April 1st, 2000, Serial No. 04026

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tim's

it's a beautiful day
and ha
the true beauty of it
if i may
is it's groundless next

you know it's difficult after
sitting for a long time and not talking too much
to think that
to think period but
to manufacture words which
in truth don't really refer to anything at all
i may lose you did it
try to stay with me or pull me back if i get too far away
tomorrow morning see already ridiculous
the

okay let's pretend
with the men tomorrow
i'm also going to be giving a talk in palo alto
and just before coming over here today it suddenly became an enormous problem
because
today i'm giving a talk around
ten fifteen

it's gonna get really bizarre
tomorrow
i'm going to give a talk i think also around ten fifteen but
tomorrow
is
i think
daylight saving time
it

we believe all these words the

this is how we live our life
we hold onto these words
like good bad
right happy sad
but anyway i couldn't figure out
when
i was supposed to leave tomorrow for the talk because we here zen center of
who are not doing data it's a

the

so i couldn't remember if ursula hazel all the way back to my childhood see this is adult stuff we're talking you ever had this
to figure out if
in the spring which it is now we spring ahead i remembered and then in the fall we fell back
which i think is correct
in the conventional world
therefore
if it's
like nine o'clock here
i'm supposed to be there at nine that means i have to leave here are time
the
at eight i think that but given that they're gonna be an hour before us i think i have to actually leave at seven our time
that's right isn't that right
well i
that was my preparation for the talk this morning
cadets him

we
that was a
that was a talk about conventional designations now for those of us who have energy the intensive in the summer please remind me this okay
because it's going to be difficult to explain what a conventional designation is and i think this was a very good example
conventional designation is a word that we all agree on
meet that means that describes a function that we kind of agree on that sword we're going to use for that function but actually it doesn't refer to anything at all we just make it up
is that clear how we just did that
is it
see knives of heads good that's supposed to be very difficult to explain but
there it is
we're going to get somewhere just hang in there with me
how long time ago there was a young gentleman in his twenties
handsome fella i understand
by the name of sidharth or good alma
he was give he was gifted
religiously spiritually gifted person
and he
so
suffering and pain in the world
and he wanted to address it for people so that
they would be less suffering
and one day after much effort
clear thinking
and an expansive heart
he understood that
much of the pain in the world was dependent on
in a way the my the way the my naturally works as human beings
what we do naturally is
grasp
and what we grasp at fundamentally is the idea the word
the belief in the word of me

and so
he tried to explain how all that suffering is based on grasping
and that grasping was based on the idea of the separation the ignorant idea of the separation of me from everything else
he call that way of thinking
dependent
rising
in other words everything that happens can only happen depending on something else
i'm giving this talk because
here here otherwise i wouldn't be doing it i'd be sitting in the zendo and many other people

the people who've been sitting in this zinda over the past almost six days have been watching
how they recreate her we recreate over and over and over again
our sense of self desperately grasping onto it because we're afraid of this kind of groundless s
so he grasp after whatever it is that are conditioning are conditioned tendencies throw up bliss
misery
doesn't matter
we'll go for one side or the other side we don't really care
dewey
so we ping-pong back and forth
between
grasping onto i'm okay and i'm not okay at all
and sometimes some people settle in i'm not sure
but that's only a way of avoiding
so it's kind of a grass pay anyway
but at least if i may
people who take time out from their lives every so often and stop and look whether they said to over the day while quietly in the park or whatever
and really look at who they are and what they do this is a courageous thing this takes a great deal of courage

so
i applaud
we has people who do it

because what will we see ultimately
we will see this groundless s
this empty field
of beauty
and it can only be beautiful if it is empty
because as soon as we hold to grasp onto a self we kill
this magnificent changing fluid dynamic energetic colorful
event that we are that we have no words for we can't because it's huge
it's really really big
and we think we can control it
poor and mistake
can do it
it's really big
and it has taken all of it
jupiter mars neptune
dinosaurs laws
cut did you know that it was a moth i got in the way or the first computer to shut it down somebody want a million dollars on they want him that win a million dollars
that show the tv shit with that answer just in case you have that opportunity was a moth that a roach
anyway
we are able to live in this life when way let go of grasping at ourself or at any idea any view we have of what actually is happening
and if we don't let go of it
we
we die little bit by little bit by little pet
so
we really need to look and study this habitual idea of who we are that we recreate and rebuild over and over and over it
so now i'm gonna draw you a triangle
no have to say one more interesting
twenty twenty five to twelve on my watch
for tomorrow
i'm only following the big hand i'm ignoring the small hand
so let me see if this works
because everything is dependent on everything else
there is no solid individual separate
thing there doesn't make sense from what i said to understand that
he said understandable
you see that how that works if if if there was a big solid separate thing
it couldn't change it would be that way always and if we for example if we looked at blanche and blanche was a an ultimate permanent unchanging event we would all have the same response to blanch because it would be the same thing she would be the same always she would not change she would be
blanche in big letters

but thank heavens she isn't that way
there is no ultimate
saying that the word blanche refers to as just a bunch of processes that are excuse me pardon me
that are going on that we agree because she told us because her parents told her
we agree to call blanche just among us
but it refers to nothing
don't tell her though
just like three o'clock doesn't refer to anything either said you understand that
we could do you understand that
it's a it's a lot hits okay that it'll take awhile
we call this absence of
solid separate self
same we call it
we call that everything is that way that the characteristic of everything is that way we call that characteristic emptiness there i've said it
he's a very esoteric teachings i apologize to people who come here for the first time
but i'm talking about it because this is where i'm going to be talking about during the intensive and i love it and i have to start talking about it to see to good i am at it
because by the time it gets to the three week intensive way it's going to be
right now i'm gonna draw your picture
over here are dependently color isn't apparent things
and over here is emptiness and they can look at each other can you see how they look at each other

right to have a lot easier here are things that are dependent on everything else in order to seem to exist that they exist that way means that they're empty present makes it
does it
yeah yes that things are empty allows them to come up that way
do you get that part see i just said about blanche because there's no ultimate blanche she can be cause to appear by everything else
because i am not a solid independent tier because of that
you can all come together and call me here so that i can talk
if i were separate independent event i would still be home figuring out what time it's going to be about
but i couldn't i had to come over here
you made me
in that way because i'm not a solid separate thing i am dependent on you in fact for my life i'm dependent on everything
everything is actually need
in that way
and
one just has to be you know
bleeding lee grateful to know i mean just
so fundamentally grateful
because it is only once
and never again
so in order to walk well
or try anyway in this life we have to understand how transparent everything is so we don't grasp
now going to do one more part of the triangle
how this is there a pen
dependent arising is here
emptiness is over here they look at each other right and i've just given you
the truth
okay but guess what is truth is just a word these are just words just like i started out with remember conventional designation these are just conventional designations and as soon as these conventional designations as soon as you know
i'm really deeply okay soon as they really clear you can see that they themselves are also transparent and you have nothing to hold on to
thankfully
because then you have your life
but you see your life in a little bit different way
like yellow flower even that's too much but wow
great
so then when we get there people think well that's all very nice you know everything is no ground listen la di da on life things just as they are
but how do i live my life how does that have to do with anything

who
well
i'm just going to tell you to more thanks bb
the next part of this teaching is is that there are two truths
one truth is the conventional truth which is that it really is ten fifteen
and if i don't pay attention to it i'll be while we call late
and then if i really hang on to herself
i will be bad
and depending on how neurotic i really am excuse me when i used to be very neurotic
i would really work that
i'm not just bad now for being late i am ultimately bad as a person
and i may not even deserve to live
and i don't mean to be funny we do think this way

and it's painful when we do it really hurts and we have to pay attention to that pain
we can't just ignore it that's real it's there
that's the conventional side
k the side where things actually arise depending on a pick up depending on other things apparent things really do come up and we have to pay attention to them
but on the ultimate side
there is no ten fifteen

so when we can
intimately know
both of these
ways of both of these attitudes both of these ways of digesting the world
then we can really try to be there at ten fifteen but if we're late
we're just late
and we just take care of the karma of being late
and that's all
to see now how important it
we really important
for those people who are religious fanatics
anybody else it's you know so far out there just don't even go
yeah it really i'm really is such choose it's only for religious fanatics everybody else is just fine the way they are it's only people who think you know that there's some other way of beef
in the first place that have to go through all this stuff and we do
we really do but you know this doesn't you can be a perfectly fine person without
paying any attention to anything that i talked about this morning whatsoever
it's just that some people
can't quite settle with their life just the way it is it's not quite enough
just the way it is i want to be awake
the
and i did i do so years and years and years and years i struggled as you know i think the first my first introduction to zan with her
very deluded
but in next time
so i think that's all i have to say oh i want to read something here
this was one of the things when i first got introduced his in that i read and i loved it i loved it then and i love it now and it's the third ancestors trust in the heart mind palm do not really wonderful
and as i was sort of malina stuff over this morning this phrase kept coming up to me as a kind of her kids thing you know emptiness here and penis there and i knew i had heard it somewhere i couldn't figure it out but it the and of this severity

to come directly into harmony with his reality just simply say when doubt arise not to
in this not to nothing is separate nothing is excluded
no matter when or where enlightenment means entering this truth
and this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space
in it a single thought is ten thousand years
emptiness here emptiness there but the infinite universe stands always before your eyes infinitely large and infinitely small no difference
for definitions have vanished and no boundaries are seen
so too with being and non-being
don't waste time and doubts and arguments that have nothing to do with this one thing all things move among and intermingle without distinction
to live in this realization is to be without anxiety about non perfection
to live in this faith is the road to non-duality
because the non dual is one with a trusting mind
words the way is beyond language for in it there is no yesterday
no tomorrow
and know today

so
makes me cry

ah please those of us who are sitting
let's be gentle and patient with ourselves as we walk on this heroic path
for the benefit of all the
so that little by little we can heal our on pain and suffering
and then
move that out into the world
together we can do that
so let's continue to make our best effort
hey