Anyway, that's how we understand it. Now, what about that walk I was going to take tomorrow? I now just perished, I'm sorry. We're going to have to find somebody else to walk with. What is that walk I was going to take tomorrow? The imaginary walk. Everything that exists that wouldn't be there if you died, is imaginary. Now, I'm shifting the terms around here, right? Because generally we think this is not the imaginary world, this is the real world. But where does table come from? Somebody thought of it. Somebody imagined it and made it. If they died, it wouldn't have been made. Somebody else would have made something else be slightly different. In other words, from one point of view, I think you can understand, the imagined world, the imaginary world, is the world that arises from our imagination, and it has a tremendous concreteness, and we live in it, although it's going to decay and go away.

[01:22]

It still results from our imaginations, and disappears if we die and the things we were going to I mean in other words the things I was going to do in the next weeks or months that now that I've just perished are imagined the things I've done already were imagined but became part of the relative world okay All right, so what the Yogacara folks did is they took the two truths of Nagarjuna and turned it into what's called three natures, or svabhavas, imaginary, relative, and absolute, as a way to practice.

[02:29]

Let me try to dry it for you. Now, this is all one world.

[03:35]

This is one consciousness. But they can be different patterns of consciousness. And at different patterns of consciousness, There's a different energy vested in the patterns. Now we're talking about the world as energy and three patterns of consciousness which are also the way things are but also things are connected in ways outside our ability to have patterns of consciousness about them. So now, what's the use of this? We could call this delusion. But very interesting that in the Yogacara formulation, they don't call it delusion.

[04:44]

Because delusion in this sense would be to think that things are real, permanent, etc. This is true because things actually exist through interdependence. We could say this is interpenetration. Would you call this independence or interindependence? Interindependence. A new word. Or interpenetration, because things interpenetrate and fold together and disappear. Maybe all the particles fold into empty space. I think Hoyle or somebody said, and that's a bridge game too, said that particles appear in empty space. Wheeler or somebody said that the space gets bent around each other and we call it particles. But in any case. Buddhism has ideas like that. I'm not saying that right. It's just... Okay, so we... We mostly live here, right?

[05:53]

In fact, what we're taught to do, the compassionate thing to do, to be with our brothers, our mates, and... This is the world of me. Okay. But you start to practice. So you start to practice, and practicing, here you are practicing. And then you hear somebody like me, and you hear a lot of Buddhism, and you hear about Thich Nhat Hanh, and entropy, and stuff like that. And so you... you make some efforts, some various efforts, and pretty soon you get across this line. And you begin to have an experience where you begin to know or taste the relative, the interdependent world. Isn't that what's happened to us? Yeah, yeah, sure, please.

[06:58]

Yeah. We're not there yet. We've only... When we stand on the hillside out here and look at Melbourne in the dark, you can see a mirror of a light. You're looking at the imagined world. that arose from people's imagination. Fantastic. Everything we think of as real, we imagine. Even when you look at these trees, it's your imagination which configures them as trees. And I like the word configure, because to figure means to mold in clay. Configuring the world, molding the world, constructing it in our consciousness.

[08:05]

Now, again, what I'm saying makes a certain amount of sense, I think. It may seem like a lot of blowing in the wind, hot air, things like that. But if you begin to take it as potentially consequential, it begins to shift the basis. So you were here with me. and you practice and you have some experience of the relative, right? Well, what happens? You go to work and everybody else is in this place, you know, and pretty soon, although you kind of remember it, the way you're actually functioning from moment to moment is back here. Isn't that true? You get in daily life and you actually end up back here and you kind of remember, oh yeah, I had a kind of sense that everything's independent and all, but... And, of course, You know, there are so many, so much depth to this world of connectedness, interdependence, attunement.

[09:13]

So you find yourself out of tune. It's not just a gross thing, like you forget that we're independent, but you're no longer in tune with things. The four elements, earth, fire, water, etc., are no longer responding to other solidities and so forth. You're out of tune. So you come back here where You listen to the radio instead. And yet you practice. You keep practicing. And you go back across you. Right? And practice like that. Day after day after day. Okay, so what happens? You keep doing this. You go back across again. And you practice and you go back this way again. And then at some point, the energy of this world begins to push you more and more in this direction.

[10:15]

So you come back, and you get to here, and you kind of . And more and more you stay. You start finding it's sick making to be here. You're not as healthy. You don't feel as clear. Your energy, you feel debilitated. At the end of the day, you feel exhausted. You're not nourished by what's happening. So more and more of this happens. You following? So what happens at some point, you get this so hard, you go very toxic. And this is called a revolving of the basis. Because by sensing these different configurations and then the dynamic, not some philosophy, but the actual dynamic of going back and forth across this line begins to generate a certain kind of power, energy, distance.

[11:22]

So delusion here functions to push you into enlightenment. Does that make sense to anybody? It's interesting, isn't it? These guys were not dumped. Yeah. That's over here. This is called after the absolute. Maybe it's in here. I did. Okay, after the absolute, you go back into this with a transformed and opened up personality.

[12:25]

And when you go back, that's called the bodhisattva. Practice. Return of the bodhisattva into the weed. Those are called the retrospective. Do the people who can't go back... Nobody who's in this is in mental hospital. There's no such thing as that happening in mental hospital. I said that people who... Some people have enlightenment experience. which they can't handle. And they might be in mental hospital. But that's not a person who's done this. This takes willpower, capacity, stability. That's just, you know, fear.

[13:26]

Now, it could be that someone practices, you know, and there's statistics look like women in their early 30s have a higher incidence of schizophrenia than women at other ages. And men in their mid-20s and mid-40s have a higher incidence of schizophrenia. So probably some man could practice here quite well up until he was 40. genetically, or whatever, his chemistry might, you know, bend him. But, you know, those are special cases. So that's basically the teaching of the imagined relative and absolute. And it works. That's why this is not called delusion. Because it's delusion in the service of enlightenment by recognizing this is where most people live and where we will live.

[14:36]

And even if you realize the absolute, you still live in the imagined world with me. So it's no longer a delusional world. It's a world that you enter through your own imagination but are not contaminated by. I'm just wondering why you didn't live in the relative world. Oh, because if you're living with other people, they're living in the imagined world. So this imagined world can be understood as the relative world. But here we're also calling the imagined world everything that wouldn't happen if you died. So I'm going to go tomorrow to Singapore and then to Zurich and then to Boston and then to New York and then to Atlanta. Somebody said, some Buddhists transform their body, you transport yours.

[15:45]

So... But for me... Is there a sense of play then in the imaginable? There's this loop coming back and... Playful? Oh yeah, this is all playful. The whole thing is the dance. Playful. Depends on your mood, you know. Sometimes it sounds like tragedy. But I'm going to... As I said, I'm going to take all these flights starting tomorrow morning or tomorrow afternoon or something like that. And... But for me, it's the imagined world. Yeah. This is a purification process. But I want to say again, everything I'm going to do, you know, I have a lot of people in my life and so forth.

[16:46]

And there's a way in which my daughters... are in me right now, part of me, deeply care for them, love them. But my daughters, who now, for this fall semester, with their husband in Washington, and my other daughter in Williamstown, Massachusetts, at that level, they're in the imagined world. I'm aware of them in me as real, shall I say real, But to the extent that, will I see my daughter in Boston? I don't know. In the imagined world. Now, the more I know that and accept that everything that won't exist if I die is the imagined world, I'm not going to invest much energy. I'm going to invest some energy, but I'm not emotionally identified with it. So it does start to make a difference.

[17:49]

So, you know, Okay. So somebody starts to say, yeah. Between the imagine and the relative, I was going to ask, does that relate to renunciation? It could be. You could renounce, and then you get attached again and you renounce again. The same kind of dynamic. But this also occurs here. We get a taste of this and go back across. Mm-hmm. And as we keep going back and forth, and finally, we now win this. It's really realized. It's drawn as this, in that. Because then this, this,

[18:50]

It's the relative of the absolute. And we could also have the relative. It would be imagined in it, and then it would be drawn this way. And then if we have the absolute, it's drawn this way. But this is this part of these 97 circles, which are used to try to, without words, make these leaves clear. So is there a word to describe the opposite of renunciation, going back from the abstract? Flipping and sliding. Backsliding. Backsliding. Regressing. Regressing. But if you died, your daughter, this is back to the imaginary world, your daughter would continue.

[19:55]

Yeah, I hope so. That's my hope. And that's more than I hope. But you said that the imaginary is everything that would perish with my death, with one's death. No, I said for me. Yeah. And the person who was going to come and visit her is imaginary. But the person who's already in her is her father. So say that I'm in an airplane. This is all kind of primitive, but say that I'm in an airplane. A friend of mine was just in an airplane a while ago where two engines went out. and she had to be sitting next to a U.S. Air Force captain. They flew to Nova Scotia or someplace. Both engines went out. They had two engines flying on two engines only, and they turned around and went back. They landed in, I don't know, someplace, Canada or someplace.

[20:59]

And my friend said to this, because everybody was coming out, but this one guy was sitting there very calmly with an Air Force captain. So afterwards, they get off the plane, I had to wait for another plane to come to New York. And my friend said to his Air Force captain, well, this must be old hat to you. Now, you know, nothing this kind of experience is. He said, the most terrifying experience of my life. So you're in an airplane. Two engines go out. And then you see the third one smoking. Hmm. So it's pretty clear you're going to crash. Now, most people at that moment would normally identify with the person who was expected to land. That's an imaginary person. That person doesn't exist. And the more you know that, there's a lot less problem when you're on the airplane.

[22:05]

You're not projecting into that imaginary person who doesn't exist yet. You just hoped he existed. This is very normal. But it's why you could say a fully enlightened person is not afraid of death. Because, in fact, their dynamic is not to project themselves into that person in the future who doesn't yet exist. Why does it mean that? I've lots of joyful anticipation of meeting my daughter. If you're not investing any emotional energy, it was not... No, it's... I've got all kinds of emotional energy. But you just said before that... Yeah, but let me finish my sentence. It's okay. Let me finish my sentence. I've got all kinds of emotional energy. One kind is investing in landing in Boston. Which I confess, I'm small.

[23:09]

I hate to admit it in front of all you guys. But I have another kind of emotional energy, which I feel a joyful anticipation. But that's separate from the investment in being the person who arrives at the plane. Because also, I have a practice, I should have a practice, as well as I can have a practice of acceptance. So even that joyful anticipation is here in this present, and it's accepted as the joy of this moment, not the joy I'll feel when I get there. And so if I'm on the plane that is clearly going to crash, I'm just, now who am I? I'm a person on earth who's about to crash. Joyfully anticipating. Joyfully anticipating.

[24:10]

Well, there have been times in my life I would have joyfully anticipated it, but at this point I would say, oh, shit. Oh, shit. You know what the most common phrase is when people crash? The most common is that shit, I think. The second most common is mother. Please. There's something more serious about it in the sense that if you're dying with a joyful identification, It's still something that's happening. It's not gone. It's not lost. Because when you're dying, you're not going to see your daughter. But you have this in your heart when you die, and that's better than dying with a feeling of no anticipation at all. Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah.

[25:13]

Well, a friend of mine, just a woman I knew moderately well, just died in Germany, and I mentioned it to somebody the other day. And she was really, really sick with cancer, and they said she was going to die three years ago. She had tumors in her brain. She was, you know, decaying from inside. Her whole body for now a year or more had been simply falling apart. No one could believe she stayed alive. But up to the last minute, the moment she died, she was smiling and warm. Whatever she is, her name was Hydra, whatever she is, remained intact while her body was completely falling apart. This is something mysterious. Most people start losing it at some point, and I even know some quite remarkable developed people who near the end really lost it just before they died. But this woman, whatever was essentially her, was pregnant and bonded with her.

[26:18]

as the whole thing is decaying around her. This is something miraculous. But it shows this kind of energy and will we can have that's more powerful than the condition of our body. Let's imagine, go on, this plane is crashing for a moment more. Of course there's going to be a moment of anxiety, or maybe several, and there's going to be sadness that you can't accomplish certain things. But if your habit is to define yourself in the present all the time, if my habit is to define myself, who am I right now if you ask me? I would say a person standing next to a flip chart. That's far more real than Richard Baker.

[27:21]

Richard Baker is some label that's on my birth certificate. My parents and people have been calling me that for a long time. But it's a generalization which I don't have. I really feel very, very little connection. But I feel quite a lot of connection with standing here in front of this, standing here with you now. And do you mind now I'm walking across the front room, person. Now I'm following through with a person. And if you develop that habit, Now I'm a looking at you person. It's just a habit you develop. I am quite sure if you're in this plane crash, your habit will be, oh, now I'm a person within a plane crash. Because that habit takes hold. And you may say, gee, I really wanted to be the person who was landing. But it doesn't have the same energy. It doesn't have the same energy. What has energy, if I'm a person, right, cool, okay.

[28:25]

And it's amazing in real crash, in real bad situations, how much this is instinctual. It doesn't even depend on practice. How clear present people are in very complex, difficult, like falling off the face of a mountain or something like that. Like a crash. You get your trees coming at you and all of a sudden you're right there. Yeah. Does that happen to you? Uh-huh. Yeah. No, it's true. There's something in us that says, hey, get rid of that stupid conceptual mind. Be present. And cast it off like an animal. Yeah. [...] We can have them all combined in one. We could draw this as something like You draw something, if this was all dark, and you could have a half circle of light and a half circle of dark, would be one way to represent this, this, this, and this.

[30:06]

There's various ways to do things. And the idea in something like this is that If your face is here, you can function, everything happens, etc. But your basic views are not accurate about how things exist. And you're wasting a lot of energy to keep establishing this is real. You use less energy here. So you have more energy because you're using less. Make sense? Freud did something. A lot of energy is tied up in repression. You have less repression, you have more energy. Something like that.

[31:09]

You have more energy here than here. Because less is tied up and established. So you actually, there's a kind of different person here. And the more you're based here, the more you have a different kind of energy. the more this, your base here, moment after moment after moment, coming to this point of fusion, not interdependence now, but fusion. So we go from distraction to starting to experience some completeness, right? So we start to experience a kind of togetherness, unity, unitary consciousness, et cetera. Oneness. She's not here. So, you start experiencing some unitary consciousness, and that then develops into fusion, which is more than completeness.

[32:13]

That's really bringing things together. Fusion. That's inner penetration. And that inner penetration... allows chaos. In other words, this is a way of looking at it. When you go from distraction to completeness or something like that, to fusion, to chaos. Now, this means you're distracted and you're in a chaotic situation. Kind of confusing, right? This means, through practice, you come to more and more sense of weakness and nourishment. Through that, you develop this fusion on each moment.

[33:14]

We call it the critical point. To learn to bring yourself to that critical point, and that's often the cause of enlightenment. And these koans, when just simple things like, how do you meet your teacher? When there's no difference in age. That no difference in age, because it goes against where he was, might move him into a critical point where he had a realization. So fusion... Once you get to that point, and you are really on this critical point, then you cannot do anything. This is wu-wei, or non-doing. In Tibetan Buddhism, it's the stage of no more learning, no more meditation.

[34:16]

You may still meditate, that's not the point, but the point is, Now everything is guiding you. So it's a kind of chaos, but it's the chaos of chaos theory, folks, who say order keeps emerging out of chaos. Now you are allowing that to happen. This kind of chaos versus this kind of chaos. Oh! Oh! So now I think you can understand things like what is the pure body of reality? A flowering hedge. This is like a flowering hedge sprinkled in sunlight.

[35:18]

What is the pure body of reality? Emptiness. Emptiness is the pure body of reality. But if you ask what emptiness is, you have to say form. So he's asked, what is the pure body of reality, young man? So he said, a flowering hedge, which is appearing in the imagination, which is appearing in the relative world, And it's all of these things, right? So then, whoever asked him this question was quite sharp and then said, what is it when you go on like this? Where you see everything as a flowering hedge of the pure body of reality. And he said, pointing to you, a golden mane lion. And that means to go on with living in this It takes courage. And a golden-maned lion means the kind of courage that's necessary, and a golden-maned lion also means the bodhisattva.

[36:27]

So when you live like this, you're living like the bodhisattva who fears nothing. The lion is the symbol of the critter in the jungle who has no energy and no fear. We also had this wonderful poem of Dogen's in which had a realization, which is, I can't remember. The world exists in a state of objective. Everything exists in a state of objective reality. He said not much. I think that's all I've got. Everything exists in a state of objective reality. The features of the world are permanent. In the spring, a hundred flowers are red.

[37:33]

The doves are crying in the willows. Now, this is kind of interesting because You know what metaphor really means in our particular terms? Meta, it means the relationship of four, F-O-U-R. It's not the pun, I can spell it as the pun, meta-four. But it means you're comparing two things, but you're actually comparing four. So metaphor, to think metaphorically is a kind of intelligence where you can relate four things at once. So... Thank you. The truth exists in a state of objective reality.

[39:35]

Now, this is one of those kind of Zen things, right? What the heck is Zen? This doesn't make sense. Even for Zen, it doesn't make sense. Everyone knows the features of the world are not permanent. Right? So, Dogen is wrong. Doggone it. But, the truth exists in a state of objective reality. So, let us... Read this. Shifting tracks, even in the middle of a sentence. Like he says, shift tracks. Collect shift tracks. The truth, what is the truth? It exists in a state of objective reality. So the truth exists here. The truth exists in this state of objective reality. And he turned it again. The features of the world are permanent. We know the features of the world are not permanent, but the true features of the world are permanent to emptiness.

[40:46]

So it's a way of using language to suggest the opposite, if you understand it. So the features of the world are permanent. So now we're back here. The truth exists in objective reality. The features of the world are permanent. The hundred flowers are red. In spring, the hundreds of flowers are red. Not all the flowers are red, right? So to say they're all red means the experience of sameness. What is the experience of sameness? Thusness. In other words, I look at you, I see my mind arise. I look at you and I see my mind arise. I look at you and I see my mind arise. There's a sameness to everything I see in my mind. So in springtime, the hunter's flowers are red. Does that make sense?

[41:49]

The doves cry. Well, where you can't grasp, the only... This momentary absolute. So he goes from here to here, here, here, here. In those little things. And if your attentiveness is there, such a phrase can... Because you find, he basically, in those few words, he put dikai, his disciple, through the three natures. Because you follow it, and then he changed it to this, and then he changed it to that, and he kind of went back and forth. And he was ready. His mind was attuned to dogas. He'd been practicing a long time. He realized. Do you see how these teachings are used and then are built into the poetry and way of thinking?

[42:56]

Dougie didn't stop and say, now what am I going to say that will enlighten the deep kind if I take the three natures and I say this? No. He is so living this that he can't help but think. That's always about him to fight. Yeah. It's the order of the world is pulling it out of it. And geek highs need to hear it is pulling it out. It's a matter of people to discriminate in the process of Yes, it orders itself.

[44:00]

It's like the coming back one-pointedness. First you are distracted and you go away from it. Then you focus on it more and you come back to it more easily. And then finally... It comes back by itself, and then it rests even. And when it rests evenly, it's called one point. So I think that's enough for this day. And maybe we sit for a little while, because I've got the church set up this morning for the forum. So you can see what I meant by metaphor, because there's at least four levels going on in there in these metaphors. Thank you for being such a wonderful group of people to practice with. Drawing so much out of me, not the poetry of Dogen, but, you know.

[45:02]

It's a pure pleasure to be here with you. Do you dare to enter through such a question the magnitude and fullness of the world? What is the pure body of reality? Flowering hedge. There's lots of them around here. Flowering hedge. Flowering hedge. What is it like with...

[45:59]

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