I know that you're speaking and discussing in the seminar, or will, I guess, if you haven't already, awareness, the distinction, if there is one, between awareness and consciousness. I also know that if I'm speaking with you like now, I have to find some thread that's already present in your own mind in order to get started somehow. And I know I lose the thread during lectures often with different people. I can feel it. And often you're thinking about something else during the lecture or thinking about some extension of what I said or something like that. I mean, sometimes I feel I could say, over there in Craig's lap is a white gorilla. And most of you would not hear it.

[01:02]

Now it's, oh, look, now it's in Matt's lap. Or later I could say, did I mention, like the movie, did I mention a white girl? No. But I'm also trying to speak actually to non-discursive mind. Yeah, and maybe when you think about something else, actually that's protecting non-discursive mind to listen. Maybe so. Now, is nondiscursive mind, if I imagine such a thing, let's imagine such a thing, is that awareness? No, I mean, I think if we're going to make a distinction between awareness and consciousness or something like that, these two words, which what do they represent, then we have to look at, you know, our own experience of

[02:05]

Yeah, we do have different minds, different moods. Sometimes we're in a bad mood, you know, sometimes we're in a good mood. And often we don't have much entry to those moods. We kind of hope, say we're in a bad mood, we hope it's better in the afternoon or something like that. Now, do we have an entry to our states of mind? Now, this is You know, you've got to do most of the work on your own by looking at your own experience or listening right now to the lecture. Are you listening with two minds or one mind or what are you listening with? Are you listening at all? Are you thinking about something? Is that a third mind if you're thinking about something else? This kind of study is our practice, not, you know, this kind of study makes Buddhism possible. But we do know that the body as an entrance can affect the mind. I mean, if you're in a bad state of mind, go take a cold shower. You know, at least your mind will be different afterwards.

[03:06]

It might not be better. Or go jogging. We know that happens, you know. And the other day, Sophia, say Sophia, if Sophia, say, had a splinter or something, and she didn't want us to pull it out, we'd say, Marie Louise would say to her, just bring your attention to your breath, Sophia. Or she'd ask me to come help her. Put my hand on her chest. So this is kind of commonplace now that people know that if you bring your attention to your breath, and in any commonplace now is knowledge, but it's of course, experience anybody who has to kind of like survive something difficult or even pulling a splinter out. Okay. So if Sophia can change her state of mind by bringing her attention to her breath, and she clearly did the other day, actually what we were doing was

[04:19]

She's constipated after four days before being sick. I use splinter because it's an easier example, but actually Marie Louise was trying to find various points from a book where you press and it helps release constipation. And then Sophia was cooperating. She'd say, no, no, you're not there. No, no, there's where it hurts. Now stay where it hurts. But she didn't like where it hurts, so I had to And then we found spots in her legs. So this is, she's growing up with this kind of aware, I didn't grow up with this kind of awareness. Awareness, knowledge. That there's certain points which affect her unable to, constipation means unable to defecate. And so she knows, that's a strange idea that this point is connected with her bowels. But she's, you know, to her, she's being presented with this kind of bodily intertwining.

[05:24]

Okay. Now what's the difference between Sophia and a yogi? Sophia's basically, with a suggestion from Marie Louise and myself, she's changing her relationship to pain, changing her relationship to her mind, her state of mind, by bringing attention to her breath. So what's she doing? She's taking, let's call it spotlight consciousness, as I say, flat like a flashlight. She's taking spotlight consciousness away from self-concerns or away from her thoughts, and she's putting on her breath. And what happens when she brings spotlight consciousness, I'm just trying to make up words here, spotlight consciousness to her breath, well, somehow, her spotlight consciousness connects to her breath and doesn't jump back to the pain the way

[06:35]

when spotlight consciousness is connected to thoughts, it jumps to the pain. That simple example teaches us a lot. So spotlight consciousness, when it's connected to the breath, allows her to have a wider sense of herself than the pain. Because she has a wider sense of herself, she's not so the pain is only a small part of herself. And that's a big part of surviving the pain of Sashin. If your spotlight consciousness goes to your legs, you can hardly stand it. But if your spotlight consciousness can be in the whole room or in the body, then the pain is just kind of buzzing somewhere, as long as it's not doing real damage and you should know the difference. Okay, so again, what's the difference between a yogi and Sophia in this case?

[07:45]

Well, Sophia is, with a little help and reminders, bringing her spotlight consciousness to her breath. And when it's with her breath, she has a wider sense of her whole body, whole presence, perceptual presence. And, yeah, I would say the surround, too, which I call the encompassing phenomena. Okay. What is, again, that's addition for the yogi. Well, a yogi, I mean, what we're practicing is physical yoga, mind yoga, and breath yoga, basically. And the primary emphasis of Zen practice is mind yoga and breath yoga. Now the yogi, the Zen adept, spotlight consciousness is always resting in the breath. Almost always.

[08:46]

So, because the, so from, and we can think of the breath as a door. So the door of the breath, the spotlight consciousness can go to It can go to the body, it can go to the mind, it can go to the pain, or it can pull back from there. So the breath is a kind of staging area or door. So from the breath spotlight consciousness can spread out to the body, through the body, into the mind, and you can bring it between these three areas, the encompassing phenomena, the mind, or the body, or all three at once. So here already I've created some categories which most people don't notice when they function through these, but they don't think about it, that we have spotlight consciousness,

[10:00]

which can be relocated from thinking and from self-concerns to the breath. This I've said in various ways and I'm saying it this way. And then the breath becomes a kind of door, one of the doors, one of the fulcrums from which we can locate ourselves, function. Now this is already shifting shifting spotlight consciousness away from self consciousness. So spotlight consciousness, I don't know I'm calling it that, and self consciousness, self light and mind light, or something like that, can be separate. And that's what a yogi does. Know these things, can function through them. If you can change your mind through the body, jogging, taking a cold shower, you can change it through the breath, which is also the body.

[11:06]

So then you have an entry, not just like Sophia needing a little help so that she could allow the pain to happen. You can all the time be in a situation where you can be present to what's happening to you, but located in your breath. Okay. So that's just to say that we have various moods of mind, moods, anger, depression, elation, etc. And we find ourselves located in the depression or the elation or the whatever. But if we can shift that sense of locating into the breath... then elation or depression or bad moods, good moods, happen to us in a different way. They don't stop happening, but they happen to us in a significantly different way. Okay.

[12:14]

Now, is this enlightenment? Well, enlightenment helps. Why not? But really, we're not talking about enlightenment. We're talking about a crafted practice which is actually rooted in insights realized through enlightenment, all kinds of enlightenments, but really a craft that we can practice based on enlightenment, if we mean by enlightenment a turning around in the mind and body to recognize how the world actually exists. But through the craft of practice we can discover how the world, the mind, the body actually exists. Now, what evidence is there for that there's another state of mind than consciousness or moods? Because we could think of these things as, you know, they're just a bad mood, a good mood. They're just forms of consciousness.

[13:16]

Well, okay. Maybe they're more deeply rooted than that. Maybe they're rooted in, you know, psychological, unconscious states or something like that. Yeah, that's true too. But in our life, what evidence do we have? obvious evidence that there's other modes, states of mind than consciousness. While the obvious one is sleeping. We sleep and we dream. These are different. And that's just obvious. But we kind of take it for granted. partly because we live in a container world, and we think these are given, substantial givens. We think, oh, we... You know, they did a study recently, which I read about, which is interesting. Most kids think they have a certain intelligence. And, well, I'm born intelligent, and this kid is born more intelligent, I'm less intelligent, etc., right?

[14:22]

And then they do their schoolwork. They took some kids and they told them, you know, the brain is plastic and neurons form and if you do math problems, you actually get better at doing math problems and your brain changes, your intelligence is not fixed. Well, all the kids they told this to immediately started making progress in mathematics. They did better at the end of the year than the kids who weren't told this. So the kids who had the idea they have a fixed intelligence slowly did worse. And the kids who were told that they had a intelligence that would improve through use did improve. Well, this is just a view. This is Zen practice. This is, how does a view affect our behavior? Yeah. OK. So we have a view.

[15:24]

We have a waking mind, we have a dreaming mind, we have non-dreaming deep sleep. What if the question occurs to you, how can you relate those three minds? Isn't it obvious it's such a question? It almost doesn't exist in our culture. But it's a question that arose very profoundly and led to Buddhism in pre-Buddhist India. If we have these three, seem to have these three minds at birth, they're not really givens, they're generated through our life, can we generate a fourth mind? Is there a mind that connects these three? We should be asking ourselves these questions just as a kid. Why don't we, isn't it obvious if we have these three minds, can there be a connecting mind? Buddhism arises out of this single question. All we have to do is ask it.

[16:26]

And the asking of it is already a dynamic. And our practice, as I said to someone this morning, our practice is primarily autodidactic. You have to 99% almost teach yourself, and I can do part of the 1%. It's true. And if you don't engage it actively, you'll get better, but you'll never be an adept practitioner. And is it you're an adept practitioner or not because you were born to be adept or not adept? What kind of container are you in? No. You decide to catalytically engage your life. Okay, what's the evidence for the, again, for there might be another state of mind, a fourth mind, in addition to waking, dreaming, and non-dreaming deeply?

[17:32]

Now, I can tell you all kinds of things, but you have to work on this yourself. Whatever I say will be a white gorilla in Matt's lab, which he's going to bring to China with him. You have two tickets. A white gorilla travels free. What is the evidence for another state of mind? Another mode of mind? Something other than just being angry or happy or not or something. Well, again, there's sleeping and dreaming, which don't communicate too much with each other and with consciousness, with waking mind. So we know we have different modes of mind.

[18:35]

But what is the evidence, again, for an additional state of mind? Well, simple examples I can give you. And these are overlapping examples. I'd use them to make different points, but really they're nearly the same thing. Simple example. As I've often, often, often, often said, you're walking along with some packages and you fall down on the ice and yet you catch yourself, you don't break your packages and you get up and you're not hurt usually. Well, something faster than consciousness happens. So we know there's a mind that's faster than consciousness. Okay. Someone, as again an example I've used often, somebody throws you a ball, you put up your hand and catch it.

[19:41]

It's actually a complex calculation of the arc of the ball, but it's done while you're almost thinking of something else. Okay, so what does that tell us? Really not different from falling. But here I'm using as an example that it's simultaneous with consciousness. It's not an extension of consciousness, which we might imagine falling. It's going on simultaneously with consciousness, and you catch the ball. So there's a mind that's active behind the scenes of consciousness. My other example is you throw something at the wastebasket and you can decide that your mind is controlling it but I would say probably your mind has created a trajectory like the ball And you have a sensation that your mind pushes it into the waste paper basket.

[20:49]

Oh, if they'd only let me play with Michael. But my feeling is, it feels like you're pushing it in, but actually your mind has already created the trajectory which the object is following. Okay. Okay. So I use this as an example to say that this other mind, whatever we call it, is wider than consciousness. It's present, it's pervasive. Simultaneously, pervasive, etc. Now, my other common example, I always use 6.02 a.m. I don't know why, because it might be 3.28 or something. You decide to get up at a particular time. You're not conscious and you wake up at a particular time.

[21:53]

Something is functioning that is not consciousness. So there's another example of another state of mind. Okay. And my last example is more common for meditators. In a sesshin, it's more common to happen, and someone comes in the room, you're sleeping, and something covers the whole room. If you sleep in the zenda, I used to notice a sleeping and a aging zenda. All night long I'd know what's going on. all night long. I could tell when the guy was coming, pushing the board with the wet cloth on it down the cleaning board about 3.20. I'd stay asleep. Or somebody can come in and speak to me while I'm taking a nap or sleeping. And usually I can have, if it's not an elaborate discursive conversation, I can stay asleep.

[22:57]

And when I go to sleep, because I have this... Minor skill. I can feel when I go to sleep and I can keep a certain mind going after I fall asleep. I can be aware of the falling asleep and the process of falling asleep and the awareness continues after I go to sleep. I can feel my body's going to sleep. I can let my body go to sleep. I can let my consciousness go to sleep. Now this is more common, this kind of experience. So there's a kind of lucid stream in consciousness that continues into the lucidity of dreaming. Now again, I start to say this is more common if you practice meditation. And it's more common if you know about the possibility. So I'm telling you about possibilities. It's like The kids who realize their intelligence is not fixed and using your intelligence makes you more intelligent, they do better. Well, I'm telling you about things that you can notice in yourself.

[24:02]

If you don't notice them in yourself, they mean nothing. Then you have a chance every time you go to bed, every time you take a nap, you have a chance to practice with these. Okay, so what is this example? You're lying in bed. Someone comes and talks to you. You stay asleep, but you answer them, as long as it's not too complicated. And you know what they're doing. They're going, they did that, opened something. Well, there's a field of mind that's aware that's not consciousness. That's exactly what it feels like. It feels like a field covers the room in the situation. that isn't articulated into discursive consciousness but is aware enough to allow a certain kind of mild thinking and conversation. Okay. So these five examples suggest strongly that if anyone's experience suggests that there's another state of mind than waking,

[25:12]

dreaming and non-dreaming deep sleep. I don't have to study one word of Buddhism to describe anything I've described so far. It's purely looking at our, my, and others' experience. Okay. But it also happens to coincide with a question that's at the root of Asian and yogic and Indian culture, which on the whole didn't believe in some kind of creator God, but said, hey, we're creating this stuff, let's look at our own experience instead of looking at rule books and commandments and so forth. What is our own experience? So the concept of God in Hinduism even is quite different than Christianity and certainly different than Buddhism, but it's a concept rooted in experience more than I think the Christian God is rooted in experience. Although there's an experiential base for the Christian God too, as far as I can understand.

[26:19]

So this question of, is there a fourth state of mind in addition to waking, sleeping, and non-dreaming deep sleep? is an ancient one and I would say that along with seeing that everything changes is the roots of Buddhism. Now then the question arises, is this other state of mind, additional state of mind to dreaming, is it actually non-dreaming deep sleep? Maybe awareness is non-dreaming deep sleep. I mean, no. I shouldn't use the word awareness yet. Maybe this other state of mind, additional state of mind, is not actually additional. It's just non-dreaming deep sleep is present in dreaming, present in awareness. I mean, present in consciousness. Maybe that's the case.

[27:29]

Well, I don't think so. But I do think it's the case that non-dreaming deep sleep surfaces in zazen. And I do think, and the Indian idea is that non-dreaming deep sleep is a state of ecstatic bliss. And if you don't have this bliss every night, you don't function very well. So you need dreaming sleep, and you need bliss sleep, and you need consciousness, and the three have to work together out of sight. That's the kind of union I do. And so, you know, people who take sleeping pills really screw themselves up because they put their consciousness to sleep, but they also screw up the bliss part of sleeping and the dreaming part of sleep. Now, Yes, then if that's the case, if it is a bliss consciousness, then bliss consciousness, a bliss mode of mind, then we could understand the Sambhogakaya body that way.

[28:42]

The bliss mind of non-dreaming deep sleep surfaces in the body when we take away the distractions and impediments of discursive thinking and we're filled with, well, yes. I could say that that theory is true, because that's my experience. But that's not all of my experience. I would say more that non-dreaming, from my point of view, all of these are generated minds. They're not given. I can sometimes call these the three birth minds, because at birth, but I really mean birth as an extended process of culture, growing up, etc. We develop these three minds. And I think the distinction between them has been much sharper the last couple hundred years, and that's something Freud noticed. So he was able to create the idea of an unconscious.

[29:44]

I don't think that In the Middle Ages they had the same relationship between these three minds. So I think it is the case that one thing that happens when you meditate is you create, when you construct a posture, you construct a posture which allows consciousness to subside Dreaming mind then to subside, which is the fourth skanda, pretty much the fourth skanda, and then allows non-dreaming deep sleep to surface. But it's not just surfacing as it is somehow inherently there. The surfacing itself is a generating process. For instance, I can have the image when I sit satsang, that I'm releasing consciousness and I'm releasing myself into a non-discursive mind.

[30:56]

And it feels like it. It feels like that's what's happening. And it feels like the non-discursive mind is already there waiting to be released into. But I actually think what's happening is the act of releasing is also an act of generating. If I say I'm releasing and not generating, I'm really not talking about Buddhism. I'm talking about some kind of theology. But for practical purposes and for most practitioners, it doesn't make any difference. But if you base a teaching on it, it makes a difference. So the releasing is a generating. So you release yourself into, I'm not calling it awareness yet because I don't know, we're still in the questioning phase. You're releasing it into this, at least non-discursive, usual consciousness. You're releasing yourself from non-discursive usual consciousness and releasing yourself into something that isn't discursive consciousness, but you're also simultaneously generating it.

[32:11]

And you're releasing yourself through, you're releasing dreaming mind, associative mind. And something else happens that isn't blank. It's that awareness. Is it non-dreaming deep sleep? Well, I would say, yes, we could say it's non-dreaming deep sleep by surfacing becomes part of, you generate a new mind we can call awareness. So I think it is actually a fourth mind. Now, why isn't anger a fifth mind and elation a seventh mind? Well, you can create any system you want, but basically I think that we have two, we first have to start with two main kind of territories of knowing. One is consciousness, and the other I call awareness.

[33:19]

And awareness is a medium in which dreaming occurs, and non-dreaming deep sleep occurs, and it's something generated and present in the way we exist, but we begin to have an entry to it through the breath door, through the body of Zazen, and so forth. Then we can ask, too, I'm just throwing some questions out now. I should end probably, huh? Can we call big mind, original mind, Zen mind, all these different terms, can we say that, oh, these are all awareness? Well, you know, this is something that for three thousand years now people have been trying to answer.

[34:26]

So you really have to answer it within the sphere of your own experience. And to answer it in the sphere of your own experience, you have to have some good meditation practice, and you have to have some developed mindfulness practice, and you have to have the yogic breath door. At least, it helps a lot. Now, a couple questions, a few questions. If someone throws you a ball and you catch it and you're conscious, this would suggest that this other mind, let's call it awareness now instead of other mind, this other mind or awareness functions simultaneously with consciousness. Catch the ball.

[35:31]

Something made the calculation. Let's call that awareness. Functions simultaneously with consciousness. If I'm asleep in the zendo and someone comes in and talks to me, awareness is functioning, or this other mind is functioning, but consciousness isn't functioning. So then the question is, awareness functions simultaneously with consciousness, but does consciousness function simultaneously with awareness when awareness is the predominant mind, the definitive mind? Actually, it doesn't seem to. So from this evidence, we can say that awareness is the pervasive or the pervasive primary mind, and consciousness is not the primary mind. So the evidence I presented to you makes me conclude

[36:34]

That awareness is the prime, pervasive, not the primary pervasive mind, but the pervasive primary mind. In English, the word order makes a big difference. The pervasive primary mind. And awareness, consciousness is a secondary mind. And it's called in Buddhism, secondary mind. So if we're going to neurobiologically study these things, we shouldn't be studying consciousness as the primary mind. We should be studying awareness as the pervasive primary mind. Now if there is a pervasive primary mind, how do we live it? Do you want to define yourself entirely through consciousness and define yourself primarily through the self, which is a creature of consciousness? You can. But that is to define yourself in terms of suffering.

[37:38]

Because suffering means to fluctuate between joy and pleasure and seeking pleasure and avoiding joy. I mean, why not? Avoiding suffering and sometimes avoiding joy. The real bliss. Conscious people are bliss avoiders. Well, anyway. To define yourself in terms of consciousness is to define yourself in terms of what makes the self that feel better. So your whole life is involved in making the self feel stronger, better, and more in comparison to others and so forth. And it rewards you in culture. Culture. but it does not reward you in living and death.

[38:33]

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