Once again I'd like to suggest to you something which some new people came tonight that weren't here last time, right? Isn't that right, some new people here? Are you new? Yeah. So I mentioned some things the last few weeks that I found surprising, maybe still having some trouble adjusting to the idea of these things. So I'll start out again with that, and then I'd like to introduce some meditation practice to deal with the possibility of being able to verify this teaching yourself. So once again I suggested that there's like a thing called mind, which you could call also consciousness if you want, but in some sense maybe mind is a bigger topic.

[01:10]

Then maybe we could use in this class the word mind to include both consciousness, which again I'll use synonymously with awareness, cognition, knowing. These are synonyms then, consciousness, knowing, awareness, and cognition. That's one aspect of mind. Another part of mind also includes mental phenomena or mental objects, conceptions. So within mind consciousness or awareness, but we also have mental functions, mental phenomena, most of which can become concepts which can be known or cognized by mind consciousness.

[02:19]

Mind also includes, however, a level of consciousness which doesn't know mental phenomena, but knows what? Actually knows, it doesn't know, it knows, directly knows physical phenomena. And knowing physical phenomena is what we call sensation. There aren't sensations out there. It's not like the sun is burning up in the sky sending sensations down to us. It's sending electromagnetic radiation to us. Big time. Some of that electromagnetic radiation comes to us in the form of in a range of wavelengths that stimulate us in such a way that we come up with the sensation of light or color.

[03:29]

Other sense... other electromagnetic radiation from the sun we don't see. Gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves. Did you know the sun's sending radio waves? Is it? I think it does. We don't know how to tune them in with ordinary radios, but telescopes tune them in. So it's sending off these electromagnetic radiation. It's sending out mechanical waves, but since there's not an atmosphere between us and the sun, we can't hear what's going on up there with our ear. Because the mechanical waves that propagate that energy aren't If there was a fluid between our ears and the sun, we would hear it, and it would be quite something to listen to, I imagine.

[04:32]

But there's not an atmosphere around the sun to propagate mechanical waves for us to hear, fortunately. The sun also, the gases and the liquids coming off the sun are not something that we can taste. But if you got close somehow, you know, you would smell the sun. I mean, some gases would come off, and you would respond to them. Also the sun, you could touch the sun. Something to touch. You could touch it, and that also would be possible for a while. But you'd have to get kind of close. You could feel the heat, actually, with your fingers and your elbow. aren't out there. The sensation is what happened when the energy of the sun, which comes to us in these five modalities, would touch us. And we would respond in such a way as to give rise to direct sense experience.

[05:33]

Okay? So that's the second level of consciousness, which is included in mind, is sense. Direct experience of physical energy, physical existence. this level of direct sensory experience is unconscious to us, unconceptual consciousness. So we're sitting in this room, seeing people, seeing colors, hearing sounds, which we could translate into human voices, doorbells, trucks, we actually but we're not actually directly we don't have a direct physical experience of a face or the sound of a truck these are examples of conceptual experience there's five categories of physical stimulation tastes and tangibles there's no there's not a category called a face or

[06:46]

a window or a building. When we're in the world of hamburgers and people and windows and buildings and light bulbs, we're in the conceptual world where this is an example of a direct experience of an indirect experience. So you're indirectly experiencing the physicality here. The physicality is converted into concepts and we experience a conceptual awareness of physical existence. And mostly where we live, most of what we're aware of is what we call conceptual awareness. The awareness at the level of sense consciousness is un... consciousness, which is pretty much un-this kind of consciousness. But it's very much another kind of consciousness. But we can't see it from this realm.

[07:50]

But we can eventually discover it, and maybe, you know, some of you will actually discover this and be able to actually verify this through your meditation. The other level of mind is the level of mind which is non-conceptual, which isn't mediated by conception, but is also not a sense, it's not also an experience. this level of non-conceptual awareness is in some sense the most profound or the highest, whichever you want to say, and it's through non-conceptual awareness, which is right now available to us, but we need quite a bit of meditation experience to realize that non-conceptual awareness or non-conceptual consciousness is the consciousness which is in direct relationship with ultimate truth. and we must be familiar with these other two kinds of consciousness before we can actually have a nice relationship with non-conceptual awareness.

[09:05]

The kind of awareness that gives us direct access to full realization of truth only really comes to us in an appropriate way when we've understood these other kinds of consciousness. and I'm talking to you about it, I'm talking to you about these other two kinds of consciousness, and we can talk back and forth now for several more weeks, several more months, several more years, until you understand at an intellectual level what I'm talking about, which is something to do with what the Buddhist tradition is talking about, because I'm pretty much, I'm not saying anything very new, I'm just saying it in a new way. What I'm saying, you cannot find exactly this way. I'm basically just regurgitating in modern-day language. I'm going to present stuff first, that's what we're doing, and then we have question and answer.

[10:09]

And so the first level of understanding is intellectual, to see if you intellectually understand this. The next level of understanding comes... called Adi Svala Sanskrit for you, Shrutamayi Prajna, which means wisdom which comes through the ear, through hearing. Shrutam means having to do with the ear, which means you hear it and you see it. It comes in through your senses from the outside, from somebody else, from the tradition. When you understand that, the next level is you reflect on it, you think about it, you see how it applies to various situations in your life. And the next level, which I'm going to start introducing to you even before you... I'm not exactly introducing the next level, I'm introducing the equipment, the meditation practices you'll need at the next level of insight, and that is insight through actual meditation practice, where you actually bring this teaching, you know, you experience your body as revealing this teaching, or you bring the teaching into your body through the meditation, or you bring your meditation into your body through these teachings.

[11:21]

So you may have more questions about what I said in terms of these three levels or three dimensions of consciousness, but I'll just hold those for a little while. Just begin to instruct you in the meditation practice. Now the Buddhist psychology is presented in the same spirit that this meditation practice is presented. The point of Buddhist psychology is the same as the point of the meditation which you can use to deeply understand this teaching about your psychology. The point of this teaching is so that you will realize selflessness and by realizing selflessness you will purify for all beings. Not only will you have love for some people you'll have love for all people and not only will you have love for all people but it will be purified of any self

[12:33]

which is the same as self-confusion. That's the point of this teaching about the mind, and it's also the point of the meditation we use to realize, to study and realize the mind. If I ever forget to mention this, please remember for me. I might not say it, but this is the point of this teaching. And this meditation practice is based on a commitment, an unshakable commitment to realize an accurate, complete and authentic understanding of the mind and all phenomena so that you can help all beings. That's the basis of this meditation practice. We spent a year working on that basis.

[13:38]

Again, please remember that's the basis. The basis is the aspiration to attain enlightenment for the welfare of all beings. That's the point of this. That's the basis of this meditation practice. Okay? Now this meditation practice I would like to present to you in having two main aspects. One is mental stabilization. which includes all kinds of concentration practices and samadhis. And the other aspect is insight. Actually both of these are what is involved in wisdom. Tonight I would like to begin to introduce the mental stabilization aspect of this meditation practice.

[14:39]

Are you ready for it? I just did a workshop at Tassajara for a week on this mental stabilization and insight. I'm doing a class in Berkeley on it, but I'm sorry it's kind of full. There's a one-day sitting where we'll be working on this practice, and I'll keep working on it here. So I think to some extent, please help me go back and forth between expounding the nature of mind, the psychological teachings, and also the psychological teachings of the meditation so you can verify and study this material directly. Okay? I hope to go back and forth. And if you feel like we're doing too much of one or the other, I appreciate your feedback. So here's the basic meditation on mental stabilization. It's basically a way of relating to your experience.

[15:45]

And for many people it's a way of relating to our problems. It's also a way to relate to your success and your happiness. So let's see, how would I say, we're talking about a way to relate to the experience. And now we're talking about experience but I'm not talking about, at this point I'm not talking about a way of relating to what we call sense experience. Relating to this un-conceptual consciousness of electromagnetic radiation. That level which is unmediated by concepts Really, you don't have any problems there to speak of, except pollution from the other area. This practice is to be applied, understand that it's to be applied in the realm of conceptual consciousness, where what's going on is you're thinking of concepts.

[16:55]

You're thinking and knowing and cognizing in terms of concepts. This is the realm where I'm explaining it to you. This is where you're hearing these words and understanding these words and applying them now to the realm in which these words are heard. So what we're working with, our experience actually, we're not talking about the totality of our experience, I'm talking about how to deal with your experience as you know it through concepts. I'm talking about how to deal with conceptual experience. And the basic way with conceptual experience, which I'm recommending to start with, is to not elaborate on conceptual experience. That's the basic stabilization gesture.

[17:59]

In this realm of conceptual awareness, we know a concept, like right now, I know, is your name Vibrata? Is that it? So I have this concept of Vibrata, that's how I happen to say, are you Vibrata? And she said, mm-hmm. concept of what she was I looked over there I checked it out it seemed to be vibrata so I thought it was and she says yes so I got the right concept right so I'm knowing the concept vibrata and there's a concept I have a concept Cindy and this person whatever she is who knows if I say are you Cindy she might say she's playing this concept game with me Cindy I say Cindy she says yeah Now she can change if she wants to. Say, no, I changed. I'm not Cindy. I say, well, who are you? She says, Ralph. So I say, okay. Ralph? And she says, yes. Now she says, no, I'm not Ralph. I'm Cindy. And I say, well, you're fooling around. So I have a concept of what fooling around is. Oh, this is fooling around. This corresponds to my somebody's playing a trick on me.

[19:04]

I say, are you playing a trick on me? She says, no. I say, really? She says, yes. Because I have a concept of what truth is. So this is the conceptual realm. You recognize it? So how do you relate to the conceptual realm, conceptual problems, in a way that stabilizes your consciousness? You look at vibrata, and that's it. Vibrata. What do you have to say about that? Nothing. Vibrata. Period. No conceptual elaboration. Now, trains of thought might... which might be connected to vibrata, like She's wearing a red t-shirt and she's awfully cute. She has red, she has red things coming out from underneath her cap. Maybe there's some red hair under there. You know? Now, it means she likes me. Or she thinks I'm funny.

[20:05]

Or she, and she likes attention. Now she's not just sure. So this is called a train of thought associated with Vibrata. The stabilization is you don't get involved in the thought associated with the concepts. Stabilization practice, actually, as a result of when you actually learn this practice, it opens you up and softens you buoyant and joyful. But the funny thing is that it's actually a focusing practice and it's a narrowing practice even though what you're narrowing on is actually a kind of spaciousness. So you look at somebody's face And there's a kind of spaciousness around it which doesn't connect the whole bunch of stuff to the face.

[21:09]

You just look at the face and you don't think, oh, Renee, and she's got a history, and I know it, and blah, blah, blah, and this means that, and all. It's like there's Renee and there's this, it leads all the way around her and like nothing reaches Renee. It's just like Renee and like, I can't even think like, who does Renee look like? Or who doesn't she look like? Just, Renee, that's it. So it's a kind of, in one sense you're not getting involved and to focus on that seems narrow but actually not getting involved with things in this way, not getting involved in the trains of thought, not jazzing everything up that you're looking at, stabilizes the consciousness. And this way of stabilizing it is basically a non-conceptual way of dealing with concepts.

[22:14]

So you just know the concepts, which is fundamentally what's going on, without any of this lack of elaboration of each thing you know. This is another good example. I'm going to do something that doesn't stabilize my consciousness. So there's Oliver. And since the last time I saw Oliver, his hair grew out. He used to have really short hair. So now he's got quite a bit of hair up there. Get into that hair. Or I can just say, okay, new Oliver, that's it. Don't ask him how come he grew it out or where he got it done. And then there's these sunglasses he's got on, tinted glasses. He didn't used to have those either at Tassajara, did you? Right, so he's like this new Oliver. I vaguely remember him. If he didn't say Oliver, I actually might not have recognized him. But it's the same old, nice little simple Oliver with the short hair that I used to know. But even talking about this like this is mental elaboration. And it isn't that, I mean conceptual elaboration, it isn't that bad so far, but

[23:19]

doesn't stabilize your consciousness. Of course, not to mention if I would say, you know, I don't like the haircut, you know, why didn't he talk to me about it before he grew it out? All that stuff, that's the kind of stuff which when you associate all that with something, it tends to agitate the mind. And this is normally where we live, is that we have these concepts arising, we get involved in these trains of thought, and then we get involved in trains of thought against the trains of thought. Like, you know, there's Mark, I'm angry, why shouldn't I be angry? Well, what if people, what if somebody knew I was angry? This kind of like, not only thoughts arising, but they're all getting all jumbled up with each other and pushing each other around and it's getting... Well, this is usually what it's like. Unstable. Kind of heavy.

[24:21]

Sticky. Not buoyant. And not so flexible and soft. But everything kind of like... Well, if that's the way it is, even all that, you just let it be that way. Basically, whatever you see, this face, [...] that's it. You just see that face, that's it. You do not get involved. This is the basic gesture of stabilization. I'd also like to mention that when people hear about this, they feel that it might be kind of a cold way of being with people. Like, look at somebody and just look at them without thinking, oh, they're cute or they're ugly. At least if you think they're ugly, it's not cold, right? It's not cold to think they're ugly. It's kind of hot. Or they're detestable.

[25:24]

It's kind of hot. It's kind of angry. And thinking that they're lovely or sweet, that's kind of warm, wouldn't you say? So both of those seem kind of warm. To just look at somebody and stop right there might seem cold. But I propose to you, again, that this is the first step in true love. Actually meet somebody and just deal with what they are rather than using your imagination on them. is really the beginning of love. It's not the whole story, it's the beginning. To look at somebody without thinking that they need you to say something about them in your head. They need you to, like, say, okay, you're alright, you're fine, you're cute. They don't need you to actually... They don't need you to add anything to them. And you might as well start right now.

[26:25]

getting used to that idea train yourself at this way of being with everything you meet now informal sitting do is they pick some topic to practice not they pick some concept to practice not elaborating like they pick their breath But when you're picking your breath, please note that when you pick your breath, the breath you're noticing is not a breath which is a physical, a direct physical experience. It is the concept of the breath. There is no direct physical experience called inhale or exhale. These are conceptual phenomena. So breath is no experience, direct physical experience, called breath. There's a concept of breath, and there's a concept of inhale and exhale.

[27:30]

And if you take that concept of breath, whatever you say it is, and you focus on that, and then you focus on it without elaborating on it, you can stabilize by focusing on that phenomena and not elaborating on it. Also, even while you're focusing on the concept of breath, you'll still hear sounds like sirens, a person's voice. You'll still hear those things even while you're Meditating on your breath, focusing on your breath, and you're training to focus on your breath, but really what you're focusing on is this concept of breath with no elaboration. And if you can focus on your breath, on the concept of breath with no elaboration, you can learn how to see other things with no elaboration. But to make life simple, you might start with something like focusing on the breath focusing on the concept of breath focusing on the image of the breath focusing on the idea of the breath focusing on the notion of the breath these are synonyms focus on with no elaboration with no involvement in the trains of thought associated with this conceptual phenomenon if you can do that steadily the mind will be stabilized in this way and what you'll be doing then

[28:58]

is you're training yourself in the way consciousness actually knows, which I mentioned before. The way consciousness knows is it just knows. It just knows an idea. It just knows a concept. It doesn't know and comment. Awareness is awareness. Now there's other mental phenomena which comment, which judge. which disagree, which argue, which try to manipulate. Those also go on right along with the consciousness. But consciousness itself just knows. That's all it does. That's its job, knowing. Bare, mere awareness. This kind of mental attention, you kind of organize these disparate mental phenomena, which are usually running around, saying, let's change what's going on, which are in some sense not the way consciousness itself is, you train them to sort of act like so what you have a concept it's known that's what awareness is it knows the concept it is aware of the concept it is conscious of the concept it senses the concept now you get the rest of all the other mental phenomena to pretend like they can actually do all kinds of other stuff like say i don't like this let's have something else

[30:26]

And you get into a line up and say, why don't you guys come up and line up with like, okay, consciousness knows something, what do you guys know? That's all we know too. Consciousness is aware of this image. What do you guys know? This is called you're getting trained. When they all line up with the way mind knows, the whole situation becomes quiet and still and clear. And in that stillness and clarity the body becomes soft and pliable, the mind becomes soft and pliable and buoyant and radiant and joyful. And then you're ready to start looking at what's going on. Insight work. Someone said, last weekend we had a ceremony to initiate sixteen people

[31:31]

into the bodhisattva path by receiving the bodhisattva precepts and one of the people in the ceremony before the ceremony we were discussing the precepts for example the precept this precept not killing not taking what's not given and so on she said she says when she looks at these precepts they seem to be a mirror which they are And then she said, but then I get into like, then they turn into something about measuring up or judging. She didn't say judging, but I would say judging. So when the precept like precept not killing first shows up, it actually shows you something about yourself. Right away, the mind goes into like, well, am I doing it or not doing it? And measuring yourself against it, judging yourself, And that's the way it is with everything.

[32:33]

Actually, everybody you meet is a mirror and shows you something about yourself. Each person you meet has something different about yourself. But then we turn away from that mirror-like quality of everything we meet, which, by the way, is the non-conceptual, profound consciousness of the Buddha. We turn away from that and we get into judging, like, do they like me? They're a jerk. Do they like me? They look like they do. They're very intelligent. Trains of thought associated with this image rather than just each person shows you something. You look at somebody and you feel a certain way. You look at somebody else, you feel another way. Each person you look at, try it sometimes. It's amazing. Wow, it's fantastic. I'm not kidding. Each one of you will look like I've got a different feeling in my heart. It's amazing. Try it. It's amazing. You learn about yourself. But then if you don't keep it up one after another like that, you know, and just move on and just to the next moment, what does that mean that I feel this way?

[33:42]

And, you know, how would they feel if they knew? And should I tell them? Do you know what I mean? This is normal. This is normal. This is normal animal functioning. We're talking about... to calm the situation. It's normal for animals to be kind of basically anxious. I have this beautiful little dog. She's so sweet. Everybody loves her just about. She's fantastic. She's like pure what she is, you know, but she's anxious. She's an anxious little... She's so sweet, you know. Every move we make in the house, she's like watching us, you know. What are they going to do? Are they going to leave? It's, you know, she's so alert, like... It's just fantastic how alert she is, but she is alert and afraid at the same time. And if there's two of us, she's alert and a little bit afraid. The house, and there's only one person left, and that one person is my wife.

[34:46]

She knows that that means that my wife might leave and then there'll be nobody. And this is like, you know, one step away from just about the worst thing that can happen. So she's like, wherever my wife goes, she's there. And particularly on the wood floors, it's difficult with those little paws going... She's all very smart. When my wife leaves and I'm in the house, I usually don't leave her. But if I'm not in the house in the first place and she's with my wife, even if my wife's not going to leave, she knows she might. So she basically drives... When I'm not around, my wife kind of... This dog. And so when I go to Tassajara, even though she loves the dog and she wanted the dog, I take the dog with me because she can't be alone in the house with the dog.

[35:52]

it's extremely cute if you're not the one she's following everywhere. She's totally adorable if you're not the one she's following everywhere, but she basically is always adorable, it's just that she's almost always anxious. And people are adorable too. Buddha loves you all. But Buddha also knows that a lot of us are anxious because we're afraid that, you know, that the most important person in our life is going to disappear any minute, or that which supports us and we depend on to organize our life is going to change, etc., etc. Like somebody's love for us might turn into disinterest any minute, right? This is a dangerous situation. Somebody might approve us any minute. Somebody might think we're great any minute. All these possibilities. So basically we have some problems because we care about this stuff, because we don't... But anyway, this practice is to basically not get into any of that and just let go.

[37:09]

Clay, Jennifer, Narit, Jimmy, Oliver, forget about the hair. Cindy. You know? And like, Angelica receives the precepts, and tonight she's, by the way, looking very radiant. But I'm not going to get into that. You know? And if I just think a little bit of how radiant she looks, my heart starts pounding. You know, it's just so lovely. I'm not going to get into that. Sorry. I'm going to like just let you be that way and I'm not going to elaborate and say, well, I had something to do with that because I was at the ceremony, blah, blah. No, just... It's not cold. It is the first step or one of the first steps. And it's also a step towards understanding phenomena because when you...

[38:12]

the mind becomes stabilized, then you can like start to see things become clear, things become a mirror. If you're looking at a concept and there's no elaboration, it turns into a mirror which shows you who you are. But when you start elaborating on the concept, it gets stirred up. Well, that's enough for tonight, so you have some time for comments and other things. So next week, I'll go on with this. In the meantime, please give it a try, particularly when you're in a situation where you feel like it's okay with other... to, like, not elaborate. Now, some people, when you look at them, if you, like, just look at them and just say, Mark, [...] smiling Mark, Mark, Mark, smiling Mark, smiling Mark, smiling more now, Mark, [...] calming down Mark, Mark, Mark.

[39:17]

If you, you know, he, you know, to look at you like that, he's used to it. But most people, a lot of people, if you look at them like that, they say, how come you're not elaborating on me? I can tell you're just, like, looking at me. And they often say, I feel like you're seeing me if you're looking through me. And you are. You're like looking right through them to the next one of them. You know what I mean? Like, Susan, now Susan, now Susan, now Susan, but Susan, Susan, Susan. It's like all these, it's Susan after Susan after Susan when you're looking at Susan, unless you switch to Patty. But each person, you just look at that. So some people won't get nervous if you look at them like that. So they maybe should look down at the floor. But then they get nervous if you're looking at them. So try to arrange some situation for yourself where you can look at what's happening, like a wall. Walls don't mind. As a matter of fact, in Zen, our ancestor Bodhidharma said, this little guy up there, it's a statue of Bodhidharma, he said, make your mind like a wall.

[40:23]

So making the mind like a wall is a stabilization gesture. So you look at the wall the way the wall would look at you. Namely, the wall looks at you and says, human sitting in front of me, that's it. That's all it does. It doesn't even do that. And you should be that simple with the wall. You have about as much to say about people as the wall does. Namely, well, okay, person. That's it. So see if you can set up some situation where you can be like that with your experience, with your breath, with the wall, with your problems, with your experiences. Try that for a week, and I'll give you more instruction next week. Okay? And I'll give you also some more background on how to set up the situation. Okay? Do you want to bring anything up? Yeah. Here's an example. He changed his name. Yes? Good.

[41:28]

That's why I say maybe you should start in a situation where you feel allowed to practice this. So, in other words, right now I'm practicing that with you. and you don't mind, but some people might be nervous because you might talk differently if you were doing this practice. And they might notice that you're talking funny, like, you know, less hysterically or whatever, more calmly. Your words seem to be coming from a different place than, like, your usual self-aggrandizing or defensive modes. You know, somebody's talking to me, how about poetry? She says, can you do this? Can you write? You're not elaborating on the word. You're focusing on your experience and not elaborating on your experience. And some word may arise. And that word that arises is poetry. The words that arise from this space are poetry. From this space are dance. So people, some people, maybe not in your case, but some people might be shocked to see you suddenly spouting poetry and dancing.

[42:50]

So, you know, that's why usually you start this practice in a situation like with a teacher. They don't mind so much, but you suddenly start speaking in poetry and dancing and stuff. But some other people might be nervous if you did that. So your language might change. And that's okay if the other people have said, you know, you can do this meditation practice and if you act funny, But if you don't feel that's okay, then you need to set up a situation where it is okay, so you can let yourself say things. And some people cry also when they calm down. Sometimes people, when they calm down, they realize how tense they are. And, you know, just because their body wants to release that tension. But they can't release the tension before they realize it's there sometimes. All kinds of things can happen when you start to relax this usual thing.

[43:54]

Nancy? Not having a reaction? Kind of like that. But it's not so much that you don't have a reaction. It's that you don't get involved in the reaction. Okay, so I look at your face and most people you look at, especially people you know, these are thought connected to the person. Like everybody's in some sense like this Christmas tree of associations. And you can get involved in various ones of these trains of thought associated with them. Some people you know really well have multiple trains of thoughts connected to them. And you can get involved in them and run them. And those are kind of reactions. The trains of thought connected to the person are like reactions to them. Like, oh yeah, she's on that trip again, okay? But although that train of thought may arise or that reaction may arise, it's not that it doesn't happen.

[44:59]

You don't get involved in it. You just don't get involved. Yeah, it's like that. Kind of like, oh, thinking. Yeah, right. Actually, in the Heart Sutra it starts out by saying something like, I think it starts out by saying, Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. And Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva means, in Sanskrit it means, the one who looks down on the world and regards the cries of the world. Or in Chinese they say the regarding the cries of the world or disregarding the cries and the sounds of the world.

[46:03]

That's Avalokiteshvara. In some sense this shamatha, this stabilization practice is a little bit like starting to train yourself at just listening to the cries of the world with no comment. And then the later part of the Heart Sutra says, and then the one who just listens and regards the cries of the world saw that all phenomena lack inherent existence. But I'm not at that phase yet of telling you about seeing that they all are in existence. I'm at the phase now of training the vision. You don't yet see no eyes, no ears. That's the vision that comes to you in insight. Now I'm talking about learning how to just listen and just look in this way of no elaboration. That's the first step. That's the way our daughter listens to us. She listens to our cries and just hears us crying.

[47:05]

She doesn't say, you're a big girl, stop crying. She doesn't say, stop that. She doesn't say good. She doesn't say bad. She just hears us cry. And she hears each person's cry differently. And she just starts there. And when she settles down with our crying and she's calm with our crying and buoyant and flexible in the midst of all our crying, then she sees the nature of all our crying. And then she saves us and herself by this vision. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Just take them at face value. But maybe don't say stop. You can start by saying stop or no. That's okay, but it's maybe better not even to say that and just do it.

[48:13]

Right. So you don't do this in a judging way. You don't, like, say, when this association arises, you don't then make another association, like, this is bad. You just don't get involved in it. So not getting involved in something doesn't mean that you judge it as not worthwhile getting involved with. You just don't get involved. Yeah, so maybe that's why you've got to be careful about stop. Because then you get into, like, well, bad. But just not getting involved in it, maybe you don't have to do that. Just like you may see children. And you just don't want to get involved. It's not like you sort of say, well, it's stupid children's games. You just don't get involved. And some things you're doing, children shouldn't get involved with. But they don't have to say, oh, it's stupid adult behavior. They can just say, not interested. Basically, don't get involved.

[49:24]

And try not to turn that into another judgment. But if a judgment arises, don't get involved with that. So there can be, again, don't get involved and then turn that into negative and don't get involved with that. So it's just a train of thought. I'm not saying something is wrong here. It's not that something is wrong. It's the involvement is not even wrong. It's just that involvement creates a destabilized body-mind. And not getting involved calms it. But it's okay to be totally freaked out. It's just that it's upsetting and scary and and, you know, dangerous and harmful. But basically, that happens, right? So we're not around here calling the world bad names. It's a wonderful world, you know, and it works this way. When you jump around and get involved in trains of thoughts associated with concepts, you're destabilized and usually really confused. With a fully enlightened Buddha, you can actually get involved in all this stuff and still not get confused.

[50:25]

But before that, you had to do this remedial course to calm down so you can see. But you're not going to calm down if you're not getting involved in... Like actually last night, or the night before last, somebody... I was talking about not getting... no conceptual elaboration, and he said... I think he said, so we should stop... we should not have any concepts. No. That's another kind of involvement, to not have any If you don't get involved and then you get involved in not getting involved, that's just involving you. Okay? So this type of meditation discussion really helps because everybody's got a clever little mind about how to find some way to stay involved because you have this strong mind to get involved all the time and be anxious. So everybody's going to come up with clever little ways to not do this.

[51:28]

And that's why you sort of need to discuss them to find out ways to circumvent all the ways to keep yourself hung up on your conceptualizations and disturbed, which is familiar. I don't know who is next, but... Okay? Ready? Go. Listening to a Dharma talk, don't I need to... If you... and you want to understand, you're already involved. Even if you come into the Dharma talk with the agenda that you're going to understand something, you're basically already involved with the concept of, you've got Dharma talk out there, and you've got, I want to understand. So already you're getting upset about the Dharma talk. You are upset. You may not know it, but if you were calm, you would realize, if you were like in a calm state, And then I said, Angelica, I'm going to give a Dharma talk now.

[52:32]

And then you would think, oh, I would like to understand that. Then you would realize that your calm was blown. But if I said to you, I'm going to give a Dharma talk now, and you were calm, and then you didn't think, oh, I'd like to understand that, you would continue to be calm. And in that mode, my dear, you would understand. that's right exactly that's exactly yeah and there's a lot of people huh it's a habit and this habit is a challenge to to it's not really a problem because it's another example of something not to elaborate on But it's a normal thing. You've got a Dharma talk coming up there. Of course you want to understand the Dharma talk. How are you going to understand the Dharma talk? By not trying to get anything out of the Dharma talk. Just listen to it word by word. And if you listen to the Dharma talk without any elaboration, your mind calms down.

[53:38]

When your mind calms down, then it continues not to elaborate. Then suddenly the Dharma of the Dharma talk enters your body. without you trying to understand. But in fact you have been doing what promotes the understanding, which is not to elaborate on this thing and not try to get it. Because Dharma cannot be grasped. Dharma can't be grasped, but it can enter you and take over your life and liberate all beings. But if you try to get in there to grasp it, you're just going to get upset. And we're used to that approach to everything, so we think Dharma will be the same, so then we don't understand Dharma very well because we're trying to get the Dharma. our great intelligence and imagination to get it. Fine. Then you're just going to keep being kind of excited about Dharma, but it's not going to penetrate you. Now, you can intellectually understand it with this active mind. So on that level, you understand it. But if you really want to deeply understand it, you have to go down to this stabilization to make yourself so that the Dharma becomes a mirror of who you are.

[54:47]

I'm talking about conceptual level. I have no instructions for you. There's no way to, at this point in your practice, in almost nobody's practice, can you instruct somebody with words about how to meditate on the breath on the level of direct sensory experience. So I'm giving you instruction in the conceptual realm. So I'm telling you, I'm talking about you focusing on the concept of the breath. And you have a concept of the breath, I suppose, like, you know, most of you do, like, is this thing in my hand breath? Huh? Most people would say no, right? So, you know, make life simple. Breath is something else. So you have some way of applying breath to something. Your body is conjuring up concepts of breath on some basis. and try to find those concepts, and then focus on them. So you don't focus on the physical sensations?

[56:02]

You're focusing on your own experience? I don't think you have any... You have no experience of the physical sensation of breath. No, you don't. You have no conscious experience of it. Your experience of breath on the direct physical level is unconsciousness. You do feel sensations. In the level, in this conversation here, this level of experience here, you do not feel sensations. You're dealing with concepts of sensations. And that's the realm where you start to practice Samatha because that's the realm in which you elaborate and that's the realm where you're agitated. You don't have to meditate on the level you're not agitated. The level of direct sensory experience, you're just meditating you know, like your brain. If you go into your brain, it's not upset. It's like just going... It's in the conceptual realm, you know, hovering all around our brain where we're upset.

[57:07]

That's where we, you know, go to war and stuff. Our brain does not go to war. It's in the conceptual realm that we want to kill people. The brain doesn't want to kill anybody. It's like... And here's what can't kill anybody. It's the arms, it's the hands, you know, that are doing the bad stuff. And the hands are operated voluntarily. We don't, like, we don't have a reflex to kill anybody, you know. Like, you bop somebody's neck, you know, that doesn't kill people usually unless there's, like, weapons on the toes. It's like when we kill somebody, what we're talking about killing is that we have the idea and we voluntarily, intentionally do it. This is the problem. This is the realm we're training. We're training the realm where we cause problems, where we suffer. or we hate or we're afraid. This is the conceptual realm. In this realm, you do not directly know your breath or light or color or taste or anything like that.

[58:11]

You're dealing with concepts of taste, concepts of color, concepts of sound, concepts of smells, concepts of touches. This realm, because that's what this realm is made of, of concepts. So it's a concept of the breath. And that's the focus. But that's not really the focus. That's just an opportunity to do the focus. The focus, actually, is to not elaborate on this breath. That's the actual practice. And then you say, oh, I'm doing really well. I'm focusing on my breath. I'm such a good meditator. That's not going to stabilize you. Of course, most people say, I'm focusing on my breath and I'm not doing very well and I'm a lousy meditator and I'm never going to be able to practice or... I'm pretty good at none of that, but I'm better than the person next to me, and they should be kicked out. This is elaboration of the breath. So the breath is the concept you're choosing to make life simple to start finding out and testing how you elaborate. So I'm feeling the belly go up, right?

[59:18]

You're feeling the concept go up. So now, in meditation... There's no phenomena, there's no physical phenomena called a belly. You know? It's electromagnetic radiation, mechanical waves, gases, liquids, and tangibles. The belly button is not an... Okay? This is Buddhist meditation. This is not conventional language. This is like actual... This is what experience has made of this. But you can... You have a concept of a belly going in and out. You focus on that concept and that's one of the ways you can focus on the breath because you can say the breath has something to do with the movement of this abdomen. Focusing on the concept of the abdomen which you're connecting to the concept of the breath And in this way, by focusing on that in a non-conceptual, non-elaborative way, he calmed down. You're trying to get to concepts?

[60:22]

No, no, you're not trying to get to concepts. That's all you've got. It's all you've got. It's all you've got. Breath, abdomen, in, out, upper, lower, front, back, arms, legs, nose, eyes, ears, me, you, blah. These are words. Words are concepts. Concepts are words. This is what you work with in the realm of conceptual consciousness. Conceptual consciousness is words. Words are conceptual consciousness. This is what you work on, and this is what you elaborate with. You use words to elaborate. Except now, you're not going to use those words to elaborate. You're just going to have word, [...] word. Word, word, word. Yes? Didn't you have your hand raised about two weeks ago? I was playing to elaborate on how not to elaborate.

[61:25]

But I think you've answered. I think I did, yeah. I have answered that question but there is no end to the answer to this question because you are going to continue to think of ways to do it and I'm here to encourage you to give up this habit of mental elaboration of conceptual elaboration of your concepts to give it up just long enough to get enlightened and then you can go back it's going to take a little while to get temporary thing. This is not the end of the course. Eventually you'll be able to dive back into mental elaboration without getting confused. At this point we're talking about giving it up for a while to see if you can realize what it's like to have a stabilized form of consciousness. And it's a radical change in way of life called stabilizing your consciousness.

[62:30]

So it's going to be quite difficult. But it's wonderful to try. People have been trying. And it's not even necessarily a Buddhist thing. It was pre-Buddhist. This is not a Buddhist meditation thing. This is a human thing. Tiger Woods is really good at this. Yo-Yo Ma is really good at this. Mark Morris is really good at this. Artists and great musicians and so on, and writers and poets, they do this. Even though they don't know that you're doing it, they are. So now, as Buddhist meditators, this is one of the arts for you to learn. And it'll be hard because it's so unique from our usual way. But it should be interesting and joyful to practice it. And if it's not, then you need to figure out a way to find joy in this practice.

[63:34]

Okay?

[63:36]

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