Transcription
So I know it's obvious, but I'll say it anyway. My intention in the teachings and the talks is really to, in a way, give as detailed and as practically helpful as possible an outline of how a meditator who wants to can deepen and discover, for themselves, in a way, discover emptiness, the seeing of emptiness, the palpable sense of emptiness, in a way that brings freedom, that brings quite a deeper, you know, deeper and deeper, radical freedom, and gradually, or at some point, really does alter the whole sense of existence, the whole sense of life and death. That kind of freedom is available. So really, that's what I want to be offering. These are pathways, and they're well-worn, and they work. They really work.
The other day -- I think it was in the question and answer period, and Bruce mentioned a story of the Buddha, which is actually in the Pali Canon, and I couldn't find the reference. I had it written down, but I couldn't find it, exactly where it is. It maybe somewhere in the Saṃyutta Nikāya or the Aṅguttara Nikāya. But anyway, I'll paraphrase the story.
The Buddha was hanging out one day with a group of monks, I believe. And he said, "Monks, listen. You might have a stride, a step that" -- I'm paraphrasing -- "You might have a stride or a step that is, you know, the length of the whole continent of India or something, or the length of the whole Earth or something. And even with that, with such a stride, if you kept walking for a hundred kalpas, a hundred aeons, evolutions of the universe -- that long, with that large a stride, you wouldn't come to the end of the world. But unless one sees the end of the world, one does not know liberation."[1] And then, if I remember rightly, he excused himself, and went into his kuṭi, and shut the door. [everyone laughs]
And someone -- I don't think it was Ānanda; I think it Mahākassapa or someone -- the monks were scratching their bald heads and saying, "What on earth does that mean?" And so it was left to this other, more senior monk to explain it. So this is what I go into this evening. What does that mean? What does 'the end of the world' mean, and what relevance does it have to this, and to our practice, this sort of riddle-like, cryptic statement of the Buddha?
So three different -- well, quite a few different parts, but at least three big ones tonight. We've been talking about dependent arising, and John was talking about it, and I have mentioned it as well. To me, dependent arising is a teaching that one can take on a number of different levels. Or it's better to say, one can deepen and deepen one's understanding of it, and look at it in certain ways, and become much more subtle or gross, etc. It's also, in a way, it's got different dimensions, so to speak. So we can follow the usual classical twelve-step route, which John has gone over with you, right? Yeah. But it also has other ways of going about it as well. I will look at the twelve steps, and certainly some of their subtlety as well, but ...
So, another way of, or another facet of dependent arising is to say that things arise in terms of, relative to something else, or in opposition to something else. So in the whole realm of dualities, which is what I want to start talking about: dualities. Dualities, opposites, and relativity -- and that also is a dimension or a level of understanding dependent arising. At first, it seems to have less to do with the classical twelve steps. This is from a text of Nāgārjuna called the Ratnāvalī:
When there is this that arises, just as when there is short, there is long.[2]
When there's short, there is long. When there is left, there is right. You can't have short without long. You can't have left without right. You can't have up without down. They arise as a pair of mutually dependent opposites, relative to each other. So, as such, because they're mutually dependent opposites, relative to each other, they actually lack inherent existence. They can't exist by themselves, on their own, independently of that opposition and relativity to the opposite. And so they're empty.
And let's extend this. It's like 'here' and 'there.' Same, right? 'Here' and 'there' -- same --depend on each other. Empty of inherent existence. 'Beautiful' and 'ugly.' Even a 'generality' and a 'particular' also depend on each other. So we can talk about dependent arising as sort of the arising -- what causes the arising of things as impermanent products, so to speak. But there's this whole other dimension of dependency on the surrounding conditions, so to speak, and the way the mind conceives.
So when we look at this in terms of the way perception of anything works, the occurrence, the experience, the perception, the 'thing-ness' of anything actually ends up involving aspects of what it is not, in relationship to something else -- so aspects like location or time, relative to these aspects of other things. This is 'here' in relationship to something else. This is 'now' in relationship to something else, or 'then' in relationship to something else. But things like colour, or pitch, or temperature, or weight, density, all these things -- they're relative, relative to something else, relative to other things, those aspects of other things.
So you can say dependent arising is about causes and conditions which give rise to something. But also there's this other dimension which [is]: things are what they are, we could say, by virtue of what they are not.
Yogi 1: Just another way of saying what you just said?
Rob: Yes. I'm trying to say it in different ways so people get it, yeah. Now, obviously, we can interact with those things, but what it's saying is, the thing -- and actually, our selves, too -- the thing is not ever, cannot ever be, no thing can ever be independent of a context. Cannot be. Nothing exists independent of a context.
So let's go into this a bit more -- dualities, dualities, and teachings on non-duality. This is a portion of teachings on non-duality. We say, in that sense, dualities, all these dualities that I've gone into, and many more, depend on each other. They depend on each other. One could say, 'left' depends on 'right.' 'Right' depends on 'left.' Yeah? When we don't see that, or when we're not conscious of that, what the mind tends to do -- in the deluded mind -- is actually bring out, exaggerate the appearance of those dualities, bring out the appearance by our reaction to them, through our reaction to them, by push and pull: "I like left, I like up," and automatically that brings out the whole polarity of left/right, up or down. It primes the way we're looking and actually brings out that sense. When we believe that they exist inherently, we relate to them in that way: "I want this. I don't want that." And that push/pull that we've touched on already starts bringing out the appearance of things, of that spectrum of duality.
So if we really think about it, this has an enormous effect in our life. You cannot actually get away from this. So what about the duality of 'silence' and 'noise'? We do this with that. We draw out 'noise' when we say, "I like silence. I like being on retreat. I like it when things get quiet." And that will actually draw out the whole duality, the left/right, up/down of 'silence' and 'noise.' 'Tiredness' and 'brightness of mind' -- same thing. "Don't like tiredness," or "I want brightness." And actually draws out both ends -- the one that I like, and the one that I don't like -- draws it out to perception. 'Happiness' and 'sadness,' 'agitation' and 'calm' -- these are all the preoccupations of human beings, but especially so with meditators. 'Mindfulness' and 'distraction' -- actually a duality that lacks inherent existence, because they're dependent on each other. We start, you know, two days into your first meditation retreat, when you kind of understand what's being said about mindfulness, and we start, "Right. I'm going for that." And it highlights the whole spectrum: 'mindfulness' and 'distraction.'
'Illness' and 'health,' or we could say, 'freedom from illness' also -- that perception inside ourselves. 'Pain' and 'pleasure,' or 'pain' and the 'absence of pain': all this, too, exists dependently, not independently. We don't see that. And we draw this out as a perception to our consciousness. Again, 'stillness of mind,' 'movement of mind.' 'Aversion' and 'acceptance.' 'Grasping' and 'non-grasping' -- we can't get away from this. This is something that we throw in with the whole mechanism of perception, you could say. [11:07] 'Conceiving' and 'non-conceiving' -- again, all this is something that we will be emotionally [invested in]. All these are things we get emotionally invested in. Certainly as practitioners, we get emotionally invested. "Should I be conceptual or non-conceptual?" And then we make a big deal of one or the other, usually of non-conceptuality, and wanting to be so-called 'non-conceptual.' We're highlighting something. 'Realization' and 'delusion,' 'wisdom' and 'ignorance,' 'freedom' and 'bondage,' etc. -- so it could go on and on and on. So the so-called 'opposites' are seized on by the deluded mind and drawn out. And when we don't see the emptiness, then we crave one and not the other. And that whole process reinforces the whole duality, the whole perception of duality, which reinforces the craving, which reinforces the perception of duality, and the whole thing is getting built like that. [12:03]
Let's say something about restlessness -- fourth hindrance? Whatever. Anyway, it's a common human experience, a common human state of mind, and certainly meditators know restlessness. When there is a state of mind of restlessness, the sense of 'here' and 'there' actually gets heightened, doesn't it? And I'm 'here,' and I want to be 'there.' Do you see how that gets stronger when there's a restless mind, that it actually highlights the sense of, "'Here' maybe isn't good enough, and I need to be 'there,'" wherever 'there' is -- maybe inside the meditation, or I want to get outside. Whatever. [12:44] Restlessness also highlights 'now' and 'later.' It highlights them, draws them out to perception, and gives them significance, and the whole thing spins around like that. And these opposite concepts lead to restlessness. Where there is a real sense of 'here' and 'there' and 'now' and 'later,' it's a breeding ground for restlessness. The mind will want to move. It has something, somewhere to move, conceptually. So, again, they feed each other. Restlessness brings 'here' and 'there,' 'now' and 'later.' 'Now' and 'later,' 'here' and 'there' bring restlessness.
So widespread in our life -- think about sense of 'loneliness' versus a sense of 'togetherness.' So these are emotions we go through. And the way we see it and relate to it will, as a -- not seeing the mutual dependency of these dualities, we draw them out. Feeling 'rejected' and feeling 'loved' -- so these are the things we struggle with: feeling 'rejected' versus feeling 'loved,' feeling 'understood' versus feeling 'misunderstood.' These are things -- choose your favourite here. How many people have so much of their suffering around feeling 'rejected' versus feeling 'loved'? How many people, their suffering is around feeling 'understood' versus feeling 'misunderstood'? Feeling 'lonely' versus 'together'? These are, for a lot of people, on a psychological level, they're core, core sufferings. They feel like core sufferings. And yet this duality, and the way the mind relates to that, is actually a big part of building that. So they don't have their roots in just a psychological level, at just a psychological [level]. That's why it's never going to be enough, as human beings, to just address the psychological level, as I said way back on the retreat. It's like a tree; psychological level is just the flowers, snipping the flowers -- very important. And not going to be enough.
So, we fabricate. The deluded mind, not seeing this, 'fabricates,' we could say, 'manufactures' dualities. And again, desire for security -- if I have a desire, when I have a desire for security, or to the degree that I have a desire for security in my life, whatever kind of security that is -- financial security, whatever -- that desire for security will breed the duality and actually feed feelings of insecurity. The whole notion of 'security' goes with 'insecurity.' And the more I invest in 'security,' the more -- this goes for so much. Think about how we relate to money in our life, how we relate to owning a house, and what will happen when we get old, etc. I'm not saying not to go for any of that, but just to be aware -- I pick up one end of the stick, and I have to be picking up the other end of the stick. Or else, to borrow a phrase from Thích Nhất Hạnh: if I don't like left, I say, "I don't like left, so I chop off the left side of the stick."[3] Well, what's happened? I've still got a stick with a left and a right. [people laugh] I don't like left, so I chop it off again. I cannot get away from that. My very rejection of one side of the duality breeds the whole perception of dualities. I cannot get away from it that way.
And this is important, because certainly as lay people, we think a lot about security. It's a big issue. One sees, obviously, the planetary effects of this, of a kind of unwise obsession with our security. Similarly, the desire for more, more -- more what? More money, more this, more that, desire for more. 'More' or 'less' -- another duality. Desire for 'more' will feed fear of 'less.' Can't get away from that.
So, one might hear that and say, "Hmm, that's interesting," or "Yeah, I kind of see that," or "I'm not sure about that," or whatever. Again, going back to what I said right at the beginning, what I want to communicate is practice, practice, practice, practice. Can I bring that contemplation into the moment in practice, and kind of look at dualities as they occur in practice, with this understanding kind of in the looking? And then, what happens? That's what I'm interested in. Because to me, saying what I just said in ten minutes, it's not going to make much difference to anyone's life. It's -- again, I say, ways of looking, ways of looking that bring freedom. That's what's going to do it. That's what's going to let the coin drop into the heart, and actually, really start making a difference in our life, over and over and over. So one of the Prajñāpāramitā texts, the Perfection of Wisdom texts -- well, it just throws it out there, but I feel, most of the Prajñāpāramitā texts are actually meditation instructions, in a way:
Do not see fault anywhere, [it says].[4]
"Do not see fault anywhere." What would it be to sit in meditation with that way of looking -- not to see fault anywhere? And actually sustain that, and just drop the sense of 'fault,' and drop the sense of 'fault': "I like this. I don't like that. I don't like that."
So, many of you will know, beautiful, beautiful quote from the Third Zen Patriarch, called Faith in Mind:
The Supreme Way is not difficult if only you do not pick and choose [or, you could say, for one who has no preferences]. When love and hate are both absent [meaning grasping and rejection], everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction between things, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.[5]
[19:08] We're creating a world of dualities. We believe in it, we create it, and then we believe it even more. We have that sense of things. And then we suffer with it.
So, where there is 'long,' there has to be 'short,' and they do not exist through their own nature. In other words, they're empty. Again, what would it be to take that -- I think it's the first stanza of that, from the Third Zen Patriarch, the very long, extremely beautiful, and profound verses called Faith in Mind -- really, really worth checking out. Lots of different translations with different sort of merits and different paths, but beautiful, beautiful text. But it's practice. It's not just something to say, "Oh, that's nice." It's practice. What would it be to practise sitting, walking meditation, practise in the moment, in the actual moment, no preferences, not picking and choosing? Actually bring that very much as a way of relating. And that, of course, and I'm sure you recognize, has everything to do with our practices that we were talking about -- holy disinterest. So it's the same thing. What it would do is relax our relationship with things. But it's coming from a slightly different understanding about dualities, and how we manufacture dualities, then fall for them, and get lost in them, in relationship to them.
Yogi 2: Do you mean that Faith in Mind?
Rob: I'll post it. Yeah? I'll post it. [inaudible] Or I mean, I could also read it again. Would you prefer I read it again?
Yogi 3: Would you read it?
Rob: Yeah.
The Supreme Way is not difficult if only you do not pick and choose. [And sometimes: The Supreme Way is not difficult for one who has no preferences.] When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction between things, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
So really it's a very, very beautiful and deep text. I haven't come across one translation which I could get behind every verse of, but I was hoping, when I find some time, to kind of cobble together different -- but anyway.
Okay. Dualities. Next little chapter of this talk -- remember I said to you, please, I want you to notice what happens in these practices. So far, what have we seen is dependent on clinging? So far, in the practices, and in the talks, and the teachings -- so far, what we've seen is dependent on clinging: we've seen that suffering is dependent on clinging, right? That's fairly obvious by now, right? To the degree that I cling, it's the degree that I will suffer. Can everyone agree on that? Yeah?
Self-sense is dependent on clinging. We've said that before, and people getting the sense of that? Yeah? When I really cling to something, self-sense is stronger, more built up, more loud, more prominent -- less clinging, less self-sense.
The substantiality of objects -- so when we were talking about this open awareness, and that's actually a state of non-clinging, and how -- begins to get a sense in that, the less I cling, the less solid and substantial things appear. The perception of their substantiality is dependent on clinging. So far, so good? Okay. [laughter]
Has anyone noticed ... [laughter] Has anyone noticed not only that, but maybe just a step deeper, a step more? Has anyone noticed that, actually, the definition -- I mean the sense of definition of a perception, or the very presence of an object to awareness also depends on clinging? In other words, that when we let go of clinging, and we let go of clinging, an object, a pain, or something in the body, or this, or that, might actually begin to get somewhat diffuse, and fade, and dissolve a little bit. [laughter]
Yogi 4: So that's the allowing that we practise?
Rob: That happens through the allowing, yeah. Allowing is a lack of, a lessening of clinging. And then, the perception of kind of how clear things are can begin to blur. And sometimes, even, the thing that we're looking at begins to just disappear and fade.
Yogi 5: That's really bringing your attention on it, rather than -- say I got a headache, and I've ...
Rob: And I'll just change. I'll just ... yeah. So I'm talking about really looking at something, and particularly something that's bothering you -- let's say, a headache, let's say, a pain in the knee -- and just really trying to relate to it in one of, some of the ways we've been talking about, whether it's the open awareness, whether it's this anattā, whatever. I'm looking at this thing. I'm not, as Richard's suggesting, I'm not actually putting my mind on a shopping list or something. I'm looking at this thing, and it begins to ... [clicks tongue] [24:36]
Yogi 6: [?] ... insubstantiality?
Rob: Insubstantiality is the sense of solidity. In other words, things might get less substantial, but it's still there as a clear sort of experience, whereas what I'm talking about now, it's a kind of fading of the perception. It's almost like it just blurs and dissolves and eventually disappears, even.
Yogi 7: Since, when I relate to [?] letting go that perception, letting go of the memory of whatever that perception is, whether it's the pain, or in that, "Oh, I remember, the back -- that hurts me," And you know, I mean, I go off on that. Or I, the memory -- maybe 'memory' isn't the right word, but some pre-existing notion that I have of that object, that is a clinging, to name it, or to do something ...
Rob: I would say that exists, and it goes back to what Bruce brought up some time ago, in the labelling coming a little later in the perception. I'm talking about something more primary than that, more primary even than the labelling. It's actually, we're letting go. When we let go of clinging, that's what we're letting go, rather than labelling as something. So I'm talking about actually relaxing the clinging in a different way.
Yogi 8: Is it like when [?] being flat, being like a sine wave?
Rob: What, the experience? No. So this is interesting, okay. Very interesting, because ... Hmm.
Yogi 9: How can you cling if you don't have ...
Yogi 10: If you're clinging to a sense of self ...
Rob: We'll get to that, Diana, yeah.
Yogi 10: Clinging to a sense of self and the thoughts, and the papañca is self-involved, and you're aware of it, it disappears.
Rob: The papañca, yeah, absolutely, yes, the papañca will disappear too. I'm talking about even below the level of wanting, talking about even below the level of papañca. What we usually take as a direct experience has nothing to do with papañca. This is just a pain in my knee.
[yogis mumbling]
Rob: So, interesting. Okay. Very ...
Yogi 11: But I thought ... just to me, this is the pain ... and it disappears ...
Rob: Yeah, okay, good. Good. Nick ...?
Yogi 7: When I said 'memory' ...
Rob: Sorry, Nick ...?
Yogi 7: I really meant 'association,' I guess.
Rob: I'm talking also deeper than that, deeper than that. So, Nick?
Yogi 12: Well, yeah, like a pain in my legs or knees, it sometimes, I kind of go right, try to go into the sensations that open there, being averse to it, and go into it. To some extent it seems like -- yeah, it starts to dissolve. But then it comes back. And then I would do it [?]. So to some extent, it'll go. But then, if I sit long enough, it would always -- it seems like it always wins, and the pain comes back ... [yogis make affirmative noises] ... if I sit for a length of time. So it's not like it goes away completely.
Yogi 13: If one has been in a little physical pain, there's ...
Rob: If one has some physical pain? Yeah?
Yogi 13: So a little physical pain, because clearly, most people in this room are very tough [?] with their sitting**.**
Yogi 14: We're just faking it. [laughter]
Rob: Okay, guys, to me -- sorry, guys. This is the fourth -- this is interesting to me.
Yogi 15: Is it, Rob, right now ... the heat thing I mentioned? Is that what you're referring to?
Rob: Yes. Look, several people have mentioned this in interviews: "I had a headache. It went away when I just found a way of relating to it with three characteristics." Virginia had a heat thing, someone else had a knee pain, someone else had a -- so people have mentioned this to me. This is a kind of turning point in the retreat, as far as I'm concerned, so what I'm talking about is, so far, if we go right back to the beginning, and I said, three characteristics -- they're a starting point. They're something to develop. And I said they're not an end point. So not just, "We've got to accept that the world is impermanent, blah blah blah blah blah." It's like, we take them, because they're avenues, they're ways of non-clinging, right? They're practices of non-clinging. And as we develop that, you begin to see -- more and more, you begin to see, as I said, suffering goes down, self-sense goes down, substantiality ... As we deepen it, we'll also see that the very perception of things also is dependent on ... Have you noticed this, Mark? Yeah?
Okay. Some people have seen it. Some people haven't. I still think it's important. I would like to proceed, if that's okay.
Yogi 16: I haven't seen it, but it makes sense to me, if that helps!
Rob: Okay. [laughs] So Nick, what you're talking about is exactly what I'm talking about. The fact that it came back is neither here nor there. It comes back when the clinging comes back, in a sense. I'll try and explain more.
Yogi 12: It doesn't feel like that to me. It feels like it's a physical constraint on the body. But I did notice, when I was really feeling the calmness of the open awareness, that it did go. And I was fine, and I was sitting for quite a long time, which -- a lot longer than I would normally. Yeah, and it was like, "Whoa," it's ...
Rob: So I'm talking about -- this is good. This is great. The thing about this is, it's a really, really important insight. I feel it's absolutely crucial. And it's often overlooked. In other words, no one has ever come to me, and said anything more than that's -- or reported it as an incident. I've never had anyone come to me and draw out the insight of it. [30:35] And to me, there's huge insight here. So, some people have seen it. Some people may have seen it over and over and over again, to the point where it's absolutely clear. There's a relationship here: when I cling, it forms perceptions. Remember the talk -- don't know when it was. What we're going to get into is the emptiness of things and perceptions, and how the mind, the deluded mind builds perception, builds a perception of a thing, okay? Some people may have seen it, as I said, loads of times. It's really clear. It's obvious there's a relationship. It's like a scientific experiment. I just do it, it goes, I do it, it goes. Or actually, I let go of something, it goes, I let go of something, it goes.
Yogi 17: Visual changing part of the ...?
Rob: Yes. What you're -- yes. So, and some people may have glimpsed it, and not quite realized its significance. Some people, it's not an experience they've had yet. It's all fine. I still want to present it, as I said at the beginning of the talk. I'm talking about ways that this can go really deep in meditation. So it's not so important if you feel like, "Well, I haven't had that yet," or whatever. I would like to highlight it, because, as I said, to me, it's pointing to an absolutely crucial and profound insight which is very rarely picked up on fully.
So, it's one thing to say I have this experience -- let's say, a pain in my knee. And I'm sitting in meditation, and it disappears. And then it comes back. And then it disappears. It's one thing to say, "The conclusion is things are impermanent." True, things are impermanent. [sound of something dropping on the floor] What will I conclude from that? That the object, that the location of things is impermanent? Is that the right conclusion? [drops something again] It's true. The location of things is impermanent. I think I'm missing something [drops something again] if that's all I conclude. I'm dropping -- what are these things called? [32:30] Whatever they're called, I'm dropping this thing -- do you get where I'm going with this? I'm missing an insight. What's the insight?
Yogi 18: Gravity?
Rob: Gravity! It's not just that it's impermanent. So something disappears. A perception disbands. A perception dissolves. A perception fades. It's not just that it's impermanent. There's something else going on here. That's why I was asking you to see the connection, see the connections.
Yogi 19: See the connection between ...?
Rob: The less we cling, the less we build experiences. So if I have an experience, and I find that if I can look at it, and really work on the way of looking I've been talking about -- three characteristics, etc. -- really look at it, and through that way of looking, way of relating, relax the clinging, there's a good chance that it will fade, dissolve, dismantle.
Yogi 20: In this example, where's the clinging?
Rob: No, this isn't about clinging. This is about -- this is physics, I guess. [laughter]
Yogi 21: So if I were to fall, then ...
Rob: Right, the point is, if I see something, if I see something disappearing, it disappears. It's not just that things are impermanent. That's not just what the Buddha was getting at. He said things come and go dependent on causes and conditions. That understanding is a much fuller understanding. So it's not just that experience is impermanent. It's that we need to understand dependent arising here. We need to understand dependent arising. I don't know, has John said, where does perception come in in the wheel of dependent arising?
Yogi 22: It comes in the aggregates, but it's the one that's missing in the twelve, I thought ...
Rob: I would say -- I mean, the Buddha said, "What is nāmarūpa?" -- the fourth link. He said, "Perception, intention, vedanā, attention, etc."[6] It's part of the fourth link in dependent arising. So when the Buddha's talking about dependent arising, he's talking about the dependent arising of a lot of things: suffering, self-sense, but more subtly, the dependent arising of perceptions. Okay? So, what's the conclusion here? Seeing this -- and again, one needs to see it over and over again, and ask the right questions, and make the right connections. A thing or a perception is actually dependent on clinging. When I cling a lot, that thing is prominent and clear, and this is that thing. When I cling less, it begins to unfold. So as I said, some of you may have seen it a lot, some less so. But it's something really, really worth pursuing in meditation, this connection.
Yogi 23: [inaudible] ... the more you kind of focus on it?
Rob: The more you kind of focus on it ... what?
Yogi 23: The more you focus on it, the more the perception increases.
Rob: Well, it depends (going back to something Diana asked ages ago) what's with the focus -- the focus, in other words, for attention. If there's clinging with attention, it will get stronger. As Richard was saying, if I can find a way of paying attention to something and actually relaxing the clinging at the same time ...
Yogi 23: Like the holy disinterest?
Rob: Yeah, but holy disinterest doesn't mean -- so far, it doesn't mean not paying attention to it. It's a way of looking at something, but taking away the clinging that usually goes in my looking, with my looking, unseen, wrapped up in my looking.
Like I said, somehow we have to account for the fact, if you're going by the teachings, if you're -- so people go [about] the whole project here in very different ways. Some people, it's like, "Well, the Buddha said this, so I have to kind of understand what he meant by that." If that's the way, then I have to find a way of explaining what he means by 'perception' as being part of the fourth link, and what does it mean when he says, "This arises dependent on ... and ceases dependent on ..."? Now, I don't know if John has gone into this. Dependent arising is not linear in time. We touched on this, right? Every link affects every other link. So clinging actually comes later. It comes -- I don't know what number, six or seven or whatever it is -- clinging and craving, right? They feed back. Every node in dependent arising has a web to every other node. So clinging affects perception. Technically, at least what we have from the suttas doesn't really go into that in so much -- doesn't pull that out of the traditional way of explaining dependent arising. [37:12]
Sometimes people will, "Well, hmm." You know, I remember years ago, when I lived in America, being part of a sitting group, and someone saying, reporting different experiences in meditation, and someone saying, "Well, obviously, what's happening is, when you meditate, the chemistry of the brain, or the neural connections, is being affected. And you're getting distorted perceptions of things, obviously." But that's interesting. The person is sitting in meditation, and thinking, "Well, what am I actually doing? All I'm doing is paying attention, plus letting go of clinging." Letting go of clinging, as we've said, is actually a non-doing. So I can hardly claim that I'm somehow distorting my perception there by letting go of clinging, or distorting the chemistry and neurology of my brain.
Even if you haven't seen this so far, remember I said a couple times, this is all one insight. It's all one thread of insight. When we have a tantrum about something, when we're in a tantrum about something, something's really upset us, whether it's porridge or whatever it is ... [laughter] Something has upset us, and really upset us. And what's there? Suffering is there, self-sense is there, etc., etc. Also, the thing that we are upset about is really prominent in consciousness. It's really standing out. It's really ... [makes huffing and puffing noises] ... isn't it? And then we let go of the tantrum, and it just becomes part of the totality of our day and our experience. What's it doing? It's fading even more, even more, even more. And then you get to this subtle level of meditation: it actually disbands as an experience. It fades. It's actually one [spectrum], from the completely everyday, non-meditative observation of this, all the way down to really what takes quite a lot of skill and depth and subtlety in meditation.
So, interesting: if you are bored, what happens? Have you ever tried, when you're bored, or if you ever get bored, to try and become more bored? What happens? What happens if you're fearful? [39:23] Remember I said I used to be a musician, and someone was saying, sharing with someone about stage fright. And he tries to get more fearful. He's got to go on stage in five minutes and do his thing. And his palms are sweating, and his heart -- actually try and get more fear. What happens? The opposite happens. Trying to get more fearful actually quietens fears. Trying to get more bored actually quietens [boredom]. Why is that? Can't do it that way, because by trying to become more, what am I doing? I'm relaxing the default aversion to those things -- boredom and fear. And they depend on the aversion, in this case. Doing the opposite, the whole thing just drains. Those things need aversion. We touched on this when a couple of people near the beginning were asking about fear, and we said, "Be much more spacious, and really welcome it." What's happening there? Letting go of aversion, and the experience begins to disband. So when we say 'clinging' in this context, we mean 'push and pull,' like we've said.
So, if we just sum up and pull a few things together, clinging, meaning the push and pull, aversion and grasping; plus, we could say, taking things as 'me' or 'mine,' appropriating things, including identifying with the knowing of things, identifying with consciousness (so me-mining, clinging, me-mining); and conceiving of the inherent existence of things. So for example, if we go back to the duality thing, that gets very subtle. It gets much more subtle than the duality thing. So there's a lot to say, and we'll fill out -- what does that mean? So clinging, we say, me-mining or selfing, and delusion are all part of what builds perception. Do you understand? They all ... you guys still with me? Virginia, you awake?
Yogi 24: Yeah. I have a bit of a problem with that light, but ...
Rob: With the candle?
Yogi 24: No, no, this one.
Rob: So, to say, I would rather -- I'm fine, but I would rather have a sense that I'm ...
Yogi 24: Yeah, it's sort of hypnotizing. [laughter]
Rob: Okay. So yeah, it's important, because like I said, the talk is a dependent arising, right? It's not me giving the talk. It's not me giving it.
Yogi 25: What you just said -- they all build ...?
Rob: Perception. 'Perception,' meaning the experience of objects as things, as objects, as a thing. So if we relate this to the dependent arising, again, we've got every link feeding every other link. Ignorance -- and we haven't even gone into what ignorance means in the totality. We'll expand that. Ignorance is feeding perception. Just take what I started the talk with: dualities. Ignorance about seeing that dualities are lacking in inherent existence -- that will feed the perception of the dualities of the things. Me-mining and clinging, okay? You could map them in different places on the wheel of dependent arising.
Nidānas -- has John used that word with you yet? Nidāna? No? Okay. It means -- well, it has a lot of meanings. One of the meanings is 'links.' They're all causes, conditional causes. So oftentimes, the wheel of dependent origination is called 'the twelve nidānas, the twelve' -- it gets translated as 'links,' but it also actually means 'the twelve causes,' because everything's feeding everything else. [42:52]
So, if I can find a way -- remember, I'm talking about meditative skill here, meditative skill, meditative possibilities for everyone. Less and less clinging in the moment, in relationship to something, less and less delusion in the moment, in relationship to something, causes or allows a kind of lessening of the object, of perception. We could say, and we could say we are withdrawing the elements that we usually feed in, that fabricate perception, and so perception is getting unfabricated. We usually fabricate or saṅkhāra: to saṅkhāra, 'to fabricate, to concoct.' That's what that word means: 'to put together.' It literally means 'to make together, to put together.' We said it's a verb. It's a doing. We saṅkhāra. Out of delusion, we saṅkhāra. It's not just a noun. We saṅkhāra things. We fabricate things. We concoct perceptions and make perceptions.
So, if they don't fade, actually -- I appreciate Nick's point, but now, let's say there are constraints. We'll say -- at this point, won't dismiss that. There are constraints. But just to expand the sense of possibility here. If they don't fade, oftentimes, for example, let's take our thingy again. Gravity, right? [sound of the thingy dropping]. Oh. Oh. Maybe gravity doesn't exist, then. I'm putting it on the cushions ... [silence] Right? That's the conclusion, right? Gravity also can't be true, because -- no. There's something in the way, right? Who has Physics O Level? [everyone laughs]
Okay. There's something there. So if it doesn't fade, and we won't argue with Nick at this point, absolutely, because it's important -- there are constraints on this. But if something doesn't fade, it's usually that, let's say, identification or clinging is hidden there at a more subtle level. And oftentimes, what it will be is identification with consciousness. And I said, right when we were talking about the three characteristics, that's a much subtler level to be able to disidentify from. One will find, if one's able to disidentify with awareness, a dramatic impact on the nature of perception. Because at that point, the identification is not on any of the objects of awareness, or on awareness itself. It's actually let go in relationship to the khandhas, and that has a dramatic effect on perception. [45:45]
Yogi 26: You're using 'awareness' and 'consciousness' ...
Rob: Synonymously. Yeah, synonymously. So if it doesn't fade, and it won't sometimes, of course, it's either that we haven't quite been able to let go, or that there is some clinging that we haven't [seen] -- usually, often, identification with awareness, or something else we haven't seen the emptiness of.
So, going back -- similar question I asked in relationship to the self, when we talked about the self-sense quietening with the three characteristics -- how much clinging, how much identifying, how much delusion reveals the 'real thing'? I'm not talking about Coca-Cola. Just, the real thing -- how much, the real world? A lot of clinging? A lot of delusion? A lot of identifying? This much? Less, less, less, less, less, and less appears, and less appears, and less. How much is the real thing?
Second question, or second thing to see is that without clinging, without identifying -- we have to see this a lot. You have to really experiment with this, and really kind of -- it's one thing to hear it from me, or someone else. It's another thing to really see it, over and over again, as I said, like a scientific experiment, you know, the kind of depths of meditative investigation. But to see that ...
Yogi 27: I apologize, but the main statement I'm struggling with -- you said that if it doesn't disappear, then we're clinging ...
Rob: If it doesn't disappear ... yeah, okay.
Yogi 27: ... doesn't fade. You're not fading, and I'm not clinging.
Rob: Okay, yeah. I will get to that later in the retreat, if you don't mind. There's a subtlety of what I'm going to mean by 'clinging.' And there's also -- how to say this? Can I just say we'll revisit that, because it's quite an important question. Does that feel okay? Yeah?
So what I would rather, for now, is that you look at this in meditation, in terms of meditation experience, and just feel for yourself what's happening. And then, we'll hopefully revisit that as people get more of a sense of it. And yeah, that's an important question.
Yogi 27: So what you're saying, everything you're saying we should be applying to the cushion and not to ...
Rob: Yes. I clumsily tried to say that at the beginning of the talk. What I'm talking about -- most of my talks are about meditation. They're about the practice of meditation: the cushion, the walking room, etc., the time, the standing, everything. And you will find a way of carving something out there, the implications of which will apply all day long to whatever you're doing. But important, yeah.
And then the other thing: as I say, delusion is a spectrum. In other words, like I said, there are subtle forms of identification. The identification with consciousness is very subtle. We're not usually aware that it's going on. Clinging can be very, very subtle. We'll even talk about how attention has a kind of quality of clinging in it, automatically. It's like it does that around its object. Clinging, even -- yeah, so all of this, all of this, spectrum, spectrum. I use this concept a lot. Everything's a spectrum. [49:19]
But when I see that without clinging, identification, delusion, a thing doesn't appear or doesn't exist, so to speak, the implication of that is, let's say, it doesn't exist independent of the mind. Perception doesn't exist, this thing, to my consciousness, this experience does not exist inherently, as sort of the way we usually sense it, sense it existing inherently. It actually does not exist independent of my mind, and the mind's relationship with it. So, beautiful quote from Meister Eckhart -- he's a Dominican monk and teacher in the eleventh century, I think, or around then -- really, really, in the sort of Christian tradition, one of the sort of towering mystics. He said, "The creature does not exist," meaning that which is created. "The creature does not exist."[7]
So, to go back to this spectrum concept, so what we said -- without clinging, it doesn't appear, doesn't exist independent of the mind and the mind's relationship to that. If we think of these kind of nodes of dependent arising, these nidānas, if we think of them as kind of, not so much on/off switches as more like -- use the example -- it's like these things. You know, poker chips. You know those things you get ...? I've never, ever been gambling, but ... [everyone laughs] Seen it on the films. Poker chips -- my stack of delusion can be really high, can be much lower, can be much lower. And to the height that is -- similar with my stack of clinging -- so high will be the stack in the perception stack. You understand? What I'm just saying is, the more delusion there is, the more it tends to build the solidity of perception. The more clinging there is, the more it tends to build the solidity of perception.
And perception and vedanā as well. So remember we -- was it in the last question and answer? It was Beth asking this. Perception and vedanā are not separate. So again, they're actually part of the fourth node of dependent arising -- perception and vedanā. Perception and vedanā are not separate. In other words, where there's an experience, there'll be the perception of that as an experience, and the vedanā associated with it. And that, too, will fade.
And we talked about -- and I know only a few of you will pick it up right now -- the chariot thing. And I talked about, when you really do that, this kind of vacuity comes. Same deal, same deal, because at that moment, the delusion is less. So the object disappears.
Yogi 28: Why is perception so vivid, then, when you're in Big Mind? Why do things appear so vivid?
Rob: Yeah, I would say that will fade. So some of this, when we start meditating, and when we talk about mindfulness, etc., what happens is we sort of -- that image that I was talking about at one point of kind of scrubbing clean the doors of perception, it's like, actually, really is valid. You know, we live with a veil of concepts, tiredness, sluggishness, etc. You start bringing mindfulness in, and the whole thing brightens up, and everything does seem brighter. But it's a bit like a bell curve. That's a physics term. Do you know what that means? [laughter] (I'm teasing you.) It's like this. So things start -- you know, for meditators, they get more vivid. But you hang in there, and you keep letting go, and emphasizing letting go, and they will start to actually fade like that.
Yogi 28: It has, actually, yeah. I just didn't know whether it was because I wasn't concentrating, or what! [laughs]
Rob: So that's exactly what I mean. It's rare for a person to actually extract -- as I said, no one's come to me and reported this and drawn the conclusions out of it. It's more like, "Oh, I don't know." Anyway.
Yogi 28: So that increase in the vivid nature of things is just a phase? It doesn't mean ...
Rob: It doesn't mean you're clinging more, no. [53:52] It's just a phase. So you're actually -- well, it's a metaphor, but you actually are 'scrubbing clean' at first in meditation, you know. We're used to so much junk, and thoughts, and conceptions, and da-da-da-da-da, distractions. And you actually start making the mind, giving it more energy, more attention, less distraction, less gunk in the way. And things do start appearing much clearer. But that's actually just a phase*.*
Yogi 29: Is it because you're getting used to it? You're getting used to perception ...
Rob: No! It's because of this, what I'm talking about. It's because, as you deepen in practice, you let go. And with the letting go, letting go of clinging, and letting go of the factors in the wheel of dependent arising that are feeding the perception and the ...
Yogi 30: Isn't it spaciousness ...?
Rob: Spaciousness is a way of letting go of clinging, yes.
Yogi 31: Is that the end result of what April's saying or you were saying? Your mind becomes more spacious?
Rob: It will also, as we let go of clinging, become more spacious, yes, definitely. And with more spaciousness, we're actually able to let go more, and so it goes, so it goes.
Yogi 32: Sorry, so with this scrubbing clean, is it that you just get used to the new window which you're looking through life at, or does it return to how you used to see? Do you see my ...?
Rob: I do, but -- so this is interesting. So I'm not sure -- so we could say one gets used to it. You could say it returns to how it was, somehow it was just some kick in ... or you could say that, actually, this decrease in the vividness, it will only happen at times. And those times will be when we cling less. And -- sorry, I'm not a scientist at all, but that's what's in the data, you know. In the experimental data, the less I cling, the less solid things appear.
Yogi 33: ... Yeah. [laughter]
Rob: Okay!
Yogi 34: I think I missed ...
Rob: Well...
Yogi 34: No, I mean, I get -- I totally have had hugely, horribly vivid experiences of things disappearing. But that's never at the same time as things being vivid. And actually, the vivid experiences, I don't seem to be having. I seem to be having disappearing experiences. And I have so many years just on that part of the cycle. Just need to stop thinking about it.
Rob: No! You need to think about it more. So, this is interesting, but good. [laughter] I need to think, and you have to think about it. What's going on there? It's not just that the position of things is impermanent. It's not just, "Oh, the cycle comes and goes. Things get vivid, and then they get less vivid." I mean, yes, that goes on for other reasons too. But there's something else going on, implicit in the data. And if you're a scientific type, it's like, ferret that out. Make the connections. [56:55] Well, you can try it for yourself. Try it for yourself. Really look at something, and let go. Find a way to let go of the clinging, let go of the clinging, let go of the clinging. What happens to that thing? You can get very good at it. You can actually see that; you can have a sense. That's why I said these practices are developed. I want to you to develop them, develop them, and really get a sense of being able to move on that spectrum of more or less clinging. See what happens with it. See what happens with it. So take it and play with it rather than ...
Yogi 35: So that I can prove it, then -- I don't really understand why initially things appear more vivid.
Rob: Because usually we start meditation with minds that are habituated to dullness, to tiredness, to distraction, to thinking, to preconceptions, etc. Then you hear someone talk about mindfulness or being present or whatever, and it's like learning to drop all that, and so, you know, we could say, "Drop the grime. Get rid of the grime on the windscreen." So things appear more vivid. And then, as one develops, one can be mindful, and one knows how to be mindful. Then, one moves, in a way, to a subtler level of meditation, which is not just an interest in mindfulness, which will only take you so far. Actually start to be interested in dependent arising, in the moment, by making letting go a priority, and not just presence a priority.
And then I start to see, as I said (beginning of the talk), it's like, what happens when we let go? Self, suffering gets less, da-da-da-da-da, this gets less, self-sense gets less. So, self-sense, we could see. Now I'm going a step further. Remember I said, dividing it into the emptiness of selves and the emptiness of phenomena. And there's a reason I do it in that order: because it's easier to see. It's easier to see the self-sense get lower first -- harder to see meditatively phenomena, too. But that's what we want to kind of get out of this. Yeah? [58:56] So play with it, really, really investigating, and if it turns out not to be that connection, then I want to hear about it.
Yogi 35: I think also this fear and clinging that immediately comes in when you achieve first sit -- I mean, I remember when I ...
Rob: 'Sit'?
Yogi 35: When you first see ...
Rob: See what?
Yogi 35: ... the vivid reality that life can be, immediately, in me, I was terrified because it was so different. And I know that that terror was obviously because I was clinging. So yeah, think ...
Rob: Okay. It could be, yes. All right. Hui-neng, Sixth Zen Patriarch, very, very important teacher in the Zen tradition:
From the first [from the beginning] not a thing is.[8]
Eventually, eventually -- so far, what we've got is, you do your three characteristics practice, or the big awareness, or whatever it is, and you begin to see these connections. You see the suffering, the self-sense, the substantiality, and eventually, the thing-ness of things, the perception, begin to drain, see it's dependent. And eventually, and here, it's a hard [sell] -- it's not an easy sell, I can ... [laughs] right now, but eventually, you see it over and over again, over and over again, and that link gets really clear. The thing is dependent. As an experience, it's dependent, and 'dependent' is just another word of saying it's empty.
And eventually we're actually able to not just say, "I'll try and relax my relationship with this thing," or "I'll let go of my identification with this thing, or with the knowing of this thing," but eventually, we've seen that it's dependent; therefore it's empty. And eventually we can look at a thing and say, "Empty ... empty ... empty. I know you're empty." And the small print there is: "I know you're empty because I've seen a gazillion times how you depend, as a thing, as a perception, on what is being fed in terms of clinging, delusion, selfing." [1:01:15]
So when I talked about it, threw it out (probably didn't make much sense when I threw it out), talked about these three characteristics being progressive practices, and one thing -- you get an insight, and then that insight becomes the new platform to keep going. So suddenly, instead of three characteristics, I'm letting go, I'm learning to let go, get some insights from that. And that tells about the nature of things. I can then look at things and just know, "You're empty, you're empty." So instead of, for instance, "Not me, not mine," or "Let me relax the aversion," or whatever it is, could just look at things, and have a sense: "Empty, empty." The whole thing just starts shifting into another gear. [1:01:53]
The Buddha has a phrase -- meditative instruction, actually -- to regard things as 'empty of self or what belongs to a self,' or sometimes, to regard things as 'just a perception.'[9] Whatever's coming up is 'just a perception. It's just a perception.' And again, they can have different sub-meanings of that. If one does that, one's experience will be -- and sustains that way of looking, we've evolved a way of looking. Or we can evolve [a way of looking]. If one does that, things will begin to fade, and will start moving -- you don't need to know this, but eventually you'll end up in the seventh or eighth jhāna, actually, the realm of nothingness, or neither perception nor non-perception. Why? Because they're dimensions, or they're states where a lot has faded -- a lot, a lot, a lot has faded, and one's ended up with nothing. Why? Because one's looking at things in a way that's not supporting their thing-ness and the perception of their thing-ness. [1:02:57]
And (I think I threw this out, maybe even in the samādhi talk) it's possible, it becomes possible, to a degree -- there are limits here -- to actually, when one has an unpleasant sensation in the body, to actually learn to see it as empty, and then colour it a different way. I'll decide to see, I have this pain in my hip. I'll decide to see it as pleasant. Just, one sees that the nature of perception is a lot more malleable, because it's empty, implies malleability, to a certain extent. [1:03:32]
Yogi 36: It reminds that there are these suttas where there are these monks, already ill. And then, we used to chant them in Sri Lanka, and then -- so, Mahāmoggallāna's pretty ill. He's, like, moaning. And then someone comes to see him and says, "Remember the seven factors of awakening!"
Rob: Yes, yes.
Yogi 36: And at the end, he gets up and walks ...
Rob: Yes, yes.
Yogi 36: And it's sort of very similar.
Rob: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, I really like that sutta too. And there's a whole different series of them.[10] But actually, someone -- I think someone even does it to the Buddha at one point, which is very striking. Yeah. The Buddha, too, had chronic back pain in his older years, and could find no escape from it, except going into very deep meditation, actually contemplating the emptiness of it, and then everything ... [tongue-click] goes beyond perception.[11] The perception actually fades. The vedanā fades. So it becomes possible, actually, amazingly possible, to a degree, to actually manipulate one's vedanā. One would think, "Well, pain -- I can't do anything. I've got this pain." But actually, one realizes it's empty. It's a dependent arising, and I can play with that. And actually, where there's pain, to a degree, at times, can actually conjure pleasure there, or at least non-pain.
So again, the vedanā is not independent of reaction. The vedanā of our reaction, the vedanā -- in a way, it's what we make of them. And then this word 'make,' saṅkhāra, what we make of things. So there is a skilful, wholesome abiding, a possibility here. In other words, one aspect of this is just learning to abide in a very *dukkha-*free space. Could I learn how to play with this, and actually just learn to settle, to dissolve some dukkha, and learn how to be in that space? Very, very important resource for us as human beings. But more important, even more important is the insight, the insight into dependent arising, which means emptiness of things, actually seeing it over and over again, investigating it.
Now, we have to be careful here, because when you start seeing this, it's not that we're trying to get rid of things and knock everything on the head with aversion. [1:05:58] We have to be very careful and notice, "I've found a way of actually making things fade" -- very careful of aversion creeping in. Can I actually have a motivation of curiosity? What a strange, strange thing one has stumbled on. And actually be curious about dependent arising. It's a very different motivation than aversion.
Meditatively, if something, especially something difficult -- remember, we can do this with something difficult, not difficult, or lovely -- if something fades a little, we have an option there, as always. Maybe I can just enjoy the relative samādhi that opens up there. Or I could keep going. I could keep going. So let's say, some body pain, and it begins to dissolve. And then what replaces that? Maybe it's pleasantness. Maybe it's neutrality. I keep going. I keep going with that insight of this way of looking that's allowing it to fade, to open up. And then, eventually, it might be that, actually, what's there in place of the body is actually just space, or maybe just a sense of stillness, almost as if it's just emptiness, or it's just peace, or whatever. I could even do it on that, could keep going, could keep going.
There's that Nāgārjuna quote that I quoted a while ago: "The true nature of things is peace."[12] Actually, peace can also be an object for the mind. One can go beyond the sort of experience of peace, as well.
Yogi 37: Let's just go back ... [?] be careful of aversion ...?
Rob: Yeah. Once you start realizing, or once you start finding that when we relax the clinging, or the identifying, or whatever else it is in relationship to things, that experience fades, it can be that the mind of aversion, when it's there, starts to actually try and just get rid of things that way. And basically, it won't work. And the whole thing, because there's aversion dressed up as insight, is actually resolidifying the thing. Yeah? [1:08:16]
Yogi 37: Yeah, you're just applying it to things ... [?]
Rob: Yeah, sometimes ...
Yogi 37: [?]
Rob: Yeah, occasionally, occasionally, people get into a very kind of -- I don't know what to call it -- almost 'annihilationist' mode in meditation. It's really like, "Shoot everything. Shoot anything -- particularly something I don't like, but even something I like, or something that I'm neutral -- just shoot everything down." Very common, actually, at times. And it happens once you start discovering this possibility of actually withdrawing the building factors from things, and the mind can get into what we call -- you're just slightly aversive. It's not really that it's this or that. It's almost like, just, existence and the perception thing, it's just like, "Shoot it all down." And it doesn't feel, necessarily -- it can, when it really gets going, actually feel very (I don't know what the word is) nihilistic and dark, and ends up not leading to a good space at all. But sometimes it's just a quite subtle shading of things, and one's just shooting everything. That shooting can be from a good place, or it can be from a not-so-good place. All this is quite subtle, but yeah. So ...
Yogi 38: Most of the things you were talking about are beyond my personal experiences, my practice. Are they mostly descriptions of quite advanced meditators? Understandings ... [inaudible] You mentioned the seventh jhāna.
Rob: Yeah, yeah ...
Yogi 38: Are these things that mostly someone who has, say, a concentration of one of the absorptions would learn about?
Rob: Not necessarily. There are things that I would say yes, for a meditator, really, when they're beginning to go quite deep, for sure. As an experience, you might have even had an experience of this already, but as I said, not really registered it as such. So again, another spectrum is, how much fading? I'll get to this in a minute. If things could fade just a little bit, the particular experience could fade. But if I sustain that mode of looking -- and I do need some degree of concentration to do that -- everything that comes up, I'll relate to this way. Everything that comes up, I'll relate to this way, and I'm able to sustain it. Eventually, the whole thing will fade, and it will go -- yeah, seventh or whatever jhāna. Sometimes, quite beginning meditators have an experience of just everything kind of goes poof! And they end up in 'the void,' whatever, what they call 'the void,' and usually it's very scary to them, because it's too sudden, and they haven't really seen a relationship here. I'll get to this in a second.
But what I think is more important is this thing that I said earlier: it's one thread of insight, from the deepest, almost deepest possible insight a human being could have, all the way to just seeing that, when I'm really upset about porridge, or whatever it is, it's really, really prominent. I don't even need to be a meditator to see that. So the degree, the prominence, the strength of an experience will depend on these things. And it's one thread. How deep I go, how I deep I follow that thread into the opening up of things -- yeah, that takes some depth. So I'm talking about avenues that are possible for everyone in here. And we've seen whatever we've seen so far. That's fine. But it's something we can just either ... yeah, and kind of, "Oh, I'll follow this thread now." [1:12:08]
Yogi 39: There's a Charlie Chaplin film, The Gold Rush, in the Yukon or somewhere ... [?] ... He's almost dying of starvation, and in his mind, his friend keeps turning into a chicken, because he's just so hungry. [laughter] And he's big. He's ... [more laughter] And he picks up a hatchet, and then suddenly ... something fades. [?] It's kind of what we're talking about, is that the sort of ...? [laughter] [?] foreground ... clinging to it, and it's a very solid sort of thing, you know!
Yogi 40: That was so [?] ...
Yogi 39: Oh, but it's a caricature of something that kind of happens to all of us, and it's slightly less extreme ...
Yogi 41: I'm glad you brought that up. [laughter] Pardon the giggles. Excuse me.
Rob: So...
Yogi 42: Would you say something about -- this fact of registering seems very important. So the more you spoke, the more I recognized things, but I've not [?] them ... rather than boring, or this ... [?], I was just, body tension disappearing ... and so, I then -- and it's very -- I -- this happened last year, and... [?] blank, so what ... [?] And so, how do you register sort of that connection?
Rob: Because -- very important, so ...
Yogi 42: Support that ...?
Rob: Yeah, yeah. So, two things. You're not asking this, but it's important. Some degree of this is a relaxation of body tension. So, especially if you're talking about things in the body -- but that's not what I'm talking about tonight. So that's not -- but that's important to say. It's not just that relaxed body tension. I'm talking, actually, about perception dissolving. So how? By looking for it. So when I said there are two modes of insight meditation -- one is kind of just hanging out, and an insight pops up -- great. The other is actually setting up a way of looking, and consolidating that particular conclusion, in a way, you know. When I cling less, this is what happens. And whichever way I cling less -- so actually looking at it and seeing it over again: "Ah, yes, there it is again. Ah, yes, there it is again."
Yogi 43: Is that contemplating?
Rob: Contemplating, yeah. You're deliberately setting up the sight in a certain way, because if I see this once, as people are sharing, (a) I probably won't even extract the insight from it. If I see it once and I've got the insight from it, even that's not going to do anything. I need to see it over and over. Why? Because the habit of delusion is so deep. You know, it's the same thing with impermanence. It's like, everyone's seen impermanence. It's a whole other thing to contemplate impermanence in such a sustained and direct way, day after day, over a while, that it imprints on the heart in a way that really affects the way you live. Everyone would agree with impermanence. It's not a big deal. Everyone would agree -- anyone older than four, or whatever. The thing is, to get the thing into the heart, and into the consciousness, in a way that it brings real freedom into the life. Does that make sense?
Now, if we do this -- and I've touched on this before -- fear might come up at a certain point. Similar to the self thing -- when the self quietens, oftentimes, for meditators, fear comes up. When the world begins to fade, maybe fear comes up. [1:15:31] And again, I want to highlight the function of mettā practice and samādhi practice as a real kind of resource for softness of the heart, well-being, that enables us to really see these openings in ways that cushion it, in ways that are really sustainable. And the familiarity with the dying of the self, the gradual lessening of the self, the gradual lessening of the world -- that familiarity, we get less and less afraid.
And gradually, we actually understand through seeing this, because it implies the emptiness of things, we actually understand what we're letting go of -- the sense of world and self, etc. -- we're actually letting go of empty things. Do you see? The things we're letting go of are empty. We're not really losing anything. They're not real things that we're losing. Anyway, the self and the world always come back. They always come back. The thing is, when they come back, is my understanding deeper or not? But it always comes back.
And because we understand we're not losing anything, we can abandon. We can abandon more easily. That actual understanding that there's nothing here really that I'm letting go of -- it allows us to abandon. And in case anyone is feeling a little unsure right now, remember that the lack of inherent existence of things doesn't mean that they don't exist at all. It doesn't mean that they're worthless and meaningless. Doesn't mean that. The Middle Way allows plenty, plenty of room for the heart to be touched by things. [1:17:14]
So, a little bit related to Bill's question -- what would happen if I went all the way with this, and I just keep sustaining this looking, this way of looking, way of relating to things, and things just faded and faded and faded? And some of you may have heard the word 'cessation.' Is this a word that you've come across in teachings, cessation? Cessation of perception? Some of you? Well, that's what it leads to. It leads to a cessation of perception, technically. We'll come back to this. Some people, especially nowadays in the Dharma, consider that a completely irrelevant concept, and in some circles, it's completely unfashionable as a concept, the whole idea of cessation. The danger is, without such a concept, I might be left, again, with just the understanding of things being impermanent, or something like a big awareness having inherent existence. Something has to go really, really deep to shake that up. [1:18:22]
Yogi 44: When you said it's become unfashionable, do you mean ...?
Rob: Only in some circles.
Yogi 44: Some circles say that you don't have to experience it?
Rob: Yeah, or that it's completely irrelevant. And actually, it has no bearing on dependent arising or emptiness or anything at all. Yeah.
Yogi 44: So they haven't experienced that level in meditation? They want to make it, there's a way around, or something ...?
Rob: Well, the other thing I was going to say was, sometimes people report experiencing something like that, but haven't taken the insight out of it. So that person might have -- or so they report -- an experience of everything completely, just completely ceasing -- even the sense of awareness. That's gone, just voom! But sometimes, again, a person might pop into that, so I get reports. And yet, when you talk to them, you actually see they haven't actually got the understanding out of it. It's not just random -- it's actually, why does it cease? Why is it there, and why does it cease? Why does it appear, and why does it cease? That's the understanding of dependent arising, of emptiness. And that's the understanding that will free, probably not just a one-off experience that I don't understand in the heart.
So what do we need to understand? We need to understand this fading, to whatever degree, from the tantrum degree, down to the more small and more subtle. 'Understand the fading' means things are dependent on the perceiving mind's clinging and conceiving. [1:19:58] So, the story we started with from the Buddha -- what does "the end of the world" mean? This is what it means. And why is it important in the context of liberation? What does it mean to see the end of the world, the end of the world of experience? I need to see that, and I need to understand it, because understanding it properly tells me about the world, tells me something about the world that liberates my suffering from it. [1:20:24]
Okay guys, this is going slower than I imagined, which is fine. I've got a bit more. Are you okay with a bit more? Are you okay with a bit more? Okay.
Yogi 45: [?] ... that last sentence?
Rob: Yeah, it's going back to the story of the end of the world. What did the Buddha mean? This is what he means, to see the end of the world. But I need to see ...
Yogi 45: The end of the world of appearances?
Rob: The end of the world of appearances and experiences. And for all intents and purposes, that's our world. It's the world of appearances and experiences, okay? If I don't understand how the end of the world comes, which also implies how the world comes for me, then I haven't -- you know, that's what I need to understand by seeing the end of the world.
Yogi 46: It's the end of the world in a moment -- is that what you're talking about, like Deathless, in a moment?
Rob: It may be in a moment. It may be stretched out over time. But basically, I need to understand. Eventually, I need to see that ending of the world. I need to see this fading, and I need to draw into my heart and my understanding the implications of that fading, of what it says about the whole world. You understand?
Yogi 47: The emptiness?
Rob: Exactly, the emptiness and dependent arising -- two sides of the same coin, two different words for the same thing. Exactly. Yeah? But ...
Yogi 48: So when you're completely deep in meditation, and not only does the body disappear, but the mind -- it disappears too. That's tantamount to the experience that you get when you die, and the fact is that it's there all the time ...
Rob: What is there all the time?
Yogi 48: That non-existence.
Rob: We will -- can we revisit this? Because it's -- again, I will give a whole talk about that. What I just want to say tonight was, again, the idea of the spectrum of fading, and why it's relevant, etc. So what we mean when we say 'mind' is something I really want to revisit, okay? What does it mean for the mind to fade? Again, there are degrees of that. In terms of death ... [sighs] Don't know. In terms of whether that thing exists all the time anyway -- that I really want to revisit, okay? That's a big one.
Okay, let's talk a little bit about grasping. [1:23:01] What does 'grasping' mean? If we talk about the aggregates, grasping will come in as part of the fourth khandha. It's part of mental formations. It's a form of intention, right? Okay, what have we seen so far? Just summing up, the thing depends on my relationship with it, on my reaction to it. Basically, it depends on grasping. Right? If what I've said tonight is true, then the thing depends on grasping. What does grasping depend on?
Yogi 49: The thing.
Rob: Bingo. Grasping depends on the thing. The thing depends on grasping. I can't grasp without a thing to grasp at. Thing depends on grasping. I can see that, and I can see it over and over in meditation. But has to be that grasping depends on the thing -- mutually dependent.
Yogi 50: You can't have grasping without a mind that's doing the grasping.
Rob: Yeah, it also depends on the self, absolutely -- I'm not saying exclusively on the thing, but definitely, yes, depends on a number of factors, yes, for sure. Thank you. But right now I just want to highlight this mutual dependency of thing and grasping. [1:24:12] So we say the thing is empty because it's dependent on grasping. But that whole mutuality implies you've got grasping dependent on something that's empty. So it therefore is empty because it's dependent. You've got two empty things leaning on each other. How can that be? That's why -- remembering way back, I think it was the first talk -- I said: unless your jaw hangs open in amazement, you haven't really understood dependent arising. It's something so radical. And there's a lovely sutta where -- I can't remember where it is, I'm sorry, again -- where someone is questioning Sāriputta, and he's explaining the links, in the very classical way, of dependent arising. He goes through, and he goes through. He gets down to name and form, perception, etc. And then he says, "And perception -- what does that depend on?" And he says, "Consciousness" -- going back, that's the third link. "And consciousness -- what does consciousness depend on? Depends on name and form." And the guy goes, "Whoaaaa, hold on. You just said consciousness was dependent on name and form. Now you're saying name and form is dependent on consciousness." And Sāriputta says, "That's right. Like two sheaves of corn leaning on each other" -- that's actually too solid an image -- "you take one away, the other goes."[13]
The Buddha, actually, if you read -- and again, I'm sorry, I don't know where this is -- in his most complete report of his night of awakening, again, he says, "And I asked myself a question: what does death depend on? It depends on birth. What does birth depend on? Depends on" -- and he goes backwards. And he's, the first time -- in the mythological story, I'm sure it actually was more than one night, in my opinion -- but he goes backwards and he sees these connections. "And what does clinging depend on? Depends on vedanā." He goes back, and he gets to name and form, nāmarūpa, and he says, "And what does nāmarūpa depend on?" He said, "And I saw it was dependent on consciousness. Then I asked myself, 'And what does consciousness depend on?' It depends on name and form." And he said, "At that point was awakening."[14] So there's something extremely profound. What we're saying is basically, consciousness and object, perception, go together. But the implications of that mutual dependency are profound, profound. It's like really sucking the marrow out of that insight. What does it mean to say that? We'll explore this more. They don't exist independently, inherently, by themselves. They don't have a separateness of existence.
So here we have grasping and thing, two empty things, air leaning on air, emptiness leaning on emptiness, a mutual dependent arising. Someone -- forgot his name, this monk -- has written some very nice books. It's like the left and right side of a whirlpool, but just actually separated by convention.[15] They're not really there, in a sense. Actually, that doesn't really give a sense of the depth of what's being suggested here.
What about mind states? Say, what's equanimity? Equanimity is a kind of steadiness in relationship to what is difficult or fantastic. That's the way we usually -- we're not so swayed in relationship to what's difficult or fantastic. But when there's a state of non-sway, it means there's less push and pull in relationship to the difficult and fantastic. And what happens to the difficult and fantastic? They lessen. They fade. So the very word 'equanimity' ends up not really meaning what it meant originally, because it's in relationship to difficult or fantastic, but actually, difficult and fantastic have gone.
Or, say, anger. I have anger. Anger about an object, or about a situation, actually colours that perception. Most human beings should notice this, even non-meditators. My anger colours the perception of something. But again, without the perception of that thing, without perception of the object, there's no anger. I actually can't find a mind state separate from the perceptions of the objects of that mind state. The whole thing is kind of one inseparable -- I don't know what you call it -- blob? I'm not sure. There are no mind states inherently. But actually, there are only objects appearing, and perceptions. If I fill this out, actually, including suffering -- suffering, too, is empty. Suffering is empty. Now that may sound like a very dangerous thing to say, because then what would happen to compassion if suffering is empty? But if we see the emptiness of suffering, rather than not caring, it actually feeds compassion in the most beautiful way. And how one would explain that, I'm not exactly sure. It's the kind of magic of all this. The more I see the emptiness of suffering, the more compassion comes into the heart. [1:29:28]
Yogi 51: This goes back to the polarities you talked about?
Rob: In a way, that's one way of looking at it. But all these ways, yes, they're all different ways of kind of seeing the emptiness ...
Yogi 51: [?]
Rob: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And the thing, too. Yeah. So, again, Meister Eckhart, really extraordinary mystic:
God is revealed equally in hell as he is in heaven.[16]
It's there, this emptiness -- same in suffering as it is in bliss, as it is in neutrality.
Yogi 52: That somehow illuminates [?] what you said about the suffering then, because I think my experience of suffering is there's a very accentuated sense of 'me' and a sense that I am in hell, I'm locked in somehow. And so it makes sense that if you see that as a kind of temporary thing, as a kind of construction, but you feel the pathos of that, the poignancy of that somehow, you know?
Rob: Yeah. And thank you, Bruce. You also -- when there is hell, I am feeling like "I am in hell," yeah? The sense of self's there. All these things build each other. So the perception actually builds the self-sense as well. The suffering builds -- not only does self-sense build suffering, but suffering builds self-sense, because "I am the sufferer. Poor me, I'm going ..." Everything mutually dependent, mutually dependent -- can't get away from this. [1:31:05]
Grasping's interesting, because when we actually really look closely at grasping, we actually find out that, to a certain extent, we're always grasping at something which is not a 'thing.' And actually, grasping often involves past or the future imaging of a thing. Is it going to stay? Future of a thing -- is it going to change? Future of a thing -- it's not the thing in the present moment. We elongate things in time with a mental image of things. So again, all this is not just to say, "Mm, that's interesting." It's actually, what would happen if I began to look at that in meditation, and actually be aware of it as I'm looking at grasping?
Going right back to the beginning, this duality which I have just mentioned: aversion is in relationship to or in contrast to non-aversion. It also is a duality; it doesn't exist independently. We draw that sense out too. Aversion, we could say, is also not separate from greed. Greed and aversion are actually not separate. You notice, when there's aversion for one thing, there's usually greed for another implicit in that. I just want to get rid of this pain, and so I seek a non-pain, at the very least. It's also that aversion is not separate from the reactions to the aversion.
So this goes back to Juliet's -- I don't know when it was -- thing about fear. [1:32:46] We said, well, there's fear of the fear, or aversion to anger. And you can't actually separate the anger from the aversion to the anger, or the fear from the fear of the fear.
I think you guys are fading, so ...
Yogi 53: [?]
Rob: Okay. I think you can at first, and then as you go deeper -- but it's important to be able to separate, because otherwise you won't be able to soften the whole thing. So actually important to be able to separate it, and then deeper, deeper, you actually realize you can't actually find a separation there. But it's an important stage to be able to see that we can.
Okay. There's a very famous, very important, another Zen teacher call Lin Chi. Someone apparently was asking him how he practises, and he says:
[Well,] sometimes I take away the person [meaning, I let go of the self and the self-view, or 'not me, not mine,' let go of the self]. Sometimes I take away the thing [what we're talking about tonight: I see the emptiness of the thing, the emptiness of the situation]. Sometimes I take away both. And sometimes I don't take away anything. [I leave everything there.][17]
Which is what we said right at the beginning: self, not-self, thing, and emptiness -- they're just ways of looking. And actually, in time, a meditator has all those options, all those options. [1:34:10]
So this fading, just to say -- to me, it's a particularly important avenue for a meditator. Not everyone will go through it, but I feel it's very important to see that over and over and over and over, and -- this is more a phrase I use -- 'consolidate that insight,' the insight being: "This thing is a dependent arising. It's empty, depends on my relationship to it." And as I said, eventually, that coin is dropped, and one can go directly to looking at a thing, and just knowing that it's empty, because I've seen the dependence over and over again, and just say, "Empty, empty." And that brings fading. Why? Because my poker chips of ignorance in that moment -- ignorance, delusion means believing in the inherent existence of things -- but if I just say, "Empty," in that moment, the poker chips are less of delusion. Do you understand?
Yogi 54: I missed the first ... [?]
Rob: If I can see this fading over and over, or whatever way I see the emptiness of things, and eventually I see it over and over, until that conclusion is embedded in my heart, I know it, I know it, I know it, I can then begin looking at something, and going straight to the knowing of the emptiness of it, and look at it through the lens of knowing its emptiness. And rather than "Not me, not mine," or "Let me see if I can relax the aversion," I can actually just see a thing and know that it's empty, and hold that lens. And in so doing, because in that moment, the delusion is less, the stack of poker chips of delusion is less, it will build the perception less and less. And it's an even more powerful gear of doing the whole thing.
So what I'm wanting to do is point out where this is going. I'm not expecting anyone, necessarily, to be in that place at all tonight, or maybe even on this retreat, and probably, for a lot of you, not on this retreat -- in fact, most of you, not on this retreat. But one thread of insight, and I want -- as I said, really want to give you the sense of something that's extremely possible, and goes deep, deep, deep, deep, deep, and then huge in its power to transform the life.
Yogi 55: So these poker chips -- I mean, the other side of this business of emptiness is that somehow, we're geared up to have these delusions of "I am something or other." That's what I think in my mind the poker chips are: "I'm stupid," "I'm ..." whatever it is. And in that, you're just locked into this sort of very solid sense of 'me.' And well, then you're stuffed, basically! Or something like that.
Rob: Well, now, two things there, Bruce. So one is, the whole point of the Dharma is that you're not stuffed. The whole point of the Dharma is that this is what goes on by default and habit -- an extremely deeply programmed and powerful and tenacious habit -- but the whole point of the Dharma is, is it possible to unbind that habit, and learn to actually be free, rather than just stuffed? So that's one thing.
Second thing -- and this to me is very, very important; I've mentioned it a few times -- to me, the whole of the Buddha's teaching is not just talking about the emptiness of the self. So you said, "I'm like this," "I'm such a so-and-so," "I've got these definitions," but also, "This is like this," "That's like that," anything -- anything in the world, any situation, anything that I'm grumbling about. But also the elements of experience, and the elements that seem to make up reality: space, time, awareness. We'll get to this in more detail. Basic things: a feeling, an emotion -- all of that, all of that. We'll get to this. All of it is empty. That's delusion. Delusion is believing in a 'thing-ness' and a reality of anything. Self is included as well as phenomena. And it's a big, big project to -- you know, in a way, there's nothing bigger, to kind of expose the unreality of that, in a way that one can actually be free more and more.
Yogi 55: [?] You keep saying, understandably, "This is empty," etc., but what that is liberating us from, [?] the nature of those delusions. Delusion is something to do with, "I'm a something or other." [?] I don't know how it happens, but it's ... [?] ignorance. You end up, as a human being, conceiving yourself in a certain way, and you get locked into that ...
Rob: Yeah. So I'm saying that's not just true about oneself, but it's true of things and the elements of experience as well. And absolutely, that's what delusion is. And being locked in it is what saṃsāra is, because by being locked in it, I react to the whole thing a certain way, and I just spin the whole cycle, and the whole thing solidifies. The Dharma, in a way, is a kind of process of understanding and un-solidifying the whole thing, and kind of learning not to get locked in that cycle of solidifying self and things and the world.
Yogi 55: [?] As a baby, you're born, and you don't really have a sense of self as such. [?] And then that develops as you progress, so then you have a sense of self. But then, to be able to ... you have to know you've got a self to be able to lose [?] ...
Rob: So, okay, maybe, is there a question there, or ...?
Yogi 55: No, not really. [laughter] You can't lose something unless you know you have it in the first place.
Rob: I mean, there are degrees of knowing one has something, you know ...
Yogi 55: We think ...
Rob: There's being ...
Yogi 55: We think to ourselves, and then ...
Rob: If we go back to what I said much earlier in the retreat, again, I use this concept of spectra over and over. It's like, the spectrum of the self -- I can have a real sense of a self, a conscious self that I'm reflecting on, you know, "This is the self," etc. Or just the notion -- you know, an insect has a notion of self. But I don't think an insect -- well, maybe, but you know, I don't assume an insect walks around contemplating its sense of self, or defining itself in any ways. But it's there, implicit in the consciousness.
Yogi 56: Well, when you're training in this way, could this work at a level of perception, sort of a 'seen one, seen them all' sort of type thing? Around sort of sense -- so is it like, 'seen one, seen them all'? [?] ... different types, obviously, space and time and different types of things to itself [?] ...
Rob: Yeah, good. Thank you for bringing this up.
Yogi 56: And then the question of training.
Rob: Yeah, so do you remember -- this is really important now. Thank you. I meant to say this. Do you remember, once or twice, I said, for me, for most people, it seems, teaching this stuff, that the most helpful way of going about investigating emptiness is actually going via your suffering, rather than via, "Does the zafu da-da-da-da?" That's still really important and helpful, and we talked about chariots and all that. But if you follow that, what will happen is the range of objects that you will see fade, and are therefore empty and dependent arising, will increase, rather than getting into a thing of trying to look at a tree and make it disappear right now. Go via your actual experience -- particularly an experience that seems to be causing you difficulty.
Yogi 56: [?] ... you can work [?] ...
Rob: Yeah. And certain sense doors are easier than others for most people. We tend, in this tradition, to practise with our eyes shut. There's more facility as well with the eyes shut. I would really, really recommend not getting -- with this whole emptiness thing, it's very easy to go into a, "Well, this is empty, and da-da-da-da, therefore" -- like I said right at the beginning, and getting into an abstract kind of, "Well, if that's empty, then da-da-da-da," rather than actually just following one's own experience of dissolving either the self-definitions, or this experience, or that experience, and actually seeing it's empty. It becomes very relevant then. And one sees it palpably. And then that expands and expands and expands, rather than going it kind of abstractly. Yeah? So ...
Okay. [laughter] Okay. So let's have a bit of quiet together.
SN 35:116. ↩︎
Tsong khapa, Ocean of Reasoning: A Great Commentary on Nāgārjuna's Mūlamadhyamakakārikā, tr. Geshe Ngawang Samten and Jay L. Garfield (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 27. ↩︎
Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddha Mind, Buddha Body: Walking Toward Enlightenment (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2007), 59. ↩︎
Gampopa, The Jewel Ornament of Liberation: The Wish-fulfilling Gem of the Noble Teachings, tr. Khenpo Konchog Gyaltsen Rinpoche (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1998), 248. ↩︎
This translation seems to be adapted from several English translations of this verse. For a convenient comparison of different translations, see Mu Soeng, Trust in Mind: The Rebellion of Chinese Zen (Boston: Wisdom, 2004), 133--6. ↩︎
SN 12:2. ↩︎
C. F. Kelley, Meister Eckhart on Divine Knowledge (Cobb, CA: Dharma Café, 1997), 161. ↩︎
D. T. Suzuki, The Zen Doctrine of No Mind, 24. ↩︎
MN 106. ↩︎
SN 46:14, SN 46:15, SN 46:16. ↩︎
The Buddha complains of back pain in DN 33. In DN 16 the Buddha says that his body is more at ease when he enters the "themeless concentration of awareness." ↩︎
Cf. MMK 7:16. ↩︎
SN 12:67. ↩︎
SN 12:65. ↩︎
The image of the whirlpool features prominently in Bhikkhu K. Ñāṇananda, Nibbāna -- The Mind Stilled (Sri Lanka, 2015; digital edn version 1.1, 2019), https://seeingthroughthenet.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/NMS_LE_Rev_1.1.pdf, accessed 21 Oct. 2020. ↩︎
Cf. a quote by Sergius Bulgakov in Sergius Bulgakov, Bride of the Lamb, tr. Boris Jakim (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 2002), 489: "The eternity of God's presence, the eternal sun of justice, Christ, are revealed equally in heaven and in hell, in both the bliss of the called and chosen and the torments of the called but rejected." ↩︎
Cf. Burton Watson, The Zen Teachings of Master Lin-chi (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 21. ↩︎
