Dharma(s) Discovered and Created (Part 2)

All right, just to recap very briefly, we've been asking the question: what is involved, what is necessary, what are the needed ingredients, constituents of a healthy, vital tradition? And looking, obviously, in particular at Buddhadharma, and also Soulmaking Dharma, etc. And as part of that, unearthing and opening out, shining a light on some aspects or constituents that may be less obvious, or that some implications of those certain aspects may be less obvious to us. And part of what we wanted to acknowledge and bring more into consciousness was just how much cultural conditioning plays a part, or contemporary cultures, places, and histories influence and shape and condition the tradition, the Dharma, whatever it is, at the time, in that place.

And we also mentioned the fact, the unavoidable fact that creative mistakes creep in and sometimes can actually be very fertile in what they contribute to the tradition, to the Dharma, and how things get built on those mistakes, on the bases of those mistakes. Also, opening up, again, the recognition and the pondering of the fact of the presence, and maybe the necessity of a certain amount of conflict and argument that constitutes the tradition and shapes the community relations, etc., and the relations of ideas within that tradition. And that's part of its life. And so, with all this, then a whole other level of question is: how much, how little, what kinds of tensions actually serve a creative function, perhaps even surprisingly? And at what point, and what kinds of tension serve to actually fracture something, perhaps irredeemably, to fracture a tradition, to splinter it, to kill it? So all these factors are part of what shape Dharma, the Dharma, the Buddhadharma, a tradition, any tradition. And what are we going to do with that? How does it land with you? How do we orient towards that, relate to it? Where do we move forward in relation to that?

And I want to add into that mix, into that sort of cauldron of ingredients we're considering and acknowledging, something I've emphasized many times before: the personal inclinations we bring as human beings into our choices, our preferences, our leanings, our openness or closedness with respect to this or that that we might hear or read, or that's presented to us in the Dharma as a practice possibility, as a teaching possibility, as a concept, as a direction, whatever. So personal inclinations, meaning soul-styles, wishes, desires, fears. We cannot but bring that, and we must acknowledge it. We must be honest about that. There's a certain, not just cultural but personal element in all this, that comes into the equation, comes into the mix, and shapes and directs our choices, blinkers us, opens certain avenues, closes certain avenues, makes certain possibilities just unthinkable, or not even noticed. We just don't hear them. They just do not register.

So in some ways, we choose a Dharma. An individual chooses a Dharma, to some extent, based on their personal inclinations. And if you like, the sum or total of the individual choices will also shape the larger tradition or sub-traditions, etc. And so, the Dharma that we choose -- "I want this Dharma. I want the tradition to be this. I want to see the tradition to be this. Or I choose this kind of Dharma" -- they're often, the choices and the wishes there, and the soul-styles, are often with regard to the world-view and the view of the human being. More than anything else, what is it that determines these? What are the foci of determination? What is it that I'm choosing, this kind of presentation of Dharma, or this tradition, or that picture of the Dharma, that model, that conceptual framework over another one? The most salient features there are actually the world-view and the human view. I've mentioned this before. In a way, when we choose a certain Dharma, choose a certain image of awakening, we're actually choosing a certain view of human beinghood, humanity. So all this comes into it, and we need to acknowledge it. [6:55]

If we consider, for example, four different logoi or models, if you like, or beliefs about the world -- and implicit in views about the world is also views about what is real, so ontology; can't get rid of it, can't throw metaphysics out, cannot burn it up so that it disappears and is gone once and for all. The metaphysics will come back, and it's central and basic, in fact. So if we compare, as I said, four views, four beliefs, four models, four logoi, really, of the world, pictures of the world, and implicit in that, pictures of what is real, and then see how that, each of them, in a way, orients the one who subscribes to that view of the world, that view, that cosmology, and that ontology. Each one of those orients the practitioner in a particular way, and shapes the Dharma in a particular way relative to that world-view.

(1) So, for example, if we believe the kind of -- what I was calling 'physicalism' or 'materialism' view -- in other words, "There is really only matter. And there is this movement of particles, essentially purposeless, etc., but somehow, they have developed consciousness with all its complexity, etc. But really, what's there -- consciousness is an epiphenomenon of matter, and consciousness, at root, is just the movement of matter, of particles in the neurology. It's just a matter of time until we figure that out, how that works." But that view, "There is only matter," then -- the whole Dharma, as one view, the whole Dharma that comes out of that is what we might call a kind of 'secular existentialist' view of Dharma. "That's the real condition of things. There is only matter. Any sense of depth is, in a way, an illusion, of dimensionality is, in a way, an illusion -- certainly divinity and all that. And my freedom, the concepts of 'suffering' and 'freedom' are to be framed by that world-view, by that physicalist world-view, and my orientation, then, must be framed from that. The primary thing that I relate to is this strange existential situation that I'm in, and I'm needing to find some okayness with that." So that gives a whole picture of the Dharma, a whole basis, and picture, and limitation, and trajectory, and orientation of the Dharma. Now, that might be a very conscious view, or it might be an unconscious view, okay? But it still will operate to shape and inform what Dharma one gravitates towards.

(2) Consider a second view that "In fact, only the Unfabricated, that which is wholly transcendent, not just to matter, but to all perception and all experience, really, in the conventional sense, only the Unfabricated is real, and good, and perhaps sacred." Then this life has very little inherent value other than as a stepping-stone to getting out of this life. And that's, in some sub-traditions of the Dharma, it's a very common view. It's quite popular, as is the first one that I mentioned these days. But then, you can hear how that then orients, shapes, constrains, limits, sets up a whole Dharma, and what the situation is we're addressing, and what we're trying to get to, what do we mean by suffering, and what suffering is -- "Basically being born into this. Suffering is the world of phenomenal experience. Life is suffering. And freedom from suffering is to get out of it. Realize the Unfabricated so thoroughly that one is not born again." So to speak, it's the wrong metaphor, but one 'dissolves' into the Unfabricated, and that's the end of it, the end of dukkha, the end of rebirth. [12:32] So again, there's a world-view and an ontological view about what's real, and about what the world is, and its ontological status, and also what's valuable there, relative to that. And that shapes the whole Dharma and direction.

(3) A third view: "All manifestation is equally one and divine. It's all the same divine substance. It's all the play of divine awareness. It's all the play of consciousness, līḷā, the play of consciousness. Or it's all love, or it's all whatever it is." And how does the Dharma then, what kind of Dharma gets built up around that world-view? Again, what's our predicament? "Our predicament is just not realizing that. We just don't realize that it's all one. We think we're separate. We think things are separate. When we realize it's all one, that's the end of suffering. And nothing is more or less divine than the other. Nothing in particular is special because of its particularities, and what it is, and its uniqueness. It's only special and only really valuable because of the substantial equality, an essence that it shares with everything else."

(4) The fourth one would be more in line with the soulmaking view. Those first three are actually quite popular. And again -- I don't know how much you've done this -- talk to people after retreats, or talk to Dharma friends or people. What actually is their view underpinning the whole Dharma and therefore shaping it? So the first three are really quite common. The fourth is more in line with what we might call the Soulmaking Dharma, or more congruent with the Soulmaking Dharma, and perhaps less popular, I would say, in the wider world, in the wider tradition of contemporary Dharma. But in that view, all manifestation is divine, but not just, not only because it shares a universal divine essence. So there is that. There is the place for that perception, and that kind of liberation, and that kind of beauty, that kind of eros for that universal divine essence or essences, plural -- we've talked about this a lot before in the Soulmaking Dharma -- but not only because of that. All manifestation is divine, but each thing's particularities are divine and necessary to the becoming of the divine, the manifestation in time of the divine, or the Buddha-nature, if you prefer. So rather than, if you like, equalizing and therefore, in a sense, obfuscating and ignoring the particularities of the things of the world and of ourselves, each particularity is divine, and divinely necessary, or necessary to the divine, to the process of the divine -- including your dukkha, including your foibles, including your madnesses.

How many things are there? Well, potentially infinite. Why? Because when the soulmaking dynamic gets going, when the eros-psyche-logos dynamic is ignited, it will create and discover more and more aspects of things, more and more objects of eros. So there aren't a predetermined amount of objects or phenomena in the universe, or in ourselves, or even in this particular object that I'm looking at. There's an infinite and endlessly, potentially endlessly growing amount. So you can, again -- and we've talked a lot about this -- what does that view do? What does that logos do to the sense of the Dharma, what my job is, what my orientation is, what I'm moving from and towards? What is suffering, then? How is suffering defined? What is its scope? What is awakening? What is the scope of awakening and where it's leading?

So just for an example there, we could probably list more, but four logoi, or models, or beliefs about the world, or cosmologies, if you like, and implicit in that cosmology are four ontological views about what's real. So for example, only the Unfabricated is really real. Everything else is kind of illusion in the second one. All this phenomenal world is illusion. Sabbam etam māyam, Buddha said: "All this is illusion." But these four logoi then bring four orientations, if you like, ideas of jobs, and work to do, and scope, and what the path is -- four Dharmas, essentially. And implicit in each Dharma is a kind of awakening. So how influential -- what are we really choosing? I've made this point before in those talks, "What is Awakening?" I think they were called.^[1] What are we really choosing when we choose a certain vision of awakening? Are we not both influenced by but also choosing, really, as perhaps primary, a certain model, or belief, or conceptual framework, idea of the world, and of human being?

But again, if we're thinking really about what shapes a tradition, these different logoi of world and reality, different cosmology, different ontology will shape very different Dharma trajectories, very different Dharmas, essentially. And what is it that predisposes us, or why do we choose one model, one idea, one belief about the world and about ontology over another? What's going on there? This is so basic in its implications, so basic in the way it kind of creates divergent paths, with all kinds of implications.

I was talking a little while ago, just a sort of chance conversation. I bumped into someone who was studying philosophy and had also been studying, I think, a couple of Jewish philosophers. I can't remember if it was Maimonides or Spinoza he was talking about. I don't know. And so we were having a conversation, and he was a little bit familiar with the teachings about the imaginal and soulmaking, and was reading his philosophy. If I understood him, he seemed to be saying that someone -- I can't remember if it was Maimonides, or Spinoza, or Abraham Abulafia, I can't remember -- regarded images in a similar way as this person did, as at best transitional objects. So that's a phrase from Donald Winnicott, the psychologist and child psychologist. So 'transitional object' is something like a blanket or a teddy bear that the child supposedly uses in the process of weaning themselves towards more independence from the mother, towards more autonomy, towards more self-sense, towards healthier relationships -- and in that process, invests the transitional object, the teddy bear or whatever it is, with a kind of imaginary full beinghood, personhood, and then gradually weans themselves off the need for that imagination.

So he regarded images as at best transitional objects which are eventually kind of let go of, to meet God directly, to know God directly, or to meet God's intellect, God's active intellect directly. 'Active intellect' is just a term; I think it originated with Aristotle, but it became quite influential. But the point is really that images are just stepping-stones. Some people will need them as stepping-stones for a kind of imageless, transcendent, direct participation or melting into the wordless, unconceptual, non-representational, unformed sense of God. So whether you call that 'Unfabricated' or the 'active intellect' or whatever, different versions, it doesn't matter. So I wasn't entirely surprised to hear this kind of thing, because that would, again, be quite common as a way of viewing these things.

So also in sometimes the way Dzogchen is related to, we realize, "Oh, there are all these divinities and deities and visualization practices," and a lot of people want to kind of bypass that, or skip it over, or view it as a transition, a stepping-stone to actually the real deal in Dzogchen, which is the nature of mind, which ends up tending to be this vastness of awareness, etc. "And that's the real McCoy. The deity business is probably just some cultural accretions from the Tibetans, etc., a bit backward, etc. We don't really need that. We want to go for the pith, the essence, the real high deal." But actually, if you read closely Dzogchen teachers -- I'm thinking of Mipham Rinpoche and others -- the nature of mind, and the sort of more formless teachings are just actually on their way to an even greater liberation which sees divinities everywhere, and sees all things as divinities, and does not relinquish the formed in favour of the formless.

And as I've stressed, and have found in other passages in different traditions, in Ibn 'Arabi, and others, in Islamic tradition, and certainly in Buddhist tantra, can it not also be the other way around than this person was construing? Can it not be that knowing the Unfabricated, for example -- knowing the formless, knowing the transcendent, that which involves no fabrication of image or perception -- can in fact open the door for some people to imaginal practice? Or certainly, if their understanding of emptiness deepens far enough, it provides the legitimization, for some people, for imaginal practice. I've talked about this in several talks over recent years. [25:13]

But you can hear, in this person's presenting it like that -- and it does, I think, have roots in, for example, Abraham Abulafia, the Jewish Kabbalistic mystic, who very much thought that way about letting go of images to be able to participate in the active intellect of God, very influenced by Aristotle, and you get it in different traditions. So there is that spin on it. But this person's idea, then, or construal, presupposes a certain aim of, in this case, Buddhadharma, or Judaism, or whatever. It presupposes that the aim is to reach the Unfabricated, and all else is either a hindrance or something that's a stepping-stone. In his case, that's how he was viewing imaginal work, as just they're transitional objects. They can help you get close to God, but the real deal is the unformed -- no image. So, it presupposes a certain aim of Buddhadharma or Jewish mystical practice or whatever, and it presupposes or it assumes a limited nature of what images are, and it presupposes a certain, if you like, psychology or make-up of the soul. So all these views can't help shape and orient us, and create a kind of Dharma, and then really create different, if you like, sub-traditions or maybe actually divergent traditions, that the differences I've pointed out become too different -- maybe, maybe not -- become too different from each other to really feel like they cohere in one tradition.

I can't remember who I was listening to or talking to, but again, it's not that uncommon these days, and certain philosophers -- I don't know, maybe Thomas Metzinger. I'm not that familiar with his work directly, but maybe others. But I was talking to or hearing from a practitioner, or reading something, that their construal of what is really happening in awakening -- we talk about nibbāna, or stream-entry, or arahantship, or liberation, or whatever -- what's really happening is a neurological change in the brain. Maybe the brain, and the whole neuronal system, and the whole body. That's what's really happening. That's what really one is affecting through practice. Through diligent practice, one's rewiring or retraining something -- the neurons. And that neurological change short-circuits -- if we can use that phrase -- kind of 'short-circuits' the neural networks that have, up to then, been perceiving a separate self.

So here's a view, then. You can hear how much, again, is wrapped up and implied by such a view. The experiential effect of that kind of neuronal change that comes from practice is the collapse or non-arising of a certain -- well, this person was saying "of the self or the self-sense." I would say "of a certain range of self-sense." And there's the ensuing kind of relative ease, and peace, and relative, I would say, liberation that that brings. [29:13] But really, in that view, really, there was only a neural network processing sense data in a way that produced the illusion of self. So you can hear how much is, again, wrapped up, how much is implied, and what directions come out of that.

So my question, or one question I have here is about the anthropological and cosmological view that is either implicitly or explicitly wrapped up or stated along with the experience, and along with the teaching of that kind of view of what's happening in awakening, and what awakening is. And my question is: what effects will that kind of anthropological and cosmological view have, in terms of the ethos, the flavour of being, the range of being, the sense of meaningfulness, or the possibility of a sense of meaningfulness, of the sense of beauty, senses of beauty, of eros, of soulmaking? What does it do to all those possibilities? So what is the result? A person might be doing relatively, at some levels, similar-ish practices. But they're all undergirded by, again, certain anthropological, cosmological views -- in this case, a kind of physicalist, neurological view, a neurologically based anthropology and cosmology. What kind of awakening does that give rise to? What kind of human being does that give rise to? What kind of possibilities does it open? What kind of possibilities does it close?

Might also point out that what is wrapped up in that is, I would say, a more limited view of what emptiness is and what realization involves. So there is -- in that view that I just presented -- there is a basic reality which is material, which is physical, neuronal. There is a neuronal network. It can either work like this, or it can work like that. If it works like this, you get a certain suffering -- the self illusion. If it works like that, you don't -- that self illusion is no longer in the programme. The software has changed. But the basic reality is, "The neurons exist. The neuron network exists. The biological functioning exists, etc." And the only real scope of what's seen as empty is the self, and the illusion of the self, and it's that that goes, versus a view of emptiness that I would prefer and find much more interesting, exciting, much more challenging, more radical, deep, wide, etc. -- that everything is empty: neurons, matter, process, time. You've heard me say that many times, read about it. [32:44]

So there are two things there. What is the scope of the emptiness view? And is it as deep and as thorough as it might be? And what is the ethos that is implied, both as a basis but also as a result in that kind of view? What's the ethos of the awakening, of the soul that comes out of such a view? So if we linger a little bit, let's linger a little bit on this whole question of, or the whole fact, actually, that there are, if we look at Buddhadharma, we can notice -- and someone interested in these things should notice quite rapidly -- that there are quite a few different versions of what 'emptiness' means. So everyone is using the same word, mostly, 'emptiness,' etc. And the range of what's implied, wrapped up in that term varies hugely.

So, certainly true in the Tibetan traditions, if you even just think about the four main Tibetan lineages and compare, say, the Nyingma or the Kagyu traditions with, say, the Gelug tradition. The Gelug tradition was founded by Tsongkhapa in the, I think, fourteenth century, if I remember, fourteenth/fifteenth century. And I don't quite know the background, but they put a great emphasis on preserving the reality of conventional perceptions, so preserving conventional reality. And I think part of the reason for that was because Tsongkhapa looked around him at the time in Tibet and saw a lot of people using the language of emptiness as a kind of excuse to justify behaviour that wasn't ethical. So perhaps his thinking, and his solution, or his perceived need there was to lean more towards not espousing a view that conventional appearances were in fact thoroughly empty. So you get a strange, to me, strange teaching in the Gelug tradition which says, "This thing, whatever it is, is empty of inherent existence. It's not empty of itself."

And there's a lot of debate that came out of that that mostly, Westerners have not really come across, because they're sort of spared that, for whatever reasons. But it's there in the hundreds of years of tradition, quite sort of strong argument from different teachers -- certainly Mipham Rinpoche was very keen to point out the problems with that view, and the different Karmapas, etc. But that's one version of emptiness, that really, it's almost like, they say things are empty, but it almost -- the danger in preserving the reality of conventional appearances, and insisting that they're not empty, that conventional reality is not empty, is that emptiness just has no effect. It's sort of just a kind of intellectual thing, but everything remains the same. That's one of the dangers.

Then you get different views of emptiness where, again, the thrust or the aim (and often it's not made explicit) seems to be a kind of -- what would you say? -- a kind of crusade against sacredness, a crusade against what might be something that we might call 'spiritual.' And so, again, what's happening in that choice of what 'emptiness' means -- emptiness means, "Don't get your hopes up." Emptiness means, "There is nothing sacred." Emptiness means, "There's nothing special." Emptiness means that "the Self (with a big S) is an illusion. Soul is an illusion, etc. God is almost certainly an illusion, anything like that." And that view of emptiness and that scope of emptiness, again, uses a lot of the same language. There's a lot of overlap. But it's got a certain purpose, and it's got a certain prescribed range, and intent, and scope to it, and goal to it, and vision of what awakening is.

And in that, as I've pointed out, it also ends up casting the self in a certain light. So again, if I view, "The reality of things is this difficult existential situation. We're thrown into this world of purposeless matter in an inexplicable way, in an inexplicable universe of harsh impermanence and meaninglessness," then to see that as "the reality," and then "We have to find a way to face up to that reality, be okay with it," is also casting the self as a kind of existentialist hero, so the whole theatre of things -- but it's not recognized as theatre, because there's presumed, "This is the reality." [39:08] But there's a kind of theatre, and one has cast oneself as a practitioner, "In my brave honesty, I can face up to this reality which other people perhaps can't, don't have the courage to face up to -- this grim, difficult, existential meaninglessness and limitation of our existence, our finitude, etc., as human beings." But there's also a construing and a casting of the self in relation to something, as a real self-view in relation to a real reality. That's also part of what one is choosing.

There are views of emptiness that are just about simplifying things: "Emptiness is really just the fact that all there is is processes. There is no mystery or depth to the whole notion of emptiness. There's just the fact that there are processes. There are atomic processes. There are neurological processes. There are, if you like, mental processes that happen in time: this moment of consciousness, that moment of consciousness, that of moment of vedanā, etc. And they're chained together in cause and effect, etc. And our job is to see that it's just a process. Don't make a big deal about the self. Don't make a big deal of anything. There's just this process, this kind of atomizing and stripping down." [40:46]

Some people will choose a version of emptiness that is based on what they can tolerate in terms of the fear that might come up for them. So they might hear about radical emptiness, that everything is empty -- there's not even atoms, there's not even a process, there's not even time, there's not even space. Not just "self is there as a kind of process in time," but a person might land on that view for lots of different reasons, one of which might be fear: "When I hear or read about an emptiness that's even deeper than that, saying, 'Well, there's not even a process,' then the ground feels like it goes -- just hearing about it, the ground seems to go from under my feet, and I'm afraid. I don't like that." So sometimes a person is choosing emptiness or a version of emptiness -- and again, when I choose a version of emptiness, then my path, my tradition or sub-tradition will come out of that, and it might be based on fear.

Sometimes it might be the case that partly, one is committed to or invested in one version of emptiness over another, and wants that to be the truth of emptiness, partly -- might be partly based or conditioned by one's experience. There's maybe very little mystical experience, or one is afraid of those kinds of openings, and pulls back from them in meditation. Or they're just very rare, those experiences. And actually, what's happening there is a movement of, "Well, I don't want to think that I'm a failure. I don't want to think that there is some experience that perhaps other people have had, but I, maybe after years or decades of meditating, I've never had." And so the fear of seeing oneself as a failure, actually, is what conditions why one is committed to, or invested in, or wants this version of emptiness to be true over that version. So partly it's based on what it delivers, in terms of the possibilities, ranges, and limits on the world-view. Partly it's more to do with self, the self-view that's already existing, or fear of a self-view, or wanting to cast the self in a certain way. Or it's a commitment to a certain view of emptiness because of what we want, because of what we gravitate towards in terms of the possible ranges of self-view, that we want to open them up and experience, and the sense of the cosmos, and the sense, perhaps, of sacredness and divinity.

And someone also, conversely, ego might slip in because they might feel like, "Well, I've realized emptiness, and there's nothing, for me, more to realize there. So my version is it, and I consider myself an arahant, etc. I already know there's nothing further for me there." That's an arahant stock phrase. And so one just is invested, for a slightly different ego reason, in whatever, wherever one has reached in terms of a view and understanding of emptiness -- that's also possible.

And then there's the view that, you know, I would favour, kind of wrapped up in the Soulmaking Dharma view, where -- again, what's the leaning there? What's my inclination? What's my personal soul-style? What is it that I wish for? What does my soul long for? Yes, to open up the possibilities of self, to open up the possibilities of experience -- huge range -- is what I want, to open up the possibilities of sacredness, to open up the possibilities of how I can sense and conceive of the cosmos. I want my emptiness to be integrated into those kind of possibilities, to support those kinds of possibilities.

If we actually just linger a little bit more with this emptiness business, and yeah, just point a few more things out in relation to the different views, and Soulmaking Dharma's relationship with emptiness, and imaginal practice's relationship with emptiness. There are, as I said, there are many different kinds or interpretations of emptiness, despite the same word, in the Buddhist tradition. Some, as I said, are intended from and in the direction of a kind of anti-sacredness. Then, in those -- this is pointing out, I'm just repeating now -- in those construals, then one's existential plight and material existence is real, and anything else is not. And there's a kind of anti-spiritual agenda there.

As I've pointed out elsewhere, I would say that, for many people, the very hearing about emptiness is actually already wrapped up with mystery and sacredness. And it's not just, it's not only a strategy, or tool, or concept, or set of practices that liberate, that reduce suffering. Certainly, it's that, but people love to hear about emptiness, and they're drawn to explore it because of the mystery and the sacredness. And I would say, or my leaning and favourite inclination there is to say that this is part of what we're wanting from emptiness, and I would say, part of what comes when we explore emptiness deeply, as I pointed out before. It's not just what we desire. It's also what the emptiness delivers at a very deep level. [48:10]

As I was saying, it's quite common, this process view. So for some people, emptiness involves, their view or their understanding of emptiness involves this, a certain reification of something or other -- for example, the aggregates, for example, time, and for example, the process of the aggregates in time. That would be a very common one. "The self's not real, but what is real is this process of aggregates in time." But again, then, emptiness, just as in the kind of secular existentialist version, the view of emptiness and the understanding of emptiness actually implies certain things are still real, and it also implies that images are not real, the imaginal is not real and not valuable because only this process of aggregates, which we can arrive at and perceive with a kind of -- if we just train the bare attention, we'll see that's all there is. There are just aggregates. That's the view there. Therefore, the imaginal is not real because it's not that atomistic process. The options, certainly for the imaginal and imaginal perception, are not opened up, therefore. Only the self is [empty]. The phenomenal world is not. And there's not really this possibility of sensing with soul, of cosmopoesis. There's not really the possibility of legitimizing that through that version of emptiness. It absolutely does not legitimize it, because "What is true? This atomistic process in time." Images and all that -- it's just papañca, in that view.

What's also implicitly true in that view is that impermanence is real, and so sometimes, emptiness comes almost to be synonymous with impermanence. But again, in the view that I would favour, the understanding of emptiness goes deeper than impermanence. So yes, definitely, things are impermanent. But actually, as Nāgārjuna and others stressed, things are neither impermanent nor permanent. They're empty. Time is empty. Thing is empty. Impermanence is not an ultimate truth. Permanence is not an ultimate truth. And I think when we really go deep into practice, really working with the teachings and the practices around clinging, and subtle clinging, and letting go of subtler and subtler levels of clinging, and seeing how that's tied into unfabricating, and how that allows an unfabricating of the whole realm of perception, we actually see: no clinging, no impermanence. Impermanence is not an ultimate truth. Without clinging, there is no impermanence because there's no thing at all. There's no 'flow.' You can't talk about a 'flow' or a 'process.' You can't talk about 'sense data.' You can't talk about 'atoms,' whether they're material atoms or mental atoms, moments. There's no time. There's no present moment. So again, very different versions of what emptiness means, with hugely divergent implications for what they open up, and what they call us to, and what they limit or not. [51:57]

So as I said, emptiness, in the way that I would favour understanding it, and conceiving of it, exploring it, and presenting it, it will open up sensing with soul. As I go, as I perceive the world more through the lens of emptiness, I come out of that a little bit, then inevitably, if the emptiness understanding is deep enough, the world becomes sacred, and all kinds of possibilities for sensing with soul are opened. Emptiness also, in the way that I would conceive it, it helps support the stance of the imaginal Middle Way so crucial to the fully imaginal experience, the opening of the fully imaginal. Imaginal perceptions are neither real nor not real. They're like theatre. And I've said before, the ontological status of images and what we might call 'conventional worldly perceptions' is surely different. They're both thoroughly empty at a deep level. There's something about deep insight into emptiness that just -- for many people, not for everyone -- helps support that stance of the imaginal Middle Way.

In our view, as well, the understanding of emptiness actually legitimizes -- for some people -- legitimizes imaginal practice and sensing with soul. I mean, it was my way in, as I've shared before. I wasn't particularly drawn to images. I didn't have a lot of images. It had been, if you like, practised out of me over the years. But because there's no comparison of an image to something that's supposedly real, the ontological status of the imaginal doesn't get denigrated, because if I've seen the emptiness of everything, there's nothing that I can harbour as a, "Yeah, that's not real, but this is real." So in that sense, there's no reality or pure perception that I can compare an imaginal perception to. [54:29] As I said, some people will need that deep emptiness to really purge themselves or divest themselves of that lingering belief that's fundamental to avijjā, to ignorance, that there is something real, whatever that something is, and that we can know that.

Some people don't need it, as I said, because they're, as I said before, because they're already in an artistic/poetic relationship, so to speak, with existence and perception. Or their kind of reading and research into some modern philosophy kind of legitimizes it, etc., maybe some from their research into modern physics. Just while we're on the subject -- and again, I've said this before, as well, but it's also true that the influence can go the other way. The support can go the other way. The imaginal practice, when repeated, and over time, can actually bring insight into emptiness, can open the insights into emptiness. And there are a few people, definitely more than a few who, the directionality of support is more that way, and with the coming and going of all these images, many of which are kind of surprising, one begins to question the reality of this or that view of the self, for example.

Again, just talking about emptiness and its relationship or place in the whole practice of soulmaking, and it will have a different place for different people, as I mentioned. So I've said, you know, careful not to be sloppy or lazy with the understanding of emptiness. There's a way it can be a bit glib and easy, rather than, for me, what's actually really quite sophisticated, and subtle, and profound understanding, that the view of deep emptiness is radical in the sense of, really, the absolute -- cuts to the root of all things, and wide, comprehensive. So all that is possible, and something that's really quite a journey, as I said, when we talked in the series about emptiness. There is the possibility, for some people, to explore the practices and understandings of emptiness in ways that are enormously sophisticated and subtle, go very deep, and very, very wide. And at the same time (perhaps here's another tension) I acknowledge, too, that we each perhaps have a personal relationship with emptiness, if you like, and with epistemology, as we mentioned. So epistemology is personal, I said in the talk on epistemology. And an epistemology of emptiness is also personal.

So on the one hand, don't be sloppy, don't be lazy. There's a possibility of really, really refined, careful understanding with regard to emptiness. And at the same time, acknowledge that there are different personalities, different soul-styles, different soul-needs, and as I said, personal relationships with emptiness, personal relationships with epistemology, or personal epistemologies, almost, to a certain extent. [58:07] So you can hear just how complex all this is -- certainly complex if we're, again, thinking about what's in this pot that we call 'tradition.' What contributes to a tradition, to our sense, or to anyone's sense of what the Dharma is? What are the rival, competing directional pulls, the assumptions, the inclinations, the cultural factors, the personal factors? And you can hear, when we talk about, for example, I said the personal inclinations, just how much care with regard to honesty and just awareness is asked for. To be aware, to be conscious and honest about our wishes, our desires, our motivations for this or that version of, say, this portion of the Dharma, or the whole Dharma, or the trajectory, or the tradition, etc. I think it's asking us to admit this, to be honest, to be careful, to open things up, and to really be aware.

I can't remember if I said this, but to me, this is so important. I realize I'm repeating in this talk some things I've said before, but I think this is really important. So this may be a repeat. When we look in the Dharma culture, sometimes it's hard to step out of it and actually see what's going on when you're in something, when you're in a soup. But certain words and ideas -- so, for example, liberation, awakening, freedom, depth -- they're actually quite vague in their meaning to a practitioner who might be hearing them a lot, and actually start using them a lot, and orienting to them a lot. So they get spoken by authorities in Dharma talks, in writings, etc. -- freedom, liberation, awakening, depth, whatever other words -- through authorities and through repetition from the teachers or from the practitioners themselves. And actually aided by their vagueness, supported by their vagueness, they become charged for the practitioner in the context of the Dharma -- doing retreats, hearing this language, repeating it for oneself. They become charged, they become orientation points, and that's set up as goals, in other words -- orientation points as goals.

But again, if you actually ask someone, "Exactly what do you mean by them? Exactly what do you mean by liberation, awakening, depth, freedom?" -- one question. And second question: "Is that what you really want the most, freedom from suffering?" So it can get so much repeated, we hear it so much, we repeat it ourselves so much, the very vagueness of the idea almost contributes to the kind of lack of clarity, lack of full clarity and full honesty about, "Hold on. Is this what I really want? And what do I actually even mean by that?" And so, for some people, as I've pointed out before, it may be that it's actually, for example, beauty that they have longed for in their practice, that has kept them on the path all these years. It's a love of beauty. It's eros for beauty. It may be the beauty of goodness, of the good heart, the profoundly good heart. It may be the beauty of truth, for sure. But it's never only freedom from suffering -- not for someone who really loves the path. Can I see this? Can I admit it? Can I see that there's not a problem with it? Can I see that it's right?

It's probably quite common that a person, if they really are able to kind of -- what's the word? -- pull aside the veils and actually scrutinize: "Whoa, hold on. What's going on here with all these words buzzing around, all this charge, all this repetition?" They may feel that what they want -- for example, beauty -- they long for beauty, they're devoted to beauty more than they're devoted to the freedom from suffering, or for reducing their suffering much further. Sure, at times, they want less suffering, when the suffering kind of coalesces in certain ways. But actually it's something else.

Is there the possibility, then, of seeing oneself as a 'disciple of beauty,' if we use that phrase? Not primarily as a seeker of liberation from, let alone any reduction in, suffering. But because that's the paradigm, and that's what gets repeated, 'liberation from suffering,' which can sometimes just mean 'reduced suffering,' that's how one tends to think of what one's doing, and what one repeats to oneself and to others, etc. Does it make sense to break out of that? Or just even experiment with it: "Well, what if I just re-label myself, reconceive myself as a practitioner and on the path? I'm a disciple to beauty. I'm devoted to beauty. My eros, my longing is for beauty." What would that do? So honesty and consciousness is asked for here. [1:04:18]

And in acknowledging this need for honesty and self-awareness, and in acknowledging the inevitability of the way, let's say, different soul-styles or different soul-desires and inclinations come into a person's perception of the Dharma, their choice of a Dharma, a tradition, etc., and their contribution to it -- in acknowledging all that, it also brings up the whole question, which I just very briefly touched on or mentioned in the very start of the first part of the talk, the whole kind of relationship to and consideration of autonomy and authority. So again, if we admit and are honest that "Well, I actually desire this," for example, "I actually, what I really long for is beauty. And sometimes, when push comes to shove, I'll choose the beauty over a reduction in suffering. Actually, that's really what I'm after," or whatever, then that invites this question about autonomy and authority. Am I going to trust that desire over and above the language that is promulgated, the common language, what the teacher is saying, etc., what I read? So that's a part of the question of autonomy and authority, or authorities.

But there are other aspects. Within a tradition, what is my relationship with authorities, in terms of "How much can I have my own investigations, my own lines of investigation, my own criteria for what satisfies me in my investigations?" So sometimes a person ends up asking a certain question of either a teacher or a number of different teachers over and over, and sometimes for years, but there's not much movement there. What's happening? Sometimes what happens is they have several authorities. They're putting all the authority, they're giving all the authority to those authorities, those teachers. And then they can't decide between them, because "This person says this, but that person says that." Or "I read here , but I read over there ." How will you resolve that question, whatever it is? Could be a question about any aspect of Dharma. How will you know? When will you be satisfied in that question? How much are you actually living that question, in terms of tailoring, and shaping, and directing your practice to go into the depths of that question, so that that question can be opened up and answered? Or is it just "I'm just practising how I usually practise, but I'm asking these questions to different authorities and getting contradictory answers"? So, this whole autonomy of investigation in practice, in experience, meditative experience, in thinking, in reading and listening, etc. There's a tension here, because sometimes what happens is, a person has given all the authority to other people, and they're not, if you like, living their own questions and self-determining. There's not enough autonomy in their own investigations, their own inquiry. So it asks for a lot, you know. What is involved in a really powerful investigation for a human being? What's involved in the art of inquiry, for oneself, so that one knows, so that one -- "It doesn't matter what this person says, because I have satisfied myself. I've seen for myself. I've understood for myself. I've made sense of it myself, questioned for myself in a real, alive way"? [1:09:04] Sometimes what happens is the other side of the spectrum. A person has a certain experience and decides that, "Oh well, I've reached the end. So whatever you're saying, Rob, or whatever this other teacher is saying, I don't think that's true because I've seen this, a certain experience." For example, a certain level of unfabricating where the personality goes just very quiet, but the world feels very vivid and bright, and it seems like, the understanding, the sense of that experience is, "I'm just experiencing things as they are, without the self." And one stops there, and one has decided based on that experience that "That's the end of it. That's the understanding of emptiness. Anyone who says other stuff is just -- it just can't be right, all this business about complete unfabrication, or cessation, or whatever." To me, that would be a bit like, I don't know, journeying, taking a car to the south of England, and going to, I don't know, somewhere like Dover, Cliffs of Dover, where there's the sea, and just deciding, "Right, that's it. That's the end of the land. That's the end of terrestrial earth. There is no more land after here" -- versus getting in a boat, going across and seeing, after a little paddling, you'll get to France (as long as you point it in the right direction), and say, "Oh! There is more land. There is a deeper unfabricating than what I've experienced." So that, the question of, "Am I over-concluding? Am I concluding my investigation too early? Am I over-trusting my experience even though that experience might be limited, and I'm deciding it's ultimate?" There's that phrase from the Dzogchen tradition: "Trust your experience, but keep refining your view." So yes, if that kind of relative unfabricating, where the personality goes very quiet, and the world just opens up very vividly, without much thought, etc., it's great. Trust that experience. In my map, it's a relative unfabricating. But keep refining the view, keep refining the practice, keep refining your understanding of what's happening there. How do I frame that experience? Is there more that can be unfabricated? What would that be? How will I get there? [1:11:52] And also, you know, part of the art of inquiry is also a kind of -- what would you say? -- structural awareness of the levels of ideas, so how things kind of fit together, how conceptual frameworks fit together. What's a kind of relatively small-fry contention or quibbling? I think I mentioned this before, as well, so forgive me if there's a lot of repeat. Two people arguing whether there were two or three types of vedanā -- okay, you can see it both ways. Does it really matter? And sometimes not kind of recognizing, "What are the more significant levels of ideas?" Sometimes people hearing about the ways of looking paradigm, for example, that whole conceptual framework, and it just not registering as how radical and important in its implications such an idea is. It's a kind of meta-level idea. It just doesn't register. Just sort of, "Yeah, sure, you can look at things in different ways." One hasn't grasped its structural place. One hasn't grasped the edifice of ideas, how ideas are actually -- one can create a hierarchy of ideas. What's more or less significant? What's a kind of real basis, a real, as I said, meta-idea or pan-idea? And what's just a little, kind of relatively insignificant piece in the structure and the conceptual framework of a particular Dharma? So that's related to also this -- I mentioned, I can't remember in what talk -- developing a nose for what's significant and what's not: "Actually, this strand of investigation, this piece, this understanding, this discernment, that's actually significant. This one is not so important." So there's a lot involved in what I would call 'artful inquiry' or 'the art of inquiry.' And all this is necessary if I'm going to have a degree of autonomy in relationship to whatever authorities exist in a tradition. So important. And again, this question of the tension between autonomy. We need a necessary or healthy -- I'll put it as a question: does a tradition need a degree of healthy autonomy for its members, for its Saṅgha, the individuals? And does it need an authority? And what's the balance of those? What's the tension? What's the range of tension there that's necessary to a healthy, alive tradition? I've touched on this, but I want to draw this point out, because there are a lot of other things being said: just how views about the world and views about the human being, what we might call 'cosmologies' and 'anthropologies,' views about the cosmos, and beliefs about the cosmos, pictures of the cosmos, pictures, models, beliefs, views about what a human being is and what constitutes a human being -- they are not irrelevant. So it can be fairly popular to say, "Ah, the Buddha was a genius because he just sidelined the whole cosmology that was around at the time, and he took the teaching and made it purely psychological, and therefore universal, and not dependent on some kind of cultural accretion or cultural fashion of a view of cosmology and anthropology." But you start to see, when you consider all these things, I think, when you consider these things that I've said, that actually, that's not irrelevant at all. Those views of cosmology and anthropology may be much more primary, and may be much more primary in their significance and their determination of what the Dharma is. What is the Buddhadharma? What is the tradition that we believe is the real Buddhadharma, or that we choose? And as I said, what then, as part of what the Dharma is, what is our notion, what is our sense, what is our image of awakening? And views of cosmology and anthropology are not at all irrelevant. They're extremely significant.