Next is I'd like to provide two bits of information and then leave as much time to continue the kind of sharing that was happening just before the break. The first thing I'd like to to offer is along the lines of what's been called antidotes, though especially antidotes for the more busy thinking emotional reactions. So I'd like to go around the enneagram quite quickly. I'll just give out the terms with little or no explanation and Once you know your type, leave it for you to put two and three together and see what you come up with.

[01:08]

But I'll preface it when we're talking about sevens and cultivating an attitude of sobriety. I think that'll be common to all of these, that we can sort of evoke or cultivate an attitude or stance that we start to bring to the meditation, which will kind of counter or soften the habit of our personality styles. We don't want to fight those styles head on. That will do damage. And also, In the personality structure, one, it's without it, we would be terrified. And it's enabled us to survive this far. And so it's, we generally need it as a fallback, at least.

[02:15]

However, we're capable of much more, and so we also want to outgrow it and go beyond it, which is where Dharma practice aims. So fighting these head-on, or the idea you're just gonna get rid of your personality is, it's not only simplistic, it's impossible and it's dangerous. So I will more find ways to constructively work with it. And I'd like, so I'll try to suggest a direction or two for each of the types. And this is based on what are called the holy virtues in a neogram language, which are the virtuous or counterpart to the so-called passions. Or we could call them the perfections of the heart, to give it a more Buddhist twist.

[03:22]

So for ones, the term is serenity. Rather than fighting anger, just kind of encircle it with serenity and let the anger dissipate. And for me as a one version of one, cultivating a spirit of relaxing, relaxing and softening. I do that a lot. In a way, that's kind of what the whole meditation process is, is relaxing, softening the body, softening kind of emotional stuckness, softening the mind, allowing the natural flow and intimacy to take place. So for one's serenity. And I should say in the case of all of these, the ego can construct its own version of these and it won't quite work.

[04:36]

So ones trying to be serene tend to grit their teeth. I am calm. Which is a whole lot different than just being serene. Or this is even more clear with twos, where humility, a genuine humility is the attitude to cultivate. When the ego takes hold of that, it becomes false humility. for example, twos who will go on and on how I wouldn't be so wonderful if it wasn't all the people who helped me. And obsessively giving the credit to others instead of just owning up, yeah, I did a good job, and I'm happy to have been helpful, and then drop it. But the two will go on and on. It wasn't me. It was my teacher. It was my teacher's teacher and her teacher.

[05:40]

back to the Buddha and his mother and all that. So anyway, cultivating a spirit of humility where, which is a relaxing of the ego structure. So the way all of these will be a kind of relaxing and loosening of the ego structure rather than trying to take it head on. I know in some places Zen's supposed to be real macho, so you might not go for this relaxing stuff. This is Berkeley, so maybe it'll, maybe it'll be okay. And we're not all Zenies here, so anyway. Threes, it's a spirit of honesty. of truthfulness. It's not like threes are liars or intentionally deceitful, but they're so invested in image and how they appear to others that they easily, well, they don't live in truth.

[07:01]

especially their own truth. And of course, we've all got a variation of this. You know, when we talk about each type, we can all kind of hear it in our own terms. But for Threes, especially, an honesty about how I really feel, what's really going on in me, and so on. Fours, we already talked about equanimity. Fives, this morning we talked about love. But I'm thinking of participation to cultivate a spirit, an attitude of full participation in life. in meditation, in the breathing, and maybe even generosity, dana, kind of spirit of giving, which is especially giving oneself.

[08:17]

If you're a two, forget about that. You'll do weird stuff with it. But for fives, to give oneself is... That's kind of true. Sorry, I don't always put things politely, but it is true. Tus are so into giving themselves that they don't really give themselves, but they're convinced that they do. And so it's, you can see tus kind of gravitating towards practices that seem to be all about giving. But often it's not really benefiting them spiritually. It can be more of a reinforcement of the whole ego structure. Anyway, five's generosity, giving oneself especially, counters the habit.

[09:25]

Six, the The key terms can be courage, faith, courage and faith. Seven, we talked about sobriety and she brought a pen to write down grounded. I'll probably remember. Eight, I wrote down, the usual word is innocence. But I thought of the Buddhist term kanti, patience, patient endurance, especially in the sense of meditation when the aid feels the surge of energy. It's really hard to stop, but to just be patient, kind of hold the energy and not run with it, and sometimes it's anger, sometimes it's, I gotta have this now, the kind of lust, lustful energy to have immediately, fully, completely, 300%, or to smash you to smithereens, because you're annoying.

[10:53]

So, patience, tolerance with what's going on in oneself. And for nines, wakefulness. Wakefulness? Wake. Oh, wake. Wakefulness. In Theravada, that's a specific term to cultivate a kind of bright, clear alertness of mind. There are actually a few terms, related terms for that. to counteract the narcotization. Sharpness, alertness, wakefulness. Okay. So... Are these in the regular Enneagram model? Or are these your... Most of them are. But I, like, wakefulness isn't specifically.

[12:00]

The word used there is right or holy work. Holy action. Sometimes work. Holy action where you which isn't ringing a bell right now. But it's kind of to be fully present to your activity and not just be doing it because somebody else wants it, but it's the right thing for you to be doing and to be fully present in that. Or eight, it doesn't use the word tolerance patients, but uses the word innocence. But most of those are pretty much standard or closely related to the standard Enneagram terms. The other area I wanted to touch on, and then I'll open it up for whatever

[13:05]

you all would like to consider for the rest of our time is I want to spend a little time back on partly the area that I'm most interested in. And I think, and it's the area that's not to my knowledge discussed much, especially in the neogram. So it's the kind of the territory I'm trying to explore. is again when the mind is close to samadhi, close to one-pointedness, calm but not completely, clear but not crystal clear, but it's moving in that direction and then, as we've talked it, for some it kind of slides off or spaces out. there's some reaction of some kind. So that's what I'd like to cover now.

[14:10]

And I'll try to describe to the best of my ability the nine ways that this happens. These will be fairly brief. And then we can talk about a bit about maybe countering these movements of what seems to me the original form or the pure form of the defenses before they elaborate. So I'm going to start with the head types because in a way I'm, somehow I became more clear about them. because I've had some really good talks about them with various friends. So in six, what happens is if you're used to the language of Theravada, when the mind is close to one-pointedness,

[15:17]

and it's calm. I'm talking about when there's no thinking, the conceptualization is subsided, and the mind is kind of coming together, and then at some point it jerks back. It doesn't pull back, it jerks back. And that fits the whole six reactive pattern of where something might be dangerous or might not be trustworthy or safe, it'll jerk back. And so later we'll see if any of us experience that jerking away, which isn't right here fear itself. We'll come back to those later. It's not fear itself. Because if we go into responses, I'll never finish the circle, given my distractibility.

[16:21]

This need not be, I don't think it's actual fear. It's just that habit of fearful reaction on this, even this subtle level. It's partly about not yet being able to trust fully. When the seven or the six can trust fully, they may be home free. That's sort of the nirvana of sixes. But until then, it jerks. Five, I mentioned already this morning, it just holds back. It doesn't jerk back. It has to keep its distance, that observer separation habit. That's called detachment. The seven, the defense is rationalization.

[17:29]

Six, by the way, is projection. I'm not even going to try to link this jerking back with the meaning of the word projection, but I have good evidence from sixes that that's what happens. The mind jerks, jerks back. There is a connection with the word rationalization, but it's not conceptual. It's just the seven habit is instead of really getting fully intimate or whatever with the object, it gets there, it doesn't pull back, it doesn't hold back, it slides away. Because the whole habit that this might be limiting, this might not be fun, let's go somewhere else. That kind of just veering off, sliding off the object. And of course, if it keeps sliding, it'll get into a fantasy world.

[18:34]

But sometimes it'll just slide. The seven will kind of pull it back. It'll slide off the other way. Just keep kind of sliding off. There's this, it's the residue of the seven that doesn't want to commit. Sobriety is connected with vow, the ability to really commit to something. So that's three of the movements. They're simple, very simple, very subtle. The hypothesis I'm putting forward, which still needs a lot further investigation and proof, is that some of us use, the sixes use the jerking back that'll happen a lot when things get to that calm level. For the gut types, two of those I know well, and then eight, we'll see how I do trying to describe that.

[19:41]

For nine, it disperses, it blurs. So for the mind to really be in samadhi, it collects. the mind comes together as one. With the habit of the nine, the defense of the nine disperses. So, the nine mind will get close and then it'll just, you know, spread, disperse. The one, which I described this morning, and the one I experience the most myself, is it tightens up. reaction formation, it goes against the object and kind of tightens or goes rigid. That's why, for me, serenity, softening, relaxing is so important.

[20:46]

For AIDS, the defense is denial. I suspect what will kind of happen, I'm guessing here we have one eight maybe who can help. None of my eight friends are strong enough meditators to help me with this one. Maybe it's like the kind of all or nothing when they're getting there, then it just kind of charges forward. I'm suspecting that might be it, that there's this kind of just, it charges forward in a way. It just puts too much energy into it. It just gets carried away. I suspect it's something like that. Or it bounces back. Well, maybe after it overreacts one way, it realizes it overshot its target, and so then it'll overshoot this way, and it'll keep.

[21:56]

Aids aren't known for their subtlety. And we're dealing with something that's pretty subtle. And so the aids have to learn that whole vulnerability and subtlety. when we want to really work on this level. Aids are used to using power to make things happen. That doesn't work in this territory. For the three heart types, on the busy level, we've already talked about how identification works in three. I'm not. This is a guess. I can't bet on this. But I think the way the defense will work with threes, and again, I don't know threes who can talk about this.

[23:06]

Although there's one in Thailand who's getting there. that I know. There must be three somewhere, but I just haven't met the ones who can talk on this level. But I think it's probably something like the identification sort of, it turns the object into something. I'm not sure what. But the three, the whole three thing, the heart thing of relating to, instead of You know, it's not like we need to fully become one with the object, which is called absorption. But we drop the barrier between the object. But the three thing, I think, and maybe all the heart types in a way is to remain, you know, a two in relationship rather than to become a one.

[24:09]

Does that make any sense? Remain two different. Not be two in terms of mind and object. There's a place where the intimacy between mind and object can all just become one. That's called absorption. I believe in Zazen, you don't really want to go that far. Or in Vipassana, one doesn't want to have total merge. Because in that merge, there's not really the awareness where insight happens. That's at least the Theravada understanding. But you need to be intimate enough where there's not two-ness. There's a Zen quote somewhere, you know, not two, not one, something like that.

[25:11]

So if there's too much, you get kind of caught in oneness. And what I'm suspecting is the three by the identification works as the object has to sort of remain an object to relate to it. And so that keeps the pole, it's not a full-blown duality, it's a very subtle level of duality present. Even if we don't have threes, the four version of this There's one for you, Gary. Did we have one? Yes. Okay. So we'll see if I'm anywhere in the ballpark. Twos, I think, the way repression, it's probably similar to the three, but really leaning sort of heavy on the object.

[26:15]

in a kind of slightly gooey way. Again, this is not based on, like many of the types, I've been able to talk to people about this. as I have been able to talk with some people, so I have a better shot on that. So, two and three is a little bit guesswork. But I think, again, yeah, there's, they maybe forget their part of the relationship, whereas the three, there's kind of both, and a subtle level of separation or distinction, whereas with the, with the two, it's probably more putting too much on the object. And it's kind of, you know, we could

[27:21]

sort of stretch the word repression a bit that sort of represses itself. I'm not going to really, I don't care whether the words fit that much, but to just sort of learn what happens on this level of practice that the The two habit leads to, yeah, kind of in a way trying to smother the object. You know, like when a mother over mothers a child, or I guess some fathers do it. There's probably a kind of smothering of the object, something like that. Where the four is there's a kind of attempt to pull the object in. No, there's still a relational quality that's shared between three, two, and four. But I think the four, it's instead of just a natural, the two coming together, the four keeps trying to pull it in, which doesn't work.

[28:26]

So it keeps, it's frustrated by that, so. So those are the things I wanted to bring up. And now we have about 45 minutes, 50 minutes to follow up on any of these things, whether I personally don't care about structuring the rest of this, so we can just wide open, whether this, what we just talked about, or the antidotes is open for both comments. Any of you have something to share, please do, or questions, if I can clarify anything. I wanted to comment, in fact, on a couple of the different ones that you made. and kind of hyper-vigilance, there was a hesitancy to forget myself and just really focus.

[29:38]

So as I got closer and closer, there would be a fearfulness and kind of a keeping looking around kind of thing. But you're a one, right? Yeah. I think so. Okay. And the thing with the eight, my father was an eight, so I have difficulty with eights, It's almost like I think an eight doesn't leave room for the object. It's like eights have trouble relating because they take up so much room. Somehow the object, something like that. The object is threatening that they're not the bigger. The eight isn't. It's like the weakness part. Yeah, that makes sense to me. and we'll have to get some aids who can tell us about it. But that kind of makes sense that aids are so used to filling the space that the object is kind of, it's like a little ball, it's like a beach ball gets kicked out the window or something.

[30:45]

And as a one, the difficulty I have, if I am a one, I tend to want to, if I'm really calm and steady, I tend to want to improve. So sometimes it's fine the way it is, but there's like a busyness that wants to make it better. That's reaction formation. The reaction formation goes against bad things, pleasure, whatever, and it tries to make them good. It opposes, reaction formation opposes the natural tendency. So what you described fits with the defense of reaction formation. Did you still want to say something? To some extent, I'm uncertain.

[31:51]

I'm not sure if that's... You spoke of sixes, for instance, jumping away. Not physically, of course. I'm curious as to what... It doesn't... On one hand, it doesn't matter what it goes counting or thinking or... It might not even go into thinking. It may remain pretty calm. It just... The calming, concentrating stops. It kind of takes a step or two back. It may then try again. So it may not jerk back into a whole frightful scenario. That depends. The other part is the opposite part. To some extent, at least as I understand the Zen training here, partly what you're calling the object.

[33:01]

As I understand, sometimes we don't have any object. Shikantaza is a just sitting. It's an ideal where we watch whatever appears. ultimately to just sitting. And in that sense, I don't know what, I don't know what to make of this. What is it we're jumping from? Right. In that case, although maybe some of the more, the Zen students can, I'll take my stab at that, but I'm not, I don't do Shikantaza in that sense. But I think I have some understanding of it. Ultimately, it's when I've spoken about the object, but the object is a tool, whether it's the breathing or something else, for a certain what we call samadhi, mind that is whole.

[34:11]

Samadhi literally means well-established. It's translated concentration, but it means the well-established mind, and it's kind of temporarily complete, integrated, whole within itself, therefore incredibly strong and powerful, yet still and quiet. So I would think that in Shikantaza, you know, whatever you use to get there, this is the mind that can really do just sitting. Because there's no me to sit or breathe or whatever. So it's not just about the object, actually. It's about the mind experiencing the object of the moment. whether one, at some stages we may keep coming to one object, say the breathing, or just be with whatever presents itself.

[35:21]

But it's this, ultimately it'll be this state of samadhi. which in, in Buddhist theory is, is the mind that's capable of profound, profound experience of, of reality of the mind and so on. So the jumping is, excuse me for going on, it's leading to another question which is, coming up. Right, right. On a, on a more busy level, there may be fearful things coming up. But when we go to what we're talking about right now, yeah, samadhi, this wonderful state that's, you know, makes awakening possible is assumed to be untrustworthy.

[36:33]

because everything is untrustworthy to the sixth mind. But again, that's not active mistrust. It's just the habit. It's the momentum of a mind that's always doubting and questioning. So just I should say, so we don't just work on this in our meditation. It's also loosening this up in daily life. If we're just going to try to deal with this half an hour, one hour, two hours a day, It's going to be the odds are tough, but when we can loosen up this whole, in the case of six, this whole doubting, fearful personality structure, then it has less momentum to take over the meditation. Well, I'm fascinated with how the dynamic But the question I wrote down regarding the six was if it's defense is projection and it gets close to the place where I would imagine there would be no projection, is that perhaps part of the fear that there's nothing to project on?

[37:57]

That it's this whole state really is Maybe there's too much to project or there's nothing really to project. And so it brings up that noise. It's interesting. Yeah, I don't know. That's interesting. We have to leave it. Are you a six? I don't really know yet. We'll leave it to the sixes to figure that out. But it's kind of interesting because the reason sixes project out is because They don't want to feel the fear in themselves. This is on the more active level. When sixes begin to feel fear, they don't want to feel it here, so put it outside. And so, yeah, to not have... That might be part of it. I still think what we just talked about is valid, but this might be an aspect of it, too.

[39:01]

In practical terms, the explanation in the end may not be as important as recognizing the movement to kind of jerk back and then how do we soften, you know, soften that jerk and allow the mind to drop that habit of mistrust or whatever it is. I'm at nine, and I can relate to this idea that focus and actually concentrating is actually a form of conflict somehow. But I've had a couple of experiences where my mind of stuff going on, I'll sit down to meditate and somehow it just naturally happens. I was wondering if we could talk about that a little. We could, go ahead.

[40:07]

I don't know, I guess I just gave up. Okay, I can make some stabs at it. You actually alluded to it earlier, the first thing you said about the nine earlier was Maybe the nine concentrates well. So something like when there isn't any conflict or disharmony going on in the mind, the nine real gravitates towards the meditation practice. And then you right away said, but that very rarely happens. I said that. Yeah. Usually there's conflict and disharmony in the mind. So I can't dispel the notion. then it would make sense to go into the meditative state, because that would be less, maybe less conflictual than what's happening. Right. That was my first thought, that if you've got gross conflict out there, then this is a way to get out of it.

[41:17]

Well, the nine tendency to deal with conflict is not to focus, but to blur, to numb out. That's the strong habit. I think that's one reasonable explanation. Another possibility is linked to what we called right action. That, you know, this can happen with all the types. Sometimes the challenge or having the button pushed by these avoidances Sometimes there's the opportunity to not follow the habitual habit, and I think there are times when we don't. And those tend to be quite interesting and meaningful. A possibility is, well, this is a guess.

[42:19]

Somehow the sort of focus of right action, it's like, The conflict is either going to swamp us and so that you kind of step up to the plate for once instead of the usual escape. You know, sometimes when there's an emergency, we'll summon up whatever in ourselves and really be there. It might be like that. The third possibility that just occurred to me is it could be a kind of shift to six, which nine, sometimes in conflict, they start to feel the fear and become more like a six. And so it could be that for a nine is much more concentrated, but maybe it's got a little bit of the vigilant this sort of a bit of hyperness and vigilance of the six, which for nine feels really concentrated, but is not as calm as real.

[43:37]

It's pretty good samadhi. It's not bad, but it's got a vigilance to it that a deeper samadhi would not have. Vigilance, you know, the kind of hypervigilance as opposed to just clear, clear awareness. Do any of those make sense? I have to give it more thought. I think the first idea, well, The idea of right action, stepping up to the plate, I feel like that sort of brings with my experience a sense of, okay, well, here I am. And there I am for once. Yeah, I think actually it's good you brought that up because I think that's an important part of this kind of material that

[44:44]

Often we fall back on the type, but sometimes it's, I'm not thinking of how to put it in terms of the other types, but what I just called standing up to the plate. We don't, we don't wimp out or whatever. We just hang in there with the experience and are able to tap into resources that were always there. And that can be very, very important because we realize those resources are there. It's very similar to what you said, but I have been in situations where people being upset because they have a vested interest or harder for me to deal with than sort of a real crisis where there's a fire or someone's about to die or something that's very clearly not about someone liking something or not.

[46:02]

That it's somehow, the urgency is real, not just sort of personality Yeah, and then it doesn't. Yeah, I think that might be like a real physical emergency. I think that's that's kind of generic. Where? I mean, I've had those where it's just real easy. You know, the mind just naturally focuses and you do what you gotta do. But if it was a more emotional conflict, it's real easy to get into judging who's stupid, who's, you know. I have a couple things, but I'm kind of swirling around.

[47:08]

One thing that I think is interesting is to really watch your own mind, how it responds. For example, as a 5, I react to scarcity, so I'll withhold or I'll withdraw when I feel scarcity, but it's not just... It's very particular what will trigger that. It's not just sort of any scarcity or the scarcity that you see. It's like a certain look in a person's eye where I feel like they're withholding their love or something will trigger it. And I think one of the useful things about when you're looking at it at this level is being able to see your own particular flavor and get to know that and what that feels like when, so now I can really feel much more when I'm doing my five thing.

[48:12]

It's very, it's like, it's a certain feeling. And I can usually trace it back to whatever it was, the look or the remark or something. Yeah, thanks, because, like, not all fives are the same. We've had different life experiences and the neogram has ways of talking about more variations than we've brought up here. But yeah, this is, these are all generalities to help us observe our own stuff and then And then the other thing I want to say is just as a five, you know, I don't want to connect with the object or I like to keep a little distance, not too much. I have a little comfort zone, you know, not too close, not too far. And I just, I found it useful to really gently approach that, you know. You know, not try to make myself go forward or,

[49:13]

The way you're talking, what I hear Santicaro saying all the time, just helps me create a space around everything. So there's some space, it's okay that the mind's doing this, and there's space and you can watch it. And then what I notice is that, for example, with scarcity, when I'm sitting, there's no shortage of And I can sort of let into that, like, oh, I'm never going to run out of mind objects. And I can sort of ease in and relax with that. And I'm sure the other points have things like that. That sort of like, there's a natural antidote in the present moment. There's some kind of natural antidote to your thing that you're doing. There's no scarcity of mind objects. It is, in the Pali, that's called a kind of food.

[50:21]

Ahara, which means food, literally means, it's the Thai word for food. It's often translated nutriment. So in Mahakosananda, isn't he the one? So his talk is always, he always gives a talk about how everything we do is eating. Yeah. So if you don't have anything else to eat, you've at least got mind objects. This is kind of a general question about this kind of work. Is the idea more that by studying your type and your defense mechanism and so on, learn to transcend it and just completely go beyond it and sort of shed it? Or is the idea more that you study it so that you can really become fully that type in the most positive way?

[51:26]

Or is that even a meaningful question now? I think it's a fair question. In a way, both. The transcending... Yeah, I could... The way I see it, you know, there's a transcending of the type, which means you know it so well, but you no longer take it personally, so you let go of the type. But it still operates. You're still that type. You're not... You're not. It's just that type. You aren't. Your buddha nature isn't. You don't have a buddha. There ain't no you. We're going to talk that way. But you know the type has a structure and a pattern just like the body does the digestive system. It's it's a psychological

[52:29]

It's a biological system on the more psycho-emotional level. And it's so... You kind of expect it to be hanging around with you even though there's no you until you die, right? Yeah, because there wasn't a you before either. There never was a you. So there's just this type structure developed just like the body went from a zygote to a fetus, to a baby, to wherever we are now, and eventually a corpse. So, on one level, it's seeing, really deeply seeing the structure, which is, I think, exactly what's talked about when we see, like when you chant the Heart Sutra, form is emptiness, emptiness is form. All this Enneagram stuff is emptiness.

[53:34]

And emptiness is this Enneagram stuff. And when one sees it, it loses a certain kind of the reactivity of the greed, hatred, and delusion. So elements of it just can work. The mind works, the body works. but not in the kind of defiled suffering way. Kind of fun, yeah. Is that what she's really asking? Whether I'm trying to get to be the best seven I can be or whether I'm trying to There's no best seven you can be. There's just whatever seven there is to be right now. But I'm planning to improve.

[54:36]

Right, well, you can't out 101. I mean, you can, yeah, you'll plan for it. I'll try to do it. That's the difference. For the seven, it'll always be a plan, or tend to be. But in a way, it's to fully inhabit it, but without taking it personally, which is, I think, what our practice is about. And the more you can inhabit it, I was talking with somebody, there's a recognition of these elements to the personality. It's not about judging what's good and what's bad. It's the first we recognize and accept even the painful parts, which is real hard for a seven, or like for a four to accept the painful part without upping the emotional. part of it, or a one to judge it, or a two to kind of feel ashamed of it.

[55:47]

and so on. So there's the acceptance, the recognition and acceptance, and then out of that there's more ability to discern the aspects of it that are still of use, of benefit in the aspects that are causing trouble for ourselves and others. So those parts can be let go of. So there's a kind of full inhabitants and a transcendence. But I don't see it as... There are people who treat Enneagram more as a kind of self-development project. I don't see it that way. It can be, you know, people can say, well, Neogram can point out the weak side of your personality and what you want to strengthen and all that.

[56:50]

But in terms of Dhamma, that's not really Dhamma because there's still the me trying to have a better, happier me. And that's okay. But Dhamma practice is to see through that the me isn't really me. And then seven should like this part. It's a shortcut to happiness. You don't have to work so hard. All that self-improvement's hard work, but just get enlightened. It's, you know, a snap. One thing that I have come up against or have to work with is the feelings that arise continually, very strong feelings. And what really helped me was realizing that I'll probably never run out of feelings.

[58:02]

So it's a... that, you know, after the feelings comes thoughts. So I have to deal a lot with also my mind. So that's, my mind gets very busy, which, and it seems to come out of these emotions and feelings in a special way. That's, that's, that's part of the seven package that the feelings are, the four package, sorry, thanks, that the feelings are often so intense, they're, you know, they're kind of overwhelming at times. And so, fours have ways to sort of concretize the feelings, to sort of get a handle on them. You put them into some physical expression or the way you dress.

[59:07]

A lot of this specialness is a way to kind of cope with the feelings. And some fours are highly analytical. They are always thinking about sort of processing the feelings. So that's another way to get at them. And some, you know, it'll get put into, you know, for parents, a four parent can put it into their kids. You know, like if you're a four businessman, you may dress, you may have to dress, or you're a four soldier, you dress like every other soldier, but somehow you've got the most creative battle plans in the army or something. But that's a way to get a hold of the feelings, to be able to put it in say, physical objects or thoughts that can be therefore manipulated and sort of controlled. That's a practice with a teacher who's a nine, another teacher who's a nine.

[60:12]

You mean another in addition to this one? And they're really wonderful people. They're special. More love objects, you know, just so incredible. But in any case, This, he was a 9 and he is a 9 and he... I always experienced him as everything was included all the time. There was nothing that wasn't included in his realm. It was incredible. Even the altar had movie stars' names. I mean, everybody who ever died was on the altar. Really, it was just... Always had all these people on the altar and there was so-and-so who came and 15 minutes in the Zazen and so-and-so who had to leave early and so on. Everything was just... It was all great. And whenever we'd have ceremonies, he'd have this giant incenser. And instead of him coming in with his jisha and offering one stick himself, everybody had to offer incense.

[61:15]

One stick, you know. I'm like, oh my god. Nines don't like to leave anybody out. No. Yeah, it was just, it was really incredible. And fours can be like that because they often felt they were the one little kid left out. And so they'll be very sensitive. I still am. But I've seen fours will be very attentive to that one person who looks left out. Because it's kind of them. And nines, it's sort of similar, nines often feel overlooked. So they don't like to overlook anybody. And it is, it's wonderful. Thank you. And I'm not sure I can say what type I am yet, but when I try to follow my breath in meditation, I find that then I start controlling my breath.

[62:29]

So then I'm not breathing smoothly anymore. And I don't know if that's a clue to the type. I think you said those are often head types that have the energy in the chest. But I'm wondering about Controlling the breath is, I think, universal. It's not type-specific. How we control, there might be some type relationship, but one of the reasons the breath is, one of the many reasons why the breath is such a skillful meditation object is As soon as you pay attention to it, that influences it. And so the breath is a pretty subtle, fine-tuned feedback mechanism. And the way the mind controls the breath is just an example of what the mind is doing all the time.

[63:35]

Most of, as long as thought is powered by craving, And clinging, thought is just tools to manipulate the universe to get what we want, to avoid what we don't want. So a lot of thought is synonymous with craving and clinging. So the breath is so good because it shows that up quite immediately. And then we're learning to pay attention to something and yet relax the control. So that's one of the things we learn to do in meditation. The sense of self may be there, but it becomes a less heavy self. It can ride the breath more gently. You know, like the ox-herding pictures where he can just sit on the back playing the flute.

[64:40]

I haven't gotten there yet. But it really, it's been disturbing because it just tightens. Membranal chest will tighten up and then I'm not breathing right. It just feels very strange. Well, two things one can do and that is probably related to type is one. One of my other enneagram and meditation hobbies has to do with the nine breath patterns and which we don't have time for. And when the mind is taking more control, that'll both give some insights into enneagram type and maybe vice versa. Second, when you become aware of the mind or when awareness, mind, mindfulness becomes aware that

[65:42]

The thought is controlling the breath. Again, it's not you anymore than it was Sue a little while ago. But how the mind reacts to that awareness of control, is it a kind of judging, you know, a kind of one, you're not doing it right, or is it a a sense of shame or kind of some nines have a strong sense of, oh, I'll never be able to do it. Nines tend to have a thing between inflation and deflation. So at times when they're kind of doing the big expansion that you sort of talked about, and other times they just kind of internally collapse, and I can never do it. So the way one reacts to that awareness of control will show you something, if not about a neogram, at least about how the inner structure operates.

[66:52]

And what I'm getting, too, from this is that The type, I mean, each type has its own dynamic way of responding or behaving in the world and the defense is what we keep between us and everything else. So that is how, that interferes with, in the Buddhist sense, the dependent co-arising. Is that correct? In that we're not seeing the reality because the mechanism Have I got that right or close? Sort of bringing in the word dependent co-arising is tricky because that word has different meanings. One of its meanings is the dependent co-arising of suffering. In the early Buddhist literature, that's the primary way the word is used. In Mahayana literature, it's used more for the universal principle of causality.

[67:58]

But in the early Buddhist literature it's about, actually what I've been describing are aspects of the dependent co-arising. I am not this solid I. There are these elements arising in relationship to each other, supporting each other, changing. That's dependent co-arising in a way that creates suffering. But to maybe fit it with what you said, when that is going on, or when the five, as I sometimes think of it, when the five skandhas are functioning under the power of ignorance, then it's impossible to see the reality of mind, of ourselves, of the world. So, to have a deep, it's like talking about emptiness.

[69:01]

For the mind to really see emptiness, it needs to be empty. But part of the emptying of the mind is seeing emptiness. So, you can get into a chicken and egg argument about that if you like or just Keep looking for emptiness and keep emptying. And these are all a form of suffering too, these ways of conflict. The ways we've been talking about. If I alluded to the holy virtues, which are kind of the awakened virtues of the heart, Or we could say nine aspects of the liberated heart, say courage, serenity, humility, and so on. And then there's similar nine, they're called the holy ideas.

[70:07]

Or we could call them the mental perfections, like omniscience, For one, it's holy perfection, seeing that everything is just perfect as it is. For two, it's sometimes called freedom, some will, which means just seeing that energy and everything in the universe just flows freely, and there's no me to manipulate that flow to get what I want. Three, it's holy veracity, the truthfulness I talked about earlier. Four, it's equanimity or original source, that everything is unique in and of itself. You don't have to jazz it up in the four-way to make it extra unique.

[71:09]

but that things are special on their own. The nine types doesn't mean we're all the same. You can have a room full of fours and they all will have their unique versions of four or the same with ones, twos, nines, eights, whatever. Might as well go the rest of the way. Five is omniscience. Six is faith. Seven is basically right concentration. It's often called holy work. Yeah. Eight is holy truth. Eights tend to have my truth rather than truth. And nine is, see the heart is basically love or compassion, and the mental quality is what we call, hmm?

[72:19]

Harmony? No, we already spoke of right action, or holy action. So, sometimes nine is considered to be both symbolic of the the most basic cause of all the mess, which is ignorance, or in a neogram term, self-forgetting. And then nine is also sort of the completion of the whole thing. I kind of prefer one. But there are people who like to give nines special credit. They cause the problem and they're the, you know, kind of all culminates in a truly selfless compassion, but that not one that erases oneself. The false nine trip is a compassion that tries to erase itself.

[73:24]

And then, and then the capacity to just do what there is to be done from moment to moment without a personal agenda. And not just chasing. Ordinary nines chase after other people's agendas, which is a form of self, just as much as chasing one's own agenda, rather than chasing the Dhamma agenda or whatever. And you don't have to chase it. You just do it. What was he? Supposedly a Buddha Could you identify his point on the energy grid? There's stuff that makes five a good guess. Like he named his son, what was it, Bird and Fetter.

[74:28]

Laurie wanted to name their kids that. Fetter and Bondage. and all the lists, you know, the kind of, and that, that Buddhism is such, has such an emphasis on seeing and knowing, so. 5? Or 9? Well, it's a middle. That's right. There you go. I'm sitting at Berkeley Zen Center. Talking about this stuff.

[75:37]

Yeah, I guess we're gonna close so okay Right now I'm Last year, I was part of an attempt to do something that turned out to be beyond our abilities to bring together Theravada monastic practice, Tibetan, and Chinese, Chinese Chan Pure Land, more Chan. And it didn't work for a number of reasons. So having learned a lot from that, I'm now going to give Chicago a shot, which is where I'm from. And right, I've been testing the waters a bit, and there seems to be interest in the way I approach Buddhism and Dharma practice. And so for the rest of this year, I'll be

[76:38]

The second half of the year, I'll be living near Chicago and doing classes, workshops, and things. And if it's possible, when there's enough support to get a center, we'll maybe rent a house somewhere. Temporarily, I'll be living at a Thai temple that I have close connections with, but it's not possible, it's almost for sure not possible to do all the stuff I'd like to do there. For example, support, coordination for a Theravada bhikkhunis. That's still too controversial for the Thais to take on. And I'm not sure they would be keen on me doing this Enneagram stuff, because that, it's not officially Buddhist.

[77:41]

It's like my former monastery, the abbot kind of got down on me for this. But unfortunately, I found it very useful, so I was stubborn. So I'll be more or less settling in the Chicago area and doing some traveling. Question is, how much? How far east will you go? East? I actually live in Maine. Oh. I go to the East Coast once, about usually every April or March. To? Usually Barrie. Barrie and Boston. And maybe I might be going to Martha's Vineyard for a day. But mainly Barrie and Boston. Do you have a newsletter or something like that?

[78:44]

A website? I guess I could just tell you www.liberationpark, all one word. littleletters.org. That's where my travel schedule is, and it'll have updates of the stuff in Chicago. And later, there'll be an email newsletter if anybody wants to sign up. Liberation Park, P-A-R-K. Huh? Liberation Park. P-A-R-K, yeah. And just a little bit more information. My main contacts with the neogram are through Helen Palmer, who I mentioned. And Andrew, could you hold up the book? Those of you who are new to a neogram and want to read more, I recommend this as a good book.

[79:46]

If you want a pocket version, I travel with that one. It's a nice handy little one. And then a third book by Helen's teaching partner, David Daniels, who's down in Palo Alto. This has got a probably the best, if you want a kind of diagnostic tool. Diagnostic's not quite the right word, but they call it a discovery guide. If you want to discover your type, there's an approach in here which is relatively accurate, probably as accurate as these things can be. It won't tell you your type, but it'll help you take a few steps in finding it. So this is called the Essential Enneagram by David Daniels, and that was the Enneagram Understanding Yourself and Others in Your Life by Helen Palmer, both published by HarperCollins or HarperSanFrancisco.

[80:50]

And then, I think it was yesterday, I was talking with Helen and we're going to be exploring more this use of Enneagram in terms of meditation. And I'll be doing that. I'll maybe do some with her. She'll be doing that. This use of the Enneagram is not yet very developed. And that's where some of us want to focus. Helen's got a couple students in the area who work on this. There's a woman in Berkeley named Linda Dondero. And I'm not familiar with his work, but I think H.A. Almas. H.A.H. The Diamond Heart or Ridwan School. He does, he uses a neogram a lot and they do meditative stuff. He's a more five-style, Helen's is six, so you'll get different flavors.

[81:59]

Yeah, there's also Sandra Maitre. Are you familiar with her book, The Spiritual Dimensions of the Indian Brahman? Yeah, that's a very nice book. I believe she's a student of Amma's. Yes, she is. But it's a very good introductory book. Thank you. Okay. Who wrote that book again? David Daniels.

[82:22]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ