how that internal to external need inside of me You know, because I go internal, external, and then internal. You go internal, external, and internal. Yeah. And then external? Well, then the external occurs. And then internal? Well, then I have expectations. You don't? I do.

[106:23]

Oh, you do have expectations. Well, sometimes they just die out. You know, it's true. But most of the time I have an expectation. And what are you going to do about those expectations? Well, I'm going to try and drop them. Great. That was good. I'm very happy. I feel very invigorated by this. See? So I can have another attachment. I'm invigorated internally. And she's smiling, too. And is there some external invigoration also? Just a bit. Okay, well, okay. Oh, by the way, did we already thoroughly understand why the Chinese says internal and external, but the Tibetan doesn't? I don't have a clue. We don't have a clue? Is that true, Jane? You don't have a clue? I don't know. I might have a clue, but I don't know if I have it. Well, anyway, we just want to point that out, that the Chinese says internal, external.

[107:29]

Wait, what does it say? You don't have the Chinese translation. The Chinese says that the signs are abandoned through cultivation of meditation on emptiness of internal and external and original emptiness, or emptiness of self-nature. But the translation from Tibetan only says external. I see. Okay. It says inner happiness. But it does say inner happiness. I noticed that. That was helpful. But the other ones also say internal appearance. Yeah. Well, that's what the translation said. Do we know what the real text is? What the Chinese said? That should be easy to find. Can you find that, Paola? Which part? In the Tibetan. In the Tibetan. In the Tibetan, we have to wait for Diana. So... But he said, could he have missed it? Is that what you're saying? That maybe he overlooked it? Well, maybe he just thought inner was as good a word as internal.

[108:33]

But we're talking about the bottom. So there's the signs of the inner, but then the emptiness says, and it doesn't mention the inner emptiness. Well, it does. It just says external. Emptiness of the external. But the Chinese says emptiness of the internal and the external. So we're just wondering. Yeah, it says internal, external, and then original nature. Yeah, right. So, but at the beginning, it also says internal. In Chinese. At the beginning, it says there is internal appearance of comfort. So the internal is the beginning of the Chinese and the Tibetan. But at the end, there's only external and Tibetan. So this is a tiny little problem. And we could ask Diana. She's coming pretty soon to look it up and see if it says internal in there someplace that he overlooked. Well, it sort of relates back... We haven't found too many other mistakes in this translation, though. But we did find something in Kenan, didn't we? I was just thinking it relates back to what Jeremy was bringing up back on the fourth one.

[109:41]

I think, because this has the signs of inner happiness and the signs of external allure, and then in the Tibetan it's emptied only by, assuming that the translation is correct, by the emptiness of the external. Yeah, but just on that part. It's like the relationship of, by comprehending the emptiness of the desired object, then the signs of inner happiness or external allure are falling away, rather than the If it's the emptiness of the internal and the external, then it may point more toward the signs of inner happiness and the signs of external allure, rather than the sign of the object, which appears to be external. I thought I got some external allure happening to distract me. Well, there's... Okay.

[110:46]

The last part. Well, I don't know where the last part began. I don't either. But there are two ways. You can go all the way to the beginning if you want to. Well, I just go back to four. But I mean, if there's this desired object or resource in this case. Yeah, external allure. That has external allure, gives the appearance of external allure. It has an allure. It doesn't have external allure, it has allure. This has the signs of external allure. But it isn't really external allure, is it? Isn't it just that it's external and it has allure? I actually, I'm not, I have not, to tell you the truth, I don't have much experience of external allure. I don't. I have experience of external things having allure. Yeah, because allure is very... There's a lot of external things, not all of which have allure. But those things that have allure, it's not like I think, oh, that's an external allure.

[111:47]

I just think it's allure. But I think the thing's external. But you're doing it internally. Totally. It's not the thing's fault that it has allure. It's all my fault. Things are actually walking around without any allure. Right. It might not have allure for somebody else, and it might not allure for you. You see what I mean? It's why. It's not the thing. But anyway, yes. Well, I don't know if I can get to the point. Well, I don't know if you will either. Okay. That's not the main thing. The main thing is... To go forward. To never get anywhere. Good. Well, all right. We're in good shape. Okay, yeah. I'm glad you realized that. So here we are in a situation where there appear to be objects that appear to offer me inner happiness and appear to have external allure. Appear to have allure.

[112:48]

The allure appears to be out there with this apparently out there object. They have allure. They appear to have allure. Okay. There's an appearance of allure. There's an appearance of allure. There's an appearance of allure. It's an allure. Appearance of allure and appearance of inner happiness might come with that allure. Right? Right. Okay. And then... Yes. Studying that... Only looking at this, the first part of this, we're not going to go to the self-nature part, just that external-internal question. If it's the emptiness of external is focused on the object in the way that we first talked about the previous one, where the emptiness of the external... dissolves the sense of enjoyment that could come from the object because of emptying the object of its substantiality, the apparent object.

[113:52]

Well, emptying of the substantiality, in particular, not being able to find any substantiality, externality. Right, and that... And that will take away the substance of the allure. Is that what you're saying? That was one way we talked about it. The other way of talking about it was that I thought Jeremy was the emptiness of the yagur itself, or the emptiness of the enjoyment. And so that's where I thought that seemed more consistent with the way, if it brings in the emptiness of the internal and the external. Yeah. I mean, that seemed like there was an interpretation in the way those translations were made, that one is focused on the object in the way we were first talking about, and one is focused on the subjective experience of the object, in terms of what you're applying the emptiness to.

[114:55]

Does that make sense? I don't know. Is that what you said before? I think that's what I was trying to say. It was that time I followed it. I didn't get distracted. Yes. So for example, if you lean back for just a moment, lean back up against that couch, could you just lean back? So, no, no, you were sitting up nicely. Okay. So there's an allure that I see that's wonderful. So I see the color of the wood in the table in front of you, the color of the couch, the raucous and then the black. And then there's a slightly red cast back and then the picture. So I'm allured on that external color. It's very pleasurable to me. It just works because I just, I see all of nature just the way that is with that picture in green gold. I can go off on my head going on that.

[116:04]

So it isn't anything that I get lustful over, but I like it a lot because it creates a sense of pleasure in me. It's just got a nice balance. Now, how do I see through the emptiness of that? When it's not of the external, it is external. It's internal and external, I mean, it's the same thing. I mean, what I'm asking is, do I have to say, so what? No, don't say so. I mean, how do I work? Don't say so what? Don't say that. I wouldn't be sexy. You couldn't if you tried. So you study the situation, and you study the fact of any place that you have some sense of substance in that substantiality to that allure. There's a sign of allure, right? So it isn't just a plain old allure.

[117:06]

It's allure that has substantiality. Because it brings me pleasure to see the bad. It's not just a pleasure, it's a pleasure that has substantiality. It's a happiness that has substantiality. And now how are you going to remove the substantiality? Partly you don't want to remove the substantiality because then you might lose the happiness or lose the allure if you took away the signs. The signs would dispense to it. You give up the substantiality of the story. But we're not saying push away the substantiality. We're saying study the situation. Study the substantiality thoroughly, and you will find that it's not there. And then you will be dispensed with, and you will realize this emptiness. So this is something you actually have an experience of and you could describe, and you can also talk to other people about it.

[118:10]

conventional language and understand what you're talking about and you can understand what they're talking about in similar situations and now you study the situations thoroughly you go all the way to the end of them and then you find that there isn't any substantiality and then you realize this book of emptiness and We're spending some time thinking about this just to help us thoroughly study the situation, not to go get the emptiness before we study the situation, but to try to find the emptiness before we look at what the emptiness applies to. So this is a nice one for you because you actually, you're kind of into the services of men and women. It's your daily life. and into the possessions and stuff like that. So you can actually study these situations and see if you can actually find the substance which appears to be there and is part of what makes it enjoyable. Without the substance of this image, this vision you have, it wouldn't be quite as alluring or as touching to you.

[119:20]

So that's fine. And you even could admit that you like it and don't want to give it up. which follows right through with this, that we get attached to the process where actually we should move through. But in order to have experience, we use this device of signs so that we can talk about things and so on. But there's a catch. And now we're trying to eliminate the sticking points in the process. But let's not push the sticking points away. Let's study the process and keep it confessing the sticking points more and more thoroughly until we find out there's no sticking points to find, actually. I've confessed so thoroughly that I just can't find them anymore. And then the teacher says, Oh, yeah? Well, here, here it is still. Like, what is it, Pai Jiang and Wang Bo. There's no more sticking points, the teacher says. Yes, there is. Or, you know, he looks at the fire, he said, the fire teacher says, no, bring me a coal.

[120:26]

And he said, there's no more coals. He said, yes, there is. And he goes there and finds a coal. There still might be a coal. So if you ever get to the point where you think you find, you finally get to the point where there's no substance to any of these allures, and there's no inner happiness, there's no substance to the inner happiness around the services of men and women. Then you tell the teacher, and the teacher says, yes, there is. See, you're still, you're still. Give me that. Give me that. Let go, let go, let go. But that's, that's, that's, that's what you can do in each one of these cases. These are different setups to study thoroughly and find the emptiness. But don't get ahead of the ball. Stay with the ball. All the way, all the way. Chew it up all the way until it's all like... And also feel it. I don't want to chew it anymore. I don't want to lose this. You know, I'll get depressed. Okay? This is a good one for you, right? Oh, yeah.

[121:27]

Yes and yes. I'm sorry. I find myself being inflexible about knowing how else to study besides, like, trying to analyze into... I mean, of course, being aware, being aware, but also, like, I analyze myself. Are you saying you don't want to be rigid in the way you study? Yeah. No, no, please don't be... If you're rigid, you're not being thorough. If you're thorough, you should be very... You should relax with this. You should study this material... and commit to study this material, and then relax with it and play with it. You don't have to do it in some set way. I'm just sipping coffee here. The way you're going to do it's going to be very... If it's going to be thorough, it's going to be very creative. You're going to study this eventually in ways that I've never heard of, I've never dreamed of. Like that song, I see children... They'll know things more than I'll ever know. I don't know what you're going to find out if you study this stuff. So I'm not telling you how to study this stuff.

[122:28]

You commit to it. You go in there and you can freak out and study it any way you want. And I've seen you people do very creative things with some of these things. You just go in there and you make all kinds of wonderful trips, you know, and learn all kinds of wonderful things until you can't find anything more to do and any more to learn. And then you can't find anything about where you started or anything. And then you've found, then you've been able to tolerate that there's no substance So however you want to do it, I'm just saying go further, go further, go further into each one of these areas, into all these different types of sign, and just pick one and be thorough with one. That might be enough. And if it is, and you could find the impetus, then you'll be able to do the same with the other ones. So I encourage you to be very creative and flexible with how you study these things. Jeremy? Um, just in looking at the fifth one, I think, we could even set up, um, this basically seems to me like the setup of consumer culture, what's being described here, the signs of happiness, the signs of the war of goods and services.

[123:45]

You know, I couldn't also help but feel like there was some, something potentially erotic, you know, some erotics that are going on here with the references to men and women and flirtations and what happens. And I felt like, well, this actually kind of captures what we're kind of thrust into almost all the time in our society. It's kind of promise of inner happiness through the allure of all these goods and services and men and women. And... Anyways, I thought, I was struck by how it just completely captured the way art was driving the society. And then I thought what was interesting was the kind of, if you compare this one to the previous one, which is kind of more focused just on the desire, but not on the inner happiness, the addition of the need of the emptiness of self-nature, and just the way that, again, it kind of struck me how the sense of the... being ultimately concerned about one's personal happiness, you know, fit with this culture, you know, and that... So it's not just that you need to empty the internal book, and if you need to empty that sense of, like, what I'm primarily concerned about is my own personal happiness, you know, which is so deeply internalized, you know.

[124:58]

Do you think that's what's meant by self-nature in this case? I thought it was the self-nature of the objects. Well, let's find out, shall we? Let's study this thoroughly. This is a good one. You can get your little tractors in there and study it. Let's talk more about it next week. Are we going to have a meeting next week? Can people come? New York celebrate my mother's 90th birthday. Oh, congratulations. Have a safe journey. Can anybody else not be able to come? Could you send Linda Ruth to cover for you? Thank you. Linda Ruth and Susan will be back. Thank you for your alertness.

[126:01]

and ardent, ardent, ardency, ardentness, ardent. Ardor. Ardor. Ardor. I want to thank everyone, too. I think this is really difficult. Make it easy. Yeah, thank you.

[126:17]

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