Well, this is our last class and instead of rushing through we will just attend to this ninth chapter the Dharma door of non-duality. And it's a pretty thick chapter. It brings us to the climax of the plot, the Bimalakirti silence. And the chapters after it are all wonderful, but they're sort of beyond his silence. Too much to take in for me. But that's also a very profound to the silence. And they are more and more miraculous and incredible.

[01:01]

And this is not an easy chapter. There are no little breaks in it, sort of sticky flower breaks or miracles. It's a kind of unrelenting exposition of this non-dual position. The three It's really a description of the quality of the third part of the triad that we began with. When I began to study, mountains were mountains, before I studied. And then when I began to study, mountains were not mountains. And then finally, when I became enlightened, mountains were mountains. that third non-dual completely spontaneous stage or point of view is what this chapter is about.

[02:06]

So it is not an easy chapter and I'm not quite sure what to do with it. I read through it and I read most of these little dichotomies and thought of things to say, but that will get quite tiresome. So we'll see what we do with it. But each of these, so the chapter, the form of the chapter is that Vimalakirti asks the Bodhisattvas, good sirs, please explain how the Bodhisattvas enter the Dharma door of non-duality. and now each Bodhisattva is going to give his response. And so there are, I don't know how many of these little paragraph gates. And any of these gates gets one through. Most of them are about the... Also, this chapter does recapitulate all of the themes that we've been talking about.

[03:21]

They're all here. And in that sense, also, it's a nice ending. I don't know anything about how the history of this... what the history of this sutra is, but sometimes one suspects that there's a certain ending and then there are things added on. That often happens. But anyway. So each of these paragraphs is, most of them are reconciliation of opposite points of view, which is how you get to non-duality, or the not-to-ness of things, which is a wonderful mantra, you know, just to keep telling yourself, not to, not to. whatever comes up you're quite safe in the world actually if you just keep saying not to which is what each of these little gates in different words is saying but the most important thing about the sutra is how do each of us deeply take it in

[04:41]

and how do each of us use it and digest it. I really feel very fortunate that I began to read it for the third time, I guess, about in December, and had all of Thurman's commentaries and so on, and really have just carried it around for a few months. And last night, it really uh... i've been feeling it i've been feeling it kind of working in me which is is uh... the way we want to invite it last night uh... i was working away at my get desk i'm visiting a friend of mine who's in jail i've been visiting her every week and she uh... is trying to help she's a in jail for making a dent in a Trident missile on August 9th.

[05:52]

And she is functioning in a semi-lockdown unit as sort of the counselor of the unit. And these women who are having to stay in their cell for up to 20 hours a day by themselves, come to her. And one of them began to talk to her and about a long history of horrible child abuse and Susan who's a teacher suggested that she write it down and so it's a long manuscript which has come to me and I'm putting it in my computer and editing it slightly and giving it back so I was sitting at my desk typing up this very strong really pornographic description of how this four-year-old girl was sexually abused and it was about 8.30 and I was feeling tired and suddenly I realized that I was feeling sick and that I was going to go to bed soon and that this really wasn't

[07:03]

wasn't a very good condition to be in. And then I remembered I owed Mary Lee a phone call. She called in the morning, so I decided, well, I've got to stop this. I'll call Mary Lee. And so I called Mary Lee, and I was somewhat shaken when I realized that Mary Lee had a real Dharma question that she was asking. It wasn't just, you know, when is this or when is that? It was a serious Dharma question and I somehow had to get hold of my mind and answer it. And so we had quite a nice discussion and when I hung up the phone I realized I didn't feel sick anymore. And in fact that night I had a dream about my father who was somewhat seductive and he was a very big person in the dream which made me, so I was probably a little person.

[08:06]

And he was very angry. It was a sort of frightening thing, the way he was coming at me. And I answered him. I was not frightened or anything. I answered him giving I statements, the way a very cool adult would. When you act this way, it makes me feel very... And... even feeling some affection for him. And when I woke up, I realized that I was doing what a bodhisattva is supposed to do in the dream of just dealing with this barrage of somebody else's passion and not being... attachments to it. And I just felt very grateful to the Sutra. So... It's a feeling of not-too.

[09:18]

Not-too. No, that didn't come out. Looking back. Looking back. Of not-too. That's right. It's one Buddha field. It's one Buddha field. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's right. Feel the sickness. That's right. That's right. And how does one feel the sickness and not become it? And I talked so much with my friend in jail, Susan, about that. And she's really quite worn down, quite worn down, more by the behavior of the guards and the neglect than by the women.

[10:30]

And she said she'd just gotten a letter from her co-conspirator, who was a priest that day, and it was just what she wanted to hear. And he had said, just remember that discouragement does not come from God. Of course, he can say that, he's on the outside. No, he's in jail, too. He's in jail, too. No, he really can say it. He can say that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he was the person that said, well, before they went to jail, while he was thinking about it, that he wanted to go to jail because being in jail is the best place to pray. Which is, that also is a bodhisattva attitude. That's also what stays with me so strongly from the chapters we've read.

[11:36]

That sense of it or it as being out there in the worst situation. That's where it is. That's right. And it just, every chapter is doing that one way or another over and over again. Over and over again. That's right. That's right. And every chapter is doing that. The Sutra works up to that. That's right, the last chapter. In order to help the living beings, they voluntarily descend into the hells which are attached to all the inconceivable Buddha fields. Page 70. And the Sutra becomes more and more insistent about Yeah, so getting back to Ross's point, this not to, you know, that we have so many vivid feelings of being to and being drowned or being drownable.

[12:40]

And we also know the experience of not to. how to move through a really difficult situation, and just sort of like a boat, and seeing on each side the difficulties, but just moving through on one's intention. I don't know if this is appropriate, but this whole not-to brought a memory back for me that I had not, I think, fully understood at the time, and then reading the sutra it just flooded back. It sort of matches... I was in Canada meeting and working with a rather wonderful man in my field. He's been a teacher to me just through his writing, and so I really was looking forward to this. We were going to be doing a presentation on the panel, and I had made the overture, and he had been very welcoming, and so we were going to be there anyway.

[13:48]

The morning that he was going to come by and pick me up, and we were going to just spend the morning together, getting to know each other and working, as I waited on the sidewalk in front of the hotel, I was suddenly struck. I was absolutely paralyzed with this overwhelming fear. It just came out of nowhere. And I know I'm a very insecure person, or have been in my past, and yet it just was so much bigger than anything I had ever felt before. I couldn't explain it, and I thought, how am I going to go through this? So I managed to stuff it down and carry on. We had a perfectly lovely morning, but I was enormously shaken, and I was holding the fear. I mean, there was no getting away from it. And we finished our work together, and then I went off with my partner, and we went ahead and had this vacation. And the entire vacation, I was living in hell. I mean, I had just plunged through to some kind of you know, archetypal terror.

[14:52]

And I worked with every resource at my command to try to understand it and had no clue. It was absolutely, the reasons for it were inaccessible to me. And I had just started reading Buddhism and had sort of, had this sense of instant recognition of the not-to, that, you know, because I had experienced, had had that direct experience of oneness so often. And yet in this situation it was baffling to me. And at the end of a week of just struggling with this and being a horrible partner, on the way home I got this image of myself as a terrified rabbit frozen under the shadow of the hawk. The shadow of the hawk had gone over and the rabbit feels the shadow of the hawk and just becomes paralyzed. And that was my mental state. And I worked with that, I'm the rabbit, there's the hawk, whatever it is that I'm afraid of.

[15:57]

And I suddenly just got it, that the rabbit and the hawk are one, that they're not two. And it was like, instantly, it was like touching the fear with a little needle and it just popped. And I had, you know, all the Jungian stuff and all the stuff about projection, I'm afraid of my own hawk and not, you know, I mean, there's various ways, there are levels and levels to look at it, but it wasn't until I sort of got it that the hawk and the hare were in-breath, out-breath, were, you know, together were the universe. Together were the whole. And it just weren't two things, you know. You can't be afraid When it's not too... Thank you. Well, the great gift of the Dharma is fearlessness.

[16:59]

Does anyone have more comments before we begin? Yes. To me, that's a key concept. The dualistic type of thinking that we tend to do in our lives. And in my experience, one of the key factors of turning me from misery and suffering to a more balanced person with more equilibrium in life was this concept of non-duality from the Prajnaparamita that we chant, you know, not pure or impure because whenever people have problems like I did, it seems that, you know, you take sides. Who's to blame? You know, what happened?

[18:20]

He did this, I did this. Or I didn't do this, he did this kind of thing. And that just stirs more and more wrath and anger and all kinds of negative feelings which makes one sick. But you know, just chanting the Heart Sutra over and over again, you come to realize, you talk about the non-duality of life. Gradually it starts sinking in. And then with this alleviation of pointing fingers at others, but looking at the whole picture, then you think, oh no, we're just part of the same mass of water. And one wave just looks different from the other. It's really wonderful. Yeah, yeah. It does penetrate, year after year. Yeah, that's what you were talking about, it working. Yeah, yeah. It works.

[19:21]

Yes. And there's no fear too, because a lot of one's problems develop from fear of inadequacy, not being able to do, kind of thing, you know? How am I going to survive all these questions? are based on fear. And when the Heart Sutra says, there is no fear. Without any hindrance. No fears exist. Exactly. And these are the hindrances here. It's wonderful. All right, so let's just, we'll just read some of these and I don't know if, did you have a chance to read the chapter and maybe some of the paragraphs? It'd be nice if somebody has some specifics on which of you speak to, or it'd be nice because a lot of them just, I don't relate to them at all.

[20:28]

Well, I think that if you really sit down and take sort of one a day, which is about the rate, or one a week. It would take a lot of contemplation. It would, but yes, they're contemplations, that's what they are. Well, let's begin. The Bodhisattva, oh dear, Dharma Vikarvana declared, noble sir, production and destruction are two. But what is not produced and does not occur cannot be destroyed. Thus the attainment of the tolerance of the birthlessness of things is the entrance into non-duality. Now that sounds formidable. The tolerance of the birthlessness of things is a very important technical term. In the Sanskrit it's Anupaticha Dharma Kshanti.

[21:32]

And that means Anupachika is the non-arising and dharma is the non-arising of dharma and Kshanti is patience. So that's the teaching that all dharmas are equal. That it doesn't, you know, it really doesn't matter what happens. That good or bad is just, as Agnes said, it's just the waves are continually arising on the ocean. And how to tolerate that? Now for me, one aspect of getting older is that the excitement of what I want and what I don't want, the glitter of that is rather abated.

[22:41]

You know, it's just naturally a little easier. I think life rubs us down and teaches that. But it's a very profound It's a very profound state of mind. I was just, and I was thinking about what Joko Beck might say, and opened, by seeming chance, to her chapter on no hope. See, it's a situation of, Being patient with the, how is it? The tolerance of the birthlessness of things is also a situation where there's no hope. No hope that things will be different.

[23:48]

Yeah, exactly. You're not waiting for something. Exactly. You're not waiting for the next thing. Exactly. And she talks a little about it. Anyone who sits for any length of time sees there is no past and no future except in the mind. There is nothing but self, and self is always here present. It is not hidden. There's nothing around us that is not self, so what are we looking for? Then she says, a student recently loaned me a book by Dogen Zenji about the Tenzo. And so, From Dogen Zenji's point of view, the Tenzo should be one of the most mature and meticulous students in the monastery. And then she quotes a little bit from this very famous instructions to the Tenzo. And then she retells a story that Dogen tells.

[24:52]

In this writing, Dogen Zenji repeats a famous story. If we understand this one story, we really understand what Zen practice is. Young Dogen went to China to visit monasteries for practice and study, and one day at one of them, on a very hot June afternoon, he saw the elderly Tenzo working hard outside the kitchen. He was spreading out mushrooms to dry on a straw mat. He carried a bamboo stick, and now this is quoting Dogen, he carried a bamboo stick but had no hat on his head. The sun's rays beat down so harshly that the tiles along the walk burned one's feet. He worked hard and was covered with sweat. I could not help but feel the work was too much of a strain for him. His back was a bow drawn taut. His long eyebrows were crane white. I approached and asked his age. He replied that he was 68. years old, and then I went on to ask him why he never used any assistance.

[25:58]

He answered, other people are not me. You are right, I said, but I can see that your work is the activity of the Buddha Dharma, but why are you working so hard in this scorching sun? He replied, if I do not do it now, when else can I do it? There was nothing else for me to say. As I walked on along the passageway, I began to sense inwardly the true significance of the role of Tenzo. And then Joko comments, the elderly Tenzo said, other people are not me. Let's look at this statement. What he is saying is, my life is absolute. No one can live it for me. No one can feel it for me. No one can serve it for me. My work, my suffering, my joy are absolute. There's no way, for instance, you can feel pain in my toe or I can feel pain in your toe.

[27:05]

And that is the paradox. In totally owning the pain, the joy, the responsibility for my life, if I see this point clearly, then I'm free. I have no hope. I have no need for anything else. So this tolerance for the birthlessness of things comes to us in our Zen practice lineage I mean, there are a lot of ways of understanding this. And in our lineage, it comes through this practice of one-act samadhi. Just whatever comes, you do it completely. You completely own it.

[28:10]

Whatever it is, you completely walk into it. Shall we move along? The Bodhisattva, so the second one, so you see these are not just one day contemplations, they're lifetime contemplations, each one. The Bodhisattva Sri Ganda declared, I and mine are not, are two. If there is no presumption of self, there will be no possessiveness. Thus, the absence of presumption is the entrance into non-duality.

[29:21]

The absence of presumption of self. So, we've talked a lot about the self habit in this class. how pervasive the self-habit is, how it's like software that's just deeply programmed in layer after layer. So Catherine suddenly feels this fear coming out of nowhere. It's this deep programming beyond any recall. Mine and yours and the hawks and the rabbits that can suddenly just well up. We don't even know where from, going down into those deep layers. And even the noble bodhisattvas and disciples who are spiritual heroes have enough of a vestige of the self-habit so that they're reluctant to visit the invalid

[30:35]

whose understanding is bigger than theirs. I notice, though, that they're not... They're speaking in a different place now. They're not reluctant. They're just speaking what they know. That's right. And he's not correcting them. And he's not correcting them. That's right. They're not doing it wrong anymore. That's right. That's right. And the silence at the end means that... Confirms that. Confirms. It's a confirming silence. Right. Right. That's a nice point. Yeah. It feels somewhat that way. I'm so glad you brought that up because I've been so struck with that. I keep remembering the thing that taunted me through the whole class is from the very first night when the people wouldn't go. The bodhisattvas wouldn't go and they were telling stories of him correcting them. And I keep being stuck on that. I keep being hung up on it. And I got this vision, a new reading of it, Sometimes when I'm speaking to, when I'm teaching my students and I'm, or counseling or whatever, there's something that's open in me to, it's like if I've been practicing well and practicing a lot and then I'm open, and I don't know where the words are coming from that respond.

[32:02]

It's, I'm out of the way. It's not, it's an encounter, it's another kind of encounter. And when that's happening, it's never wrong, there's never a mistake. And amazing things happen, and I can stand off here and just witness, and just be witness to. When I'm not in that place, which is most of the time, I still have to teach. I still have to, it's my job. I still have to go out there, and I'm a word machine, and the words come out, you know, and I'm not a bad word machine, and so even when I'm not plugged into this thing, I do okay, you know, it's like, but it's not magic. And even though I do okay, I stand off here and watch, and I watch opportunities missed. I watch people walk out of the door afterwards and they didn't have, you know, 5,000 enlightenments, and they didn't have, you know, whatever. And I said all the words that might to any ear sound very much like the words I said on the other occasion.

[33:03]

It's like the words didn't matter. but where I was, what I was channeling or whatever, mattered. I mean, whether I was in the way or not. And it makes me think that all of those occasions when those people, when the bodhisattvas were preaching and teaching and saying all those good things, and it's like I read what they said, and it was just as good as what he came along and said afterwards. It's not that his words were better, it's that he came in that moment, fully open, and they had been teaching out of a more shallow place, that they weren't fully open. And so when he said, no, it's wrong, and then suddenly he delivers the same message, and everybody's enlightened. And it's not because it's Vimalakirti, the eloquent one, it's because it's Vimalakirti who learns how to get out of his own way, you know. Or to say more consistently to be out of his own way.

[34:05]

So now, at this later place, it feels like to be able to engage in, or to participate, each one of them participating in helping to state this whole message. That from the time that he got sick and they went to see him, stuff has happened. And that in his presence, and in that trip to the other realm, and in the thrones, and the food, and the fragrance, Or maybe that's afterwards. But they've been here in his presence, growing. And so for this moment, it's given to them to open to this and be able to be part of his voice. Darn the wheel is turned. Yeah. And even they can be... Even I can be sometimes a vehicle. And the Buddha field has worked and it's not any one person's doing.

[35:21]

And it's not even the Lord's. It's something else that's there. Yeah. Well, that's a very nice attention to the plot. It's also sort of the I and mine part too. It's not ever I and my words. It's whether or not for a moment you can lose that. And then when you enter that non-duality and you don't possess it, that's when that's possible. So, as Catherine was saying, if there is no presumption of a self, there will be no possessiveness.

[36:32]

Thus the absence of presumption is the entrance into non-duality. The Bodhisattva Sri Tuka declared defilement and purification are two. When there is thorough knowledge of defilement, there will be no conceit about purification. The path leading to the complete conquest of all conceit is the entrance into non-duality. That's one of the best ones. That's one of the best ones? Yeah, so that really echoes the passage in the goddess chapters, the sticky flowers raining down in the goddess passage and part of these sutras is always the somewhat political aspect of putting down the Hinayana

[37:53]

And raising up the Mahayana and the conceit that can be taken around all the constructions of purification. I'm sorry, I'm still not clear about our thorough knowledge of department. When there is thorough knowledge of defilement, does that mean... Is this knowledge, a mental knowledge of what is involved with defilement, or is this knowledge an experiential... Intimate. Intimate experience of defilement. On page 66, on the family of the Tathagatas, that whole chapter was about this subject.

[39:00]

What is the family of the Tathagatas? The passions do indeed constitute the family of the Tathagatas. Likewise, without going into the ocean of passions, it is impossible to obtain the mind of omniscience. And it's this... That whole passage is really interesting. The lotus and the moon lily do not grow on dry ground in the wilderness, but grow in the swamps, in the mud banks. Once again, you're going to find them. truth out or actually in the midst of the devilement. In very ordinary terms to me it means anything that disgusts you, go see it up close. Including your own states of mind.

[40:04]

Including foremost your own states of mind. I think also there's an element of humility in it. It's like when you have the experience of being in the midst of defilement, it's a humbling experience until you're in that might be judgmental about others who do that, but you would never do that. You know, there's no conceit about purification. It's just true and humble. When you're sitting in the midst of defilement, you're not conceited about how pure you are. Right. Or, as you purify yourself, you're not conceited either, because it's such a devotion to balance the imbalance.

[41:12]

And a feeling of gratitude develops. I like that journey into defilement frees you of that judgmentalness and also dualism. That does make it a gate to know. Do you connect with that? So conceit is just You know, for all of us, a very profound obstacle. It's everywhere when you begin to look for it. And there will be other passages in here like that, but this leads into the Tibetan respect for one's enemy.

[42:23]

and how much one's enemy teaches one about one's attachments. The Bodhisattva, I don't know how you pronounce it, declared distraction and attention are two When there is no distraction, there will be no attention, no meditation, and no mental intensity. Thus, the absence of mental intensity is the entrance into non-duality. You're going to have to rescue me from this one. This sounds like we shouldn't sit. Well, this is... Depends on what they mean by mental intensity. The absence of mental intensity.

[43:26]

Now the way I think of this is that the absence of mental intensity is in fact Samadhi. It's contact. That we've got and For me, this paragraph, I just think of sitting. Distraction and attention are two. When we sit, we think that we want to be attentive and mindful, and we want to leave distraction. And that's good. That's a good way to start. And it's a good start and it will take us a certain amount of the road. but it won't do. It won't take us the whole way.

[44:33]

We talked some about this at the beginner session. That's why we have long sittings. If you have a very long sitting, you cannot maintain, as far as I know, your attention. Sooner or later you'll get tired and rubbed down. all your good intentions will be somewhere else and you will simply be sitting in some discomfort probably, breath after breath and there will be an absence of mental intensity. You know, you'll just be doing it. And Actually, there's something wonderful about that, even though we don't think so. Can you help me with this? There's a moment that comes in Sashin, when I'm so worn out that I let go of everything.

[45:38]

And that feels very... That's when there's almost like you welcome the boredom that comes, because it's like a gate you go through, and then everything falls away. But... There's also, when I'm sitting day after day, for little, you know, short times, morning or evening, I can go through periods of what I think of as being spiritually slack. Yeah. It doesn't, it's not, it doesn't feel, it's not, it's not somebody, you know, it's lack of mental intensity, but it's like, yeah, it's like I'm not even there, it's like, And there are places where Suzuki Roshi says, you know, just sitting, that's not it. You know, I mean, there are a lot of places where he says, just sitting, that's it. But there are also places where he says, you know, you don't just sit and sit and sit and sit. Maybe nothing will happen. Ten years later, you're still just sitting and nothing's, that's not it, that's not enough.

[46:39]

So, I feel like I recognize when I'm in one of those slack periods, this is not enough. This is not really doing anything. I probably need to do something different. So when I read that, it was like, they can't be talking about the slack, really slack. I think that this lack of mental intensity is... It's like when you go through the wall. It speaks to the tendency to... to take some credit for Zazen, you know, that it's my Zazen. But whereas it's really, one is just allowing this Zazen experience he compared the early stages of prayer to the oar work you do to get out into midstream.

[47:51]

And then the stream takes you. And it's sort of like in Zazen, there's this work you do with the oars to get your boat out from shore. And then the stream takes you. That's right. And then the bell rings. Then there's no effort. Yeah, there's no mental intensity, but you're definitely in somewhere deep. Yes, yes. Oh, there's some effort, and there's some intensity, but something is, you're moving along with the current. You get caught up, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So how is the lack of mental intensity no longer mental intensity. What is the shift?

[48:53]

Well, there are two levels. One, there's always the right effort. And when you see that your mind is getting slack and it needs more focus, then you do that. You're always Obviously, the well-known image of Zazen is like being in a sailboat, and the conditions are changing every moment, and you're having to trim the sails, turn the rudder, you know, you're just always making these adjustments. And that's right effort. But sometimes we feel that we're engaged in a kind of noble effort. and that this spiritual practice is a significant one. You get attached to some kind of high level, high intensity.

[50:05]

Presumption of self. Yeah, that's right. And I think that's what this is speaking to. You know, when you're teaching, you're talking about you're on. Being on the edge of the sword, you know you're on, you know when you're off, and there's an attachment to being on it. That would be the mental intensity. Yeah. I want to get back to that place. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very subtle stuff. A hare bred's deviation will fail to accord with the proper attunement. You know, a hare's bred. And you don't always get to be in charge of whether or not you're on this side or that side of the hair. Yeah, right. You're not in charge of it. I think I had an experience of this a couple of weeks ago. Jesse and I meditate together sometimes. One morning we just meditate and another morning we do reading and then meditate.

[51:11]

And so we've been in that rhythm for a while. Recently I came in with no intention. I wasn't thinking about, were we going to meditate or read? I had no ideas or goals or, you know, all the attention to the practice was gone for some reason. And therefore there was no distraction either. Because there was no intention there, there was no distraction there. And so, in that sitting I had this moment of, you know, this experience of non-duality. And I feel like it was because there was no distraction and intention that this whole period of practice had sort of fallen away inadvertently. There wasn't even the intention to not practice, you know.

[52:12]

this moment that happened. And then you can comment on that afterwards, that, oh, that's because you didn't have any intentions or any goals or whatever. But I feel like that was an embodiment of this. No distraction, no tension. It's a not trying. But somehow the practice was important. The practice carries you. It's up to that. Yes. Oh, very important. Yeah. And that, like you said too, that there's no arranging it. Yeah. There are just these moments of happening. Yeah. There's also the metaphor in the Visuddhimagga of, it's like you're running, you're going to vault a stream. So you're running and you put the stick down and it's enormous effort to get yourself up and then you just come down.

[53:15]

Um... And then, this is a nice one, the Bodhisattva Subahu declared, Bodhisattva spirit and disciple spirit are two. When both are seen to resemble an illusory spirit, there is no Bodhisattva spirit nor any disciple spirit. Thus the sameness of the natures of spirits is the entrance into non-duality. That's a very peacemaking statement. So all these other young bodhisattvas have been now brought into with Vimalakirti. There is no separation. Yes, that's right. And the disciples from the wrong school are the same. Now let me see.

[54:45]

Now what I did at this point was to sort of tune out and move along to page 75. And if anybody, if any of the intervening material struck anybody else. Yes, yes, good. Life and liberation. So dualistic. Now wait a minute, is this on 74? It's in the middle of 74. Dantamati. Oh yeah, okay. Having seen the nature of life, one neither belongs to it, nor is one utterly liberated from it. Such is the understanding Such understanding is intrinsic to non-duality.

[55:46]

That's great. Yeah. Yeah. It's the middle path. It's the middle way. It's the middle way. That's right. It's... One neither belongs to it nor is liberated. Don't dream of being liberated. Right. That's not the... Right. But you also don't... You're not just entrapped in it. Yeah. Being in the world but not of it. Yeah. Yeah, it's the middle way, the Bodhisattva position. I noticed that my reaction to these, before I skipped on, you know, I would read them and then not really That would be my first reaction to it.

[56:51]

But knowledge and ignorance are dualistic. The natures of ignorance and knowledge are the same, for ignorance is undefined and incalculable. But my first reaction would be, well yeah, but what about knowledge and ignorance? It would just be like this continual jump into an argument with the bodhisattva. Because I need the right answer. I mean, there's got to be a right answer. You know, it's that level of conversation is the first one out of my... Yeah. And we need that level. I mean, there's something in us that says, but that's, you know, that's true also. Yeah. But I feel like there's some people I know that I used to be friends with, and I had a conversation with them.

[58:09]

and you couldn't trust things like the United Nations, and they didn't donate money anywhere except maybe very, very locally. They absolutely knew what was going on. And I hear that, I hear what they say as the way I respond I couldn't hear them without reacting. And they couldn't hear me without reacting. There was no real penetration of positions. And that kind of reaction is like the first layer to these statements.

[59:33]

And it's sort of a shame if you only got that far. And yet, it's connective, you know. If you read it and say, yes, but wait a minute. that engages you, it takes you in. I couldn't get into most of it, but then it does take time. It does take time. They have to settle. There's that wonderful expression you just quoted from your friend who said, I can't trust this and this and this and this. I think that issue of trust is really at the heart of our resistance to some of this stuff. I don't want to throw away my duality. I trust my dualistic thinking because I know how it operates. And don't ask me to trust you that if I throw this out, I'm going to be able to function in the world.

[60:36]

And I remember when Mary Ellen used to say to me, you know, when you pull these things, when you forget to show up at BART, or when you do these horrible things, It means I don't trust you. And I can't trust you. And how can we be in a relationship if I can't trust you? And I finally one day turned to her and said, you can trust me absolutely to be who I am. You can really trust me that I'm going to sometimes forget to turn up at Bart. You can absolutely trust that I'm going to forget to turn the porch light for you when you're out. You can completely trust me that I'm going to sometimes not do the dishes when I should. I am so absolutely dependable. to be exactly who I am. And sort of like when we get it, that what we trust is that the government is going to screw up and what we trust is that the United Nations are going to, people are going to do their best and it's not going to be good enough. And we can trust that people are going to be mendacious. And with that knowledge, that you're not hoping that it's going to be better or that you're not waiting for something to change, then you can let go of that.

[61:46]

It's a terrible need to control what somebody's feeding you. It's like... But it's over. It's just over and over and over again. I forget that over and over again. Yeah, absolutely. I forget it over and over again. Yeah. It really just never does. Well, on 75, the Bodhisattva Pramati declared, and I want to read this because it summarizes, it's been another important theme in what we've been talking about. Eye and form are dualistic. To understand the eye correctly and not have attachment, aversion, or confusion with regard to form, this is called peace. Similarly, ear and sound and nose and smell, tongue and taste, body and touch, mind and phenomena are all dualistic.

[63:00]

But to know the mind and to be neither attached, averse, nor confused with regard to phenomena, this is called peace. To live in such peace, is to enter non-duality. Thanks for pulling that one out. Yeah, well that's very... That's a very central Buddhist point. I have a question with regards to that. When he says to understand the I correctly, and not to have attachment, aversion or confusion with regard to form. You know, there is this expression around the observer is the observed. The observer is the observed, yeah.

[64:03]

Is it meant in that context? When he says to understand the I correctly, I mean, what is it about I that has to be understood correctly? I is a vehicle through which to experience the outside world. Right. Well, sometimes it's said that our senses, eyes, ears, nose, etc., are thieves. Are thieves. Sometimes that's said, that they're thieves because We make our situation, I and you, me and that, when we use our senses to make subject and object, our eyes, our senses are stealing our experience.

[65:08]

they're taking us into delusion. And then sometimes it's said that on page 44, that if you understand the I correctly and just see, but don't conceptualize, just bear attention. So that's where the observer is the observed? Yes. I begin to conceptualize. That's when you perform. Well, you say it. The observer is the observed. It seems to me it's like, as soon as I judge something, the judgment is an addition to what's there, and the judgment is coming from the eye that is seeing. It's the interpreter. In other words, it's an interpretation added onto, rather than just seeing. this object as a form, or as a figure, or as a shape, or whatever, or as something of natural origin, devoid of the other connotations that we may add to it, so that now this cushion

[66:31]

me suffering, my knees hurt, and every time I look at this cushion, there's pain. So the observer, he observes away, you see? Because I can no longer see the cushion for what it is, just a cushion. But I've added now an interpretation according to my experience. And that interpretation is in turn working on you. Yes, exactly. So there's this participation. Yeah. Would it even be in seeing its use as like, you see the cushion, so you think, oh, that's for meditating. That's for sitting on and pulling my legs. Right. Even that, right. You see, that already is limiting what I'm seeing. It's already framing it in terms of my experience, and therefore limiting me to the understanding of what is. Yeah, that's exactly what this is talking about. I think that there is no problem in that kind of interpretation.

[67:58]

When the mind acts that way, you know, you want to make sure that you don't put your hand on the fire. You've experienced fire, you've experienced burning of skin, and you don't want to just, you know, put your head in the oven or whatever, you know, burning. So that's correct. interpret, not just things that we have a history with, like fire, but any new phenomenon that appears in our vision or our awareness has to be interpreted. But if you do that, then you have to be aware, and as long as you're aware that you're interpreting according to your past experience, and that therefore you're limiting it, and you're not seeing all that is there, as long as you're aware of that, then there's the possibility for seeing something else. That's asking a lot for the present moment, though.

[69:00]

Well, but I mean, isn't that what awareness is about? I mean, seeing the interpretation and then realizing as the interpretation comes up, this is an interpretation. It's provisional. Yeah. But not and saying, oh, this is it, and going on, but realizing, oh yeah, and there may be more. That's where some freedom may come to see something different. It reminds me of the discussion about the ego, and how important it is to have an ego to be liberated from. Yes. If you don't have a good developed ego, You don't really have the tools to practice liberation, if that's an appropriate way to say it.

[70:02]

But that one has to be able to know what this is in order to be free of having to interpret it. To study the Buddha way is to study the self, but eventually you'll go beyond the self. Yeah. You have to have a self to give up. Yeah. Yeah, and so sometimes these discussions I feel like get into this sort of nowhere, no man's land. Yeah. Somewhere between two worlds. Yeah, Jack Kornfield has a tape about people that he interviewed who attained very remarkable spiritual states.

[71:07]

You know, Vipassana has quite an extensive map of spiritual states. and teachers, venerable teachers can help people get to them. And so remarkable experiences have been reported from time to time. But if the people who had his, Cornfield's experience is if the people who had these remarkable insights and visions of previous births and so on, weren't able to live in the world and also be real people, that this experience eventually came to nothing. This discussion of today's breaking of my previously conceived erroneous ideas is just very wonderful.

[72:18]

Sitting here, I go like, oh, there goes another one. OK. Well, that's wonderful. There's another one I would like to share. I actually read this chapter. Good. Whipped through it. Over and over. I don't like this one. It starts at the bottom of page 74. Matter itself is void. Voidness does not result from the destruction of matter, but the nature of matter is itself voidness. Therefore, to speak of voidness on the one hand, and of matter, or of sensation, or of intellect, or of motivation, or of consciousness on the other, is entirely dualistic.

[73:25]

Consciousness itself is voidness. Voidness does not result from the destruction of consciousness, but the nature of consciousness is itself voidness. Self-understanding of the five compulsive aggregates and the knowledge of them as such by means of gnosis is the entrance into non-duality. That's a good one. That's right from the Heart Sutra. It's right from the Heart Sutra, it sure is. I mean, all of this stuff comes back. When I was wondering how to deal with all this material tonight, I thought, well, one way would just be to have the Heart Sutra in front of us, and each of these paragraphs could be referred back to it. Now, you know, I mean, I'm fascinated by these dualities. Matter and voidness, the fact that matter and consciousness are all void and all that, form an emptiness, emptiness as well, that kind of thing.

[74:40]

A physicist today wouldn't have a problem at all with this statement. Matter itself is void. Voidness does not resolve from the destruction. But the nature of matter itself is voidness. Anybody who knows modern day physics knows that if you look under a microscope into here, what you will find is mostly empty space. And yet, our experience is of something solid. It's not empty space. It's not voidness. In a certain way, that's our experience. But then, in a certain way, we're very intimate with the voidness, emptiness of our experience. I mean, we live right in the midst of it. Your experience of yourself, my experience of myself at this moment seems rather solid.

[75:46]

It seems rather solid. But then I can remember back to when I was five. And that seems solid in my mind. You remember yesterday or the week before? I'm not quite getting at this. Somebody else give it a shot. small little particle that had life that I could penetrate through anything that we consider solid. Just that our molecular aggregate is too gross to understand that that isn't solid. That's very silly.

[76:47]

But that you can identify with some ultra-microscopic And pass right through that chair. Yeah, yeah. So what you say is harking back a bit to the miracles about the chairs turning into the thrones. Our point of view, you know, that our point of view is very limited. If we had a different point of view, these three pictures, everything turns around when our point of view changes. And I remember reading recently that the cells of our body replace themselves continually.

[78:01]

So what is the self? What is this body? It's continually changing, continually dying. stimulation of our senses. All we go through to label that and how those labels dissolve. It's like when I was a little girl and I knew there was a monster in the closet. from this to mental formations?

[79:12]

Well, there's a survival value to them. First of all, your brain's probably checking to see if it's dangerous or safe. You know, is that going to eat me or not? Do I have to run or not? You know, that's what I thought. I think just as an animal. See, I think even your experience that you've just described, that you had certain ideas, and whoops, what happened? That's an experience of emptiness. We just live in these snapshot frames that seem solid, and yet we well know, we've experienced, how fleeting and impermanent and empty they are.

[80:15]

And totally interconnected. And interconnected, yeah. Do you think that really an enormous amount of effort is required to keep us believing in the solidity? Yeah. I mean, you know, when it says consciousness is empty, to create the illusion, to try to maintain it. It takes constant energy to maintain the illusion that anything is solid or is going to stay. That's right. You have to really work at it. You do. I mean, I notice my poor brain. I'm asleep and I wake up. Those few moments of waking, how busy I am trying to orient. What am I going to do today? All this stuff. was moved to musical instruments, like stringed instruments and the cello.

[81:38]

And I watched an operation on and it cut open the top of the cello that makes this wondrous music of bringing Bach to us and whoever. And he took the lid off. There was nothing there. That's it? Yes, that's a wonderful image. Of course we know it, but to look at it is so wonderful. So here's all the music that's supposed to be in there.

[83:15]

It required a lot of craftsmanship to create that empty space. Yes it did. Right. Just playing with that image is just wonderful. I suppose to experience that proxy That's such a great image for the container we create for emptiness. I mean, we are embodied. And our minds are making forms all the time. It's like there's different qualities of form. If you're into the world of form, you can actually get into making better or worse containers for the emptiness.

[84:20]

The kind of music that comes from that emptiness can be affected by its form. That's getting into dualistic thinking, but that's in the world of form. It's like it does matter. And the form of our practice and how carefully you do ariyoki or whatever can change the shape and the sound of the emptiness. Well, we have reached the end of our time. Oh no! Could I just say something? Yes. Towards the end here. Manjusri? Is that how you pronounce it? Manjusri. Manjusri. Manjusri gives the answer in verbal, it seems to me, and then Bimalakirti does it in silence.

[85:32]

In silence. I mean, right? I mean, so Manjusri. That's right. Yeah, he sets him up, he tells him what's needed. He sets him, Manjushri really, it's the wisdom teaching, kind of, not this, [...] now what are you going to say? It's a magnificent footnote there, by the way. They really do a nice job of telling you that also silence is not better than speaking. You know, speaking in silence is one less duality and we're not saying that silence is always going to be better. It's always going to be better, right. And there was the prefiguring in the goddess chapter when the goddess embarrassed Shariputra and Shariputra was silent. Now that's a very, that's a nice contrasting silence. The silence when you shut up because you know you're getting into trouble.

[86:36]

And she says to him exactly that. Why, Shariputra, do you think silence is better than non-silence? It's all the same. Yeah. Right. So I would like to just, in relation to Vimalakirti's silence, just read this one bit. Dogen is so full of so many wonderful commentaries on this silence in so many different ways. The entire universe is the Dharma body of the self.

[87:44]

When you say that the entire universe is the Dharma body of the self, words cannot express it. When words cannot express it, should we understand that there is nothing to be said? Without words, ancient Buddhas said something. So, that's what we listen to. So, thank you very much.

[88:20]

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