Lankavatara 2:IX verses part 2

*transcript generated by AI

Okay, our recording is in progress.

Welcome everybody.

Michael, good to have you back with us for today.

We have been working our way through chapter 2, section 9.

We were starting the verse portion.

And it looks like there’s a pretty good likelihood that today we will finish that.

So I think that’s pretty much where we’re at.

Before we dig into all this bidness, does anyone have anything that’s alive for them in their practice or around the Lankapotara that they’d like to discuss before we jump into anything new?

And also, I want to make sure we stop early enough to discuss what we’re going to do after chapter 2, section 9.

So I’m just going to bookmark that right now.

Yeah, last week you, near the end of the discussion, you were reading something from the Lanka, I believe, and you talked about revolving, the term revolving was used.

And I tried to find that and I could not.

Now, do you know offhand what that was?

Yeah, you tried to find it in Red Pine or you tried to find it in my translation?

In Red Pine.

I couldn’t find your translation.

Okay, this should be up on the website, but that’s okay.

All I could get was the past discussions.

But not last week’s.

Yeah, last week’s discussion never got up because my computer died before I could do that.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to get it up with this one.

We’ll see.

So Red Pine, where would he translate?

Let’s see.

I have the Chinese and mine here.

So let’s see how he translates the same idea.

All kinds of consciousness revolve.

He has breaks and swells again.

Okay.

And he just kind of skips over the technical term revolve.

There are other areas in the text where the same character is used.

Where in this one?

Yeah, is there something about that term in specific that you wanted to?

I would love to hear the line that it was in again.

So last time we were talking about the verse section, and I feel like this is out of order.

Okay, so I think it says, like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

I was wrong.

Let’s see.

Let me find the same spot.

Like ocean waters.

Okay.

So let’s see.

Mine is azure, red, every kind of color, alabaster, milk, and crystallized honey.

Delicate tastes, multitudes of blossoms and fruit, sun, moon, and radiant light are all not different and not not different.

Ocean waters rise in waves.

So too, seven consciousness and chitta co-arise and emerge.

Like ocean waters transformation, waves of every kind revolve.

So too, seven consciousness and chitta co-arise and emerge.

Call this the domain of alaya-vijnana, all kinds of consciousness revolve.

And he has the same section translated as blue and red in every color, milk and sugar and conch shells, fragrances and fruits and flowers, the sun and moon and light.

Like the ocean and its waves are neither separate nor not separate, seven forms of consciousness rise together with the mind.

Like the ever-changing sea gives rise to different waves, repository consciousness gives rise to different forms.

Mind, will, and consciousness, these refer to different forms, but forms devoid of differences, no seer or thing seen.

As the ocean and its waves cannot be divided, the mind and the forms of consciousness cannot be separated.

The mind, what gathers karma, the will, the mind is what gathers karma, the will considers what is gathered.

The forms of consciousness are conscious of five apparent worlds.

So you can see they’ve become quite different.

Right, right.

Now, one, your translation resonates and there’s a lot of confusion about what you’re saying.

One, your translation resonates and there’s a, there’s a visual revolving almost like, where it’s like the red pine is just like, what?

So anyway, thank you for sharing that again.

You’re welcome.

I’m glad that mine creates that visual, the gesture you’re doing with the hands is exactly the feeling that it’s supposed that it gives to me.

So right or wrong, at least I communicated the intention of.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It’s like spheres.

Yeah.

A Mobius strip of nesting sphere bubbles.

I have a question while we’re on that.

Can you guys hear me?

Okay.

I’ve been having trouble with my computer.

Yeah, you sound crystal clear.

Okay.

So the, so the Lankavatara, the Yogacara school is always referring to the mind.

It’s, it’s a mind-owned thing.

And so what you were just describing about all the, all these things return to this, that there’s no separation.

And so, and I know that the mind only is one thing here and then mind only that Bodhidharma picks up on and starts teaching is something different, as I understand it.

Yeah.

Could you say more about what mind only is in this, from this perspective, Yogacara?

Yeah.

So Bodhidharma was a Dhyana master.

Okay.

And this is my understanding.

Let me just preface that by saying, my understanding is that Bodhidharma was a Dhyana master.

Okay.

And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and so my understanding of your question is that Bodhidharma did not really teach the philosophy of Yogacara, or at least his, his recorded sermons did not record much in the way of the philosophy and the doctrine of the Yogatara and system.

Yes, I see that right.

However, his, his, uh, the sutra that he transmitted to his disciples was the Lankavatara sutra.

So all his recorded sermons do not record the, him teaching on the doctrine of the Lankavatara sutra.

What we get in his sermons is a type of pedagogy about how to have the direct realization of self-knowledge.

Yes.

And so I think what happens here is that when we put them together, we have the method of direct realization that Bodhidharma teaches, and then the doctrine and understanding of what self-realization is that he carried, that he held in the Lankavatara sutra.

And while his sermons don’t duplicate the information of the Lankavatara sutra, the overall philosophy and, um, we would imagine that the, the understanding, the worldview was Yogatara, even though the, the pedagogy and what he was recorded as teaching was the method of direct realization, not the contents of that realization.

Yes.

And it is my understanding doing a brief research.

I just, so, I mean, as it was conveyed to me is that, yeah, he, he didn’t, he goes, he, he did this wall gaze.

He started teaching wall gazing.

Just sit, just sit.

Don’t worry about all of the cosmology and all of the previous, uh, notions of what is mind only.

And, um, so it was the direct experience.

He was stripping away all the scholarly, you know, um, uh, verbose kind of journey through what is mind only, but, but going back to the Yogachara school, when they talk about mind only, like what is the essence of mind in that, in the Yogachara?

So they’re the, they’re the same.

So when he says, um, uh, he says, uh, Ekai, um, no, is it Ekai?

No.

Um, is that whoever his first disciple was that I’m blanking on right now?

The guy who chopped off his arm, um.

Bodhidharma’s?

Yeah.

Bodhidharma’s first disciple.

I think it was Huike or something.

Huike.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Huike.

So the famous koan from that exchange was, um, I can’t pacify my mind.

And Bodhidharma replied with bring me your mind and I’ll pacify it for you.

And he goes and he meditates for a long time.

He’s like, I can’t find it.

And he’s like, there you go.

It’s pacified.

Um, and I think what that tells us is that Bodhidharma was kind of a reactionary to people taking the philosophical doctrine of Yogacara and turning it into an intellectual debate.

And, um, once you have that basis, then you need to shut up and you need to go have the direct realization, because this is a realm of self-realization like the Lankavatara opens with.

Um, the very first discussion we had was that this is not for a rhetoric.

This is not for logicians.

This is only realizable through direct meditative experience.

And so both in both schools, mind is the dynamic interplay of seeds and perfumes and, um, the, the, the phenomenology of experience of interpenetrate the deep investigation of interpenetration and Chitta mind in this case is the dynamic quality of interpenetration.

And so in Yogacara, like that interpenetration of exploring through Jnana practice and, and, or resolving the dharmas and dhatus and all of that through that mind experience, you’re going to purify or something or come to a greater realization.

Yeah.

Well, in a way you can’t, there’s nothing to purify.

That’s where a lot of, this is where it starts to go into a lot of Zen talk.

Is that there’s nothing to purify.

It’s just the function of the mind.

And the, the only thing that there is, is there’s confusion about how the mind works and that confusion is what makes people suffer.

Right.

And when you’re not confused, then you don’t suffer.

And there’s nothing to purify.

Okay.

I guess I’ll let it go, but I’m still not clear.

Like what’s the essence of when, when Yogacara says mind only, you know, like we come back to Buddha nature, not knowing in Zen of, it’s not even thinking, don’t even think about it.

It’s just being present, presence.

Don’t think, you know, sit down, shut up.

Well, I had a question.

Shut up.

So that’s a methodology.

And, and, you know, frankly, one that can be very effective, but also one with a great deal of limitations, but it’s a method for direct experience, which is not what the yoga charns are doing.

So the yoga charns are laying out a doctrinal framework for the process of liberation.

They are not in the Lankavatara laying out the method by which one comes to direct realization.

The way that we’re using it in here is slightly different than what the yoga charn philosophical school was doing, because we are marrying it with our Zen lineage, which is to say that we are, I am inviting us into the text as a koan to use the language of the text to deconstruct us into the direct experience by, by directly pointing to what liberation is.

And that’s something that we’re doing here as a kind of, how do we use the study of doctrine in a way that aligns with the emphasis of direct experience?

I hear you.

I’ve got to, I’ll just put it simply, what is mind only from the yoga charn perspective?

And the answer to that question would be that mind only means that the only thing that we can experience is the contents of our own mind interplaying with itself.

Gotcha.

Perfect.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

I will say that my brief definition is somewhat lacking because it is both, it is about the way of knowing and an investigation of the way of being.

And so it bridges the categories of ontology and epistemology.

So, you know, it’s like all there is, is our mind knowing itself might be a little bit closer to what they mean by mind only, which is actually suspiciously similar to Buddha nature.

I guess, I guess to clarify even further, like, so they, you know, in that sutra, they’re talking mind only through the yoga charn school, which would be perhaps a break from what was being taught before.

So if they’re teaching mind only in this way of, what are they kind of pushing off against or refuting?

Is it more like dualistic teachings and devotionalism and things like that?

Yeah.

So they were, I would say that the yoga charn school was primarily looking, so against the Sarvastivadins and the Vasasthikas, those are two dualistic schools that had a form of kind of atomism, or they had some sort of creator, or they had, you know, some sort of basis, a dualistic reference for how things work.

And so this was a sharp break from their dualism.

And then in terms of Madhyamika, basically the yoga charns were dissatisfied by the idea or with the idea that there is no value in the use of language.

And so where the Madhyamikans would go into a, basically into a sentence of absurdum, you know, like negation to the point of absurdity, yoga charns would basically say like, well, there are affirmations we can make about the human experience that have value.

And they don’t say that the language themselves, you know, part of what we would get to if we stay with the Lankavatara is that language itself is something we need to be liberated from.

But they would also say that language directly points to self-realization.

And so to negate the entire relative frame in favor of the absolute frame is a form of dualism that is also unhelpful, right?

But that’s kind of the, even though the Madhyamikans are generally considered non-dual, they like fetish the absolute in a certain way from a yoga charn perspective.

And this is kind of a correction against that fetish.

Yes.

OK, I kind of see that evolution from, you know, prior to yoga charn.

It could be, you know, the Buddha’s out there or a dualistic teaching, perhaps devotionalism.

We can really get really into this long-winded view of what is the nature of emptiness.

And yoga charn comes on and says, well, we’re not even looking outward anymore.

We’re just realizing that this is all arising in our mind and we can deal with that.

And then Bodhi Dharma comes off and says, well, you’re still thinking too much.

Just sit, you know, and I don’t mean that in a negated way.

It’s like I almost see that he’s a precursor to scientific thought of just get out of all the philosophy of the religion and just be present.

Yes, yes.

And I and I based purely based on what ended up being his lineage and the rich philosophical Buddhistic underpinnings of his predecessors, he had to be teaching something else because even like some time, the third patriarch wrote the beautiful faith in mind piece.

Right.

Which was a beautiful mind only non-dualistic poem that is rich with doctrinal intelligence.

So even though the recordings we have of what Buddha Dharma taught are exactly like what you say, the subcontext of what he taught that didn’t get recorded had to have included doctrinal framing on mind only and what was going on from this perspective.

Right.

Otherwise, why would his almost immediate predecessors have the same kind of framing in their teachings?

You know, that’s that’s more of a logical deduction that I make.

But yes, in the in the recorded Anathalaya of Buddha Dharma, it’s exactly like what you’re talking about.

Yeah.

OK, I could get I could want to go into nuances here, but let’s let me open it up.

We could involve others here.

That’s fine.

Good questions.

Anything coming up on that conversation?

OK, am I am I understanding this correctly?

I’ve heard you use, Umi, and then I heard Michael use this like your mind or my mind, like to use that language.

Do you mean that like a part, like everything’s arising in in like my mind, like a personal mind?

Or are we really talking about, you know, what what like Genpo Roshi would call big mind?

And I don’t think he coined the term either.

What it sounds to me like it’s talking about is philosophical idealism, which is another way to say that, like the most irreducible substrate of reality is pure mind.

Meaning this is a mental reality like it, like we can examine things and break it down and break it down, but it can’t be broken down any further than mind itself.

But that’s not a personal mind in any way, although I suppose this experience of personal minds could occur within that larger thing.

Am I understanding it correctly or is this mind only terminology, which I was also curious about?

Is it talking about something a little bit different?

So far, as I’ve done my detailed examination of the Chinese, there is no possession of any of these qualities, but the framework is self-realization.

So it’s kind of saying in a way it’s like the mind that you realize.

It doesn’t really talk about who owns that mind.

Is it transpersonal?

Is it individual?

It doesn’t so far hasn’t gotten explicit about that.

And my readings of the English versions that I’ve read have never really clearly made any sort of metaphysical claim about whether it’s personal or transpersonal.

It’s just saying that self-realization is the realization of the function of mind without any possessive quality to it.

And there are Yogacharan branches that went into such a pure form of idealism that it got kind of weird, as in like they would try to refute the idea that other people even existed.

So then they started getting into all these debates around like, well, how can I know that you have a mind?

Well, I deduce that you have a mind because, well, first off, I can’t.

I can’t know that you have a mind.

So you might just be an NPC in my own mind and I have no idea that you are even real in any way, shape or form.

And this is pure idealism.

There is no external feedback coming into the system at all.

We are solely living in our own mental matrix.

The more mainstream Yogacharan school does seem to say that there is an external form seed that interacts with our internal perfuming, and that it doesn’t necessarily deny the validity of things outside of our physical body.

But it also does not locate the mind specifically within our physical body.

And these, I believe, are precisely the types of debate structures that made them go to China and sit on a mountain and say, shut up.

Who cares?

How about we just realize our mind and then we live from that realization and stop trying to answer unanswerable questions.

I like this guy.

Yeah, fair enough.

I think back a lot to Junpo’s insistence on certain language patterns, like saying this awareness.

So as to, you know, you could take a fake it till you make it approach there, but it’s kind of the difference between saying like my mind and this mind, like it does.

For me, at least the language I use does shape what my consciousness does or does not experience as well.

Absolutely.

And that’s very much a key central part of the Lankavatara’s teaching.

We’re actively creating our reality through the way we think about our reality.

Those become the future perfumes.

It’s very similar to Western ideas of logos and hermetism.

Yeah.

Yep.

Would you mind bounding on those a little bit?

I don’t know what those are.

Yeah.

So in Western spiritual heritage, there’s a school of thought, hermeticism.

You hear it different ways.

Hermeticism is usually what happened later.

Hermetism is usually closer to the Hellenic period where it evolved from.

So we’re talking about like early couple of hundreds A.D. in Greek.

And they had an emanation theory, which is the divine manifested into physical form.

And our job as physical beings is to return to the divine.

But in that they are kind of like radical monotheists and that we already are completely in the divine and we can’t be anything other than completely in the divine, which is very similar to saying that everything is mind only.

And then in their teaching, they express that logos, which is the divine word, creates reality.

And as we engage what we would think, what they would call theological practices, but we would call meditation.

They use mostly like mantras and visualizations, but it was fundamentally cessation experiences.

We say that they would say that we return to the source of logos and therefore our own our own words become the divine creative forces.

And therefore the power of language is critically important to those spiritual traditions.

Very similar to how we recognize that language shapes reality in the Dhammapada and in the Lankavatara.

Thank you.

Very similar time periods in history, too.

So a lot of parallel development going on.

What years did you say again?

About zero to 300 AD is kind of the rough range.

So when my ancestors were hitting each other with sticks.

Thank you.

Oh, yeah, Michael, go ahead.

And I’m kind of looking forward to like, after all of this kind of refuting in this Lankavatara, in this dialogue, Bodhidharma goes off and he creates, I think what if my understanding, one of the first texts that arises out of his teachings is the two entrances where he focuses on the entrance principle and the entrance of practice.

So it’s practice in principle.

It’s that very sharp, distinct, non-thinking, not anti-intellectual, but be more present and work with how present you can be to circumstances and how empty you can be doing that.

And so that’s where we get into those really economical, pithy kind of teachings unfolding.

Perhaps.

Yeah, what’s interesting about that sermon, if I recall it correctly, is that entrance by the principle is basically it’s like everything is your mind only.

You are interpenetrating, co-arising.

That’s it.

Have a nice day.

If you believe it well enough and you hear it and you’re done, then you’re done.

That’s it.

You don’t need to do anything else.

You’ve achieved the liberation that Buddhism provides.

And then through practice is like, okay, cross your legs, cross your eyes, sit down, shut the fuck up.

Also, by the way, there’s a whole string in there about how to respond to people who are violent to you and all sorts of like almost like karma yoga in the entrance by practice as well, if I recall that sermon correctly.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, it’s not just to bring a little piece in.

It’s not about that kind of dull, you know, whatever, whatever.

There’s the notion of the four practices like retribution, contemplation, realizing that your actions have results and acceptance of circumstances, basically not reacting to various circumstances, the absence of seeking, and then walking in accordance with the Dharma, the six perfections, generosity versus hoarding, discipline.

And so there’s a way and it’s just kind of more economically clear and like, you know, go get a job, stop thinking about all this stuff.

You know, that’s my humor, but it’s very, it’s very, go get into, it’s a very layman’s kind of view kind of.

Well, except for the fact that it requires nine years of wall gazing.

Yeah.

Well, they pulled that back after a while.

I think, take it out of three, but, but I, okay.

I’m just getting off into a different direction now with what Bodhidharma was doing.

So that’s probably now what we’re into.

So that’s great.

It’s, it’s relevant in the sense that it is to reconcile the difference between method and methods, right?

And so the method we’re using here is a little bit different.

But it’s also not really, I’m assuming that people are still doing things like living according to their precepts and, and embracing the perfections and fundamentally evolving their self on the personal relative spectrum, which are the preliminary practices of all bodhisattvas that have to be cultivated throughout our practice.

And actually in the verse that it ends with something along the lines of, oh gosh, where are they?

There’s a line in here that says practice reveals suchness, right?

So, you know, Dogen got really famous for the idea that practice is enlightenment.

Well, practice reveals suchness is a line in this particular verse as well.

So it’s what we use it’s what we do.

What we do is suchness.

We are suchness.

And there’s suchness that’s built off of dualistic confusion.

And there’s suchness that arises from non-dual self-realization.

And obviously this tradition biases the idea that non-dual self-realization is a better, is a more liberated form of existence.

Yeah.

Thank you.

How about I just read this and then we’ll have, we’ll have read all of 2.9 and then we’ll say the last few minutes for the idea as to whether or not we want to start doing something else.

Although Ryan and Matt aren’t here in their stalwarts, generally speaking.

So I’ll have to make sure we reach out to them before we pull the rug out from under them on the Lankavatar discussion.

But here’s, here’s the, here’s the English for the closing of chapter two, section nine and my translation.

At that time, Mahamati asked in verse, the characteristics of ocean waves, their drumming and leaping can be distinguished.

Alaya and karma are like this.

How then do we fail to awaken?

The Bhagavan replied in verse, ordinary beings lack prajna.

Alaya is like a great ocean.

Karma appearances, karma perceptual appearances are like waves.

Rely on this simile to understand.

Basically the idea is if our awareness and the contents of our awareness are all raised already separate, then how can we fail to awaken?

And ordinary beings lack prajna.

What’s prajna is developed by our meditation practice, right?

So that’s the short version of that exchange.

At that time, Mahamati asked in verse, the sun’s rays illuminate equally lower, middle and upper sentient beings.

Tathagata illuminates the world.

Speaking of suchness for the ignorant, having already distinguished all dharmas, why not speak of reality?

So Michael, this speaks a little bit to your question as why all this talk about the dharmas and not just going straight to suchness.

Then the Bhagavan replied in verse.

If one speaks about suchness, their citta lacks suchness.

Now the verse here is quite vague and I’m just going to pause for a second.

I believe that the there here is that it is the, when we speak about suchness, two things are going on.

We are separated from suchness, but that does not mean we can’t speak from suchness.

And also we can deprive others of their experience of suchness by confusing them through our speech.

It also means that ignorance and a lack of ignorance co-arise.

So there’s lots of different ways that this line could be interpreted.

It’s quite vague.

So anyway, if one speaks about suchness, their citta lacks suchness.

Like ocean waves reflected in a mirror or in a dream, all simultaneously manifest.

Citta realms are also like this, meaning the content that’s reflected and the reflection all simultaneously exist.

Because realms are not fully actualized, karma unfolds in sequential becoming.

Meaning if we don’t have enough prajna, then we aren’t fully actualizing the experience of our mind only process.

Therefore we experience karma as unfolding in a sequence.

Consciousness is conscious of what can be known.

Manas naturally takes it to be real, which is our selfing process.

The five senses manifestation lacks a set sequence.

So our five senses can manifest in any particular order or form.

We are conscious of what we can be conscious of.

We are only ever conscious of something.

Manas takes our experience to be real and separate from ourselves.

Like a skilled painter and their apprentice, adding colors to the outline of every image, I say it is like this.

I believe that’s referring to the fact that consciousness and manas are constantly filling in the picture of the outlines of our experience.

Colors essentially lack designs.

Neither brush nor silk have them either.

Meaning none of these things are functionally distinct in their design.

Just for pleasing sentient beings, they weave and color many images.

As a sentient being, we’re putting all of this together into a picture.

Our mind is turning all of this raw sensory input and our perfuming, all of these seeds and vasanas, is turning it into this ongoing movie picture we call our lived experience.

Speech and action are distinct.

Tathata, suchness, is separate from names.

Vekalpa, discrimination, responds to initial karma.

Practice reveals suchness.

So this is where it’s saying, it doesn’t really matter what you say about yourself, it matters what you do.

It doesn’t matter what you know, it matters who you are.

Even though you talk about suchness and you use it to describe things, it itself is not bound by any of your words.

However, vekalpa, which is our discriminating intelligence, responds to initial karma.

Our initial karma is thought, word, and deed.

And so we have this recursive loop of how the way we think about our reality, the words we use about our reality, condition our reality.

And then practice reveals suchness, which is basically the cultivation of the buddhadharma, the way reveals the direct experience of life.

The place where suchness, let’s just say suchness, the place where suchness self-awakens, awareness is separated from what is known.

This is spoken to the sons of buddhas, the ignorant, falsely discriminate.

All things are like illusions, though they appear, they lack reality.

Such are the various teachings, adapted distinctly to circumstance.

What is said does not necessarily accord, and for those to whom it does not accord, it is not true speech.

Basically saying if the teaching isn’t right for the student, then that student isn’t going to recognize it as true.

And so that’s why there’s so many different kinds of teaching.

Each sick person the doctor treats according to their condition.

The Tathagata, for sentient beings, teaches each in accordance to citta, in accordance to their specific causes and conditions and perfuming, in order to unlock the realm of self-realization.

Wangxiang is not a realm.

Sravakas have no part in this realization.

Sravakas, as we heard in the meditation, or the meditation reading, are those who build their reality based on the interplay of causes and conditions in a fundamentally dualistic way.

So they don’t see that their falsely discriminated subject-object experience that they take as real is not actually a real realm.

It’s illusion.

What the compassionate one teaches is the domain of self-realization, the domain of the realization of mind.

Chapter 2, section 9 is concluded.

Gong!

Six weeks later on that section.

So we are pretty much at the end of time for our session today.

If you just don’t say for our session today and just say we are at the end of time.

I like that.

I almost just let it linger.

There’s the dramatic pause.

So the question is, before we completely wrap, is there any reflections on the final section there?

Or questions, comments, concerns?

Well, just one clarification.

So is suchness the same as in other teachings of Buddha nature, pure consciousness itself, thoughts without a thinker?

That suchness is just the essence of one’s conscious, you can’t even say one’s, you know, it’s just the essence of consciousness.

The best that I could get to it is the dynamic interplay of light.

Is the dynamic interplay of light.

Which some people would say is Buddha nature, but in other cases that’s not what people say is Buddha nature.

Buddha nature gets used all sorts of different ways.

Right.

And it’s not pure awareness.

It’s not the experience of pure awareness either.

Suchness is the whole interpenetration of all that is, which is why it’s beyond all language.

So any labeling, any thinking of me as a being or suffering, or I’m looking at a tree, all of these labels are just human made mind constructs.

And it’s just an interplay.

Like in the field of quantum physics, down at the essence of quantum physics, it’s just waves.

There’s no, and we are waves, everything’s waves.

We’ve evolved into labeling and solidifying and taking seriously all this stuff, but in essence.

Yeah.

So right.

Suchness is saying that suchness is what you said.

And also we have evolved and the labeling slices and dices, what isn’t fundamentally sliced and diced.

Right.

And the issue from a Yogachara perspective is not that we slice and dice.

It’s not that there’s no, it’s not that I’m looking at a tree, doesn’t have a relative value that is functional and useful.

It’s just that as humans, we get more, we think that our sliced and diced reality is more real than the oneness reality.

And that is the problem.

Yeah.

So as long as we can use language while we’re fully aware of the underlying dynamic interplay of light and that we’re kind of playing a game to be functional, then it’s fine.

Okay.

No attachment.

See it as it is.

Right.

Okay.

We have to go.

Oh yeah.

Wonderful evening.

Okay.

Real, real quick.

Do you want to continue just a vote?

Yes or no vote?

Do you want to continue the Lankavatara?

I’m ready to be done.

Ready to be done.

Okay.

There’s one vote for moving on.

Great.

Okay.

Have a great evening.

See you, Robert.

Greg, where are you at on continuing the Lankavatara versus picking up something?

We don’t have to decide what we’re going to pick up because there’s, that’s not maybe the time for that, but more Lanka or something else?

Oh, I don’t know.

I’ve been rather enjoying it and it’s been something I’ve been wanting to explore for a while.

So I’ve enjoyed having the opportunity to explore it.

If you thought there was certainly more of value there to delve into, I would say, stick with it.

Okay.

So you’re not fatiguing of this particular type of discussion?

Oh no.

No.

I mean, I feel like we’re scratching the surface.

There’s a lot left if we wanted to keep going.

Yeah.

But I mean, I wouldn’t be heartbroken if we moved on to something else either.

That’s fine.

But I do like studying these, studying, just investigating classical texts this way.

Like I am enjoying that.

And if it turns out we’re as a group, we’re ready to move on, but you want to do that, if it turns out we’re as a group, we’re ready to move on, but you want to do that, and we can always do that offline or outside of the Sanghas training period.

Sure.

Potentially.

Yeah.

And Michael, do you have a vote that you would like to cast for more Lanka or something else?

Yeah.

Well, you know, first a caveat, I wouldn’t give my input too much weight because I think my attendance is going to be rather patchy.

And so, I’ll be dropping in for the intellectual stimulation, but if it’s this or a different way for a different study, I would be dropping in on either or, if it’s okay with you guys.

Yeah.

Open doors then.

It means that you can come and go.

Thank you.

Perfect.

Yeah.

All right.

Well, thanks everybody for weighing in.

If you have to go, please feel free.

We’re five after.

I don’t mean to keep you past.

And if you’d like to have a closing check-in, I would appreciate that process.

Michael, since you’re, what, do you just want to go ahead and do your closing check-in?

Oh, yeah.

So, yeah.

Again, thanks.

I enjoy the intellectual stimulation and the exploration and the clarification.

So, yeah.

Gratitude, enjoyment, enjoy the shared mind activity.

And I’m in, I’m out, I’m alive, and I’m dying.

And that’s all an illusion too.

So, thank you.

All right.

I don’t know where this came from, but it’s stuck in my brain.

It’s been stuck in my brain for a long time.

And this is about suchness, my understanding of it.

It’s called The Three Great Mysteries.

A fish unto water, a bird unto air, and a man unto himself.

And it’s the third of those that I think of as touching on suchness.

Yeah.

Anyways, I enjoy these every time.

And yeah, I am eternally in.

Let me check in with joy and gratitude to have completed this particular section of the Lankavatara and for all of the lovely discussions that it yielded from it.

And yeah, we’ll be here next week and we’ll see what we do.

Thank you all for weighing in with your thoughts and with your ongoing presence.

Take care.

Bye.