I vow to taste the truth of the Tathagata's words. So let's read these two. Does everybody have a copy? Well, you can take this one and I'll use the book. So why don't you, let's take, if it's a long paragraph, just take one. But otherwise, take two or three. Then you want to start? There are these two experts, strange enough to not speak.

[01:04]

I can't read them. I hope they didn't have one to respond for. There is devotion to the pursuit of pleasure and sensual desires, which is love, force, vulgar, ignoble, and conflict. And there is devotion to thought, art, and patience, which is speed, vulgar, ignoble, and conflict. The middle way is covered by the perfect doctrine of voyage, hope, peace, and freedom. It gives vision, it gives knowledge, it leads to peace, to direct knowledge, to enlightenment, to nirvana. And what is that middle way? noble, faithful path, that is to say, right view, right attention, right speech, right actions, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. That is the noble way discovered by the perfect one, which gives vision, gives knowledge, and leads to peace, and directs knowledge to enlightenment, to development. There is this noble truth of something.

[02:10]

to suffer the humiliation of being a disabled person. Association with the role of disability. Disassociation with the role of disability. Not to judge another one's disability. In short, we find that our rights depend on what we believe in as a human being. There is this number three, the cessation of suffering. It is the remainder of the state of existence. the giving up, relinquishing, letting go, and rejecting that sense of belonging. There is this notion of the way leading to the cessation of suffering.

[03:17]

It is this no-related moment. That is to say, right view, right intention, right spirit. There is this noble truth of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth must be penetrated to by fully knowing suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by fully knowing suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before.

[04:19]

There is this noble truth. at the origin of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth must be penetrated to by abandoning the origin of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. This noble truth has been penetrated to by There is this noble truth of the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things often unforeseen. This noble truth must be penetrated to by realizing the cessation of self-suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before.

[05:28]

This noble truth has been penetrated to by realizing the cessation of suffering. Such was the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light that arose in me about things not heard before. There is this noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Such is the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, and the life that arose in me about things not living in the world. This Noble Truth must be penetrated to me by maintaining in me the way leading to the cessation of suffering. Such is the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, and the life that arose in me about things not living in the world. This Noble Truth must be penetrated to me by maintaining in me the way leading to the cessation of suffering, such as the insight, the knowledge, the understanding, the vision, the light, that arise in me to have things not written in blood. As long as my correct knowledge and vision in these twelve aspects, in these three phases of penetration of each of the Four Noble Truths, is not quite purified, I do not know if they have discovered the fallen legend of the subdued human world within, that is, the abyss, such as Mara's when it was in abyss.

[06:50]

In this generation, with the smell of tenderness, there is principally an end, but as soon as my correct knowledge and vision in these twelve aspects, in the three phases of each of the Four Noble Truths, is quite purified, Let's do this at the end, but I'm going to So tonight we've come to the end of this half. Before we start on the eightfold half, is there anything left over from last week that's come up during the week?

[07:59]

wants to talk about or bring up. It's karmic formations. It's formations are the results of karmic activity and The choices that God made, the karmic choices that God made, form our experience, form us. So nice. Color it or shape it. Do you think that it's appropriate, is it too odd, to to really progress in any kind of meditation to aspire to.

[09:07]

Can you be attached? Can you be attached to? Yeah. I think we're all that's we are. I mean, we are but knowing knowingly. Can you be notably attached to being? I mean, is it okay to be attached to being? Well, I just started this idea that I kind of like being. And if I come around again, I probably have, you know, there's like 600. I'm on maybe 300. I've got at least 600, you know, 300. I mean, I want to come around a lot more. I don't want to get this far. I'm not anywhere near ready. But sometimes I wonder if that's really what it is. Well, I think in a Mahayana attitude, it's more about not being attached than it is about not caring. It's more of a Theravadina or an Arhat practice kind of view that you want to cut off desire.

[10:11]

Bodhisattva would be finding liberation within desire. I wouldn't worry about it too much. It's fine to take pleasure in the world. In the Parinirvana Sutra, when Buddha is dying, he says to Ananda, he talks about how it's a very beautiful place where they go to take a nap. And he talks about how they've seen many, many beautiful, wonderful places and sat cool robes, and I don't know what else. And obviously, he's taken pleasure in it. I mean, you can't cite any one of those as clear-cut evidence of anything, because they're just stories. But I think it's fine to take pleasure. The problem is that we get attached to them, and we want more, and we get pissed off when we lose it, and when the other things come.

[11:18]

You know, the unpleasant things come and we try to avoid them, or we braille about them and all that kind of thing. So it's all the extra that we add that's the problem. It's not, the problem is not taking pleasure in a beautiful day. But Sam doesn't really subscribe to the notion of reincarnation in the sense of coming back. Yes, no, yes, yes, it doesn't, though sometimes, you know, Dogen talks about it sometimes in terms of white tops too, and I think it's a way to talk about it. But this really, you know, your thoughts, they go out the door, and what I'm saying is that I'm not so sure. Yeah, I'm not so sure, I don't know. But I just figure, for one, I don't know what happens when I die.

[12:21]

I have no idea. Right? That's right. Depending on what you think. Be done with this round? Depending on what it is you think you're coming back with. Well, the thing is, we don't know what happens when we die. And there isn't any eye to come back. Whether something continues is an open question. Have we talked about this already? about this notion of all these different colored blobs in the river? Well, this is my current understanding of depth, but we really don't know.

[13:25]

But I have this sense of a flow, and I think of it as a river, even though, of course, then you have banks, and so that's already definitely false. but that each of us is a different colored blob, and we're practicing together. It means that we have some karmic connection, right? Something has brought us together. So we're all going down this river, and the red one and the blue one are side by side, and then it starts to get to be purple in the middle. And they could slowly merge, and then you couldn't tell, a red and a blue anymore. They would just be purple and wouldn't be recognizable as you and me anymore. But it could be that they went down side by side and they didn't really merge very much. But then the red one hit a snag and just completely dispersed. And the blue one went on for miles.

[14:28]

Pretty much discreet. So that's how I think of it, and that miles. Well, that there's just this nexus of energy that stays together for a while, or doesn't, depending on karmic formations. Not just my karmic formations, but those of the universe, and the country, and the community, and the family, and you name it. And that sometimes, something could be a nexus of energy, a grouping of five skandhas, and that could go on for lifetimes, 500, 1,000, and then sometimes it could be a baby that died in six months, and just that dispersed, that hit a snag, and that was the end of that. There's no telling, but my sense from watching people die,

[15:31]

and they just exhale and they don't inhale again. It does not feel to me like the energy just, boom, it's gone. There's a sense of the energy of that life still being there for a while. It takes a couple days before it feels to me like that's really a dead body. What that means, I have no idea. There's no telling. I don't know. But this is just my notion of it right now, that there is a coming together in this particular manifestation of five stars. And that maybe the sense of an apple falls from a tree and another apple tree grows. Is that the same apple or a different apple? Or you light a candle off of another candle. Is that the same flame or a different flame?

[16:33]

They are related. So, maybe there is something. But it's not a thing, and it's not something that's recognizable. It's not an eye. Right, exactly. And it's all speculation. So, I mean, I just think of what Buddha was saying. He said, look, how are you treating your family and your neighbors? How do you act in the world? It's not what happens to you after you die. It's what happens to you during your life. So are you cured now? I'm attached to life and death. Very good. That's good. Well, confessing is very good. Could somebody do the... I forgot to blow the candle out.

[17:35]

I probably should get blown out, because otherwise it may not make it. So, the Eightfold Path. I'm going to list them pretty quickly and then come back and talk about them. So there's right understanding or right view, right thought or right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. Buddha, in the Life of the Buddha book, he uses the phrase right view and right intention. A lot of commentators say right understanding and right thought, but I'd like to view an intention much better. This book is so, I mean, Naanamoli is, I think, a really good translator, in my view.

[18:39]

I mean, I find this book, this, and the material, which is all the material I've given you, I find it pretty, really accessible, closely, I mean, not at all, but a lot. Okay, so, Right understanding, and we think of it in terms of prajna, shila, and samadhi. Wisdom, ethics, and meditation, concentration. And so the first two are the prajna, the wisdom that's gone beyond. So that's right view and right intention. And the next three are shila, or ethics. I guess sometimes you said it would be the true six. Right speech, right action, right livelihood. And then the last three are the samadhi ones. Right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

[19:39]

And I'm going to talk about them in a different order from that. I'm going to talk about them in, first, Sheila, the ethics, then the concentration, and then the karmic, which is a standard way of talking about them, because it kind of builds that way. But they're all three together, or all eight together. In other words, it's not like you do one, and then you do the next one, and you get... No. No. No, you put a 12-step program, right? You don't start by turning your will over, usually. A lot of people don't start by admitting that they're powerless. At any rate, prajna, or prajna, you know, it's really pronounced prajna, but, I don't know, I don't need to say it that way, for no good reason.

[20:54]

No, it's just that's how it's, that's Sanskrit and that's how it's pronounced. Maybe it's also Pali. Pali is a, no, I think it's a different language, but it's like a predecessor. And there's a lot of overlap, I mean like Dhamma in Pali and Dharma in Sanskrit. Because in Burma, that's how they speak. The Burmese language is based on pottery. And they have tablets in Burma. They're in Mandalay. They have the entire polycanon on these stone tablets. And it's this funny, it's all over pots, circles, and dots. And it's very different from Spanish script. And in Spanish script, it's all over the tables. But English is an Indo-European language, so English comes out of Sanskrit.

[22:06]

So that may be the kind of thing that's the oldest base that we know of. So pranayama or prajna, we develop, we develop, with shila we develop self discipline. And with samadhi we develop mental discipline. And then prajna is insight and liberation. So we start with shila. I really feel like I'm beginning to understand that. I heard Rev say over and over again, he taught the precepts at Tassajara, my second practice period, and he would say, and he's always said, that the precepts are really important, that you can't practice meditation unless you're also practicing the precepts.

[23:12]

And I always thought, right, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I think that's really true, that that kind of ethical exploration and owning of your stuff really is a base for meditation practice. And if your meditation is not informed by that, then what? We could develop a lot of samurai people that were extremely mindful and detached and went around killing people to order. I've been thinking about it because I teach meditation to lawyers, I work with lawyers, and I realize that I don't really want to help develop samurai lawyers, and that it has to have a component of ethics. I used to think of it simply in terms of, in order to be settled, which is also true, in order to be settled in your meditation,

[24:20]

you need to be pretty square with the world, or at least able to cope with the fact that you're not. So there has to be some practice in that, some knowing that we're, say we're killing all the time, we're stealing all the time, those kinds of things. That we have, we've been talking about desire, right? And about greed for becoming. What does that Minded, okay? So, you need to have this shila, this base of practicing with ethics. Somebody... That's right. That's right. That's right.

[25:26]

And to see the difference. In 12-step programs we talk about understanding the difference between getting from I am a mistake to I made a mistake. What do you start to say, Cynthia? Well, I think it's also just simply a matter of practice what you teach. We have all these beliefs that we don't practice them in the universe. That's a lot of what... I mean, if you take the beliefs seriously, you have to try to practice it. Because that's what it's really about. It's about transforming. And it doesn't transform your behavior, Or if it doesn't transform your creation, it's just another real formation.

[26:27]

It's just another idea. It's just another idea. You made a big impression on me that if you don't put it into practice, You know, meditate, just for the sake of meditating. Meditate to be able to practice it more and more. Otherwise we have things we have to hide from ourselves. We don't want to build ourselves to practices to study the self. And that's not just about the mystery of it all, which is also important to study, but also, oh my God, I lied again.

[27:30]

It was just a little one. They would have been so upset if I told the truth. Yeah. Well, there's one common one that I'm working with not doing anymore. I don't do it too often, but anymore, but I used to lie about the price of things. Especially when I was beginning at Zen Center and a lot of people were on like stipends and I had some savings and so on. And so if I bought, I could buy something that was expensive. And somebody would, rudely, but they would ask how much it costs. And I really did not want to say it. And I would sort of punch it. And that's a very, very common thing to do.

[28:31]

Either that way or the other way. Exaggerate and say it costs more than it did. Those are really common. There's some boring outcomes. And I've said that lots of times and usually people who are sitting there saying. Yeah, I do that too. Okay, so Sheila, the foundation. I think if Sheila is the foundation and the Samadhi is like the process and the Arjuna is the river runs through it. That's the real base. That's the stuff of it. for the unstuck. So Sheila, right speech, right action, right livelihood. So right speech is following the speech precepts. Not lying, not speaking of others' faults, not praising self at the expense of others.

[29:36]

Not intoxicating mind or body of self or others, but sometimes that's translated as not selling the wine of delusion. So not manipulating the speech. Speaking kindly, truthfully, and usefully. So is it timely? Is it true? Is it kind? Which way? That's right, because sometimes we can use truth as a bludgeon, actually. In some larger contexts, maybe it isn't. So, right action, peaceful, kind, straightforward. No killing, no stealing, no sexual misconduct, nor intoxicants.

[30:44]

No cheating. In a way, sometimes this is to find the right action. You know, there are, in some systems, there are the five basic precepts that lay people take. The monks have 7,300, a lot, not that many, but hundreds. And then lay people have five, which are the not killing, not stealing, not lying, not engaging in sexual misconduct or intoxicants. So, that's right action. Be sure it could. It's a kind of... Right, well, that's a kind of a stealing, I suppose. Stealing both from others and from yourself, because it's hurting yourself when you do that.

[31:48]

It's kind of... As a guest? Yeah. I try really hard to get up and do something, too, but it seems like my partner's supposed to be right up there with me. You have a good kitchen. I can't find the pieces here. It's impossible. No, it's... To go there as a guest is to go for renewal and to take care of yourself and not to give yourself to others. Well, I've been on both sides of that line. I was a cook there. Okay, so right action is also peaceful. and kind action, gentle action, generous action, all those things. Right livelihood is, he had a list of not dealing in arms killing, poison, liquor, selling beings, not making a living by a way that's deceitful, and making a living by a way that's helpful.

[33:05]

not harmful to others. So, I think that's enough on Shiva. It's 5 after 8, but also if you want to talk about precepts. Alan just happens to be giving a class that starts next Thursday on the precepts. I don't know, I imagine it's on the bulletin board. So the next one is Samadhi. And I think of that as a process. Samadhi is sometimes translated as concentration or single-pointed concentration or settled meditation. but the components are effort, mindfulness, and concentration.

[34:11]

Is that just with respect to meditation, or is it the kind of wholehearted doing that Dougie talks about? Is that better than in Samadhi? Well, yeah, I suppose you could say right effort. Let me hold that question, and let me go through it, and then we can come back. do it okay so right effort is uh energetic will to and i'm going to get into the list but this sort of rousing yourself to really make a wholehearted effort to prevent the arising of unwholesome states of mind to rid oneself of those that have arisen to encourage the arising of wholesome states and to nurture or grow states, wholesome states that have arisen.

[35:13]

Now this does not mean, again, or at least from a Zen perspective, it does not mean cutting off. But it does mean really making a wholehearted effort to notice what's going on in your mind and to not indulge feelings and to not indulge obsessions so that the sixth ancestor said don't activate thoughts which I think is a wonderful phrase so that when you're doing zazen you notice yourself thinking you come back to your breath or when you're distracted in your daily life, or you're obsessing about, so you're kind of having some conversation, you're fighting, re-fighting a fight over and over again, or you have some potential disagreement with your partner, and you have a whole fight with them in your head before you even brought it up, and you probably made it difficult for them to have any reaction other than the one you're expecting, because you've sort of said it so much, it becomes

[36:27]

self-fulfilling. So those are examples of unwholesome mental states. Make the effort to drop it. Remind yourself, oh, I haven't even brought it up yet. Maybe she won't. I have that reaction. I don't know what her reaction is. I know what I fear the reaction will be. But in fact, I don't know what it is. And I'll probably do better to try to give her some room to have whatever reaction. So then you drop, noticing your habit of mind, unwholesome habits. And then cultivating a wholesome mind. Remembering, oh wait, this is a person I care for. This is a person I care about. This is a person who wants good things for me. So maybe or maybe they won't have this negative response that I'm afraid of, or maybe I could be willing to go in there and put my whole tooth out there, starting with my fear, my anxiety about what reaction I'm going to get.

[37:40]

So that's a wholesome approach, and that's encouraging a wholesome Yes, I'm not suggesting you not to think. I am suggesting during Zazen that you drop it. But other times, not. It isn't that you can't think about things, but you notice in your habits of mind, notice which ones are wholesome and which ones are not. And put effort into dropping the unwholesome ones, not giving them nutriment.

[38:43]

I think we're talking about any all time. So right mindfulness is kind of a particular thing. And again, this is diligent, ardent awareness of body, feelings, mind, and objects of mind. Those are the four foundations of mindfulness, observing the body, in the body, the feelings, in the feelings, and so on. That's one of the really basic sutras. I studied with Meili. I need to study again soon. If it wants to come to Malay, you're very welcome to study with me. The Four Foundations of Mindfulness will probably do it in July. Meili, Meili Scott.

[39:48]

What is right mindfulness? Here, a bhikkhu abides contemplating the body as a body. I think this is a movement. It would be towards the end. Here a bhikkhu abides contemplating the body as a body, ardent, fully aware and mindful, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. She abides contemplating feelings as feelings, ardent and so on. She abides contemplating consciousness as consciousness, He abides contemplating mental objects as mental objects, ardent, fully aware, and mindful, having put away covetousness and grief for the world.

[40:57]

This is called right mindfulness." And then he goes on, and I'm not going to read all of this, but just give you a taste of it. How does a bhikkhu, you know, a bhikkhu is a monk, and a bhikshu is a How does a bhikkhu abide contemplating the body as a body? Here, a bhikshu gone to the forest, or to the root of a tree, or to a room that is empty, sits down. Having folded her legs crosswise, set her body erect, and established mindfulness in front of her, just mindful, she breathes in. Mindful, she breathes out. As a skilled turner, or his apprentice for making a long turn, understands, I make a long turn. Well, when making a short turn understands, I make a short turn. So, breathing in long, the bhikkhu understands, I breathe in long. Or breathing out long, he understands, I breathe out long.

[41:58]

Breathing in short, she understands, I breathe in short. Or breathing out short, she understands, I breathe out short. She trains thus, I shall breathe in, experiencing the whole body of breaths. He trains thus, I shall breathe out, experiencing the whole body of breath. He trains thus, I shall breathe in, tranquilizing the bodily formation's function. He trains thus, I shall breathe out, tranquilizing the bodily formation's function. And it goes on. There's also one on the, called the Anapanasati Sutta, which was on the, just on the breath. And then this is, is it this? It's twisting.

[43:13]

And he says, too, here, the next entry here was that Big shoes. Were anyone to maintain in being these four foundations of mindfulness for seven years, let alone for seven years, for seven days, then one of two fruits could be expected of her, either final knowledge here and now, or else non-return. Actually, it's big shoes. So, Seven days, if you could maintain a being, those four foundations of mindfulness. That's it. Well, the tricky thing is always, you know, if you could actually do it, you know, the Lotus Sutra says if you could practice one stanza, but of course, if you could practice one stanza for, and make the time, maintain continuity of doing that, that's it.

[44:16]

So right concentration is establishing yourself in meditation, absorption, finding equanimity. And in Theravadan view, this would be described as jhana or dhyana, sometimes spelled J-H-A-N-A or D-H-Y-A-N-A, variations on those. things. That's the basis of the word charm, which is the basis of the word Zen. And it basically means meditation. And the one who really develops this, of course, is Rawatsa Dhamma, because they have, this is Theravada text, the first discourse of the Buddha, the commentary on the sutra we've been discussing. And so they have they break meditation down into all these different stages. And it's quite analytical and I'm not going to go into it, I don't really understand it so well.

[45:33]

Because it's so, it's very different from what we do. We just throw ourselves into emptiness, just sit down in the middle of it and let it figure itself out to you. Spanish things lose themselves to you. That's how that mind works. It figures itself out to you. He talks about, Dhamma talks about, so there are four stages. The initial basic stages would be The first one would be initial application, sustained application, rapture, happiness, and single-pointedness. And then the next stage would be, without the initial or sustained application, rapture, happiness, and single-pointedness. And then the next would be happiness and single-pointedness. And the last one would be equanimity and single-pointedness.

[46:44]

In Anapanasati they talk about rapture and happiness. And rapture has a little component of excitation. And then happiness is calm in their terminology. I would think of happiness of joy. That there is a kind of joy that is not excited. that's just a base. So, okay, equanimity and single-pointedness. But then on the last page of the handout, there's a Buddhist terminology, and it doesn't say that he's talking about the jhanas, but I'm sure he is. And you can get a taste of this stuff that I think is really accessible to our practice in the book. on the Anapanasati Sutta by a man named Larry Rosenberg, and the book's called Breath by Breath.

[47:51]

And it's a marvelous analysis, and you can see, I mean, we experience these things, we just don't label them this way. But it isn't that it never happened. So you actually, you've had a lot of these experiences, you just didn't take them apart in quite the same way. And you've probably had times in your meditation where there was just quiet, there wasn't an eye breathing, there just was breathing. There was just the body sitting there and it wasn't yours particularly, it just was happening. So that's equanimity. It goes on to where you have no sensation at all. the formless. These four are the basics. So he says, Buddha says, right concentration.

[48:56]

What is right concentration? Secluded here, quite secluded from sensual desires, from unwholesome states, a bhikkhu enters upon and abides in the first meditation, which I think is probably the first concentration. First John, which is accompanied by thinking and exploring with happiness and pleasure, born of seclusion. And I think thinking and exploring is initial application and sustained application. And that's one of the many reasons why I really like this book, because I think thinking and exploring are words that I can understand, but initial application and sustained application kind of, I get lost. And then the second is, with the stilling of thinking and exploring, she enters upon and abides in the second meditation, which has self-confidence and singleness of mind, without thinking and exploring, with happiness and pleasure born of concentration.

[49:59]

So now you stop thinking and exploring, and here it has rapture, happiness, and simple pointedness. And then the third is, with the fading away as well of happiness, He abides in equanimity and mindful and fully aware, still feeling pleasure with the body. He enters upon and abides in the third meditation on account of which noble ones announce. He has a pleasant abiding who is an onlooker with equanimity and is mindful. And then the last one is with the abandoning of pleasure and pain and with the previous disappearance of joy and grief. He enters upon and abides in the fourth meditation, which has neither pain nor pleasure, and the purity of whose mindfulness is due to equanimity." So, I find these descriptions both more accessible and more attractive. Now, the Zen version of this is Shikantaza.

[51:06]

or the Soto Zen version at any rate, just sitting, simply sitting, dropping off body and mind. What I said before, that experience of just breathing, or sometimes we say being breathed, but not I. And that's something we would use the term Samadhi to talk about. Mel often lectures, right? Self-Joyous Samadhi, GGU Samadhi. You've heard this before, I think? If you come regularly on Saturday mornings for six months, you will hear it at least once. GGU Samadhi, Self-Joyous or Self-Aware Samadhi. I don't want to, I mean that's, gets into it too much.

[52:15]

Well this notion of sitting still in the middle of it. So we come to prajna. So the first, so that's, so that's kind of the pervading wisdom. thought, or view, and intention. And I'm going to talk about intention first, and end with right view. So it's right, sometimes the right thought, or in, I started to say Buddhist term, I guess it's Nyanamoli's term, right intention. And this is under the rubric of Karsna, wisdom, right? And what is right intention? Generosity, loving kindness, Renunciation. The mind of generosity is a mind of renunciation.

[53:17]

I mean, what we're doing, what we're working on, where liberation is, I'll tell you what liberation is. The problem is doing it. It's renouncing the conceit, I am. That's all. And, well, I'm getting into this. Because I want to ask at the end, I just want us to, what's the point of all this? At any rate, so right intention is the mind, I think, of renunciation, free from ill will, from being trapped by sense desires or emotion, from being trapped by self-concern. So this is compassion. Generosity and compassion, love and kindness. And it's under wisdom. The two are really inseparable.

[54:20]

I don't know how you look at yourself. Well, I think it's very hard to look at yourself unless you manage to do it with some love and kindness. Yvonne Rand says, take a kindly, friendly interest. Because if you look, if you're smacking yourself over the head when you see something unpleasant, if it only confirms your opinion that you are a mistake, you can't look. Which is back to this notion you have to have a certain amount of self-esteem, ego strength or something. So, right understanding or right view is completely Understanding, really understanding the Four Noble Truths. Or another way, and you can see the examples in here, understanding dependent co-arising. Understanding that everything is conditioned. Really knowing that this is this way because that's that way.

[55:27]

That's right view, or maybe accepting. So, as Suzuki Roshi would say, knowing things as it is. Buddha said, Dukkha Nanam, which translated, understanding the truth of Dukkha is the path of right understanding. And put that way, Dukkha there, is the dukkha that we've been talking about most of this pervasive suffering because of this sense of separation that we have that leads to our belief in self. Do you know what I'm talking about when I say that? We talked about in order to know something I have to separate from it.

[56:31]

And then I see all my ideas and I think I exist as a separate being because I have all this. and so on. So understanding the truth of dukkha is the path of right understanding. Yeah, Theravada would probably say that you need to, or we need to, for right view, we have to really know, and well, actually anybody, any Buddhist would say this. It's not, it's not something different. It's just that we would put a little different spin on it. The three marks of existence, impermanence, dukkha, and non-self, or insubstantiality. And understanding those three, those are the three marks of existence. And there's another one of those little ... the other one was seven days, right? Bearing mindful of impermanence. This one is even better.

[57:36]

This is from one of Norman's supras, the finger snap supras. Fruitful as the act of giving is, yet it is still more fruitful to go with confident heart for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha, and undertake the five precepts of virtue. Fruitful as that is, yet it is still more fruitful to maintain loving kindness in being for only as long as the milking of a cow fruitful as that is, yet it is still more fruitful to maintain perception of impermanence in being only for as long as the snapping of a finger." So this impermanence is pretty important, and the not-self is what we've been talking Well, they overlap.

[58:52]

Impermanence is that nothing is unchanging. And dukkha we've been talking about a lot. And I didn't want to translate it because I think it's better not to translate it. And non-self is that there is no soul. No actual person. No self. Everything is. That there's just the constant flux of the five skandhas. So, I mean, that those five skandhas are impermanent, but they're also characterized, the operation of them is characterized by Dukkha, because the very operation of them gives rise to this sense of self, which is the father.

[59:55]

So they're not, they're kind of, they're different aspects, I guess, of the same thing, or talking about them in a different way. And then, another way of talking about right feet would be saying, seeing the conceit, I am. And there's some, I'm reading from about the fifth page in, I think it is. Yeah, the fifth page in. This is all talking about right view. All form, feeling, perceptions, formations, and consciousness, stems the five skandhas, or aggregates, of whatever kind, whether past, future, or present, in oneself or external, coarse or fine, inferior or superior, far or near, should be regarded as it actually is, thus.

[61:18]

I like that, as it actually is, so that's a things as it is. This is not mine, this is not what I am, this is not myself. So that's a pointing at, the problemo. And then the ordinary person is unaware of the subtle fundamental attitude, the underlying tendency or conceit, I am. It makes her, in perceiving a percept, automatically and simultaneously conceive in terms of I. Assuming an I-relationship to the percept, either as identical with it, contained within it, separate from it, or as owning it, this attitude, this conceiving, is only given up with the attainment of our hardship. So you can't help but give rise to a self through feelings, perceptions, etc., etc.

[62:23]

Right. But it's necessary to recognize that the self is an illusion, and that there is no real separation, that you have to function as a self to navigate the world. Yes. You just don't have to... Don't take it too seriously. Don't give it substance. Don't give it substance. And don't get hung up. By the way, if any of you have this kind of time, there's a three-week intensive at San Francisco Zen Center this August, where you can live there and so on, and what they're studying is the 30 verses. And Tia is teaching it, and she does a wonderful job of it.

[63:27]

So, I don't know if it's possible. The classes are in the mid-morning, and I don't know if it's possible to just take the classes, but it might be. But anyway, that is the giving of substance, and it really is very ingrained. The elder Kamaka said, I do not see in these five aggregates affected by clinging any self or self's property, yet I'm not an arhat with taints exhausted. On the contrary, I still have the attitude I am with respect to these five aggregates, though I do not see I am this with respect to Although a noble disciple may have abandoned the five more immediate fetters, still his conceit, I am, desire, I am, underlying tendency, I am, with respect to the five aggregates, affected by clinging, remains as yet unabolished.

[64:38]

Later, she abides contemplating rise and fall thus, such as form, such as its origin, such as disappearance, and so with the other four aggregates, till by so doing, her conceit, I am, eventually comes to be abolished. That's the last, the last to go. So the, I guess the Mahayana view, not just Zen, but the Mahayana view would be in the Heart Sutra. all five aggregates in their own being are empty, that they don't actually have any own being, or that the characteristic of them, if you could say that, is that they're empty, that they don't have characteristics.

[65:39]

They're empty of own being. There's nothing independent and solid able to stand alone and go on without being conditioned. Everything is conditioned. And that would be another way of thinking about right view or going right view. That would be a Mahayana Buddhist or certainly a Zen Buddhist way of thinking about it. And that's what we do, right? That's what Zazen is. It's sitting down in the middle of this emptiness and getting to know it through your body. So, what is the point of all this?

[66:40]

May I ask a question about this literature? Where is it from? It's probably Chinese. It's a short encapsulation of the Prajnaparamita literature, the literature, the sutras on emptiness. And it's a very basic Mahayana text that we chanted either in English or Japanese at least once a day. and most Buddhist temples throughout the world. Mahayana temples throughout the world. Some version of it. Prajnaparamita literature is from India, but probably the actual Heart Sutra, which is... The Prajnaparamita literature is one of 8,000 lines, and there's a sutra of 25,000 lines, and there's one, I think it's 108,000 lines. The Heart Sutra is a page. They think now that it was probably getting in trouble.

[67:50]

So what's the point of all this? What have we been doing for the last four weeks? to what end? Just to see things as they are, because if you see them as they are, then one, you're being realistic, and two, there's less of it. You know, in some sort of psychic sense, maybe it's like, we have to We have to see this bookcase as solid so we don't stub our toe against it, right? Even though we want to have the mind of emptiness knowing that it's not solid.

[68:53]

But in the psychic sense, we have to also, in order to not stub our bigger toe, we have to understand the world as it is. Asking me questions and being interested in it. I was from Portland and I know what I'm saying. I do it just for myself. Different things in my life. And I always thought I wanted to talk to people who are excited about it. And say, oh, I'm a theologian of suffering. Go to me so you can understand what you think. So I would like to be able to experience all of this, as opposed to some of it not just through religion, but through my own experiences.

[69:58]

I mean, a lot of that's happening. And my intention is at least to be able to understand it, so that it doesn't hurt so much, and so that I can function. I want to know what it is but I think I'm the ending sufferings liberation But that's, that's not, that's too, I don't know, for me, that's a little too big. I mean, I suppose that's true, but... And there's a way in which we better, you know, we hope that we meditate, we just do it, right?

[71:02]

Not brush your teeth or something, because as soon as you have some idea about it, the universe is going to be doped up to you. She talks about knowing what is your inmost desire. So there's a way in which it's not useful to talk about it, or as soon as you have a goal you're in trouble. But it is also useful to ask yourself the question, what is the purpose of this enterprise? And why would anybody study the Four Noble Truths? Why did Buddha teach it? What's the point? To have this broader view. And I think, I mean, I think that's, he taught it him to suffer.

[72:04]

That's what he was about. That's what he said. See the world the way it is, accept it, and you have an end to suffering. And it actually works. Yeah, and we do it every time you do it, then you have a little more faith in you to keep on doing it. And the question is, knowing that it works, why do you not do it? You're falling back into reinforcing, or you're giving in to desire, lust, and relish. In terms of sloth and bellotomy. The attachment to beauty. Self-cleaning. The ultimate end is that everyone is a beauty. All of us are the same.

[73:07]

The braids, everyone is a beauty. Not this, like this. Isn't it weird? All of us. I guess. But I wouldn't worry about it. Because I like it. You know, I just heard on headline news today that there's an asteroid that's going to hit the Earth in 828 years. You better hurry up. Here it will be. And I bet you I'll be there. That'll be 600. You won't know it because you don't know it now. It's one of the marks of a Buddha, is knowing the former lives.

[74:14]

So if you do know, then you're a Buddha, and then you wouldn't care. No, I don't particularly buy that. I think you cared. I think you just wasn't attached. I have all these ideas about it, and then I keep remembering. So that's just something that was oral for 500 years, and then somebody wrote it down, and I know that a lot of things are apocryphal, and a lot of the stuff about women is apocryphal, and I'm sure that other stuff is apocryphal. So, I don't know. I think, though, that studying some, that's part of studying something like this. I think this probably, this is Buddhist teaching. or exactly how he understood it or we understood it. I don't imagine that he talked in quite such psychological terms as I do or as we do in the West or whatever. But I think he, maybe I'm projecting onto it, but I think he really did understand this.

[75:22]

Well, somebody did. Somebody did, right. That's right. Do you think that there's a Chinese or Chinese? That's right, and I read at the end of last time something about seeing, and the unaffected is hard to see, or the unconditioned is hard to see. It's not easy to see truth. But then he says, to know is to uncover craving. To see is to have done with owning, with holding on to things. And I think to know and to see, you have to really to know craving, and that means to really know it, me. And I think of that in psychological terms. You have to really slow down enough to pay attention, to know your own habits. Like Ken was saying, we each have our own spin on our delusions.

[76:29]

There's greed, hate, and delusion makes the world go round, We kind of tend to spend a little more time in one of those three, though we all spend time in three. So you have to really know yourself in order to help others. I like to think that. The ancestors really weren't that different from us. They spoke a different language. language kind of, but they weren't all that different. And that what they did, we can't do. And we'd sometimes build them up into these heavenly beings, all those Zen masters and all those koans and so on, that they're not like us. Well, they are like us, which is both encouraging and a challenge. Because if they're like us, that means that we can do it. We can get liberated. But it's just, our culture is so integrated.

[77:37]

I don't know, we were there, so it's true. There was all that, people hacking each other's heads off. Yeah, there were times, that's right, they all got... But it was true, the monasteries were sometimes, clothes and everything taken and the bells were melted down for weapons and so on. And it was dangerous to be a monk at all, and people had to go into hiding. So... But, well, you know, the story about Seppo and Ganto, or Xuefang and Yanto, where the one where Xuefang a seppo wakes up and they're off in the mountains somewhere snowed in, in an inn. And Xue Feng is meditating furiously and Yantou says, why are you doing that?

[78:41]

Why don't you rest? You know the story? I'll tell a really quick version anyway. So his mind is at ease, even though he's like already been recognized as a Dharma successor. And Yantou says, well, why don't you tell me what you understand, and so they go back and forth for a while, and finally Yen-To says, look, don't you understand that what comes into the gate is not the family treasure? And Shui-Fung says, what? Well, how do I understand it then? What should I do? And he says, when the Dharma comes from your heart, then it feels separate. And then Shui-Fung wakes up, and he's jumping over the ropes. Oh, now I understand. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But the first thing that Ianto says to him is, it's safe here. We're snowed in. And that, I think, was a reference to the times. They didn't have to worry about being pursued because nobody could get in.

[79:45]

So this was a time when they could relax. So that's very If it's very personal, then is it wrong that they were actually in danger? So we should stop. It's almost 9 o'clock. Better quit. Beings are numberless.

[80:15]

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