Heart Sutra — 2012-09-09

Audio recorded at Buddha House Adelaide. Transcript auto-generated and AI-corrected; may contain errors.

About this talk. In this nearly 3-hour commentary on the Heart Sūtra, Tenzin Chogkyi guides students through a systematic exploration of emptiness and the Buddhist path to enlightenment. She opens with a meditation on personal selflessness, taking the reader through three levels of dependent arising—on causes and conditions, on component parts, and on conceptual imputation—to establish that the self lacks any independent, inherent existence. She then explains how this meditation forms the foundation for the first two of the five Buddhist paths: the path of accumulation and path of preparation, during which practitioners develop single-pointed concentration and increasingly subtle intellectual understanding of emptiness. The talk moves into direct realization on the path of seeing, when a practitioner becomes an ārya, or superior being, perceiving emptiness directly for the first time. Using vivid analogies (an empty pizza box, visual perception of a photograph), she describes what emptiness meditation actually feels like and why it leads to cessation of negative karma and eventual enlightenment. Throughout, she emphasises that emptiness does not negate conventional existence but rather explains how things function through dependent arising, and she connects this teaching to the Heart Sūtra’s four profound applications and the eighteen elements that encompass all phenomena. The talk includes substantial Q&A on meditation obstacles, the relationship between emptiness and compassion, and how intellectually understanding emptiness differs from direct realisation.

File metadata (for organising)

File: 2012 09 09 Heart Sūtra.mp3

UUID: 1e9baeec-6a23-41d4-80e2-8eae389217e2

Teacher: Tenzin Chogkyi

Collection: Heart Sūtra (Tenzin Chogkyi)

Date: 2012-09-09

Recorded at: Buddha House Adelaide

Words: ~21,712

And then reflect that you also exist in dependence on your component parts, The body, the mind, exist in dependence on the parts of your body. At least a bare minimum, could have limbs amputated or even organs transplanted or taken out like you could do without something like your gallbladder, your appendix, for example. But still, the way you exist is dependent on your parts. And the mind as well. It’s one part of you, your thoughts, your memories, your experiences, your sense, consciousnesses and so forth.

So just take a minute to reflect on your dependence on your parts. So there’s no ‘me’ that you can speak of somehow independently or inherently separate from your parts. Your body and mind couldn’t be sitting in this room and somehow you are out in the hall. So see how we exist completely dependent on the parts. There’s no independent existence separate from the component parts of body and mind.

Both of those levels quite easy to understand and at the subtlest level we exist in dependence on conceptual imputation and designation. So just like the cup, exactly the same. So we have component parts of body and mind and on top of that we label with concepts ‘me’. So we have a generic image, a mental image of ‘me’. And in dependence on that valid basis of a functioning human body and mind, of a certain continuum, we label with our concepts ‘Me’.

So go through this process. See how we label with our concepts, designate, we impute ‘Me’ onto this ever changing continuum of body and mind. And the ‘me’ that does exist, exists only in this way. This very subtle, conventionally existent Self is what we call the ‘mere I’, that which is merely labelled by concepts on the valid basis of the aggregates. And our emptiness is our lack of existing in any other way apart from this.

Very subtle, conventional existence, and our emptiness is our lack of existing in any other way. Take a few minutes to meditate on this, the two sides of a coin, that subtlest level of dependent arising, The positive side, the way we do exist, and then the negative side is saying complete absence of existing in any other way other than that. And now let’s apply the same reasoning parts of the person, to our parts, our five aggregates. The first is the form aggregate, which just means our body, physical parts. Take a minute to contemplate and review how these are dependent on causes and conditions, like we said before, the genetic material, the nutrition, the oxygen, exercise and so forth.

And then what we call my Body’ is dependent on its component parts. It’s not in any way unitary, partless, independently independently existent. It exists in dependence on the component parts. So take a minute to reflect on this, the different parts of the body, the head, torso, arms, legs, and even subtler level muscles, skin, bones, internal organs, atoms, molecules, subatomic particles, all the way down, all these component parts. And then the bundle of all of these we call my Body’.

So we can’t speak of my body independent of the parts. Again, your body couldn’t be sitting on this cushion. Those component parts sitting on the cushion and your body is out in the hall. And at the subtlest level of dependent arising, what we call myBody’ is that which is merely labeled by concepts on these component parts. So you have an idea, my body’ that you impute or designate on that valid basis of the continuum of your physical form.

Your form aggregate doesn’t exist in any other way than this. That’s its emptiness. It’s lack of existing in any other way apart from being imputed by concepts on the valid basis of the parts of your body. And now let’s look at the ‘Feeling’ aggregate. We say this is an omnipresent mental factor always there with each moment of experience, with each sense contact or mental contact with a thought arises feeling.

Very basic, pleasant, unpleasant, neutral. So that’s dependent on the contact with the object. It’s dependent arising, dependent on the sense faculty, the consciousness, and the contact with the object. All of those components, all of those aspects of every moment of consciousness, of awareness, of mental functioning, we’ve taken that one aspect out, we’ve divided it out conceptually and we call it feeling. So that which is what we call ‘Feeling’, that experience of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, is the feeling aggregate because of our conceptual imputation and our designation.

Again, we’ve artificially carved that one aspect out and given it a name, the Feeling Aggregate. So see how that isn’t inherently existent. It’s dependent on the causes and conditions of the sense contact coming together, the consciousness, object, sense, faculty. All those component parts need to come together giving rise to an experience and if all of our experience we’ve conceptually labeled feeling onto that one component of pleasant, unpleasant or neutral experience. Take a minute to reflect on those levels of dependent arising of the feeling aggregate.

And then the same with the discrimination aggregate. Same thing with that sense contact with the object, the consciousness and the sense power coming together in contact, then we have recognition, perception, discrimination. We recognize the object out of all of the sense input, the data coming in, we discriminate and recognize a specific object. It’s dependent on the causes and conditions of that coming together of the object in the sense consciousness, all those component parts. And then just as we did with feeling, we, out of all of the different mental events of our experience, we designate that one function of mind as discrimination, perception, recognition.

We conceptually label on the basis of that function discrimination. So see how the aggregate of discrimination exists in dependence on those three levels of Dependent arising. And its emptiness is its lack of existing in any other way. And it’s exactly the same with all of the other mental factors, the compositional factors. So we’ve got forty nine other compositional factors, all arising in dependence on sense contact, consciousness, sense organs or mind mental consciousness.

And we’ve created this list, a total of fifty one and forty nine left in the compositional factors. Again, we’ve taken these different functions jealousy, attention, regret, that’s how they exist. It’s merely labeled by mind on that function of consciousness. And then Consciousness itself, we have six consciousnesses, the five senses and then the mental consciousness. So that’s a continuum.

Buddhism says, No beginning, no end. Been in existence since beginningless time. There’s not a moment of causation of consciousness that we talk about in Buddhism, continuum one mind moment giving rise to the next mind moment, and then again dependent on contact with objects giving rise to different sense consciousnesses. Then we label that function of mind, that raw consciousness of the five senses in the mental consciousness, the consciousness aggregate. So apply the same reasoning to the part of you which we call consciousness, that which is merely labeled on that process.

So what we call Me is that which is merely labeled on these five aggregates that themselves are empty of inherent existence. So go back to the Self and see how conditional it is no longer feels like that solid sense that you have. You see how it’s nothing more than that which is merely labeled by concepts on those five aggregates that themselves are merely labeled by concepts on some functioning of body and mind. So the ‘me’ that does exist is merely a process labeled by concepts ‘me’. A flux, a flow of mental and physical process.

On top of that we label ‘me’. Try to get a deep insight into this way that you dependently arise. And then your emptiness is your lack of existing in any other way other than this, the other side of the coin. Because you exist like that, merely labeled on the valid basis of your body and mind, you are completely empty of inherent intrinsic existence. There is no ‘me’ from its own side, existing independently.

And now let’s continue reciting the sūtra with starting with form is emptiness. Form is emptiness, emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form. Form too is not other than emptiness. Likewise, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness are all empty.

Therefore, Śāriputra, all phenomena are emptiness. They are without defining characteristics. They are not born. They do not cease. They are not defiled, they are not undefiled, they are not deficient, and they are not complete.

Therefore, Śāriputra, in emptiness there is no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no mental formations, and no consciousness. There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind. There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no texture and no mental objects. There is no I element and so on, up to no mind element, including up to no element of mental consciousness. There is no ignorance, there is no extinction of ignorance and so on, up to no ageing and death and no extinction of aging and death.

Likewise, there is no suffering, origin, cessation or path. There is no wisdom, no attainment and even no non attainment. Therefore, Śāriputra, since Bodhisattvas have no attainments, they rely on perfection of wisdom and abide in it. Having no obscuration in their minds, they have no fear. And by going utterly beyond error, they will reach the end of nirvana.

All the Buddhas too who abide in the three times attain the full awakening of unexcelled perfect enlightenment by relying on this profound perfection of wisdom. Therefore, one should know that the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unexcelled mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that quells all suffering, is true because it is not deceptive. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is proclaimed. Tadyatha Gate Gate Pāragate Pārasamgate Bodhi Svāhā. Śāriputra, the Bodhisattvas, the great beings should train in the perfection of wisdom in this way.

Thereupon, the Blessed One arose from that meditative absorption and commended the holy Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva, the great being, saying, this is excellent. Excellent, excellent. O noble child, it is just so. It should be just so. One must practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have revealed, for then even the will rejoice.

As the blessed one uttered these words, the venerable Śāriputra, the holy Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva of the great being, along with the entire assembly, including the worlds of gods, humans, asuras and Gandharvas, all rejoiced and hailed what the Blessed One had said. Right, right. And we’ll talk about that because that relates to what is happening when an ārya is actually having a direct realization of emptiness. You know, what are they actually what’s the object of their meditation and what’s actually appearing to them? So we’ll talk about that next because now we’re gonna start talking about the the realizations that develop. There’s always this really energetic dance class on Sunday morning.

I really noticed that with lots of thumping and shouting. It sort of happens every Sunday morning. Sound like they’re having a great time, but it’s really hard to meditate with all that. Yeah. So we’ll talk about that.

You know, what does that mean? In emptiness, there is no blah blah blah blah blah. This whole list of things. Yeah. We’ll talk about that.

Good. Good. How was that? Yeah. Yeah.

And it’s sort of like realize that the boundary functions in a certain way, but it’s just a boundary that you’re making with your mind. And that’s a trick that we do in the other whole stream of teachings in Buddhism, the compassion side and the there’s a whole, genre of teaching called exchanging self and others. And in that, we do this thought experiment. We go, how come what I call me is just bounded by my skin? It’s just because when I stick a pin in this bit of flesh, I feel it.

And when I stick a pin there, I don’t. But that’s dumb. Why can’t we extend the boundary of what we call me and include other beings into that and care as much about them as we do? You know, it’s like this illusory, like you say, this boundary, you know, created by function in a way. Yeah.

Okay. I stick a pin in everything that’s inside of this skin, but my mind’s not really bound by my skin because I can think about the refrigerator and the flat and the fridge. My mind can go there. My mind can go outside of this bag of skin. So why do I feel like this is me and nothing else is, you know, and can I extend that?

You know, so it’s a trick that we play extending that when we talk about compassion and that’s why they say, actually having a realization of emptiness really helps your bodhicitta a lot. You know, beings after the direct realization of emptiness, there’s this huge like quantum leap in terms of your bodhicitta. And I think it’s just for that reason, that false sense of self or that illusion that it there is a real solid boundary. You see it as very conditional. Okay.

I’m calling this what’s inside this skin me because it sort of functions in that way that I poke it and I I I feel it. What’s feeling it? Me, You know, the sensation is going to the brain, whatever. Break it down. But you see it’s just labeled by concepts.

And then we do this trick of trying to extend the concept to others, you know. Can we feel others’ pain the same way as we do our own, maybe not in a sensory way, but can we care as much about others’ pain and suffering? So, yeah. Yeah. So they say, you know, there’s a real link between emptiness and Bodhicitta.

And actually, after the direct realization of emptiness, there’s a whole, like I say, a whole kind of quantum leap in terms of your compassion and your Bodhicitta, you know, when you’re on that track. Yeah. Good. Good. Anybody else have any experiences or struggles?

Is it hard, easy? Does it make more sense now though? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Solidifies again. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. It seems so solid again. And that’s why, and in fact, in Tibetan, the word for meditation comes from a root that means habituation for exactly that reason. Because what we’re actually doing some people, when they first come to meditation class, they think Buddhist meditation is all about, like, relaxing and being calm and having, like, a forty five minute break from the other twenty three hours and fifteen minutes of chaos. Chaos, you know, and it bears no relationship.

But what we say is, what we should be doing in our meditation should kind of bleed out and influence the other twenty three hours and fifteen minutes, but it needs three hours massive amounts of habituation. And the more you have an experience like that in meditation, more and more and more, it will start to influence the way that you experience the other twenty three hours of the day. And that’s the only point of meditation. It really isn’t about taking a break. If it doesn’t influence the other twenty three hours, it’s not doing its job.

But like I said, we’ve been habituated to things being inherently existent since beginningless time. That’s a long time. It’s gonna take a while. And like you’ve noticed, you know, you can be focusing in deep meditation, which is why we do it without any distraction. And then with the concentration that you have, you’re focusing, but you find you just lose it the minute you get up off the cushion, of course, because of our habituation.

But the more and more we meditate, you know, which is why we really need to we talk about the wisdom that arises from listening, which happens when we hear a lecture, read a book, listen to a tape. That’s one level of approaching the teachings. And then we have the wisdom that arises from contemplation which is thinking about it, trying to apply it to our life, our experience. The analytical meditation that we do like what we just did is actually hopefully giving rise to the wisdom of contemplation because we’re applying the logic. Right?

And then eventually, we have the wisdom that arises from meditation. And I find with a lot of Western students, they really emphasize the wisdom that arises from listening. They go to tons and tons of classes, but they never actually do what you’ve experienced, putting it into practice to get it to influence the rest of life. You know, you go to a class and you might even get an insight in class and then by the time you’ve driven home, you’ve sort of lost it because it’s only through meditation that you’ll actually change the way that you’re perceiving your daily reality in that way that’ll have an influence to reduce your disturbing emotions, like in the example I gave yesterday about, like, some person says some nasty remark and some other person praises you and you’re like, yeah, whatever. Because you’re so habituated to that’s everybody is looking like we’re all looking at the world through this filter of our karmic projections.

Right? Like we have some shared consensual reality, but since we’re seeing everything as, you know, everything is created by us through our concepts influence and it becomes kind of more of a knee jerk way of responding. But that only happens through lots and lots and lots of meditation. So what you’ve experienced is absolutely to be expected and common, you know, at the beginning of the path, but it’s only through constant habituation and meditation that you’ll find that when you get up, that flickery conditional reality kind of thing, you know, lasts longer than when you’re just sitting cross legged on the cushion. Yeah.

That’s why we have to meditate. I have a friend who’s a Buddhist teacher, and he won’t let his students attend class more like, he makes people meditate for the equal amount of hours that they come to class. You know, he’s like, If you come to class three hours a week, that’s awesome. You gotta meditate on this subject for at least three hours, like for every hour of class, an equal amount of meditation. Never been totally brave enough to do that, but I think it’s an awesome recommendation because he says, you know, don’t get it lopsided.

Because one of the things of getting it lopsided is you become one of those students that’s like, oh my god, not the Lam Rim again. I’ve heard that so many times. Well, do you have one Lam Rim realization? No. You become hardened.

Pänchen Rinpoche says you become actually hardened to the teachings if you do too much study without any meditation. You know, you feel that you know it all, and then you don’t bother meditating, and then you just become resistant and you go, Oh, God, you know, this great Lama is coming, but he’s just teaching the Lama Rim again. You know? And it’s easy. And especially for us because our educational system is all about learning things intellectually.

You know? And I often say, I I quote this friend of mine who used to be this translator, you know, and he spent all his time just this complete intellectual translating Tibetan and Sanskrit texts. He was talking about one day and he said, One day? You know, I was translating this text and he goes, For once, something went below the neck. And that’s kind of the difference between a realization and an understanding.

You know, nothing about Buddhism, not even emptiness, is so hard to understand intellectually, really. But is it gonna go below the neck and change the way that you deal with your reality that is only dependent on hours of meditation? You know, that’s what makes something go below the neck, and that’s what we’re after. Because we can read all the Dharma books in the library, and it’s great as a first step, but we can’t, you know, think that then we’ve we’ve got it. We’ve got it.

You know? Just because we have an intellectual understanding. Because that ain’t so hard. Even Jeffrey Hopkins isn’t that hard. I mean, I have a problem with his syntax.

You know? I think he could be a better writer, but that’s just my personal oops. The tape’s on. Here I am complaining again. Brilliant translator.

Very brilliant, Jeffrey. But, yeah, even that, not so hard intellectually, but is it gonna go below the neck only in meditation? Yeah. Anything else? Any other questions or experiences?

Yeah, That image. Yeah. Alright. That’s me. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t that funny? Oh, isn’t that funny? Isn’t that funny?

Right. Because what you impute is and the only view we usually get of ourselves is like the front. And it’s sort of like when you see a videotape of yourself and you see yourself talking. Because whenever we look in the mirror, just you know? And then you see a videotape and you’re like, oh my god.

My mouth moves like that when I talk or whatever. Yeah, so that’s your imputation of me. The basis is your reflection. That’s so interesting. And then you see something that you don’t usually see and you’re not even imputing me.

You’re like, Who else is in the bedroom? You know, I thought I was alone in the room. Yeah. Isn’t that funny? That’s interesting.

Right? Right. So you see, like, what’s the basis of imputation? And for us, when do you ever see yourself? It’s only in the mirror.

And I laugh sometimes because you only make a certain kind of face when you’re looking at yourself in the mirror, which when you’re Buddhist nun, you don’t bother much because there ain’t nothing you can do about it anyway. You know, it’s like it used to be you’d be fixing everything, you know. You know, now it’s kind of like just trying to see if there’s any spinach in your teeth. But still, there is just a certain view, and, like, that’s what you’re labeling me. It’s almost like a formal little portrait because it’s usually only to hear unless you catch yourself, like, in a reflection in a shop window walking by, and then you’re shocked at how you move or something?

I mean, have you had that? You know, you’re kind of shocked at what you look like when you’re walking because you never see that. Interesting. So I wonder if all day yesterday was starting to loosen up that solid thing, and you were able to sort of have that spontaneous experience. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Right. Right. It’s sort of and that’s why they say, like, the first step of all of these emptiness meditations is getting a sense of what is that me that seems to exist. And the lamas say you could spend months.

It’s important to really get a clear idea and often the trick that they say to do it is, yes, think of when you’re upset because that’s when that sense of self seems to arise much more solidly. When you’re upset, when you’re falsely accused. I mean, had it last night. I went and checked my email and this you know, I’d had a conversation about one center that I was gonna be teaching. I thought I could be there too for a certain period period of time.

And then I changed it and cut one weekend off of this chunk of time. I know I had the conversation with the program coordinator very clear. I remember it exactly having that conversation. So she writes to me and she said, I wish you would have told me when your plans changed. So it was a great opportunity for me to see the object of refutation because I was like, I did.

I told you. I know I’m right. I remember. You know, and I thought, that’s you know, it’s a great opportunity. What’s that sense of being falsely accused of, like, not informing her?

She just forgot. That’s not my problem. So exactly. Yeah. And it seems very solid in that moment.

And I really noticed that. So we often have this joke, like, in the business, you know, when you get upset about something, you go, great opportunity to see the object of refutation, which is what we call that false sense of self because it comes up so strongly, you know, especially if you’re like me and you have a terrible case of pride when somebody, you know, falsely accuses you or, yeah, you’re really upset. So like you say, when the negative disturbing emotions are happening. So unfortunately, that’s kind of what we have to contemplate sometimes to get the sense of I that seems to exist and then we start, you know, examining it with logic to go, wow, what is that? Okay.

Where is it? And there’s another meditation if we have time we’ll do where you actually look, where is it in your body? Where is it in your mind? What part of your body and mind is that I? It doesn’t exist at all.

It’s just a concept that you have, you know, it’s not findable in the five aggregates, know, and that’s another one of the main mediteachings we do. Really searching for the I. Where is it? It’s got to be in there somewhere. If it existed from its own side, it should be findable.

But it’s like a mirage, you know, the closer you get, it just disappears. You’re looking for it and looking for it. And the lamas always say, if it really existed, the closer you get, the clearer it would be. But it’s just the opposite. The closer you get, it’s just, wait, you know, I’m looking for it.

I’m trying to narrow it down. Wait. It’s not there. It’s not there. It’s not there.

So that’s another of the main meditations that we do on emptiness, so we’ll try and do that. You know, we’ll try maybe to do that one too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. That’s right.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I thought of that.

When that happened, I said yeah. In those moments, you know yeah. There’s this character who shows up in the Buddhist sutras that some commentators say he’s the Buddhist equivalent of the devil, Mara, mister Mara. Right? That’s Mara.

It’s your ego trying to derail you from dissolving it, you know, and I experienced this when I was in this long retreat and I found it really good because I’d feel that distraction come up or I’d feel, you know, my self-cherishing ego grasping going, oh, you’re going a little too far. You know, this is a little too intense. It’s a little you know, come on. No. Just back off.

Ease off. You know? And I go, Mara, I see you, which is what the Buddha always said. And what it is is our ego is used to being in charge, you know, since beginningless time. And when you start to do something that’s gonna really attack it, it’s like getting it in a chokehold, getting Mara in a chokehold.

And it’s gonna come up with everything in the book throwing at you to try and distract you. I mean, it’s it’s just this part of us that really is very sneaky trying to derail us because it feels threatened. There’s nothing I mean, one of the things that Lama Zopa says is he there’s this beautiful passage in this book, teachings from this retreat that happened in California in nineteen ninety nine called Teachings from the Vajrasattva Retreat and there’s this one like ten page passage. I’ll see if it’s in the library and point it out to you where he’s describing the direct realization of emptiness and he’s and he’s talking about he said, you have this fear come up that you’re gonna cease to exist. And he said, you know, often when you’re really close or when you’re really making progress, yeah, you’ll either have a distraction, you’ll get derailed by some obstacle.

Sometimes it can be this strong fear that you’re gonna somehow cease to exist, like, I’m not gonna be Michael anymore, you know? And then he says it’s really beautiful. He says, you have to wade through it just like wading through a river to get to the other side. He goes, this may be your only chance, you know, to see emptiness. And when that fear comes up, he says, it has to come up, and it’s a really good sign.

And he said, just like wading through a powerful current, just go for it, you know, and get to the other side because he said, you’ll never cease to exist. The only thing that’s dissolving is this false sense of self. He goes, there is no Michael that we’re ceased to exist because our continuum of mental consciousness will never cease. And that’s this fundamental basis of the continuum that goes from life to life. There’s no way.

You know, that continuum goes even to Buddhahood. It will never cease. So we don’t need to have that fear. What’s disappearing is the object of refutation, which never existed anyway. You know?

It’s just the only thing that’s disappearing is the hallucinated wrong view of how you always thought that you existed, and that’s why the distraction and the fear and the obstacles come up. You know? So beautiful. He just says, just like wading through a river, you know, just go for it. He says there’s two kinds of people when they’re having that realization, either people that fear feel incredible fear or he said, sometimes you can feel this just incredible bliss and relief and happiness like, oh, it doesn’t exist at all.

Oh, you know, just this incredible kind of buoyant, blissful feeling or the fear. But he said when you feel the fear, it’s actually a really good sign. And I’ve had that sometimes in meditation of just this kind of like, woah. And then I’ve gone, great. Awesome.

You know, when you have that. And he said, it means you’re hitting the mark. You know, it’s like you’ve got the bull’s eye, and you’ve hit the target when those experiences come up. So it’s really good. I mean, it’s extremely uncomfortable, but you don’t need to feel that you’re off track.

In fact, it means that you’re exactly on track. You know? Because I think that’s all that Mara is. It’s not some guy. I mean, Buddhism doesn’t have absolute good and evil.

It’s just ignorance versus wisdom. And Mara is just symbolic of our ignorance and ego grasping, trying to win, you know, trying to derail us from you know, and I’d always have this visualization. I’d use very un none like language to talk to Mara, you know, and I found it was really helpful to kind of project that part of me, that self-cherishing and self grasping and go, look, Mara, you’ve won since beginning of this time. I’m not letting you win this round. You know, this is my big chance in this life.

I’m not letting you win. And that was just my little experiment. You know, when you’re off by yourself in the middle of the desert meditating for years, you know, do these weird things. But, you know, it’s like that, and that’s all that Mara is. There is no devil in Buddhism.

It’s just our ignorance and our self grasping and self-cherishing that’s the only enemy. Right? Yeah. Okay, Mara. Put up your dukes.

Totally. That’s right. We’re of we’re afraid of the narcissist. Well, that’s right. Yeah.

Yeah. That’s right. And that’s gonna cease to exist. Exactly. Exactly.

I have one of my teachers, Ribur Rinpoche, manifested the aspect of stomach cancer a number of years ago, and his one you know, one of his closest students was also his translator, this Italian ex monk. He used to be a monk for many years, ex ex monk, and we were together once, and he was pleading. You know, you ask your teacher to remain with you. Like, that’s one of the creates the cause to always have teachers, and you ask the teacher. And so Fabrizio, my friend, was going, Rinpoche, please don’t leave us.

You know, please stay. And this Rinpoche is like, why? Look. My body doesn’t work anymore. I need a new one.

You know, he’s kinda like, look. It’s old. It’s in its eighties. It’s got cat. Like, give me in and as Ram Dass, the spiritual teacher in the States said, you know, we should look at at death as just chain trading in the old Ford for the new Toyota, you know, or like they say in scripture, just like changing clothes.

You know, we’re not gonna cease to exist. It’s just that we’re so you know, we cling on so hard so tightly to this idea of me, which is the body and mind of this life and your experiences, and that is the fear of death. For sure, if you had even deep intellectual understandings of emptiness, you wouldn’t fear death at all. It’s just a karmic shift, just like every other karmic shift in our life. It’s just that we attach and identify so strongly with the body and mind and experiences and memories and so forth of this life.

And we do feel that that is gonna cease and that, therefore, we think, I’m gonna cease to exist. Me, I’m gonna cease to exist. You know, but if you’re like one of these high lamas, you’re like, okay. This body’s finished. It doesn’t function anymore.

I need a new one so I can carry on the path, you know, and then that consciousness loaded with all of those good karmic seeds goes to the next life. Yeah. Alright. So that meditation, we kind of reviewed a lot of what we did yesterday just in the context of that meditation. So we looked at those three levels dependent arising, causes and conditions, parts, and then the subtlest, hardest one.

Right? That one of conceptual imputation or designation that takes lots and lots and lots of meditation to really get that. You know, it’s very, very subtle. So like I say, try the experiment of taking an object, just an ordinary thing like a cup or a glass or something and go through the analysis with that or the computer or whatever it is. And you find that it starts to sort of, you know, influence the other objects in in your reality and they don’t seem quite as self existent anymore.

Anymore. You know, as you do it with one object, it sort of influences everything else. So one of the things that I forgot to do yesterday, it’s always important to say the source of the teachings, and Bill reminded me because he was asking me scriptural source is a commentary on the Heart Sūtra, the main source for what I’m teaching you by a Lama called Chödrub Sengge and he was the main textbook writer for Sera Mey Monastic College. something like the sun whose rays illuminate the profound darkness. They all have these flowery names.

You know, the sun whose rays illuminate the profound darkness. And I’ve gotten teachings on this from many teachers, including Yongsi Rinpoche, Geshe Tsultrim Gyeltsen, Lama Zopa Rinpoche’s Holiness the Dalai Lama. It’s just been translated into English really recently. When I was studying this, there were no English translations of this root commentary. We just had to write down every word the Lama said.

This is actually a word for word commentary, taking every single word and breaking it down, which, of course, I totally love. You know, it’s very I think it’s the only word for word commentary of the Heart Sūtra. And it’s just been translated by this German monk, Venerable Fedor, and it’s part of the course material for the basic program, Heart Sūtra materials. So if you know, I’m not sure if it’s available from the FPMT store, how much that material is available just is it? Okay.

So this one yeah. So you can do like a a home study and you can so that’ll be on there. There. So that’ll be part of the yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So that’s just been translated into English, as far as I know, for the first time really recently. So that’s a great resource for if you really wanna study in a lot of detail. There are other great commentaries on the Heart Sūtra. There’s one based on teachings whose holiness the Dalai Lama gave in California a number of years ago.

They keep changing the title every time they do a reprint, the essence of the Heart Sūtra. Thank you. Yeah. They changed the title. There’s also one by a scholar called Donald Lopez called the Heart Sūtra Explained, and that’s a nice one because he goes back to a lot of the Indian commentaries on the Heart Sūtra, like pre Tibetan commentary, a lot of Haribhādra, for example, and some of the great Indian masters.

So that’s a that’s a really great one too, the Heart Sūtra Explained. And then there’s other ones that you can find, you know, different publication. It’s Donald Lopez is his name, an American Buddhist scholar. Okay. Alright.

So let’s go back to the Sūtra. So we’re up to what’s called the four profound applications. The four statements about each of the five heaps starting with the form aggregate. And we’re at the very bottom of page one in the kind of the middle of the last paragraph. So this is sort of the famous verse from the Heart Sūtra that you may have heard a lot.

Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form. Form two is not other than emptiness. Okay?

So these are called the four profound applications. Okay, Applications. Now let’s look at this first phrase, Form is Emptiness. What’s weird about that statement? Form is Emptiness.

That’s right, that’s right. So, what they’re doing is equating a positive phenomena with a negative phenomena, aren’t they? Saying form is emptiness. Form is a positive phenomena, conventionally existent phenomena and he’s saying it is a mere absence. It’s not literally true but again Lord Buddha is being provocative throughout the whole thing shocking to make us think and what he’s emphasizing is the relationship between dependent arising and emptiness.

This thing of them being two sides of the same coin. Now, are some translations that translate this phrase, form is empty. Well, nobody would argue with that. Everything’s empty. That’s fine.

Which is why I prefer this translation because the point is to equate these two things. It’s not literally true but what he’s trying to do is to say form is emptiness. He’s equating the relationship between dependent arising and emptiness. Right? And he’s saying, form, every form He’s using using form as the first aggregate, but we can extend it.

Every existing thing is empty of inherent existence. And emptiness is a quality or characteristic of every existing thing. So that’s why he’s saying form is emptiness, to kind of shock us, but to make us think about that relationship between dependent arising and emptiness. Because things are dependently arisen, they’re empty of inherent intrinsic existence. Right?

Same quality, looking at it from different angles. And that’s what he’s emphasizing. So he’s saying, all form is empty of inherent existence. And then the next phrase, emptiness is form. Emptiness allows for dependent arising.

If things weren’t empty, there’d be no way that dependent arising could function. If things were intrinsically existence existent, forget about them being dependent on causes and conditions, parts, conceptual imputation. You know, there’d be no functioning things, basically. So that’s what the second one means. It’s looking at it from a different angle.

Now we have to be careful. This isn’t to make us think about something like that emptiness is this ultimate ground of being that things kind of manifest out of. That’s more of an idea of some of the Hindu schools. Right? There’s this Brahman, this absolute ground of being, and everything is Leela, this sort of play of the absolute.

That’s not what this is saying. So we have to be careful because that’s a wrong view of what emptiness is. Is. It’s not anything like that. It’s just saying because things are empty of inherent existence, it allows for them to dependently arise.

You know, emptiness allows for dependent arising. Because they’re dependently arisen, dependently arisen, they’re empty of inherent existence, and emptiness is necessary for them to be able to dependently arise. Like that quote that I said at the end of yesterday of Ārya Nāgārjuna, said, because of emptiness, everything’s possible. If things weren’t empty, nothing would be possible. Because inherent existence would mean no dependence at all on anything else.

You’re just completely stuck. I mean, thank God for emptiness. Right? Otherwise, we couldn’t become a Buddha. If I were inherently Tenzin Choki, that would be a disaster because there’d be no way that due to causes and conditions, right, parts, conceptual imputation, I could transform into an enlightened being.

You know, thank goodness that my body and mind aren’t inherently existent and they can transform into a Buddha’s enlightened body and mind. You know, if it weren’t for emptiness, no way could that happen. So that’s what that’s why we’re juxt juxtaposing these two things. We say that emptiness is a mere absence. In philosophy, we have this phrase, a non affirming negation.

I might as well introduce it because you’re gonna hear it eventually. K? Non affirming negation, meaning it’s negating something without affirming anything else in its place. It’s a mere absence. What would an affirming negation mean?

What would a negative statement that affirmed or indicated something be? Can you think of an example of that? Yeah. Yeah. That would be I’ll give you a really simple example and this comes straight from scripture.

Direct quote. I’ve just changed the name. Fat Joe doesn’t eat during the daytime. Okay? So all we’re saying is he doesn’t eat during the daytime but we’re calling him Fat Joe, which indicates he’s gotta eat at night if he’s fat.

So it’s an affirming negation. Right? Fat Joe doesn’t eat during the daytime. The direct quote. I didn’t make that up.

It’s from scripture. So it’s affirming something else in its place. Emptiness, however, is just saying absolute absence of inherent existence, not affirming anything else in its place. So we call it a non affirming negation. That would be an affirming negation.

So that statement would affirm something else. It leads you to draw a conclusion from it about what Fat Joe does do. Eats a lot at night. Eats, you know, extra large pizzas at night, just not during the daytime. You know, that’s the example of that.

But emptiness, we say, is a mere absence which also means and this is important too for understanding these four four profound applications. Emptiness is not a changing thing. It doesn’t change moment by moment by moment And we’re used to talking about things being sometimes the word is impermanent and permanent. I prefer unchanging and changing because perm the word permanent in English has kind of two connotations. And one connotation is that it lasts forever, and one connotation is unchanging.

But in Buddhism, for example, the glass’s emptiness is permanent in the sense of unchanging. It’s not changing moment by moment. This glass is never getting more or less empty of inherent existence. That’s a quality of the object that’s a mere negation. And mere negations never change.

It just ain’t inherently existent. That’s all. The cup is changing moment or the glass see, they took away my cup is changing moment by moment by moment but its emptiness is not. However, is its emptiness eternal? Will it last forever?

What do you think? No. Why? Yeah! Smash the glass.

Its emptiness has just gone out of existence because it’s dependent on the existence of the glass. Right? So that’s why I prefer changing and unchanging rather than permanent and permanent. Because when you say emptiness is a permanent thing, for us, we have that extra thing of, oh, it’s gonna last forever. But since the emptiness is just dependent on the conventional object, it can go out of existence when the object goes out of existence.

But while it’s existing, its emptiness is unchanging. Right? Okay. Because it’s a mere absence of an impossible way of existing. For example, a mere absence of a pink elephant rampaging through this room is not changing.

You know? It’s never like, oh, there’s part of the pink elephant in the room, and then he runs out again, and then he comes back in again. Just a mere absence of a pink elephant rampaging in the room. It’s never gonna change, never gonna get more or less. However, the glass being a produced functioning thing, even though it seems solid and stable and permanent as we know the molecules and everything shifting around in the subatomic particles and it’s changing moment by moment.

Right? So that gets us to the next two statements emptiness is not other than form, form is not other than emptiness. It’s saying you can’t have an emptiness without the object that it’s the quality of. Right? And you can’t have an object without its emptiness.

They go together like hand and glove even though one’s a changing phenomena and one’s an unchanging phenomena which is just the quality of the object, they’re inseparable. So that’s what the form is. Emptiness is not other than form, meaning for emptiness is not that black hole, that void thing out there, that ultimate ultimate ground of being. It’s not other than form, meaning it doesn’t exist separate from the form that it’s the quality of. And form too is not other than emptiness.

So that’s what that means. So these four profound applications are driving home, right, this relationship because one of the worst wrong views about emptiness is because things are empty, they don’t exist. And Lord Buddha is saying, get it clear. Because things are empty, that’s the only way they can exist. Right?

Emptiness, not only does it not negate existence, it actually allows for existence. If things weren’t empty, ain’t no way they could exist. So that’s he’s just bashing it because that’s a very common wrong view about emptiness is it means, oh, it’s empty. Nothing exists. I can do whatever I want.

It’s all just mind. You know? Wrong view because that actually undercuts the law of cause and effect, otherwise known as karma, which is so fundamental. And there’s a story from this American Buddhist teacher, Joanna Macy, and she was at this Buddhist conference, and it was a number of years ago back when they had the key to the hotel room. Now, they just have the thing that you stick in the laxity that I can never get to work.

I’m almost like But anyway, back, I like the keys better. So everybody’s lining up to check out of the hotel that this Buddhist conference had been at and the person in front of Joanna Macy had this big suitcase and it fell on the ground and sort of popped open. It was full of hotel towels. And so this woman who’d been at this Buddhist conference said, oh, well, it’s all empty anyway. Wrong view.

Because it’s empty and because, as we’ve seen, our conceptual imputations are forced on us by our karma, it means that we have to be more careful about our ethics and our karma and our morality than we even thought we did. Right? Because it completely determines our very perception of reality. So not only does emptiness not negate the law of cause and effect and existence at all, it makes it so much more important than we even thought. What why is the difference?

And I’ve got to use this example because it’s so cool. So we’ve got three beings of of three different realms, right, sitting around this table, perceiving this glass of liquid. I’m a human being. I perceive water. You know, nice refreshing water to drink.

We have a being from the Preta realm, the hungry ghost or craving spirit realm. Their karma forces them to have the perception and experience of sorry. It’s kind of gross. Puss in blood. Right?

I know. Sorry. It’s like and then we have a being from the Deva realm. Right? The pleasure realm being whose karma forces them to have the experience of ambrosia of the gods, nectar.

So, this liquid is empty of being water, pus and blood or nectar. How it’s perceived and experienced is forced on us by our karma. We’re human beings. Pretty good. It ain’t pus and blood, at least it’s water.

That’s not bad. But it could be a lot better. Right? Because of emptiness, So that shows us why we have to be so careful about our karma. Right?

Because things are empty and our perceptions are forced on us by our karma. That’s what being in a realm means. Right? Pooh. That’s right.

And that’s what animal realm rebirth means is your karma is forcing you to have a certain experience. And that’s what it means to be born in a realm. Doesn’t mean that, you know, your Casper the ghost thing gets shoved into a dog body like there’s some dog body factory in Kansas or something. And then, you know, at death, you get shoved in there. It’s a shift of karma causing you to have a certain experience forced on you by your karma because things are empty.

And that’s why a dog that came in this room wouldn’t be able to meditate, wouldn’t be able to recognize holy beings. They have a completely different karmic experience forced on them by their karma. So that’s why karma and emptiness are so linked. Right? So if you hear anybody say, Oh, nothing matters because it’s empty or things don’t exist because they’re empty, shake them hard and then give them the tapes of this class.

And then they’ll hear or send them to me and I’ll shake them by the shoulders. Go, no. It’s not like that. Right? Out come the box of glips.

Okay. So form is emptiness to be provocative. And this is why I’ve used this translation because, unfortunately, the translation in the FPMT prayer book says form is empty. Doesn’t have the same punch. Right?

Because we of course, that’s obvious but form is emptiness, that’s a different story. Right? And it’s to emphasize that relationship. Likewise, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness are all empty. Which what?

Yeah, the other four aggregates. Right? So, he’s saying all five aggregates equal. All of them, exactly the same, all empty. Thupten Jinpa, what did you do?

What an interesting thank you for pointing that out. I’ll check the tran because it’s true. It’s true. Actually, it could go either way. It could go either way because we’ve done the four profound applications to drive that home.

So it could go either way, I think. You could emphasize they’re all equally empty. Or if you wanted to, you’re applying the same four applications to all of the other four Skandhas. You know, instead of reiterating and instead of them going, feelings are emptiness, emptiness are feelings, feelings are not other than emptiness, emptiness. They’re just saying they’re all exactly the same.

But that’s a good point. That’s interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Right.

And that’s why you have to study a commentary to translate. That’s right. Yeah. That’s right. And especially Tibetan.

And this is probably translated from Tibetan, which is really cryptic. And I have friends that are translators, and they said that they’ve done translations, then they’ve studied the commentary and completely thrown out their first translation. It is. That’s right. But I think Thupten Jinpa, who’s the translator of this English, would’ve yeah.

Anyway, I’m not sure. But, yeah, you’re right. I mean, they have that’s why you have to study a commentary before you translate because there are ambiguous meanings in both Sanskrit and Tibetan. That’s right. Yeah, that’s right.

Right. Right. Right. Yeah, so it’s interesting to read different translations but make sure that the source and whoever’s doing the translation knows what they’re talking about, which is why I really like this one because Geshe Thupten Jinpa is, like, so completely brilliant. Like, there’s no question that he knows what he’s talking about.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, it’s true. But that’s but that’s a good point, Joelska, and I’ll compare a couple of different translations.

But it could go either way cause we’re kind of saying all of them are equal in the four profound applications applying to all five skandhas. If we just say, then it doesn’t matter whether we’re saying Indian or Indians. You know, I I I would have to go back to the original Sanskrit, which I don’t have access to because there’s Shunya and Śūnyatā, and I’m not a Sanskrit grammarian, so I’m trusting Geshe Thupten Jinpa, you know, because the commentaries that I’ve gotten says it’s important to translate this as form is emptiness and not form is empty. That’s the all of the teachings that I’ve gotten has made that special point. That’s right.

Which is why the point I’m trying to make is that’s why we depend on the commentaries to explain these subtle nuances of meaning. Or depend on the on the commentary of somebody who has done all that study, you know, a valid source. Right? Yeah. Right, right, right.

Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But that’s why I’ve used this translation because it’s important to juxtapose those things that aren’t literally equatable because one’s a positive thing and one’s a negative thing. And then he says it’s true for all different things. So this is instruction that we’ve gotten for what we call the path of accumulation and the path of preparation.

Okay. The first two paths and now, do you guys have the energy to start with the five paths? Are you alright? You’re not fading yet? I haven’t given you a break.

We’re gonna just have a two hour session. Okay. Because to understand the rest of the sūtra, as I said before, it’s instruction on how to meditate at each stage of the path. We’ve just gotten the instruction for the first two paths. The next yeah.

We’re gonna look at it. We’ve got a diagram. In the next verse the next sentences are the instructions for the next path. Okay? So we’ve got to look first at what these paths are.

And you’ve got we’ve got two diagrams. I’m gonna have a flip chart and right in the middle of the book is a chart. So let’s look at that first and we’ll explain what’s going on with the realizations of the five paths. So like I said at the beginning of yesterday, we have, you know, sometimes you have this idea that enlightenment is sort of like spontaneous, you know, you have these stories of like you hit get hit on the foot with a bucket of water and then boom, you know, enlightenment. In the Tibetan tradition, it’s very you know, the way we explain the realizations of the path is very systematic, very linear.

So we’re gonna look at that now and see what’s happening in terms especially in relation to our realizations of emptiness at each stage. And you see we don’t I didn’t have it on this flip chart page, but if you look at your diagram in your book, you see at the very left hand side, with the first vertical line is labeled refuge, and then to the left of that, we have fear, faith and compassion. We say that those are the causes of refuge. Right? What what’s the fear that’s the cause of refuge?

Yeah. Lower realm, Samsāra. Okay. Also, at the Mahāyāna, we’re afraid or want to avoid. I mean, I’ve written that because that’s how it’s usually translated.

I like it. I like to think more of kind of, you know, wanting to avoid a certain outcome, you know. So, we’re trying to avoid lower realms. That’s the lowest scope of the Lam Rim. The middle scope is trying to avoid any Samsāra rebirth at all because we see even the upper realms are a mistake.

And then at the highest level of the Lam Rim, right, we have the motivation also to avoid having other beings experience saṃsāra. So it’s starting to extend beyond our own kind of our own, yeah, skin bagger, our own kind of fears for ourself and our own experience to others’ experience as well, which is why we put compassion. Now these five paths, as it says in the title, is the Bodhisattva’s path. We’ve got five paths on the track towards personal liberation, but they’re different. So this is from the Bodhisattva track presentation of the five paths.

So that’s important to mention because we have compassion here and then we have bodhicitta in the next little square. So it’s all presuming bodhisattva track paths. Now we’re probably somewhere in one of the first two squares because then after we take refuge, you’ll see in the second little square, renunciation, bodhicitta, wisdom. What are those called? Not the three higher trainings.

That’s something different. Yeah. The three aspects of the path. Okay? So after refuge, we’re working on developing renunciation, bodhicitta, and wisdom.

Those are the those are the realizations that we’re working on developing. I’m gonna pick on Judy because she was in the four noble truths class. Renunciation. Let’s talk about that word. Yeah.

Yeah. So the Tibetan literally means definite emergence. I hate the translation renunciation. Some of you may know my aversion to the translation renunciation because to me, it connotes, you know, nuns in cold convents in Northern Europe eating bread and water and wearing hair shirts. It’s this whole idea of give up the fun to be virtuous.

It’s this very sort of Calvinistic kind of idea, isn’t it? It is. Yeah. It’s sort of like, oh, pie in the sky. So you have to sort of be miserable in this life and do without the fun things.

That’s so not what it means. We’re kind of stuck with the word renunciation because the early translators used it, but definite emergence is what it is what it means and it means the mind that totally understands that when wherever we’re reborn in Samsāra is a bad news and wanting to get out. So it’s actually this exciting hopeful, I’m out of here kind of feeling. That’s renunciation. Okay?

And then Bodhicitta, we talked about the definition of Bodhicitta, the wish for full enlightenment for the benefit of all living beings, which sometimes people say that’s like renunciation applied to others. If it’s true for us that Samsāra is a bad news, then we extend that and think, well, it’s true for everybody else. So I wanna become a Buddha to help them get free too. And then wisdom, the wisdom understanding the ultimate nature of reality. So these are the three principal aspects of the path or the three aspects of the Path, the realizations that we’re working on here at this preliminary stage.

Now we’re not even at the first Path yet. When we talk about the five Paths, the Paths of Accumulation, we’re not even there yet and most of us I would posit are probably in one of these first two squares. So strictly speaking we’re not even on the first path. What we’re doing here is working on what we call pre path realizations. Right?

But it’s really good news that we’re even on the chart. Since beginning of this time, we’ve been like off the page completely. So at least we made it onto the left hand side of the chart. That’s the good news. Okay?

So we shouldn’t be discouraged. We’re there somewhere. Now the path of accumulation is the first path. Now I’m gonna jump up here, but you’ll see the correlates on your page. When we have developed what we call uncontrived renunciation and Bodhicitta, right, again on the Mahāyāna path, why?

And we say usually that renunciation needs to be developed first. Why is that? Do you think? Why does renunciation precede? Yeah.

Yeah. If we think that we’re gonna get lasting happiness from the next new job or the boyfriend or the house, if we want others to be happy, we’re just gonna try and get them all that stuff. Aren’t we? We need to understand really deeply. And just because, as we know, we are the center of the known universe, we usually understand it from our own perspective first.

Right? The sufferings of Samsāra, the pitfalls of Samsāra, and then we apply it to others. So that’s why we can’t really have bodhicitta unless we really have real renunciation. Otherwise, doesn’t make sense. Know, real what I’ve called uncontrived Bodhicitta, meaning it’s a stable realization.

It’s not just the result of a good meditation. It’s a stable. It’s like the baseline twenty four seven motivation for everything that you’re doing. So you can imagine, that’s a really high level of realization. You’re not gonna get that from the ten day Lam Rim course with Venerable Thubten Drupgyu in Kangaroo Island unless you’re already almost there.

You know, it takes and it just is a process. And it’s sort of like what we’re talking about with the realization of emptiness. Bodhicitta too, we meditate on it, we get that feeling, and it fades. And we meditate again, and we get the feeling again, contrived Bodhicitta, and then it fades. But the more we habituate to that feeling, the longer it lasts, the less gaps there are until eventually we have it as a stable realization.

When we’ve got that, we have entered the path of accumulation. Okay. So the first of the five paths is entered and as you can see on your diagram with actual bodhicitta, which is dependent on actual renunciation. Okay? So then, what’s happening during the path of accumulation?

We’re accumulating merit, which is how it gets its name. So we’re working on the six perfections to accumulate merit. We’re working on our generosity, our ethics, our patience, our joyous effort. We’re also working on developing single pointed concentration. Concentration.

Okay. That’s a main task for this stage. Why do we need single pointed concentration? Why are we working on putting so much energy into single pointed concentration, do you think? See what?

Yeah. We absolutely have to for that direct realization of emptiness that’s such an important part of the path. Absolutely dependent on perfectly developed single pointed concentration. Okay? And this is the example given in scripture is you can focus on an object without wavering at all, without losing the object, with perfect mental clarity and with intensity like your your engagement really into it, like the seventh Harry Potter.

You know, Nielska and I were talking yesterday. She said she was crammed in an airplane with her you know, we’re both tall and so when you’re when you’re in an airplane, the seat is smashing against your kneecaps and there’s people next to you and you’re kind of like that. But she said it was okay because she had the seventh Harry Potter. She just went into that zone, you know, and she wasn’t even aware of the twelve hour flight. So that’s the kind of mind that we have in meditation towards whatever object we’re meditating on, the breath.

I mean, you imagine? That’s the level of engagement they say. We can have that fixation so you’re not losing the object at all, clarity and intensity engagement for four hours or however long you feel like sitting. I think they say four hours because that’s as long as you can sit without having to go to the toilet or something but that’s what we’ve got to develop. Okay?

That single pointed concentration. Now, it’s not an end in itself and when we get the instructions for meditation we say that single point pointed concentration as we’re developing it and when we get to that point, it’s accompanied by these feelings of mental and physical bliss and flexibility and plant which feel really really good. And a and a lot of spiritual traditions mistake that for nirvana. And in fact, Lord Buddha, before he went off by himself to practice, had two meditation teachers that taught him that these rarified states of concentration were the goal of the path. Okay?

So it’s just a tool that we’re using, but absolutely important. Okay? So we’re developing single pointed concentration, all otherwise known as śamatha, calm abiding, shine is the Tibetan word. When we’ve developed that and we can use that calm abiding to meditate on emptiness, We call that the union of calm abiding and special insight and we’ve entered the path of preparation. So the threshold or the turning point here is perfect single pointed concentration that we’re using to meditate on emptiness.

Then we’re on the path of preparation. What are we preparing for? What’s the preparation? Yeah. First direct realization of emptiness.

So what’s happening here is during this whole stage, we’re getting subtler and subtler intellectual realizations of emptiness. So we don’t have the direct realization yet but we’re getting subtler and subtler intellectual understandings. Okay? Of emptiness by using this incredibly powerful mental concentration. Right?

Focusing that on emptiness. So subtler and subtler, that’s what’s happening during this path. Now, we’re not going to go into all the detail about these paths. This has four stages. At the third stage, we get our first permanent cessation.

At the third stage of the path of preparation, no more rebirth in the lower realms. No more possibility of lower realm rebirth which is a really big deal. So that’s even before we’ve seen emptiness directly, we have our first cessation, right, of lower realm rebirth about three quarters of the way through this. So what’s happening here is, you know, we’re using that incredible concentration that we’ve developed meditating on emptiness over and over and over again, getting closer and closer and closer to the direct realization. Okay.

Now, at the path of seeing, we have our first direct perception of emptiness. So what happens is Oh, by the way, the very last thing that happens during the path of preparation is you get a direct realization of dependent arising. Okay? A direct realization of dependent arising, a direct realization of what we’ve been doing all along, creating our reality through our conceptual imputation. You see that all that we’ve been doing is getting sense input that we then organize with our concept and then we think that that’s what we’re seeing.

As one of my friends who teaches says, it’s like, you know how you can read a really bad photocopy if it’s your own language and you fill in the blanks and you make the letters even though the sense data is just these bits and pieces but you sort of fill in. I had an experience when I was in Colombia, and I was leading a medicine Buddha retreat. And so I thought, well, if I’m leading a retreat, it’s dumb for the translate for me to be leading the practice in English and translator just translating it into Spanish. That’s dumb. They said, well, I can read Spanish.

So give me the practice and then I’ll lead people through the practice. They gave me a really bad photocopy and because it wasn’t my language, I couldn’t read the photocopy and I said you have to give me a really clean photocopy and it was such a great example of that because I realized if it had been that third generation of English no problem but because it was Spanish and I don’t speak Spanish well, I needed really, you know, kind of big and I said, you magnify it a little bit and like make a really fresh clean photocopy. Right? But that’s what we’re doing all the time. So, the last moments of the path of preparation, we have a direct realization of dependent arising.

Okay? Then we go into meditation and during by the way, all of the transition points between the paths happen in deep meditation. So after that direct realization of dependent arising, we go into deep meditation and see emptiness directly for the first time. We’re now a completely different kind of being. We’re an ārya, a noble or superior being.

This is the biggest turning point in the path, like the biggest kind of milestone in our spiritual experience because we now understand that the way that we’ve seen everything all the time since beginningless time is completely wrong. Right? You’d see directly. You understood it intellectually on the path of preparation but now you’re seeing directly that that way that you thought that you exist doesn’t exist at all. Right?

That object of refutation, that wrong view of self, you don’t exist like that at all. And, by the way, the first object of your first direct realization of emptiness is personal selflessness, which is why Avalokiteśvara has told us to meditate on that first. Because the instruction that we’ve gotten so far about the five aggregates in the self is the meditation instruction for these two paths. So that’s the main object is personal selflessness and that’s the first direct realization of emptiness. It’s not the emptiness of the cup.

It’s the emptiness of moi. Right? It’s not any other object. It’s just personal selflessness because that’s the big troublemaker as we’ve seen. Who cares about the cup?

You know, we’re not attached to the cup. The cup could care less, but it’s, you know, this feeling that we have of me. So that’s the first direct perception of emptiness, direct realization. You’re an arya. Woo hoo.

You’re a stream enterer. That’s one of the words that’s used now. And that means you’ve entered the stream. You’re on the conveyor belt. No turning back now, baby.

You got it made. You know, before this, you can derail pretty significantly. But after this point, after that, nobody can ever tell you that things exist in the way they don’t anymore because you’ve seen it directly. Directly. Who’s gonna tell you that things are inherently existent?

You’ve had that direct experience. So it’s huge. It’s a huge realization. Let’s stop there. We got to the really exciting part.

Let’s pause for lunch there and then we’ll when we come back from lunch, we’ll talk a little bit more about how that is and how can you have a direct realization of a mere absence? How do you have a direct realization of something that ain’t there? What does that look like? And we’ll talk about that because everything else in the Heart Sūtra is relating to on one level it’s explaining emptiness of all these different things but on another level, it’s saying, what’s happening then from this realization onward? You know, what’s happening in that deep meditation?

You know, in emptiness, there is no form, no feeling, no discrimination means when you’re in that meditation, you’re not seeing any conventional objects at all. The only thing appearing to you directly is that mere absence. So that’ll take some fresh brainpower powered by nutrition which we all need right now and I’m sorry I didn’t I really totally meant to give you a bathroom break. I just got really excited and I didn’t. So I’m sorry about that.

I fully intended to give you a little bit of a stretch break. Let’s just take a minute to dedicate the merit of the morning session. So thinking of the understanding, the meditation we did, incredible. May have been the first time we’ve really meditated deeply on emptiness of the self, so much virtue in what we’ve done this morning, and let’s dedicate it that we’ll be able to develop, first of all, the wisdom of listening and then the wisdom of contemplation, the wisdom of meditation leading to that direct realization of emptiness for the benefit of all living beings. That useful, useful freshness.

Very nice. Alright. So let’s take a minute to kind of renew our motivation for afternoon session. So thinking again of our intention for studying emptiness, meditating on emptiness. As we’ve talked about before, completely necessary for both liberation and enlightenment to have the direct realization of emptiness.

To have the direct realization, we need to study well, understand what emptiness is so we don’t fall into any of these wrong views, thinking it means that nothing exists, thinking it means we can do whatever we want. So let our study and meditation serve as powerful cause for us to develop that direct realization of emptiness, that insight into the ultimate nature of reality, thereby becoming fully enlightened for the benefit of all living beings. Okay. Let’s read our sūtra again as we did yesterday. And again, as we did yesterday and every time we read it, let’s just reflect a little bit on the meaning and see if reading it feels like a different experience than it used to when we would read it before teachings and maybe not have any idea.

We’re still kind of just at the bottom of page one in terms of our explanation, hopefully these paragraphs on page one will feel quite different with our understanding. So we can just recite together. The blessed mother, the heart of the perfection of wisdom in Sanskrit, Bhagavati Prajñāpāramitā Hridaya. Thus have I once heard. The blessed one was staying in Rajgriha at Vulture Peak along with a great community of monks and a great community of Bodhisattvas.

And at that time, the blessed one entered the meditative absorption on the varieties varieties of phenomena called the appearance of the profound. At that time as well, the noble Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva, the great being, clearly beheld the practice of the profound perfection of of wisdom itself and saw that even the five aggregates are empty of intrinsic existence. Thereupon, through the Buddha’s inspiration, the venerable Śāriputra spoke to the noble Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva, the great being, and said, how should any noble son or noble daughter who wishes to engage in the practice of the profound perfection of wisdom train? When this had been said, the holy Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva, the great being, spoke to the venerable Śāriputra and said, Śāriputra, any noble son or noble daughter who so wishes to engage in practice of the profound perfection of wisdom should clearly see this way. They should see perfectly that even the five aggregates are empty of intrinsic existence.

Form is emptiness. Emptiness is form. Emptiness is not other than form. Form too is not other than emptiness. Likewise, feelings, perceptions, mental formations and consciousness are all empty.

Therefore, Śāriputra, all phenomena are emptiness. They are without defining characteristics. They are not born. They do not cease. They’re not defiled.

They’re not undefiled. They’re not deficient, and they’re not complete. Therefore, Śāriputra, in emptiness, there is no form, no feelings, no perceptions, no mental formations, and no consciousness. There is no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, and no mind. There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no texture and no mental objects.

There is no I element and so on, up to no mind element including up to no element of mental consciousness. There is no ignorance, there is no extinction of ignorance and so on, up to no aging and death, and no extinction of aging and death. Likewise, there is no suffering, origin, cessation, or path. There is no wisdom, no attainment, and even no non attainment. Therefore, Śāriputra, since Bodhisattvas have no attainments, they rely on perfection of wisdom and abide in it.

Having no obscurations in their minds, they have no fear. And by going utterly beyond error, they will reach the end of nirvana. All the Buddhas too who abide in the three times attain the full awakening of unexcelled perfect enlightenment by relying on this profound perfection of wisdom. Therefore, one should know that the mantra of the perfection of wisdom, the mantra of great knowledge, the unexcelled mantra, the mantra equal to the unequaled, the mantra that quells all suffering, is true because it is not deceptive. The mantra of the perfection of wisdom is proclaimed.

Tadyatha, Gate, Gate, Pāragate, Pārasamgate, Bodhi, Svāhā. Śāriputra, the Bodhisattvas, the great beings should train in the perfection of wisdom in this way. Thereupon, the blessed one arose from that meditative absorption and commended the holy Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva, the great being, saying, this is excellent. Excellent. Excellent.

O noble child, it is just so. It should be just so. One must practice the profound perfection of wisdom just as you have revealed. For then even the Tathagatas will rejoice. As the blessed one uttered these words, the venerable Śāriputra, the holy Avalokiteśvara, the Bodhisattva, the great being, along with the entire assembly, including the worlds of gods, humans, asuras, and Gandharvas, all rejoiced and hailed what the blessed one had said.

Okay. So what kind of sūtra is this? Remember we had the three kinds of things that get the name Sūtra. What kind is this? The channeling.

Yeah. It’s all three, isn’t it? Most of it’s the channeling thing. Right? Through the Buddha’s inspiration, Shariputratra, Avalokiteśvara are having this conversation.

And then what’s the other what are the other two kinds of sūtra? So the channeling thing is one, direct speech. And so at the end, he says, excellent. Excellent. No noble child.

Yada yada yada. And then what’s the third kind? He approves. So he’s saying, excellent. Excellent.

It’s just like that. Now if he said, uh-uh. You got it all wrong, Avalokiteśvara. We couldn’t call that a sūtra because he wouldn’t be approving. So this is all three.

Most of it’s the blessed transmission one, but then he approves it at the end, and he’s talking a little bit right at the end. Just one paragraph, just his approval mostly. He’s sitting there pretending to meditate on emptiness off in the corner. Yes. Here.

Well, that’s what that’s what it means, though. I mean, that’s what the commentary say that through the inspiration of the Buddha applies to both, like, the whole conversation. Yeah. Yeah. That’s what the commentary say.

In the word through the Buddha’s inspiration, this word kyap in Tibetan is very loaded. It’s like voodoo or something. Like, in the colloquial Tibetan way, if you say, tuk kyap, means to put a curse on somebody. So it’s very heavy. It’s not just sort of the Buddha sitting there and then they’re looking at the Buddha going, oh, he’s so great.

Not that level of inspiration. Like, it really is that transmission thing. You know? From that point onward, forget about Śāriputra and Avalokiteśvara operating for their own free will. They’re like puppets in the hands of the Buddhist.

So the word in, you know, originally Sanskrit and then the Tibetan word is this heavy loaded thing. Like, sometimes we kind of think inspiration is just, oh, you feel good when you’re around the Dalai Lama. But this word means that transmission channeling thing. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. You’re right. Literally. But, that’s why in the commentary, they say the whole thing is the transmission that the Buddha’s talking through the two of them having this conversation.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Through the Buddha’s inspiration. Right. But it’s sort of like where it is in the Sūtra, it says, thereupon, through the Buddha’s inspiration, the venerable Śāriputra spoke to the noble Avalokiteśvara. You could read that everything that follows is through. Like, even though in the English translation, it’s hooked up with that phrase, you could also apply that to everything that follows too.

You know, it’s two ways of looking at that phrase through the Buddha’s inspiration. Does it just apply to the very next thing, is Śāriputra’s question, or is it applying to everything that follow? Because, for example, in Tibetan, there’s no punctuation. There’s no sentences the way there is in English. Like, it’s just syllables altogether.

In fact, you need to know what the words are. It’s just sort of one syllable after another with no punctuation. So you need to know what applies. Does that clause apply to just the next thing, which is what it looks like when you translate it into English. But in the Tibetan, does it apply to everything that happens after?

You know? So that’s where the syntax and the structure of the language too is important. And that’s again why the commentators that know that that’s the way that the Tibetan because Tibetan grammar is so different than any Indo European languages. It’s a Tibeto-Burman language family and just completely different grammatically than any of the languages that we’re more used to. So that’s part of it too, you know.

So it does get tricky this whole, you know, thing of translation which is why I was saying before my friends that are translators say, you’ve got to study really well. Otherwise because it could be any number of things and you have to know what it means from the great masters who’ve written the commentary to even know how to translate it into English properly, isn’t it? Yeah. Yeah. So it’s quite tricky.

Alright. So we were saying, what we’ve looked at so far is the instruction about how to meditate on emptiness at the beginning of the path and we started looking at what is the beginning of the path. So, meditate on personal selflessness using that meditation of, you know, meditating on the self, also meditating on the selflessness of the aggregates, the emptiness of the aggregates and that’s the main meditation for the path of accumulation and the path of preparation. So we started looking at these two we said we get to the path of accumulation you know the first path but don’t be depressed like I said you know we’re not probably most of us in this room, and again, making assumptions, probably aren’t even on the first path yet because that means uncontrived bodhicitta based on uncontrived renunciation, a high level of realization. We’re probably somewhere here which is great news because we’ve been off the chart since beginningless time, you know.

So at least we’re somewhere here but it’s already even just to enter the first path, very high level of realization, uncontrived bodhicitta. Then during the path of accumulation, we’re working on developing that single point of concentration. Can you imagine being able to meditate on an object as boring as the breath for four hours without spacing out at all, with clear mind and the same intensity as Harry Potter number seven. Sorry. It’s the last book of the series that we couldn’t put down, those of us Harry Potter aficionados.

Is it the same thing? That was the last one. Oh, we’ll to explain during the break. Okay. Sorry, it’s one of those things like Madonna.

We just assume that everybody You’ve heard of Madonna, right? Right? The singer? Oh, okay. Yeah.

Her too. My cousin’s Harvey Ben. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, we’ll explain during the break the the cultural reference that I’m just assuming everybody knows.

So that level of concentration is what we’re working on developing in path number one, path of accumulation, which as you can imagine takes a tremendous amount of effort. You know, anybody who sat there and tried to meditate on the breath for like ten minutes, how long are you able to stay focused? Know? But again don’t be discouraged in the instruction on developing single pointed concentration. There’s nine levels leading up to single pointed concentration.

The first level you might be reassured to hear is just remembering that you’re supposed to be meditating on the breath in the first place. You’re already at level number one. Isn’t that cool? The second level is staying on the object for the same amount of time, and sorry, it’s direct from scripture, for the amount of time as a fly lands on a pile of poo and then flies off again. That’s how long you’re focused on the object.

Direct quote. I’m not making it up. Like, Fat Joe doesn’t eat during the day. Object. Direct quote.

I’m not making it up like Fat Joe doesn’t eat during the daytime. That’s already level two. So level one is even remembering you’re supposed to be meditating on your breath. And how many of us I mean, I’ve had this experience before. I’ve sat down for my morning meditation, sitting all cross legged, light the incense, do the water bowls, do all this thing.

Then fifteen minutes later, you’re just kind of like, what am I doing sitting on the floor? Oh, right. Like I was supposed to be, you know, you’re off on vacation in Tahiti or whatever. Right? So that would be you’re not even at the first level.

The first level is even remembering that you’re supposed to be meditating on the object. So there’s nine levels leading up to this perfect level. It’s doable for sure. You know? Absolutely, it’s doable.

There’s this great Buddhist teacher, Alan Wallace, that some of you may have heard of of. He teaches in Australia and Sydney quite a lot and does these mind and life conferences and the mind and its potential and all of that stuff. And he’s made his sort of life work to establish the perfect conditions to and the perfect instructions so that people can develop this single pointed concentration because he sees it as so essential and he sees that it’s often overlooked. So he’s kind of made his life’s work to, you know, really foster that in people. Yeah.

In in in Sydney. Yeah. That’s right. That’s right. Yeah.

Oh, let’s not get into that because we’ll get distracted. Yeah. Yeah. I was just giving the example of how reassuring it is that at least number one and two. Yeah.

Yes. Definite emergence is the literal translation of the Tibetan word, you know, and that gives invokes more of the feeling of it is like, I’m out of here. You know? I definitely decided to emerge or get out of cyclic existence. Yeah.

Okay. So that’s what’s happening on the path of accumulation. Now when you have śamatha, calm abiding, shine is the Tibetan word. When you’ve developed that perfect single point of concentration and you’re using that to meditate on emptiness, you are now at the path of preparation. So each of these transitions from one path to the next always happens in deep meditation.

It doesn’t happen when you’re walking through the Burnside village and having your latte. It happens when you’re in deep meditation. So then you, you know, you’ve developed that single point of concentration. We call that a union of calm abiding and special insight. So special insight, it’s the same insight as the word Vipassana.

In Sanskrit, Vipassana, insight. You know, there’s this Vipassana technique of meditation. It just means insight into the nature of reality. So we’re uniting that laser beam focus that we’ve developed called calm abiding with that special insight. And then during the whole path of preparation, it’s the preparation for the direct realization of emptiness, which is why it’s called the path of preparation.

We’re getting subtler and subtler intellectual realizations of emptiness. Partway through that path we get our first permanent cessation cessation of lower realm rebirth. So even before the direct realization of emptiness we say our understanding of emptiness is powerful enough to prevent lower realm rebirth Because for our karma and delusion to ripen into a result it needs ignorance. Right? So with if we’ve removed enough ignorance that at least that result of our karma of lower realm rebirth can’t.

There’s not enough of that cooperative condition of the ignorance to make that karma ripen into a lower realm rebirth, which is may like incredible already to be at that point, you know, guaranteed no more lower realm rebirth. The end of that path of preparation, the very last kind of phase of that, we have a direct realization of dependent arising so you see how everything that you’ve ever perceived has been your conceptual imputation. And I gave the analogy of the bad photocopy. We’re just getting random bits of sense data that we paste together just like we make a letter out of the bad photocopy and we’re actually perceiving the word but the word’s not there. It’s just bits and pieces of sense data and that’s what we’re doing all the time.

Remember, we’re imputing that mental image onto the bits of sense data and then what we’re actually perceiving and experiencing is our mental image it’s not even the bits of sense data anymore. So you have a direct realization of that. And apparently, it’s completely mind blowing. And that’s even before the direct realization of emptiness. You get that that’s all that you’ve perceived forever.

You’ve never perceived anything the way it really existed. All you’ve been doing is imputing your mental image onto sense data which leads then you know, there’s a reason that that’s the last phase before the direct realization of emptiness because of the two sides of the coin thing. Once you’ve really seen that directly then you go back into meditation In the first direct realization of emptiness, the first moment that you see emptiness directly, you become an ārya. You begin the path of seeing, the third path. So you’re an ārya.

And remember, we talked about this word ārya before. Sometimes translated as noble in the four noble truths or really the four ārya truths, meaning the four things that are seen to be true by somebody who’s seen reality, the ultimate nature of reality. Okay. So sometimes translated as noble, but it doesn’t mean noble like the knights of the, you know, round table or whatever. It just means, you know, sometimes I think Jeffrey Hopkins uses superior as the translation of that.

And that’s, you know, sometimes you’re said to be a superior being. And, again, it’s not hierarchical and unpolitically correct. It just is indicating that realization. Superior is kinda better than noble, I think. That’s right.

That’s right. I think superior is probably better. And that’s because the words in Tibetan for the two beings, it’s seen as such a huge milestone that before that, you’re called the Tibetan word is, translated as childish ones. And it doesn’t mean a four year old. It means somebody who’s childish in the sense of their perception of reality.

So they’re the childish ones and the superiors and that’s the dividing line right there is the path of seeing when you enter the path of seeing. So then you’re a stream enterer. You’ve jumped on the conveyor belt, headed towards enlightenment. No going back. No turning around.

Now we say at the path of seeing, there’s three wrong views that are eliminated completely. Okay? You no longer believe in inherent existence. You no longer believe that you exist in the way that you always thought that you did because you see directly that it ain’t true. Okay?

So you have that realization. You no longer believe in any kind of false paths. And in ancient India and even now in India, you’ll see people doing ascetic practices as a way to gain liberation like, you know, lying on beds of nails or staring at the sun or raising their hand. You know, if you go places like Rishikesh, you’ll see these yogis that do these austerity austere practices. We don’t do that much in the West, but you still see it in India.

So you realize that that’s not the way. And that’s what the Buddha taught, the middle way. He said, you know, extreme austerities aren’t the way. Yeah. Namgyal’s gonna import some for you guys for the Song River Hermitage.

Yeah. Right. I know. Just need to be done. Yeah.

I know. You guys are going to Rishikesh. You’ll see the guy on the DVD. Oh, right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. And you see them in Rishikesh. You totally see these guys. In fact, they imported some.

Do you remember that? Bernardo Bertolucci. What is it? Little Buddha. When the Buddhist Keanu Reeves.

I mean, God, why did they have him play the Buddha? Anyway, as my mother used to say, He can’t act his way out of a paper bag. You know, I mean, he’s cute and everything, but really. But his five companions were real sadhus. Like, one guy had his fingernails growing through the palm of his hand.

Like, that was the most realistic part of that movie was his five companions were these guys that they got from Varanasi or Rishikesh because they were the real deal, you know? Of these, yeah. Yeah. Look at the movie again. Because when I saw that, I was just like, wow.

Where did they get these guys and how did they get them to agree to be in the movie? You know, there was these these, you know, guys that do these austerities and you still see that all over India. So you realize the other thing that you just give up is, yeah, that’s not the way. Okay? And then the third thing that is completely finished at that path of seeing is any doubt whatsoever about the path.

No more doubts at all that what Lord Buddha taught is the truth, which also would be a huge relief. Right? Because until that point, we can’t say that we’re completely free of doubt because we haven’t seen it directly. We’re still you know, we can figure it out intellectually what the Buddha said. We can have faith in what our teachers teach us.

But at that point, no more doubt. No more believing that you exist in that impossible way of existing and no more belief in the those austerities being the path. So that’s what’s happening in the the path of seeing. Now in that meditation, the first meditation on the path of seeing of the direct realization of emptiness, that’s about twenty minutes or half an hour. All you’re seeing is the absence of inherent existence.

At that point, even though the object that you were meditating on is the personal selflessness to get to that realization, when you’re in the direct realization of emptiness, emptiness is all that’s appearing. No conventional phenomena. No you. Right? No anything else.

You’re not aware of being in the room. There’s no sense data. It’s just the mere absence of inherent existence. So the question naturally comes up. How can you have a direct perception of a mere absence?

And there’s a great analogy I’m borrowing from an old friend of mine, Thubten Pende, this one of the first ordained monks in the FPMT, this American, was a monk for about thirty years and then disrobed. He had this great analogy. He said, okay. How do you how do you have a direct realization of a mere absence? And he said, it’s like this.

Come home from work one day really tired, and you and your housemate decide you’re just gonna kick back and watch a movie and get carryout pizza. So you order, you know, Domino’s or whatever country you’re in, whatever the pizza is, extra large vegetarian pizza. And so you get the DVD and put it in, and you’re just, like, kick back eating the pizza. Well, you ordered a little bit more than what the two of you could really eat, so there’s two pieces left over. So you put it in the fridge that night.

You go to work the next day. You have one of those days full of a lot of meetings, and so you don’t have time to actually eat a proper lunch, and you get the little packet of crackers and the a Coke from the machine. And then you’re driving home, and you’re really hungry. And what are you thinking about? Cold pizza.

Because when you’re really hungry, there’s nothing better than cold pizza. So you’re thinking about that pizza in the fridge. And you come home and you walk into the kitchen and you see the white cardboard box on the counter and you already start salivating. And you walk up and you open it and what do you see? Mere absence of pizza.

Your roommate got home first and in that moment, the first moment, you’re not seeing the little smear of tomato sauce and the little capsicum slice that’s fallen off and the funny little red thing that keeps the top from collapsing. All you’re seeing in that first moment is what I thought was there isn’t there at all. And then after that you see the smear and the tissue paper in the slice But that’s not what you’re seeing. You’re just seeing a total absence of what you thought was there and that’s what’s happening in that meditation. Okay?

What you always thought was there since beginningless time is not there. And Lama Zopa Rinpoche in that book that I was quoting before goes on and on for about a page and a half about what this feels like. And he’s like, there. Just there. It’s not there.

What you always thought he goes, it’s like you thought there was a billion dollars in your wallet, and suddenly you open your wallet and it’s not there. And he just kinda goes on and on and on. And then at the end of this passage, he goes, but I don’t wanna think, you know, anybody to think that I’ve actually had the direct realization of emptiness or something. I’m like, yeah. Right.

And it just goes on and on about what it feels like that it’s just this thing that you always thought existed isn’t there at all. Okay? So that’s all that you’re perceiving during the direct realization of emptiness. No conventional phenomena at all. Okay?

So that’s the path of seeing. And then the next, the path of meditation slash habituation, because remember, this is this word that means to habituate. You’re getting used to that by meditating on emptiness directly. Right? Because now you don’t have to just meditate on it intellectually.

You’re able to have the direct realization. So during the next path, you’re using that direct realization of emptiness to chip away at your karma and your afflictions. So, from the first moment of the path of seeing, you can no longer create any more new negative karma. That’s a really big deal. But you still have the imprints of the disturbing emotions, still have all the old negative karma that you’ve already created.

So, through meditating on emptiness over and over over again, you’re gradually purifying your karma and your afflictions. We call those the obscurations of the defilements. So for the first and you’ll see in in your chart, we’ve got ten grounds or levels. Right? Those are the little kind of vertical squares.

Here, you’ve got the path of seeing right here and the first ground. Okay? And then you’re going through these ten levels. For the first seven levels, you’re eliminating the obscurations to liberation or the obscurations of the defilements otherwise known as karma and delusions. Right?

So that’s what’s being eliminated through the direct realization of emptiness. You’re going into it over and over and over again. You go through those stages. At the end of the seventh stage, you’re liberated. Now you’re on the Bodhisattva track so it doesn’t mean nirvana and it doesn’t mean you’re done.

It just means no more Samsaric rebirth. So that’s your second permanent cessation. You know, at the end of the seventh ground, permanent cessation of any possibility of being reborn in saṃsāra anymore. Right? Because through the meditation on emptiness, no more disturbing emotions and karma that would create the cause for a Samsāra rebirth.

Those have been purified from that path. So that happens even before enlightenment. Right? See that at the very bottom, liberation from Samsāra. Then the last three bhūmis or grounds, the obscurations to omniscience are eliminated.

And what this is talking about is very very subtle propensities or stains of seeing things as self existent that is preventing you from omniscience. Remember yesterday we said only a Buddha can see conventional ultimate truth simultaneously. This is prevented by these very subtle stains. So even these very high level Bodhisattvas can’t yet see conventional and ultimate truth at the same time. They can’t see the emptiness and the conventional truth.

So they’re still going in and out of meditation in order to see emptiness. They have this obstacle called the obscurations to omniscience. Then at the end of the third of the higher ground, so the tenth ground, we have the path of no more learning, otherwise known as Buddhahood. And it’s called the path of no more learning. Nothing else left to do.

You’re done. You’re cooked. You’re a Buddha. Finished with the path. Okay?

So enlightenment. So even though it’s called a path, it’s really the end, you know, the end of of the five paths. So there’s nothing more to be done during that one. You have all the qualities of the Buddha. So, again, that happens also during deep meditation.

Go into meditation as a tenth level Bodhisattva. Get up out of meditation as a Buddha. Finished with the path. Okay? So those are the five paths.

So yeah. Sarah. Yeah. No. All of these and it’s kind of a long story and a little bit too much to get into but all of the ten grounds, that’s a whole kind of course of study exactly what’s happening at each of these.

These all correspond to what we call the ten perfections. So we usually talk about the six perfections and you see the first six are generosity, ethics, patience, effort, concentration, wisdom. So we say that during each of these stages, you attain a special ability. You perfect the perfection. You know, yesterday, we said it’s perfecting and then the the actual perfection.

You reach perfection of each of them at the end of that stage and that’s when you move to the next one. So aspirational prayer is what’s perfected at that level of prayer, you know, and we say that a Buddha’s actions are determined by the prayers that they made while they were on the path. So your prayer is perfected, you know, becomes as effective as it could possibly be because it’s a huge thing for determining your actions as a Buddha. And in fact, the different enlightened beings sometimes we say the way that they manifest is dependent on the prayers that they made while they were on the path and how to benefit beings. Like the Medicine Buddhas made special prayers to be effective for beings in the degenerate age, which is the age that we’re in.

So through their aspirational prayers, it gives force to their activity after their enlightenment. So that’s what’s happening. That’s what that’s referring to. And it’s cool to really study. This is called Sublime Paths and Grounds and it’s a course of study that you can get really into the details of everything that’s happening, you know, all the nuances of what’s happening in terms of your realization during all of those ten stages.

Yeah. But, that’s kind of what it’s about. Yeah. Well, exactly! Oh, that’s great.

No, it’s true. It’s true because, you know, it’s even more important than that Samsāra example. It’s how are you going to manifest your enlightened activity? You know? Yeah.

Yeah. And it’s true. It’s true. And and there’s all these stories saying, oh, this is why a Buddha, you know, emanates and manifests in this way because of the aspirational prayer. Because then the energy for rebirth isn’t due to karma delusion anymore.

It’s due to your aspirational prayers. That’s what provides the momentum then for that activity. So it is really important. So don’t waste your aspiration prayers on you know, make them as expansive and all encompassing and specific as possible. Yeah.

So questions about the five paths? Yes, Bill. Yes. Yeah. Well, how Explain more about where your question is coming from.

Yeah. Oh, you mean, are the ten You’re practicing all of them simultaneously, but you perfect the perfection of generosity happens at the culmination of the first path. So you’re you’re we’re practicing, in fact, all of the perfections, hopefully, from just about here on the chart. But it’s only here that you have the absolute perfection of generosity like no for generosity, it would be absolutely no holding back at all. Not a shred of miserliness whatsoever.

Absolutely anything that anybody wants from you, you know, no holding back at all. That’s what we call the perfection of generosity. But, yeah, you’re absolutely right. You’re practicing all of them, but it’s kind of sequential in terms of which one is actually reaching its perfection at each stage. Yeah.

That’s right. That’s right. That’s right. So each of them yeah. Yeah.

Because it it sort of goes from easier to harder. You know, that’s the that’s sort of why this the perfections are set up in the order that they are is and the merit from things like generosity create the spiritual momentum for you to be able to develop things like concentration. Right? So some of the first ones are huge in terms of accumulation of merit and actually create this spiritual momentum. You need a tremendous amount of merit to be able to see emptiness directly.

You need a tremendous amount of merit to develop single pointed concentration. You need that momentum from your first perfections. Ethics, generosity, patience. Right? So that’s there’s that relationship too.

They’re dependent on the stores of merit of the first perfections. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It could be, Right?

Because if they’ve had and we would explain like, one way of explaining that would be, you know, people sort of naturally very generous or it’s very easy. We would say maybe they have some, you know, past karmic imprints from past lives that they’ve been working on that in the past. So, yeah, it could be that they, you know, it’s much quicker for them because we say, you know, if you have you know, for a lot of us, we have done even though I say, you know, we’re kind of over here but probably, if you’re in this room, you have some karmic connection with this path, you’ve done work in your past lives so it may be that you find that some things come a lot easier for you than others in terms of your practice, in terms of the perfections. You know, you feel like you already have a lot of natural loving kindness. It’s harder for you to meditate on emptiness or vice versa, you know, or emptiness like a lot of people.

The first time they hear about it, it just feels like they’re hearing something that they’re already really familiar with and they’re able to pick up on it. So all of that would be due to some kind of past life imprint. I always think, Western people in a place like Adelaide, you know, you had to have some kind of past life imprint. It’s hard to find a path like Buddhism. Like, you really have to seek it out.

You know? It’s not like the way that we were raised or something that’s just underfoot. You know? It’s hard. I mean, the Masonic building on Fisher Street in, like, suburban you know, you had to really put some energy in and I think that proves that you have some past life connection.

So, yeah, for a lot of people, I find, you know, when we all kind of to each other, it’s sort of like, oh, wow. That really seemed familiar. You know, you study something and you go, wow. That came really easily. It just feels like whereas for some other people, it’s kind of a struggle.

So I think that’s it’s because of that. I do I think that now, to call it a perfection, we say it has to be conjoined with the at least an intellectual understanding of emptiness. So, you know, did somebody like Mother Teresa, incredible holy being, but was perfection, her generosity? We would say only if she had it conjoined with, you know, the correct view of the nature of reality according to Buddhism. We would definitely say she practiced generosity and, I think, highly realized being for sure.

But we call it a perfection if it’s conjoined with that world view. Yeah. Yeah. Good question. So five paths?

Clear ish? Alright. Alright. So let’s go back to the sūtra. So next phrases.

Therefore so we’re at the very bottom of page one. Therefore, Sharipu now some commentators say that every time Avalokiteśvara says Śāriputra’s name, we’re kicking up to the next level. So that’s a clue, a code. So the first Śāriputra Śāriputra, any noble son or noble daughter, the beginning part of his answer was the path of accumulation and preparation, pre ārya, pre direct realization of emptiness. So he’s giving us instruction on how to meditate on those two paths.

Now with therefore, Shariputratra, we’re at the path of seeing. Alright? So therefore, Shariputratra, all phenomena are emptiness. They’re without defining characteristics. They’re not born.

They do not cease. They’re not defiled. They’re not undefiled. They’re not deficient, not complete. So the pace starts to pick up, doesn’t it?

Now it’s already getting more intense, isn’t it? Right? So that’s what’s happening at the path of seeing and this is the huge turning point. So what he’s saying is he’s describing the characteristics of phenomena saying they’re all empty and again, all phenomena are emptiness. Again, we’re doing that provocative thing of juxtaposing the positive thing and the negative thing like we did before.

They’re not without defining characteristics. Is that literally true? Do things have defining characteristics? Sure. Conventionally.

But not from their own side. So from this point on, we start adding this phrase from its own side. Okay? So no defining characteristics from its own side. That’s one level of what’s happening here.

What’s another level of what’s happening here? We’re at the path of seeing the ārya bodhisattva in that meditation. Are they seeing defining characteristics? That’s right. So it’s taught so there’s two levels.

From this point out, we’re talking about emptiness, theoretically, the, you know, characteristics of emptiness, and we’re also describing what’s happening in that meditation. So this is very cool. So we’re at the path of seeing. In that meditation, that Ārya Bodhisattva is not seeing any defining characteristics. So in that meditation, no defining characteristics at all.

Okay? And also, in emptiness, there are no defining characteristics because things don’t have defining characteristics from their own side. The glass is not a glass from its own side because of its defining characteristics independent of my conceptual imputation. Right? So we can’t say, and the school that’s just slightly lower than the middle way consequence school, the middle way autonomy school thinks that there are defining characteristics from their own side.

Remember that was the example I gave yesterday. Glass? Come on. Right? They’re defining characteristics making it a glass from its own side.

So it’s fifty percent I’m imputing but fifty percent is hinting that it’s a glass from its own side. That’s the lower very next level but the middle way consequence is like, uh-uh. No defining characteristics intrinsically from their own side at all. Mere imputation, in dependence on the valid basis, what makes it valid, function, consensus, and continuity. Okay?

So that’s what this is saying and it’s saying that Ārya Bodhisattva is not perceiving any characteristics, any defining characteristics, just a mere absence. They’re not born, they do not cease from their own side and the Bodhisattva is also not seeing any arising in cessation because they ain’t seeing anything but emptiness. So this only applies to produced functioning things. Emptiness is not a produced thing. It’s one of those permanent unchanging things.

So no arising, no cessation of that. Okay? They’re not defiled and they’re not undefiled from their own side. And some commentaries say when we get to this point of not defiled, not undefiled, they’re also talking about the path. We’re not defiled from our own side.

We don’t have karma and delusions somehow inherently. It’s a result of dependent arising of causes and conditions. And we don’t become undefiled inherently without the path, right? So, this is also referring to the path and the defilements. You know, we don’t have them inherently, thank goodness.

They’re removable in dependence, right, on causes and conditions on the path. They’re not deficient, they’re not complete, also refers to the path. We’re not deficient of enlightened qualities intrinsically. That’s a dependent arising. The fact that we’re not Buddhas is a dependent arising.

It’s not in any way inherent and when we become Buddhas, that’s also a dependent arising. So we’re not not complete, not deficient, and not complete inherently. It’s a dependent arising. So this is also indicating the path side, saying, our path to enlightenment is all a dependent arising. Our enlightenment is dependent arising.

Our saṃsāra is dependent arising. It’s all empty of inherent existence. And in that direct realization of emptiness, the Ārya Bodhisattva isn’t perceiving any of this stuff. Just the empty pizza box thing. Right?

The mere absence, that’s all that’s happening. Okay? So is that clear? So that’s referring to the path of seeing. So like I said, it gets intense.

It starts speeding up and it’s talking about what’s happening to that Ārya Bodhisattva in that direct realization of emptiness. None of those things are appearing and then the other side is just saying all of them equally empty of inherent existence. So, any questions? Yes, Sarah. Complete.

Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. No. It could No. It could be something that I I’m not familiar with that.

Oh. Yeah. I don’t know. I’m not familiar with that with that. Mm-mm.

Yeah. I’m not familiar with that. But it could be. It could definitely relate to looking at yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Because one of the, kind of, one of well, I had this wrong view and a lot of people do in the beginning. You kind of think that Buddhahood has some extra qualities that’s kind of more inherently something or other. Right? And this is saying even Buddhahood, even the culmination of the path isn’t inherently existent.

Because in the beginning, used to think, oh, well, enlightenment and Buddhahood, that’s something, you know, special. No. Equally empty of inherent existence, just like everything else is. So that’s what this is emphasizing. We get into it a little bit more also later on in the sūtra.

So even perfection is a dependent arising. Even completion and, you know, having all enlightened qualities, totally dependent arising, completely empty of inherent existence. Okay? Okay. It’s getting cool, isn’t it?

So, next page. We’re actually turning the page for the first time this weekend. Woo hoo. Therefore, Śāriputra. So, what’s happening?

New stage. Okay? New stage. In emptiness, there is no form, no feelings, perceptions, no mental formations, and no consciousness. So what are we reviewing here?

But what are we reviewing when we say there’s no form, no feeling, no perception? The five skandhas. Right? So he’s reiterating. We had those before and we’re reiterating that in the path of meditation, those also are being meditated on again.

Right? And what else are we meditating on? No eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body and no mind. Where’s poor Judy? She was freaking out at this point.

And don’t you all feel so much better about it? Because you know to add the phrase from its own side, don’t you? And that’s a lot less scary, isn’t it, than just thinking it’s some nihilistic black hole. So somebody talk to Judy compassion and action group and explain it to her. Okay.

So no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, and no mind. Why this list of stuff? What’s this all about? Why didn’t he say no hula hoops and no soy lattes and no chocolate tarts? Yeah.

Remember I said before, what is Lord Buddha shoving our face in over and over and over again? What gets us in trouble? Yeah. And every every sense consciousness that we have, we’re misperceiving every object of our sense and mental consciousness. So that’s why in this next one, what he’s getting into is what we call the twelve Ayatanas and I have no idea where I am in terms of my foot chart.

Here we go. Here we are. So this next list, the twelve sources, the Sanskrit is Ayatanas, the sense powers and the sense objects. So he says, no ear, no eye, no ear, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind. So those are referring to the sense powers.

Now it doesn’t mean the eyeball. It means the sense faculty or sense power that’s more subtle than that. It means everything physically that enables you to have an eye consciousness. So it’s the rods and cones. It’s the visual cortex.

It’s that potential to have a visual consciousness. You need the sense organ or the sense power. Sense power is the physical part of the sense consciousness part of it. That’s the consciousness that arises as a result. We haven’t quite gotten there yet.

So this list, the first list, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, mind and then we have the list of the six objects of those senses. There is no form, no sound, no smell, no taste, no texture, and no mental objects. So those two sentences are the twelve sources or the twelve Ayatanas. And again, Lord Buddha is giving us that list because it’s emphasizing. Remember we said yesterday, contact gives rise to feeling.

Feeling plus ignorance equals saṃsāra, a disturbing emotion, karma, etcetera. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes this is translated as gateways or doorways because with every contact with an object, the sense power in the object, we get zillions of moments of sense con so we it’s like a doorway or a gateway for this proliferation.

The both of these, the twelve sources are called the gateway or the doorway because we need with the coming together of those two things, it’s like a gateway or doorway for this proliferation of all of this sense data coming in. Okay? And I mentioned visual just because we’re visual we’re so sort of it’s so compelling for us, you know, so I always use the example of visual, but obviously, it’s true for all of the other ones too. Yeah, Michael. Yeah, this very subtle we haven’t quite gotten to the mental consciousness yet.

We’re talking about the mind. But what we say goes from life to life to life is a very, very subtle mental consciousness carrying the karmic imprints. But it’s not permanent, it’s not independent, it’s not unitary like the Ātman idea. It’s changing moment by moment by moment. It’s a continuum of consciousness.

It’s eternal, but not permanent in the sense of unchanging. Oh, yeah. Oh, that’s right. Exactly. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That’s right. And they say, actually, I think you and I were talking about this yesterday. You’re only guaranteed a really optimum rebirth with all of the conditions to continue your spiritual path after you’re an ārya.

So you’re really young and you’re smart. You can do it in this life. So you should. That’s your mandate for me. But it’s true.

You know, it’s true. We can. It is possible. You know, you’ve got all of the component parts. All you need to do is develop single point of concentration, study emptiness really well, meditate on it really hard, get huge amounts of merit and it’s totally possible.

Exactly. Yeah. But you totally can and it’s the only guarantee because otherwise there’s no guarantee until well, actually the third stage of the path preparation that we’re not gonna have lower realm rebirth. Ārya Bodhisattvas are always born in the perfect condition to be able to just speed along on the spiritual path. So that’s part of the preciousness of our opportunity in the first meditation we always do in the Lam Rim is the precious human rebirth to get us really excited about the chance that we have and it really, you know, makes you not so into watching all the Leave It To Beaver reruns on television.

It’s kind of like we’ve got, you know, we’re living on Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, we need to, you know, we need to relax. We don’t want to just get neurotic about it.

But really, you think about the fact that the hourglass is turned upside down and the sand is running out for all of us. As one of my first meditation teachers said, it’s like we jumped out of the plane without the parachute already. It’s just a matter of time. Splat. And we do have incredible fortune.

Everybody in this room, absolutely no question, has a precious human rebirth and unless we try and use it as much as we possibly can. And we have to be careful because Western people, we have this tendency to be guilty and Calvinist and do the renunciation bread and water thing. It’s the path is meant to be joyful, but we’re meant to have that energy for it appreciating. Oh my god. Like, since beginning of the sun, this is our perfect opportunity.

We have all the teachings that we need, not one thing missing. We have teachers like His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, showing up in Australia, like, every year. I mean, how crazy is that? There’s no excuse, really. And it’s just a wonderful, incredible opportunity that was hard won.

It takes a tremendous amount of merit to have the kind of life that we have. If we spend it just eating gelato and going to the beach, it’s ridiculous, you know? So that’s my little rave about the precious human rebirth. Yes. Yep.

That’s right. That’s right. And at the higher levels, we say even before full enlightenment, the higher level bodhisattvas can have emanation bodies. So they can be reborn. Even before enlightenment, you can emanate in different forms.

You know? So, yeah, they could choose. We’re just talking about uncontrolled rebirth. So they could choose to be reborn in any situation in hell realms and so forth. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. I’m getting so excited. I’ve forgotten where we are. Okay.

The twelve twelve Ayatanas, the twelve sources. Okay? So that’s why Lord Buddha is talking about these, all of them, same as we had before for the path of seeing, all of them equally empty of inherent existence, and the Bodhisattva in that meditation isn’t seeing any of these at all. So no sense objects are appearing at that point. Remember, just the mere absence.

And then the next list is what we call the eighteen elements or the eighteen dhatus. And this is truncated. So, no eye element and so on, up to no mind element including up to no element of mental consciousness. So that sentence covers eighteen things in code. So what he’s saying is, no eye element.

So we’ve got the eighteen we usually call them elements. Elements. Which includes all of our previous twelve plus the consciousnesses that correspond to each of those. Okay? So what we’ve got going on here, we’ve got a eye consciousness.

Sorry. I can’t write well when I’m standing up. Ear consciousness. I’ll just put ditto marks. So for each of these, what’s happening is we got that sense power meeting with the object and then a sense consciousness arises as a result of that.

So with the eye sense power meeting with the visual form, we have an eye consciousness arising. For with the ear sense power meeting with the object of the sound, we get an auditory consciousness. So the eighteen elements in this next sentence is saying, from there’s no eye element up to no mind element up to no mental consciousness element all the way down here. So we’re including everything. And that happens to be all existing things.

Right? This is the Buddha’s list of everything that exists is one of these eighteen things. You can’t think of any existing thing that isn’t one of these eighteen. Okay? So the eighteen dhatus or eighteen elements includes all existing things and again emphasizing one more time what gets us in trouble.

We’re having sense contact all the time, mental, you know, thoughts all the time and with ignorance thinking that it all exists from its own side, generating attachment, aversion, jealousy. We have contact with the object. We see the object is self existent. It’s attractive from its own side. You know, the new partner, absolutely attractive from their own side.

No question about it. Inherently attractive. And so all this attachment arises. Right? So that’s what gets us in trouble and that’s what drives saṃsāra and that’s why the Buddha’s giving these lists instead of some other list.

I mean, he could say anything else, but he’s saying all phenomena equally empty of inherent existence, and this is what gets us in trouble. Ignorance plus sense contact is what drives Samsāra because we see all those objects are is existing exactly in the way that they appear to us. We don’t see that we’re filtering it with our karma and our mental images. I mean, you ever had that, like, one person and you’re talking about them and, like, they’re your new best friend, and then you’ve got another mutual friend that’s like, god, that guy is so annoying, and you’re like, are we even talking about the same person? Like, you just see somebody completely differently than the other person does.

That’s the proof. You know, if they were inherently a jerk or inherently prince charming from their own side, everybody would see them the same, but they don’t. You know? But we don’t know that. We think that everything exists in exactly the way that it appears, and that’s our basic ignorance, including us.

You know? It’s like everything and especially us. Lama Yeshe apparently used to have a mantra who would say, question appearances, question appearances, question appearances because we don’t. We believe in things existing exactly the way that they appear to us. So Lord Buddha is saying, guess what?

All of it, equally empty of inherent existence, all the eighteen elements, which includes everything that exists. Okay? So he’s just emphasizing the source of all of our problems. And none of these things appear during the direct realization of emptiness. Okay?

So for the Bodhisattva, we’re still on the path of meditation. So what’s happening in the path of seeing is we’re meditating on personal selflessness. Then on the path of meditation, when we keep going into that meditation, we apply that understanding we had about ourselves to everything else. So we’re taking as the object of our meditation everything equally lacking in inherent existence, exactly the same way that we are lacking in inherent existence. So that’s what’s happening, and that’s why we get the whole list of everything else.

Lord Buddha is saying, during the path of meditation, we’re taking as the object all other existing things, namely the eighteen elements, And we’re applying the same logic and the same meditation to those. Okay? Are we good? We good, Bill? Alright.

Let’s have a tea break. And then we’ll finish the sūtra. I promise. We’ve only got like a page and a half to go. It’s gonna be fine.

Alright. So, let’s take a twenty minute break. Let’s come back at five minutes after three. And as you can see, we’re applying what we’ve learned to all other existing things and that’s the rest of the sūtra and Lord Buddha explaining what’s happening at every stage. Okay?

So we’ll finish.