This is only a weapon, a weapon of life, a weapon which is not dangerous or destructive to any living being. We call it also a weapon. In Buddhism we have three categories of weapons. The first one is listening. You can see, you have very deep listening to what is being said. It doesn't matter who says it, but what is being said is essential than the person who says it. And when there is complete attention to listening, you gain the spirit of clarity, of understanding.

[01:13]

It's like the lake. It's clear and still water. You can behave like a lake. It's clear and still water. So if you can see things clearly without listening, you can see the state of Samadhi. The state of Samadhi is the clarity and stillness of the water in the lake. And the seeing through the still and clear water is Prajnaparamita intuition or intuitive insight. So you can see the close connection, the close link between Samadhi and Padma or Prajnaparamita. When you're listening, it's essential not that somebody is listening to words, but listening to the sound.

[02:24]

Listening to the sound, listening to something in the depth of being, which does not really give us a sound or a noise, but some kind of understanding. So in the deep understanding we have listening too. Listening, knowing and seeing seem to go together in the very depth of life. And the second weapon is mental solitude. Mental solitude, which is the peaceful unquiet state where we sit in meditation and look.

[03:36]

So when you get into that state, which is not in the body, or you would say you sit in the mind, when the mind becomes tranquil, becomes tranquilized, when we enter this mental solitude, whether we can look with a thousand eyes or ten thousand eyes according to the Chinese language. But by prajnaparamita we have ten thousand eyes and we have the capacity to see widely, clearly and deeply what is going on. And silence is part of this mental solitude, particularly inward silence, not just outward, external silence.

[04:42]

So inward silence is essential when we do the work. When we move around we have inward silence, we have inward quietness, when we can have joy, we can have bliss, we can have peace. So in Satipatthana Sutta it is said, when we keep silent, keep silent mindfully, so we have mindfulness and full awareness in silence and out silence. So in this case Buddhism says to us that joy is essential in life. When we get into this mental solitude we have joy, which is the feeling, the feeling of happiness, the feeling of bliss.

[05:59]

It is not just satisfaction, it is not just pleasure, but the deeper feeling of being with something, being with reality, being with truth, being with presence. That is called joy, when the Buddha said, keep yourself on joy. So it means that if you have this inward quietness, inward silence, in life joy is always there. As some people would say, the experience of joy is really religious life. So if people cannot get into the experience of joy, they may practice several things without their religious belief, but those two do not have religious life.

[07:07]

So we have to feel the joy as one of the factors for enlightenment, to grow fully. So when some people talk about Buddhism as a pessimism, you can explain it to them. And then the last weapon is sincerity wisdom, what is the greatest weapon in life. So in fact when we have all three weapons closely connected, when you have deep listening, you are in the mental solitude, and you have pure wisdom. So they work together, they are not very separate. When you find one, you find the other.

[08:12]

There is something I like to say, I like to open this to you, when I talk, when I say anything about what we have talked about. We cannot only talk about, we are talking, we are fighting out. I have explained, but fighting out is quite simple. To make things clear, to make things common. There is a vow for this government, to make things clear and to make things common together. And then there is communication. Communication is making things common together. If you do not make things common together, then you may speak, you may talk, but there is no communication. And sometimes communication can come in silence.

[09:21]

You don't speak, you don't talk, but your actions make things common together. And you understand, you put those together, that is the real communication. Some people are very afraid, they may not talk, they don't communicate. But this is not true. And experience communication in silence. Because when you talk too much, you do not speak. Questioner asks a question inaudible.

[10:24]

Origination factor and dissolution factor. Yes, this is a very practical side of mindfulness. They can use other words, arising and passing away, arising and passing away, coming today and going away. About the meaning of origination factor or dissolution factor. When you observe your breathing, you see the rising and falling of the breathing from moment to moment. Like when we are watching the water running. And the running of the water, in that running of flowing, like the breaking up of the water.

[11:32]

But the continuity is very frequent, very swift, so that we cannot see the breaking up. But in the breathing you can see. Or the same thing when you are watching cinema, the same. You can see the pictures are not continuous, it is breaking up. But because of continuity, because of the frequency, movements, then you see pictures, but this is not a picture. And in order to increase awareness, we have to look more deeply and carefully in order to see the rising and falling of the breathing. Because it is quite clear, the rising and falling of anything is the first stage of insight.

[12:33]

Insight, complete insight. Like Buddhism says, things have the nature of arising and falling away from moment to moment, but things exist momentarily. You can go back to mind objects. Mind objects, some people's mind objects come forward, like origination practices, disillusion practices, whatever. Mind objects always come forward. More than mind, the mind objects are like feelings. The mind objects have something which we talk about, like hindrances, scandals, senses, internal and external senses, senses of enlightenment.

[13:38]

And that conducts the echocardium. The process, of course, then desire, the sense desire arises. Now, you feel the sense desire. And in order to know the origination process, we look at the operation of desire. And when we look at it and look into it, we will be able to see the underlying conditions. The Buddha's origination process is not confined to only the arising of desire, but the underlying conditions. And when we look at it carefully and attentively deeply, we see the conditions giving rise to desire, to the will, so that we can know the grounds and the conditions.

[14:51]

And when we can see that desire can disappear, what must go will go, must go to some time. And we can see how it disappears. And then we say how desire disappears. And the next time we will see how it will arise, what will be the conditions for arising of desire. We know in advance. When you know it in advance, you can pronounce it, and then it does not arise, it does not disappear. Like seeing a dead wolf, seeing Mara, we pronounce it quickly and strongly, and then Mara vanishes. The Buddha always did that in his life. When he was a Buddha, he sometimes was tempted by Mara. He would say, oh Mara, I know you. He said that strongly that Mara vanishes immediately.

[15:57]

So in the life normally that we see, even sometimes we are tempted by the disturbing conditions. Some other people would say that we are disturbed by a personality devil. And so the best way to do it is to pronounce it. And then it does not exist, because whatever it is, an illusion. But illusion becomes very powerful when we don't know it, when we don't know it and see it. And then illusion disappears. Sure. I'm going to give you a quote.

[17:15]

I'm going to give you a quote. I'm going to give you an example. Just now you spoke of the future of the world, the future. The future happens. Now I'm not sure if that's what it is. Intuitively that's not what it means. You have to know things in advance. But you can see like in case of desire. Maybe you understand how desire works. And then you will be able to know how it will arise. Because you see desire once. And from that seeing you can understand the re-arising of it. If it would arise again. Well, intuitive wisdom can give you some kind of understanding about what is happening.

[18:17]

But there is another form of intuitive wisdom which is called un-analytic fundamental insight into the future. But it is not necessary that it should happen that way. But it could happen in some cases. Well, here is an example of future mind. Take your mind. Take your mind. Now we don't need that at all. You cannot get it by thought or anything. You mean rubbish is going to happen. What kind of mind will happen to you will come to you. Where you cannot predict that. But if you observe the surface of mind, the surface of thoughts. And understand the whole structure of the thoughts.

[19:21]

Then you will be able to see how the thoughts will arise. It will not be the same thought. But the way it arises. Not the capital of the thought. Then you understand the way the mind or the thought arises. And then when it comes to you, you will see it more immediately. Because of your ability or because you saw it before. The way it arises. And in this time when you have a glance at it. You will be able to see the whole process of existence. What is the real immediate awareness of current. We don't try to say or we are not doing that.

[20:24]

We are not saying that. We must not foretell the future. The future arising of the mind or the thought. Because it's not a thought. You don't need to think about it. But your concern is to be immediately aware of the moment of occurrence. So when you see the very moment of occurrence. The awareness is always present. So that the awareness is the presence of mind. Just the presence. It is that. Then there is awareness in what is present. Then the awareness is lost.

[21:27]

And what may be a powerful future is coming to be seen. Questioner asks a question inaudible. We talked about the consciousness last night. The consciousness is the relation between subject and object. As I said, Buddhism emphasizes object.

[22:32]

Buddhism does not emphasize the subject. Buddhism takes subject as a transitory state of consciousness. When we are conscious of things, it means we have established the relationship of consciousness. The relationship between subject and object. We cannot be conscious of things without having relation between subject and object. That is why consciousness at the ordinary level is very limited. When the consciousness itself becomes the subject, because it becomes the knower.

[23:37]

To be conscious is to know. And to know particularly refers to the subject. And then this subject has to be related to the object. It must be related to the object. Otherwise it cannot know. The knowing cannot arise if there is no object to be related to. Now we will say this is the ordinary perception of human beings. And the ordinary consciousness we have, we know, we realize, as an act, as this unawakened state of existence. So then now we are talking about things.

[24:40]

Not comprehending the role, the function of influence, which is part of consciousness, the part of mind. Mind includes influence, form, and knowledge. But there is the seeing which is beyond the subject. And that is a completely objective seeing, a total perception of reality as what is. In which subject has disappeared. Because when reality reveals, subject has emerged as nothing.

[25:45]

And then there is a clear seeing of the total perception of reality. Which has gone beyond the image of the subject. ...relationship in perception, but it's not a relationship. We don't understand relation. ...

[27:04]

... [...] And at the moment of being enlightened, you see the mountain as not mountain. And after the moment of enlightenment, you see the mountain as mountain again. So you see how we can see the relation as public. Then at the moment of being enlightened, there is no relation. So there is no mountain. So this is a kind of very intensive thing,

[28:29]

intensity of seeing and perceiving. You may learn to do by looking at things without giving names or labels. Just look, just look, not to be aware of the mind trying to give concept. And learn to look without giving names to anything. And there will be a moment you can see the totality of things without having concept. And it is very intensive seeing. So that you can see that relation, the relationship between subject and object does not exist. But at ordinary level, we can see we always have relationship. That's why life in general is a series of relationship. Relationship with oneself, with one's ideas, feelings, emotions, thoughts.

[29:32]

Relationship with environment, with other people. I was thinking about other religions, in the religions when we talk about God. Coming to that point is a relationship between a person and God. It is a state of communion. The relationship is not broken. It is because of the emphasis on concept, on the signal. But still perhaps you have, you may have heard the book I Vow by Martin Luther,

[30:50]

a Jewish philosopher, mystic. So when we talk about the vow, I Vow relationship, the nearly complete relationship between I and vow is that I disappear. Only vow exists. So the love is oneness of experience, which does not refer to the subject. And vow is everything. Vow is totality of being. Yes. Sure, when you still have conceptualization, you always refer to the subject. Ego still exists. But that is not too bad if the ego can function nicely.

[31:54]

But whether you come to the state of non-ego, you don't feel being dominated, being pulled or being pushed. But perhaps for people in general, I feel the first thing to help them is to help their ego to function properly, constructively. And then the next step will be that they will give it up by themselves. You have to see the danger of it first, like seeing a snake, a poisonous snake. You see the danger of it and you know how to cope with it. You come to a very dangerous situation. So you have to be very alert, very aware of yourself and of snake, poisonous snake. The Buddha taught about catching snake without allowing it to bite.

[33:13]

It's like grasping the idea of knowledge. So knowledge can bite us. We are not wise to use it or to have it. It becomes poisonous snake. So if you grasp the snake at its tail, it can bite you. Or you grasp it at the middle, it can bite you. The third thing is to grasp it at the very, at its head. And then you cannot turn around. Snake will not bite you. Knowledge and idea is the same. So that we are not so serious about idea.

[34:21]

But make use of it for our self-determination. And when we don't use it, we are not attached to it, leave it alone. And also in making use of it, one should be flexible. Otherwise one becomes fixed with the idea. And that is also fixation of ego. Ego becomes fixed, it cannot move, it becomes very dangerous. But when ego can move, it's okay. People, normally people have mental troubles. It's because of the fixation of their ego. Or they may have to, they have ego defenses. Try to defend yourself. Proving yourself a strong attachment. So we can see that ego is quite attractive to some big head or small head.

[35:36]

We wait a little bit. May I ask a question? Yes, I couldn't get into something about the first principle, or the first course, or some form of philosophy or religion in the world. In order to try to explain the phenomenal world,

[36:42]

the arising of the world, the earth, people seem to think about the original course, the first course. While the Indian people think about the arising of the world as a kind of fish, a big fish, supporting the world or giving rise to the world in the first place. And that fish is called Ananda. Ananda is bliss, the meaning of Ananda. So this fish called Ananda is the origin of the world. In our Buddhist term we say that emptiness is the origin of the world. But in some philosophy or in Christianity we talk about God as the origin of the world.

[37:53]

Now when we say that things come from a cause or causes, without cause or causes there is no arising of things. When we say, is it essential, we will say that there is a first cause, because when we understand everything comes from causes, a cause, then we will say, we will have another question. What is the cause for the first cause? So we cannot give the answer, so we have to start somewhere. But somewhere we have to say that the first cause has many things, a lot of things to give, to create. And then the human being cannot go beyond that.

[38:56]

The thinking gets stuck. So that some may prefer to have the first cause. Some would say it's not necessary to think about it, because the Buddha never thought about the first cause. That's why he teaches the Middle Way. He does not say that everything exists, as I said. Nothing exists. So to avoid two extremes, everything exists is one extreme, nothing exists is another extreme. So he would say that things come to be due to certain conditions. Without conditions, things extinct. So he just says that. This is the Middle Path, Middle Way. So you cannot really say it.

[39:59]

But you can say at the moment of arising of this, that this arises because of certain conditions, that you see the conditions and you think. And we don't say that this will exist forever. Then the teaching of impermanence and change comes to you. What we call the original factors we talk about, we refer to the conditions and the causes. So the Buddha draws our attention to see the causes and conditions of anything, feeling, thinking, or any physical phenomena. We try to see how it comes to be. So that you can have knowledge, you can have understanding. And the knowledge, or the understanding, particularly the intuitive understanding, becomes a liberating factor. You are seeing, you are freeing from bondage and fear or attachment.

[41:11]

You can see with freedom, instead of seeing things with attachment or with fear or with some other unconscious state of mind. Yes, first of all, you see the categories of things like emotions. What kind of emotion do you have?

[42:16]

Emotions are positive. We are imaginative. Somehow emotion can be imaginative. So when you see, you put it in the categories. Then you see what is the relationship between emotion and you. How do you establish your relationship with emotion? Do you identify yourself with it? As it is my emotion. Or do you have more objective relationship with it? By seeing emotion as emotion, operating in you. That says you have to see to make clear your relationship with it. To see it clear, to see it clear. And keep on looking and watching your relationship with emotion.

[43:19]

Or in other words, see your reaction to emotion. How you react to such emotion. So by seeing this clearly and deeply, then the subject, the ordinary consciousness, which has certain information, will be caught up because you are seeing the intuitive things and understanding becomes stronger and stronger. It's like when the sun rises, the moon cannot shine anymore. You cannot see the light of the moon. You can see the light of the sun. But the ordinary consciousness disappears. This means that the subject disappears. And then you can see your relationship. And then the emotion becomes just a deep feeling,

[44:29]

without having any effect. Then the subject is not there. Surely there is no reaction, then there is no effect. The effect comes because of the subject. The subject is being disturbed. So you have to look at the subject who is being disturbed. So that's why I say see the relationship. And see the reaction of the subject. And maintain identity. That's why you go to resist. You won't give in easily.

[45:32]

That's why you have trouble. When you look at things, trying to look at things objectively, there is resistance. Now if you allow assistance to carry on, to continue, instead of suppressing, putting it aside, then you will be free. Then you have less resistance. That's what we call resistance. And then the ego will release itself, express itself to you. And you just look. And only identity is necessary. You are identity. It is our being at the moment. But at the moment you are looking completely. Your identity is looking. Which is being. Not a being.

[46:33]

You are the looking. Not you are looking. So the subject is not there. You become the looking. And then your real being is looking. Because it becomes whole. Then you have complete looking. So other things become the phenomena for you to see. Become the object of this being. But this being has no ego because ego does not exist. Ego being the consciousness, the relationship between subject and object and the kind of personal identity which is the perception of self-same-ness. You carry on the image, on the shadow. So when you come to that, you have light. You don't have shadow anymore. And you become completely looking. You have full light.

[47:36]

You have clarity. You don't have darkness. You don't have image. You have full light. It is very acceptable that the ego operates. Not to oppress you. But we have to do something that is to keep watchful eye on the ego, how it operates. When you understand the whole structure of ego and ego does not mean much to you. But when you don't understand it, you can try to dominate and to resist in your practice of life. When you do not want this, it will create some difficult feeling, feeling of difficulties, or a feeling of uneasiness, feeling of not wanting to do.

[48:38]

So the very biggest ego is the ego of ignorance. Ignorance does not necessarily mean the physical laziness, but the mental inertia, the fault, the morbid state of mind. And that is what is the big problem. So one has to have energy to work with it. That is why the Buddha said his teaching is for a person who is strong in mind and energetic, not for the ego, not for the ego. So it is not for the ego. But may ego may make use of it at a certain level. But the ego will not be able to carry the teaching through.

[49:43]

Coming to a certain point, ego cannot go anymore. It has to die. So when it is aware of the threat of death, it will not resist, creating fear, attacking, fear of the unknown, attachment to what it has. So we say, come back, go, we don't know what is going to happen over there. So ego will not be able to convince. So the death of the ego is the rebirth of our reality, the restoration of our reality. Yes. When you have feelings, do you feel that your whole body and mind are permeated by feelings?

[51:09]

Huh? Do you have fear? Do you have anger? Do you feel? Ah. In fact, the category of feelings is, the feeling are the, contrived to something, some pleasure, unpleasant sensations, agreeable, disagreeable feelings, and the neutral feelings. So that when, we say, when feeling arises, first we know the feeling as it is. We know in the category of feelings. And then, you could say that how this unpleasant feeling arises. How unpleasant feeling arises, when feeling uncomfortable, feeling angry, feeling,

[52:17]

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