It looks like those little suns are really popular, the orange ones, around the oranges. Apple pie? Do you need one? Well, I'd like to announce that, once again, that next Thursday, even though it's Thanksgiving, I'll be here. And I've heard that some other people will be here. And just, you know, I'm following my early training, which was, we did these things on holidays, too. And it kind of, if you need one, you know, it gives you an excuse to kind of drop out of your family gathering. Or if you don't have a family gathering, you have no friends.

[01:03]

You have nothing to do on Thanksgiving, then this gives you a chance to get together with a few kind of simpatico people. Have a quiet, you know, more or less pleasant evening without the, you know, in place of, you know, what might have been a family gathering in that case. So in either event, or whatever event, some of us will be here and you're all welcome. So that's my announcement for tonight. Does anybody else have any announcements? Right, requests? So, as I mentioned earlier, the subject for this evening is wisdom, wisdom in the Buddhist context.

[02:27]

I think sometimes, you know, that people kind of wonder, and I certainly wondered when, earlier on, when I was learning about Buddhism, it's kind of like, well, what's it good for? It all, you know, it sounds kind of like, well, it doesn't, you know, exactly sound like that useful, you know, this Buddhist wisdom stuff. You know, like, I mean, I certainly came to Buddhism with some idea that if I practice Buddhism, I'll get more of the good things and fewer of the worse things. I mean, doesn't that make sense that I ought to be, you know, that spiritual practice ought to be good for something like that? You know, like you can accumulate more of the nice ones and then get rid of more of the bad ones? Something like that, or you could, you know, you could ward off disease and ill health and traumatic experiences, you know, with kind of your magical wand of, you know, Buddhist practice. Anyway, once you practice for, you know, more than about six months, you get, usually it takes at most six to eight months to get disabused of the notion that Buddhism would be good for that.

[03:42]

Sort of thing. You know, there's a certain dissolution that sits in after six to eight months that maybe it's not all that good for what I thought it was going to be good for. But these kind of ideas keep continuing, you know, in their own little subtle way. That, well, maybe it's not good for quite what I thought it was, but it still must be good for something, some way. You know, somebody asked the Dalai Lama once, you know, I've been practicing for a number of years, how long do I have to practice before I begin to notice some results or, you know, good effects from my spiritual practice? And apparently the Dalai Lama thought about it for a while and he said, well, you should wait at least ten years. And, but you might have to wait twenty. But to really see the effect, you should look over several lifetimes.

[04:44]

But if you just look at the Dalai Lama, who's, you know, from all that we can tell, has been practicing over several lifetimes. You know, and in this lifetime still, he got kicked out of his country and his country got overrun with the Chinese, etc., etc., you know. And he still had to endure all that in spite of his lifetimes of, you know, intensely devoted practice. So, it's a little, it's not, you know, exactly clear in that sense then what Buddhist wisdom is good for, but we'll kind of, I'll try to kind of, you know, give you some kind of clue about it, a few little suggestions or ideas about what it might be good for. But it doesn't seem to have the kind of all-encompassing power or capacity that we'd like it to have. I mean, basically, it would be really nice if we could have more control over our body, mind, and life, and experiences.

[05:58]

And that would be really nice. And that, you know, that all of our wishful thinking could in some way come true. And that we wouldn't, you know, I mean, I still find this, you know, I find it sometimes, I don't know, you know, it's the littlest things. You know, I put something down on the table, but, you know, it's on a piece of paper, and it turns out there's some little thing underneath it, and it's a cup of tea, and I let go of it, and it falls over. You know, and it's sort of like, can't that teacup try a little bit harder to kind of, I try hard, you know, to be there for other people and do these various things. I try hard, can't the teacup try a little bit harder to not fall over under these trying circumstances? I mean, you know, I would think that, you know, because of my spiritual practice, things like this would, you know, little things anyway, maybe not the big things, but how about a few little things like this?

[07:00]

But even at that level, you know, it doesn't seem like teacups try particularly harder to remain upright. And there's all kinds of, every day I have little things that happen to me like this, you know. So, but it would be, that's the kind of thing that would be really nice, you know, if Buddhism could do this in some way, but it doesn't seem to work like that. And, you know, people still insult you, and, you know, they don't seem to notice that you've been practicing spiritual practice all those years. You know, they're not, you know, they're not bowing down at your feet. You know, whatever you might have thought that Buddhism could do, it doesn't happen. Anyway, to come back to these three, you know, that wisdom in a certain classical, traditional sense, in early Buddhism, wisdom can be, is this seeing clearly these three marks, that all conditioned existence has these three marks. Okay, impermanence, suffering, and no-self.

[08:06]

So, no-self, that's a shorthand, or emptiness. And we'll talk more, you know, I'm going to get to that. But I'm going to go through briefly the first two again, that the impermanence, whatever comes into existence goes out of existence. And we can look at these three marks of conditioned existence, there's also something known as the four perverted views, or four, you know, perverted is a cursive translation, so it's the four upside-down views. So, these, this wisdom is, from that point of view, intended as an antidote for these four upside-down views that we tend to have as people, you know, human beings. Okay, so they're just the opposites of these things, basically, that we tend to look to establish some permanence in our life. Where, where it's essentially impossible to establish that permanence. So what we set out to establish the permanence.

[09:10]

You know, whether it's a nice place to live, a permanent relationship, continuing good health, a continuing positive mind, a mind that we like. We set out to continue, to keep going and generating a mind, a body, a being, a self that we like, that I like, it's the one I want. So we set out to have this permanent, ongoing kind of thing happen, and, but Buddhism says, but that's not possible to do, see. But we set out to do it. We have the idea, since we don't look very closely at what's really possible and what's not possible, we set out to establish permanence. And secondly, we set out to establish what is, what could be called ease, a condition, a situation of ease. Again, in the universe where, which, where this isn't possible, where inherently the condition of life, there's something missing, there's some gap.

[10:13]

There's some, at least, you know, the uncertainty of the fact that things are changing, there's always that uncertainty. We don't know what will happen next, and there's a little, always a little anxiety about that. And so that, just inherently, there's a little kind of underlying anxiety there. But you can see how, how this searching for some permanence and searching for some ease, and the situation not making that possible, but it, but our problem will be accentuated when we set out to do that. Right? I mean, the more we try to have permanence where we can't have permanence, the more we're aware of this kind of problem, the more frustrating it is. You have your heart set on establishing permanence, and then it's even more devastating when it turns out it's not permanent, and we lose something that we really wanted to keep. So, partly this wisdom is so that we don't set out with such an inaccurate idea in the first place, right?

[11:22]

Okay, does that make sense? So the third one, the third mark is known as emptiness, that things are empty of own being. This includes, you know, person, and it includes objects and things and so on. And I think the simplest way I know to talk about this is to, you know, take something like, you know, take one of the dates, right? And if a date, you know, if we look at what was your experience of eating the date, does the date have a particular nature? Well, when you eat it, actually many things can happen, maybe most of the time you have a pleasant experience. But if you're already full, and you eat the date, it wouldn't be as pleasant as when you were hungry and you ate the date. So what's the nature of the date? Is the date pleasant, or is it unpleasant?

[12:29]

What's the date? So, the thing is that the experience that we have of a date is going to be very different moment after moment, depending on, you know, so many different conditions and factors. So, we can't say that particularly that a date has... And probably, you know, if you ate something bitter first and then you ate the date, it would taste even sweeter. And there are things that would be sweeter than a date if you ate the date after that, it wouldn't taste as sweet. So in one sense, yes, we can say there's kind of factors, you know, but it's all variable. You know, the experience of what is a date, our experience of that changes depending on, you know, whether we're hungry or not hungry or... And, you know, Buddhism even says it depends initially on the fact that you have a body, you have to be alive. Otherwise, you don't get any experience of a date.

[13:31]

But, you know, so many things in our life, we think that it's inherent in the object. So, if you want sweetness in your life, you have to get the date. Because the sweetness is in the date. Or, you know, if you see a painting you like, and you go, and you were in a museum or you were in a gallery and you see a painting you like, and you have some special experience. It's a very powerful experience. So, can you buy the painting and take it home and then have that experience day after day the rest of your life? Probably not. So, was that experience in the painting or was it in you? So, we tend to, whether it's a painting or a date or a thought or a feeling or an idea, we tend to think that whatever that brings to us is in the object.

[14:39]

We don't acknowledge our own participation in the event and all the factors that are going on. So, in other words, Buddhism says that the date is not just a date, but the date is everything coming into existence together. So, the date comes into existence with the consciousness and an eye seeing the date, or with a mouth and sense organ of taste and awareness tasting the date. And so, all those things arise together, and then we call that date. But we don't say, that's consciousness, we don't say it's sense organ, we just say, that's date. So, in this way we get computed, because we do the same thing, you know, with the feeling. When we say the feeling, you know, this anger, and then this anger makes me angry, or this depression depresses me. It does that to me.

[15:42]

And so, in this way we give objects, by giving objects their own being, and positing them to be independent from us, then we give them this power over our life, over our mind. Sure. Thank you. I don't like that.

[16:46]

No, it's fine. It's just noise. It's going off. It's just noise. Yeah. Well, I've been talking about form is emptiness, and the next expression is, emptiness is form. So, the form, it's true, there is a form of things. There is continuity. And at the same time, when we look at it from a different perspective,

[17:52]

there's not exactly something there that we can get hold of and pin down moment after moment. So, there'll be moments in our life when, in a certain sense, the teaching isn't there. We forget all about all the Buddhist teaching we've ever heard. So, the teaching is something that is alive in each one of us when it's alive in us. And in a certain sense, that means that when we receive our experience as though it was a teaching, then the teaching is alive in us. But there are times in our life when we go, Hey, forget this. No, I didn't want this. I'm not interested in this. I'm not going to have anything to do with this. This couldn't in any way be a teaching.

[18:54]

But then we might look at that experience the next moment and say, Well, that's an interesting teaching. Look at the way I was just looking at things. So, both are true. You know, the appearance of continuity and permanence, and then the lack of there being something really there, continuing moment after moment, in a real way. And yet, it's continuing in a real way. So, that's the way it goes. I've tried to...

[20:03]

Well, anyway... It seems to me like a stream. Yeah, you could describe it as a stream. It's a flow, and it's not going to be exactly the same. So, it's not going to be exactly the same. You can't cross the same river for it. Right. That's the way I experience the teaching, that goes back, as Peter said, about 2,500 years. It's a stream. It comes from ancient sources. You can still hear the contact. Well, if we look at ourselves, oneself, or if we look at somebody else, you know, I talked about this a little bit a few weeks ago, but it's very tempting to sum up oneself or somebody else. We know as though we knew who we were,

[21:04]

or who somebody else was. Somebody is a difficult person, or somebody is a friendly person, and then we decide. And then, on the basis of that, we treat them that way. On the basis of what we've experienced and concluded, then we treat myself or somebody else as though that were true. But as we know, I'm not always this kind of person. I'm not always the difficult person. Somebody else isn't always a friendly person. What we act as though, it's always true. And then we take a lot... And because it's so hard for us to change our belief, right, how do we ever get enough evidence to change our thought about who I am or who somebody else is? How will we ever get enough evidence? And so, from that point of view,

[22:04]

it's like I was saying earlier, in a certain sense. From that point of view, then, you know, it's one of my favorite passages in Japanese Sokura Zen. It's Dogen's passage about, he says, someone gets in a boat, and goes out in the ocean until there's no land in sight. He looks around, and the ocean looks circular. As far as the eye can see. Here's the horizon. But he says the ocean isn't just circular or square. In addition to the apparent circularity and angularity, there are infinite characteristics which we just don't happen to observe right now. In other words, the ocean doesn't have a fixed nature. Some days we're going to see a stormy ocean, and other days a calm ocean. And the ocean is going to appear differently to different creatures. And when we're in a boat on the ocean,

[23:09]

it's one experience, and when we're bobbing up and down and about to drown, it's another experience. To be sure. And so, Dogen says that when you... Yes, there's a certain... You may have a particular awareness of the ocean right now, but in addition to that, the characteristics that you presently observe, you should remind yourself that the ocean is boundless. Infinite characteristics and boundless virtue. That you're just not aware of right now. And this is true also of each one of us. So this is, you know... I'd rather... You know, I like this way of talking about emptiness because it's rather poetic and graphic. And it's very simple in that sense. You know that when we come to some tentative conclusion, this is the way it is. There's always something else to it.

[24:10]

And yet, we have to act on the basis of our knowledge as it presently is. At the same time, acknowledge that there's something greater than that. There's more to it than that. So if we always treat a friendly person as though they were friendly, they might surprise us someday and hurt us. And it might be... You know, what is that expression? You know, you get betrayed. But that's partly our own... You know, our own looking at things and taking it at face value and not understanding that there's more to it than that. The betrayal is just that we didn't look back carefully. And so in that sense, you know, it's kind of like as we go through life, we're pretty much bound to have various betrayals. And people and things will betray us and our own bodies and minds betray us. And it's part of what happens.

[25:11]

It's part of our becoming aware of this kind of truth, that there's more to it than what we just saw today, right now. So from the point of view of the upside-down views, when we try to establish some permanent existence or self or being where there isn't one, and we think as though there is this kind of existence. So part of this is also pointing out that, you know, for each one of us, our own natures in Buddhism, sometimes referred to particularly in Zen Buddhism,

[26:13]

you know, we each have what is called Buddha nature. And Buddha nature means we don't have an inherent nature. And we can't really say that I'm a greedy person or I'm a hateful person, and that's it. Or I'm a depressed person, I'm a miserable person, I'm a shy person, I'm a great person, I'm a wonderful person. But that our nature is no fixed nature. So this is what it means, Buddha nature. So in one sense, you know, this should be, this is at least in one sense meant to be kind of a relay, right? Because otherwise we tend to think, well, I'm this kind of person and now I have to set out, you know, I'm not a very good person, so now I'm going to have to do all these good things

[27:15]

to show myself in the world that I really am a good person. I'm going to have to get other people convinced of this and then have them convince me of it. You know, if I can convince enough people out there that I'm really a lovable person, then, you know, maybe they can convince me that it's all right to have it. You know, that I don't have to go on in some way rejecting myself. Yeah, that would be a way to look at it. And then there's also ways that nobody's seen this yet. Right? So we're at least as many as, you know, the others who see us. Yeah, depending on the relationship and then, you know, you yourself.

[28:15]

We'll see ourself differently from day to day. But if we think, you know, there's something actually there, it's much more, you know, that there's someone actually there and then, you know, that has these characteristics and then we somehow have to fix this person. Or, you know, we don't have to fix the person. Either way, if you think there's something there and you have to fix it or you don't have to fix it, you've got a certain kind of problem. Because if you have to fix it, how are you ever going to change your idea? How do you get enough evidence? And if you don't have to fix it, then you go like, hey, I'm fine, what's your problem? And this will tend to lead to, you know, in the long run at least, to disharmonious relationships. In the short run you'll find you can, you know, those kind of people who are really good at that can get together a group of people who agree. You know, yes, I've got a problem. You don't. Tell me what to do.

[29:17]

You know, so that I can, you know, I'll work on my problem. And, see, so then you get those two kinds of people together and they often have sort of like spiritual groups, or even potential movements or something along those lines. At least, again. And then there's things there that, you know, that people may not be experiencing. That's interesting. I'm convinced, though, just as, you know, the analogy with the ocean, that there must be more to it. Because we have such limited senses. Our senses are only, we only experience what we see and smell and taste and touch. I hope that's what it is.

[30:21]

It seems like there must be, you know, more range of possible things than even, you know, that's outside of our senses. Even just in that. And it's mysterious that, you know, we can't, it would be mysterious and hard to say what of what we experience is in the object of what, you know, did it awaken in me. I think this is kind of a different way of thinking, because it's the one that you can do, the one that you can do. But everything you do, you can do it, you can do it. You can do it in a creative way. You can do it in a creative way, can't you? You can't do it in a creative way, can't you? And so it's a very, very, very, very important, you know, quality of your being. Well, this kind of, you know, so wisdom is also intended then as a kind of antidote to

[31:30]

what are considered to be the three roots of unwholesome existence. Unwholesome or painful kind of existence. The three roots, of course, are greed, anger, and delusion. So the basis of the three roots is delusion. The basis of all three is delusion, and the basic delusion is that we can control our state of mind. This is the way I state the basic delusion. We control our mind by controlling the objects. Because, so that way, if you want a particular kind of mind, you go after the object that is going to give you that mind, whether it's a cigarette, or a cup of tea, or a bowl of ice cream, or a person, or a love affair, or, you know, you go after the object out there in the world that is

[32:30]

supposed to provide you with that experience that you wanted. And the other, the opposite of that is you try to get rid of, we try to get rid of the things that we think are the things that we don't want embedded in. So we say to our mental states or our thoughts, you know, get out of here, I don't want you around, I don't like being in this way. And we say that to people, and objects, and sensory experiences that we don't like. Stop. Because you're ruining my state of mind, you're ruining my, you know, well-being. I don't like this. Now obviously, you know, we have to, you know, it makes sense that as a feeling, you know, and a sentient being, so to speak, you know, we're going to have to control what comes in to our experience. Some things are going to come into experience and, you know, would

[33:31]

destroy us if we really let them in. So we should, we need to do this. And yet, you see, the problem is that we get carried away with it. And we take this whole level or sense of what is real to these, to some extreme, and then we set out with this kind of inappropriate strategy, this basic delusion that we could actually do this. So again, to carefully observe one's experience, if you're basically, one is basically seeing what is possible and what's not possible, what is wholesome and what is not wholesome, what I can do and what I can't do. And so it's a little bit like, you know, that what's got to be such a popular expression, God give me the courage to change the things I can change, to accept the things I can't change, and the wisdom to know the difference. So Buddhism has a very similar sense of wisdom, which are the things you can change and which are the things you can't

[34:36]

change. So wisdom is then seen as the basic kind of antidote, seen clearly. It is seen as the basic, the principal antidote to delusion or another, you know, finally all, Buddhism goes back not to sin, but to what is called ignorance, where it's not seeing things clearly, not seeing things carefully. So setting out to do something that can't be done, because we haven't observed carefully enough, setting out to accumulate, to have a mind that I like moment after moment, a mind that's my mind, the one I like to think of as me. And my

[35:40]

experience is when I set out to have that mind moment after moment, something happens to it. And when I was first back from Buddhism, I thought I could do this, I thought I could, you know, I thought the point of Buddhist practice was to maintain the improved mind moment after moment. You know, I mean, I sort of, you know, I think we all sort of do this to some extent, but I'm a certain kind of person, you know, in a certain sense, you know, tentatively speaking, right? I mean, I'm not a real outgoing kind of person, right? Comparatively to other people, generally speaking, I'm not especially outgoing. And so I got, and I kind of like, you know, sitting around, not doing anything, right? And then I found this group of people who were doing just the thing that I liked. Only now it wasn't just

[36:44]

me, you know, but this was Zen. So now to be me is to be Zen. So this is a good feeling. To know that the way I am can now be authorized. It's really the Zen way to be, you know, to be contained and controlled, you know, sort of like what we think of. And then of course, you know, by now I can see that a lot of this sort of thing is not, you know, it's not especially Zen even, it's just sort of Japanese. You know, the idea of Japanese culture that we have, and it's, you know, it's true, you know, no particular outward expression of emotion, right? And just doing things, punching things, interacting with people, but, you know, no outward expression of emotion. And you see all these pictures of, you know, the Zen teachers, you know, this serenity and calm and, you know, they're not disturbed. So I thought, well, that's the way to be, right? So then I tried to make my mind like

[37:45]

that moment after moment, right? How well does it work? So as long as you're kind of strong and on top of it, you know, you've got a chance. But, you know, unfortunately what they do in Zen practice, they make you stay up late and get up early. So there comes a day when you're tired. You're a little too tired to maintain the approved, or what you think of as the ideal mind, or the mind that I should keep and have moment after moment. And then something sneaks in, you know, and you get a little tired, and there's anger, and there's depression, and there's these other things, and they sort of, and the more you set up a mind that is the right one, the good one, the one I want, the Zen one, then the more, whatever you've done, you've set up something to be attacked. And, you know, and then the more when other, you get other experiences, you know, my sense of it is, you know, now I'm suffering a defeat to end up with a mind that I didn't invite. It got me when I was

[38:55]

weak, or tired, or hungry. And then I go, but that's not me. You know, I was overcome with anger. That's not me. So then what do you do? Then you can say, at some point, if you want, you know, what I did for a while was I identified with the anger. That's me. Rather than saying, you know, oh, I'm not an angry person, that's, you know, now I'm, no, then why not identify with the anger, right? That's me. I'm angry. Well, I did that for a while, plus now I'm not. After a while, the teachers start to talk to me. The other students start to talk to me. One day, Suzukuro just said to me, you can be angry if you want, but don't. I thought that was, at first, you know, it was such a relief. I mean, I didn't

[39:59]

want anybody telling me how to be, right? So it was nice that he said, you can be angry if you want. So just when you're relaxing, there's this kind of little, you know, it's a little soft in the stomach or something, and I said, don't. And then after that kind of year, he actually talked to me and he said, you know, this is a monastery, and people have noticed that you're angry. It's disturbing other people. And I said, well, it's disturbing other people. They'll have to learn to live with it, won't they? This is when you don't need to, you know, do anything, you know, that you're okay, you know, all the time. So I said, well, they'll have to get used to it. He said, this is, you know, the point in the monastery, you have to live in peace and harmony with others. You'll have to do something about this. Why do I have to do something about it? They should do something about it. To live in peace and harmony with me.

[41:00]

And I said, you know, I'm just being sincere. If there's anger, you know, I'm going to be angry. And he just didn't get me very far. Pagirishi promised me. If you ever knew Pagirishi, you know, he's in a certain way very soft and he's very sincere. But there's a point where it's very definite. But it's partly that it's so sincere. He said, Ed, I'm giving you a piece of advice. Again, it was kind of like, you can take it or leave it, but I think you probably better take it. It wasn't really like he was threatening to kick me out, you know, if I didn't take it. But I finally consented that probably I could learn something about it. So which are you going to do? Do you identify with the anger that's me? Or do you say, no, that's not me. I was overcome with anger. But neither of those is quite right. Because you're also somebody who's not angry. And somebody who's not identifying

[42:15]

with the anger. You're also somebody who can see who's not either of those people. The person identifying with me, I'm not an angry person. And the person who identifies with the anger, God, it feels great. You know, righteous anger. There's also somebody who's So we're also that person. Well, I think it makes a difference. You know, I don't think either of those is a particularly good strategy. You know, to identify with the person who's not an angry person or to identify with the anger. The more appropriate strategy in the light of seeing that there's

[43:21]

no inherent nature is that you don't identify with being not an angry person. You don't identify with anger. That you don't identify with either of those. From the viewpoint of emptiness or wisdom, it would be appropriate not to identify myself, me, as being either of those. When anger comes along, you relate. You know, then you're in the world of anger and you relate to that. But it doesn't have to do with, I have to get rid of this anger because I'm not an angry person and because I don't want it around. And you're not going, well damn it, I'm going to tell the world how angry I am. And I'm going to make sure that they're aware of it. So, that means that you're not doing either of those things then. And you're finding a kind of more spacious way to have anger which, where you're not involved with that sense of identifying.

[44:21]

Well, there's the Buddhist way and there's the Buddhist way and there's the Buddhist way. I mean, you know, practically speaking, we have to, each one of us, find out for ourselves what to do on the occasion that something is happening. And if we're too involved at that point with, I'm going to do it the Buddhist way. Now, you know, we get into a certain kind of identifying. And a certain kind of, you know, like, am I doing it the Buddhist way? Am I not doing it the Buddhist way? But what about just the way that you do it? I mean, at some point, the Buddhist way should be, has something to do with my real life. So, it has to come back to, you know, my real, deep being. My life. Because if Buddhism isn't about that, you know, I mean, that's what we're trying to find out. And so, at some point, it's, you know, we're, we can say what we want about the Buddhist way to do it, which, you know, we can say, but then I want to be careful and bring it also back to, we're just,

[45:39]

you know, when anger comes, we do our best, you know, to in some sense, you know, make use of it, to be free of it. And, you know, one of the expressions is, to not be turned by it, to turn anger rather than be turned by anger. You know, to not be caught by it in some sense. And that's what we, you know, but however we, you know, we can say that, for each one of us, how would we say that? You know, what do you want to do when anger comes? What would you like to do? What, what is your deep desire to do? Well, I would say something like, I don't want to be caught by it, I don't want to be turned by it, I want to make use of it in some way. And as we were talking last week or so, you know, there's something inherent in anger which is, although it looks at first as a hindrance, there's

[46:40]

something in there that we have, that has, you know, there's some teaching for us if we can make use of it. And if we can meet it in some open and honest way, then there's something there which can help us in our life. But that doesn't happen if we identify with it, with anger, or if we identify with the person who, I never had anger, I'm not going to have anything to do with anger. So we have to find some other way. So after each one of us, we all must find a third party that we like. Not a person that we don't like. I have a certain way that I like. And that is defined by the experience that we have. And you change? Yes. Awesome. Yeah, it's funny isn't it?

[47:45]

Is there another translation for the word emptiness? Because I find that it has a negative connotation. Well, I don't know about exactly, you know, but there's different characters in Chinese or Japanese, some are like, you know, empty sky, or clear sky, or just space. But you could also, the other side of emptiness, as Miriam was pointing out, is that each thing like the paper is everything arising. We're also, we're everything arising. Open the book. Well named. Well, I can't think of any other.

[49:05]

You know, the fuller, the emptiness is a kind of shorthand because it, you know, more accurately means that each phenomena is empty of own being. That, you know, whether it's anger, that anger doesn't actually have a particular nature. You know, that is invariably there. When anger arises, there's no particular thing that's always there. But other than absolutes. So it's kind of like saying there's no absolute. But at some point you have to be careful about that. Well, in a way, all of this is to say that, you know, if we do want to have any peace

[50:29]

in our life, or calmness, or serenity, or equanimity, or tranquility, you know, this cannot be dependent on our control of the phenomena. You know, that we get only the good experiences and not the bad ones, and isn't that great? Now I can be really calm. You know, so in a way this is saying that, you know, if you want calm or tranquility or peacefulness, this is, you're going to have to find it, however disturbing it looks like life is on the surface. And this is some reassurance to say that even though on the surface things may appear to be a particular way, there's still the possibility of some peace and serenity, you know, in your life. Because what the appearance of things, that is not fixed, inherently fixed. You know, because we tend to think that my peace or my calm is dependent on my control of experiences, and then, you know, inherently that means

[51:33]

that we set out to, you know, get the good experiences and not have the bad ones, and then that kind of, you know, there's a kind of tightness to that. There's a kind of uneasiness. What's going to happen if I get the bad ones? There's an inherent anxiety there. So equanimity finally has something to do with receiving what comes, and not having that kind of tension to try to make it a certain way, the way that I like. And finding, you know, it's like, it's a little bit like, you know, even things that might not appear edible, we find some way to prepare them. And yet, and there are other things that we see even after some, you know, observation, we can't do anything with that, we can't eat it, it's not something to put in my mouth, I have to put it over here. You know, I have to synthesize, I can't take it, I can't eat it. But to find out what to do with each thing, which on the surface appears one way, we have to, you know, look at it in some bigger way

[52:38]

than that to find out appropriately how to handle it, you know, in a bigger way. There's a, there's a Ruby poem about emptiness. I have my Ruby book here. If I had my Ruby book, I could read it to you. I don't have my Ruby book, I'll have to do it by hand. Make it up. There's a poem to end the evening. This world which is made of our love for emptiness, praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence, this place made from our love for that emptiness. Yet somehow comes emptiness, this existence goes. Praise to that happening over and over. For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness. I didn't want emptiness.

[53:42]

Then one swoop, one swing of the arm, that work is over. Free of who I was, free of presence, free of mountainous wandering, dangerous fear, hope. This here and now mountain is but a tiny piece, a piece of straw blown up into emptiness. Remind you about this, the ocean not having a particular characteristic. This particular characteristic of this moment right now is a piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness. These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning. You've noticed that, right? Existence, emptiness, mountain straw, words and what they say swept out the window, down the slope of the roof. Okay. Well, it's been a fun evening at all of you. Thank you very much. Take care. Be well in

[54:44]

your hearts. Even if everything doesn't go just the way you want. Thank you.

[54:51]

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