Donna Quesada. Buddhism: Emptiness. (Ignorance. Dualism) 4/5 — Transcript

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1. 0:00ignorance in the Buddhist sense isn't
2. 0:02what you think it's not like oh that guy
3. 0:04needs to study more and fill up his head
4. 0:05with more stuff ignorance is rather the
5. 0:08mistaken idea of a separate
6. 0:13self the mistaken
7. 0:15idea of a fixed identity just what we've
8. 0:18been talking about with regard ourselves
9. 0:21but also with regard everything in the
10. 0:23universe that's what ignorance is in the
11. 0:25Buddhist sense
12. 0:31it's one of the three poisons but I
13. 0:33don't want to bog you down too much
14. 0:35right now formable truth the three
15. 0:37poison let's do that let's put it greed
16. 0:41anger and
17. 0:45ignorance my teacher used to say that
18. 0:47ignorance was the granddaddy of them
19. 0:50all because it sets us up for a wrongful
20. 0:54perception of the self it sets us up for
21. 0:57what the Buddhists would call a
22. 0:58dualistic notion of
23. 1:03so they're called the three
24. 1:10poisons because all of the ills in our
25. 1:13universe really stem from these things
26. 1:16the anger within us the greed Among Us
27. 1:19the ignorance inside of us this wrongful
28. 1:22perception of a self that causes
29. 1:24suffering within
30. 1:27ourselves and among Everyone We Touch
31. 1:36sh see the wrongful perception of the
32. 1:40self is
33. 1:42wrongful because it suggests that you
34. 1:44don't understand you don't correctly see
35. 1:47you don't correctly see that we are the
36. 1:49cloud it's not just that we're like the
37. 1:51cloud we are the cloud dependent on
38. 1:55everything everything and anything you
39. 1:58can look at
40. 2:01the Sun that makes our food
41. 2:04grow the water that nourishes the soil
42. 2:07the insects that pollinate and that
43. 2:09circulate that soil
44. 2:12right so we are the
45. 2:17cloud and we
46. 2:19change every moment you just don't see
47. 2:22it until you get
48. 2:23old you don't see it that you're
49. 2:25changing that everything you do changes
50. 2:27you you lie you become a liar your
51. 2:30identity is totally
52. 2:31transformed you steal you become a thief
53. 2:34right now you're a student go home maybe
54. 2:37you're a son or a daughter or a mother
55. 2:39or a girlfriend you're lots of things at
56. 2:41once I'm a woman but I'm also a teacher
57. 2:44I'm also a student like you
58. 2:48all it's the best role of all let me
59. 2:50assure
60. 2:56you we just don't see the fact that
61. 2:59we've changed in until much later those
62. 3:01who haven't seen us for a long time they
63. 3:03see it but we don't you don't see
64. 3:05yourself changing any more than you see
65. 3:07yourself aging when you look in the
66. 3:09mirror me morning we are the cloud and
67. 3:12so ignorance is when we fail to perceive
68. 3:15that
69. 3:17interconnectedness we instead get sucked
70. 3:19up into this dualistic notion of the
71. 3:22fixed
72. 3:26self and it puts us into a competitive
73. 3:29mind frame where I've Got to Now protect
74. 3:33this identity and I look for praise and
75. 3:37I'm jealous when you get it and I don't
76. 3:39and I'm competing whether rather than
77. 3:41cooperating I'm against it's me versus
78. 3:44you and this is my stuff besides and
79. 3:47don't touch
80. 3:48it and we're very antagonistic against
81. 3:52each other because of this notion of the
82. 3:54separate
83. 3:56self there's a lot at stake my
84. 3:58reputation
85. 4:01right and we're not going to get the
86. 4:03praise we seek and we suffer and we make
87. 4:05everyone else
88. 4:07suffer and that was my spot and you took
89. 4:10it and we're
90. 4:11angry and it leads to the insanity
91. 4:14Buddhists call
92. 4:15SAS you want proof go drive down the
93. 4:21freeway and that need to protect leads
94. 4:24us into this greedy
95. 4:27greedy tendency
96. 4:32where we try to get as much as we
97. 4:35can we wrongfully
98. 4:37think that it will guarantee our
99. 4:39security our survival and more that it
100. 4:41will make us
101. 4:44happy but everything changes and it
102. 4:46never
103. 4:49does and so we keep looking and we keep
104. 4:57looking you see
105. 5:01there is no you without the
106. 5:04causes the traditional way we think
107. 5:07about the cell is very dualistic I
108. 5:11think okay the traditional way says okay
109. 5:13this is me this is my body like how we
110. 5:16started a few minutes ago we start by
111. 5:18looking at the body okay this is
112. 5:20me and the Zen Masters can be kind of
113. 5:23crude sometimes they say this old skin
114. 5:26bag right yes inside this skin bag is me
115. 5:30and this is kind of like the barrier of
116. 5:33me right and everything outside this
117. 5:35skin bag is not
118. 5:38me and this is my space psychologists
119. 5:41have even written about the space that
120. 5:43we need a twft realm of space or get out
121. 5:45of my you're in my space right very
122. 5:49protective about this thing we call
123. 5:55ourselves and everything inside is
124. 5:57considered vital our Vital organ
125. 6:00what is that word
126. 6:01vital what is that word
127. 6:05vital what is life Spanish
128. 6:08speakers VA and in Italian Lavita Lai in
129. 6:13French meaning everything inside of us
130. 6:16is vital that's why we call them our
131. 6:18vital organs our lungs our liver our
132. 6:20kidneys right they're vital they give us
133. 6:23life my life depends on those things
134. 6:26that are inside my body
135. 6:29and so we go to Great Lengths to protect
136. 6:31our body ourselves cuz it's the vehicle
137. 6:35that carries ourselves
138. 6:39right we took a deep breath together
139. 6:42today take another deep breath take
140. 6:50another what did you
141. 6:53inhale air of course where did that air
142. 6:57come from
143. 7:00go for it tell me where did the air come
144. 7:05from the
145. 7:09atmosphere keep throw stuff out what
146. 7:11comes to your mind when you think of air
147. 7:14this
148. 7:16lifegiving stew of elements
149. 7:20oxygen the trees oh yeah the trees oh
150. 7:23yeah those
151. 7:25right what would happen to my lungs
152. 7:28without that air
153. 7:33they would just
154. 7:35suffocate and so that air is just as
155. 7:42vital as my lungs because the lungs
156. 7:45don't exist without the
157. 7:47air and where does the air come from we
158. 7:50established that the trees have a lot to
159. 7:52do with the air I breathe right and what
160. 7:54about the
161. 7:56trees where do they come from
162. 8:02the soil don't overthink this people the
163. 8:05soil what about the
164. 8:09soil
165. 8:11nothing okay you have water melting in
166. 8:14the mountains and it nourishes the soil
167. 8:16and the rain comes and nourishes it
168. 8:18further and you have worms and they do
169. 8:20their thing
170. 8:23and yes and the biologists can help us
171. 8:26understand how this organic matter works
172. 8:28and
173. 8:30and we see that the air we
174. 8:33breathe depends there we go again on all
175. 8:37of these other things we get to a point
176. 8:39where we can't count these things
177. 8:40anymore and so the worms and the soil
178. 8:43and the Sunshine and the rain and the
179. 8:45mountains are just as vital to me as my
180. 8:48very own lungs and so that dualistic
181. 8:51notion of self nonself breaks down right
182. 8:55remember what we did the first week of
183. 8:57class we looked at dualism we looked at
184. 8:59those supposedly opposite categories
185. 9:02that stand apart man woman East West
186. 9:05reason emotion right what were some
187. 9:07other ones man and animal woman and man
188. 9:10and all of these opposing categories
189. 9:12that stand that face off against each
190. 9:15other and we try to find a Victor at the
191. 9:18expense of the other right but in these
192. 9:22ancient wisdom traditions we
193. 9:26study we try to break down that wall of
194. 9:29segregation and look instead and that's
195. 9:32what's meant by Oneness or wholeness we
196. 9:34look instead on the mutual
197. 9:37dependence of those
198. 9:39parts we are this web we're part of the
199. 9:42same
200. 9:45web and we depend for our existence on
201. 9:48the same
202. 9:50things the Chinese say the same thing in
203. 9:53the context of the in and the Yang
204. 9:55they're
205. 9:57not diametrically opposing
206. 10:00categories they're mutually dependent
207. 10:02parts of a whole constantly
208. 10:06shifting constantly moving in
209. 10:09proportion one giving rise to the other
210. 10:12and without one the whole thing would
211. 10:14fall
212. 10:15flat and so this notion of me and not me
213. 10:19breaks down when I look deeply like
214. 10:22that where do I draw the line now that
215. 10:25I've established that the air is just as
216. 10:27vital as my lungs should I draw it right
217. 10:29here right here where could I draw the
218. 10:31line it becomes silly and absurd right
219. 10:34and so I become very full and
220. 10:37expansive I'm floating I'm everything I
221. 10:39am the trees and so when I say we are
222. 10:42the cloud I'm not speaking in
223. 10:47metaphor that's emptiness that's all
224. 10:49emptiness is emptiness is
225. 10:51interconnectedness as tick Han would say
226. 10:54we interr with everything inter being
227. 10:58I'm interconnected with
228. 11:09with the idea is that we suffer less
229. 11:12with this understanding we replace
230. 11:15ignorance with
231. 11:18wisdom and it's easier to be
232. 11:21compassionate when we've broken through
233. 11:23those walls of SE
234. 11:26segregation when we've broken through
235. 11:28the idea of separate self it's easier to
236. 11:31be
237. 11:32compassionate it's easier to see that
238. 11:34we're all
239. 11:36part of the same web of
240. 11:41existence and we see the Folly involved
241. 11:44in hoarding this
242. 11:46thing that I call mine or even this
243. 11:49thing that I call
244. 11:56me when I depend
245. 11:59on everything you depend
246. 12:01on and we are part of the same suchness
247. 12:05we are one and the same in that
248. 12:09sense are there any questions up to this
249. 12:12point I
250. 12:14could take it a little further but this
251. 12:17is probably a good time to pause for
252. 12:25questions find video
253. 12:29I'll let you know I'll let you know I
254. 12:32will tell you