How's your tongue? Is it too easy? It's too easy. Too easy for Eileen. You have enough? Is there enough sitting? What? Could be left. Could be left. I feel some... in a way it's obligation, but also I just think it's helpful to deal with certain propaganda about Zen.

[01:17]

And one in particular is this expression In Japanese, it's kyo-ge-betsu-den. Or, actually, Chinese characters. And it means, it can be translated as a kyo is teaching, ge is outside. Betsu is special, and Den is transmission. There's this rumor that's been taken care of very well, about 1400 years, 1500 years, that Zen is a Kyōge Betsu Den. It's a special transmission outside the scriptures, outside the teachings. Kyōge is often understood as the

[02:23]

scriptural teachings or even verbal teachings. And then an interpretation of this teaching, which is outside this teaching, there's a special transmission outside this teaching about what Zen is, which is that inside, that outside doesn't mean outside, it means neither outside or inside. So it's a special transmission that's not outside the teaching or inside the teaching. That's a translation. No, the translation is teaching outside special transmission, literally. And it's often translated as special transmission outside the teaching. This is Zen, right? So now I'm going to give you a transmission outside this teaching, which is outside doesn't mean outside.

[03:27]

And it doesn't mean inside either. It means neither. It means beyond. Of course, Shakyamuni is not an example, and his actual spiritual life is not in the teachings. But it's not outside the teachings, because he gave teachings. That's the kind of spiritual life he had, is that he gave teachings. So Buddha ancestors do give teachings, usually, in conventional language. Their teachings are not in the words, but it's not outside the words, because they're the kind of people that talk that way. And I say this partly because we're now in the process of looking at some scriptures. So, it isn't outside the scriptures, but it isn't in the scriptures either. And in the, what is it, the Jewel Mirror Samadhi, or the Precious Mirror Samadhi, he used to say, earlier translation says, the meaning is not in the word, it responds to the inquiring impulse.

[04:42]

Is that what he used to say? So, inquiring impulses, that's sort of impulse of, usually that's usually the impulse of what type of meditation? Vipassana. Yeah, vipassana, or insight meditation. You hear some words, and the meaning of the teaching isn't in the words, but if you bring that insight energy to the, if that insight energy comes forth, the meaning comes forth with the coming of that energy. So it's something that dependently co-arises out of the interaction between the examination of the teaching and the teaching. The actual Chinese character says the meaning isn't in the words, but it comes out with the arrival of energy, the character in my name, ki in my name, Zenki.

[05:50]

Ki means energy, but also means activity or opportunity. So now the translation says it's the origin of pivotal opportunity, is that what it says? What does it say? What? Yeah, the pivotal moment brings it forth, so... when we can interact with the teachings, then somehow meaning and the significance of the teachings can emerge. So now we have this scripture that we're looking at, which is, one translation is called a Buddhist wisdom, and so it is about how to develop Buddhist wisdom, but it's also how to do the meditations The text itself, so that wisdom can emerge. And I also wanted to say that, so now we could be doing some, we have opportunity to do some insight.

[07:01]

activity with a particular teaching about the nature of reality, but I wanted to also just to reconcile to some extent, maybe not even reconcile, but just juxtapose this type of insight work with some of the other insight works that you might be more familiar with, some of the There was an early, there's a Buddhist temple that is present in Pali, and there may be a Sanskrit someplace too, I don't know, but it's called the Satipatthana Sutta, which is the scripture of the four foundations of mindfulness. Satipatthana actually means, sati is mindfulness, and patthana means foundation, or basis, something like that, or establishment.

[08:04]

So the number four isn't actually in the title there, but anyway, it's the four satipatthanas, and the first one is body, the next one is feelings, the next one is consciousness, dharma. So in that sutra, for example, actually under the topic of body, they teach mindfulness of the body. And, for example, they say that if a monk is standing, she knows she's standing. If the monk is walking, she knows she's walking. It says if the monk's inhaling, the monk knows that she's inhaling. If the monk's exhaling, she knows she's exhaling. If it's a long breath, she knows it's a long breath. If it's a short breath, she knows it's a short breath, that kind of thing. So she makes her body in that way. It doesn't say she tries to make a long breath or a short breath, or tries to stand up or sit down, just so she's mindful of what's going on.

[09:09]

So this is an instruction about how to be mindful of the body. That's an object of mindfulness, the body. And then part of mindfulness is to pay attention to things. Another part of mindfulness is to remember to pay attention. So mindfulness has the meaning of... The basic meaning of mindfulness actually is remember. And the meaning of mindfulness is insight, or, you know, paying attention and having insight. It means actually prajna, ultimately. And then you move on from body to awareness of the mind. Feelings are the easiest for most people, the easiest mental phenomena, mental object to become aware of. It basically is positive and negative neutral feelings, which means positive, negative and neutral evaluations.

[10:16]

The mind is, according to Buddhist psychology, Well, there's some special states, certain special yogic states that the evaluation process is curtailed dramatically. But during most states of consciousness, during 99.9% of states of consciousness, there's an evaluation process going on. And even in those, it's still going on a little tiny bit. And that's sort of the easiest of the mental factors to be mindful of. And then you... So the monk is... If the monk has a negative evaluation, in other words, a pain or unpleasant feeling, the monk is aware of that, and so on. And then you go to a little bit more subtle, to be aware of what kind of consciousness you have in general. And that means, like, just generally speaking, like your...

[11:19]

kind of like agitated, or calm, or distressed, or peaceful, or general characterizations of this sort of consciousness you have. And then you move into awareness of Dharma, which means that you get into teachings about how to look even more carefully at what you've been looking at already. So, for example, you come into the teachings about any hindrances you might have to doing the work you are doing. And you come in to look at, for example, the five aggregates of the experiences that you've been looking at. So you've been looking at your body, but now it breaks down your body into... I shouldn't say your body, but it breaks down the body into ten... aspects.

[12:23]

And the ten aspects are the physical sense fields and sense capacities. So the body, the material is broken down into like the eye capacity and colors and so on. And then the mental factors are broken down in great detail. And you learn how to see them and be mindful of them and note them. You know, anger, faith, note, like someone was saying, I think, was it saying, was it in this class that someone was talking about shame yesterday, the day before, whatever it was? So shame's in there. Decorum, do we talk about decorum? Decorum's in there. a lack of shames in there, you can actually start to see these things. And then also, by being able to see these things, you can ascertain actually whether the composition constitutes a wholesome or unwholesome state of consciousness.

[13:31]

So you can start evaluating the karmic quality of your consciousnesses and so on and so forth, this kind of work. And then they go into other kinds of analysis. which refine the earlier kinds of mindfulness. And then they teach the Four Noble Truths in that sutra, which is another way of penetrating the nature of phenomena and how our involvement with them creates pain and so on and so forth. So this is a mindfulness practice. And this practice... Some of you have already done this, right? How many of you practice mindfulness? Something like that. Yeah, Dogen Zenji doesn't teach meditation on the self-skandhas very much.

[14:32]

Zen masters don't teach meditation on skandhas very much. You know, in there, actually, you don't find them teaching how to do skandha analysis. Have you noticed that? Or have you noticed him teaching it at all? Well, Dogen did teach it a little bit. For example, at one point he says, is your body No, are you the same or different from your aggregates, from your skandhas? So he asked that question a few times. And that's actually straight out of the Pali texts, is that once you can do the analysis this way, then you can look to see, for example, is your self the same as the aggregates or different? and the Buddha's analysis is that you'll find that it isn't the same as the aggregates and it's not different from the aggregates. So you can't find yourself in the aggregates and you can't find it outside the aggregates.

[15:36]

But it must be, if it's a phenomenon, if it's an actual phenomenon, it must be one of the skandhas. But if it's one of the skandhas, it can't be the self, because none of us mean that the self is a skanda. Most people think the self is what embraces all the skandhas or owns all the skandhas. And of course, if it's outside the skandhas, it's a non-existent thing. So it's not non-existent. It actually must be one of the skandhas, but that's not what I mean by self. But this kind of analysis for some people, relieves them of the belief in a self that's independent of phenomena, which actually most people have that belief. And for some people who have that belief, this type of meditation frees them of that belief. So this is a fruit of that kind of mindfulness practice or that kind of insight practice. Another thing that happens when you do this meditation is that as the meditation gets deeper, you start to see...

[16:39]

Well, you start to see the Dharma in the things, in the objects that you're being mindful of. And see the Dharma means you start to see the marks of conditioned phenomena, but also you start to see the basic tenets of all Buddhist schools. You start to see that, actually. Maybe you've heard about it before or not, but whether you've heard it or not, you start to see, actually, what all Buddhists would agree to characterize all the things that you're being mindful of. So what are those things you see? You see impermanence. You see non-self. You see suffering. And all Buddhist schools agree with that, except they modify it slightly.

[17:54]

They say that contaminated or defiled dhyana are suffering. But for the meditator who is learning this process, everything they see is defiled. Otherwise they wouldn't be learning this meditation, they would be teaching it. They would be, you know... they'll be showing people how to do it because they already learned how to do it. And they learn how to do it so they have seen so deeply these marks that they become disabused of that which contaminates phenomena. So for them, it wouldn't be any longer the case that everything they see by their misconceptions. But most people who are learning this meditation, everything they see is somewhat defiled. In terms of this sutra, it's defiled by confusion of what's happening with the imputational, that confusion of the dependent character,

[19:02]

with the imputational character makes everything that we see painful. But when the other dependent character is as being empty of the imputational, then the phenomena we're looking at is not painful. Can you explain that with respect to people who are kind of jovial, happy people who don't actually seem to be in pain? In fact, when you ask them, they're like, no, everything is wonderful. So we have a jovial, happy person who says that he's wonderful, and what else? Anything else you want to say about that person? ...their general state. Are they, if you'll excuse the expression, have they seen that the, have they seen a lack of invitation from the other human?

[20:12]

No, no, I would say they most likely haven't. And I wouldn't say I was like testing them through the conversation, but I have an idea, yeah. Well, these people, these jovial, happy people, are people who perhaps they might actually be looking but they might not be able to see yet what we're talking about here. Namely, see this thoroughly established nature. They might not be able to see it yet. So they might be looking at things and feeling pain while they look at it. They might be. But some people who actually are doing mindfulness work, who are paying attention to things, do see the all-contaminated phenomena, in other words, everything they see, because they still haven't seen the ultimate truth.

[21:17]

They might be aware that everything they see is painful, and yet be upbeat about that, really upbeat. So monks who are doing this meditation and then do it to the point where they start to see it consistently. Actually, it's more likely that when you see it consistently that you can be upbeat than when you see it . Does that make sense? If you're meditating on phenomena and you're going along and you don't notice that they're contaminated and you don't notice that it's painful to look at things to be with contaminated phenomena, if you don't notice that and then you do, Like a punch in the gut, or a punch in the ear, or a punch in the temple, or the throat, or the heart. It's sometimes... You know, that kind of thing happens. Have you ever seen that? No. But if you see it regularly, almost like in that kind of like rhythmical way, like every few milliseconds, you can develop some stability with it.

[22:42]

You can be quite stable and patient with the pain of being deluded. In other words, a deluded person can be stable and calm as the pain of their delusion, the pain which is the consequence of their delusion, keeps poking them. They can be calm and upbeat. So it's possible if some jovial people are in touch with seeing that all defiled phenomena are painful, they can see that, and if they see it regularly, they're more likely to be stable and at ease and happy, lucky about it. this, and also feel joyfully. The other possibility is that the person is on drugs. Or someone has just given them a lot of money. Constantly. And this kind of from mindfulness of what's going on. They're not being mindful, they're not paying attention.

[23:46]

If you check with them, you know, in your jovialness, you might say, how do you feel? And they might say, everything's wonderful. And then you might say, which foot is carrying the most weight? Suddenly, they're irritated with, you know, they're just happily walking along and now you ask them, which foot are you standing on? Or you might say, you're jovial and you make the rest of us feel miserable. Then they go, oh, how wonderful. And then you say something else. And then they say, oh, how wonderful. And then you say something else. And pretty soon, maybe they don't seem to be so jovial anymore. But some jovial people are definitely successful at distracting themselves from what's happening.

[24:50]

Some jovial people are paying attention to what's happening at a certain level of enlightenment. and are happy to be doing the practice, and they're happy even though they're not completely free yet, which comes with seeing the ultimate, they're doing well in bondage because they're practicing, and they've gotten used to seeing the pain. And the night they've gotten used to it doesn't mean it doesn't bother them anymore. It's not shocking. It doesn't bring them down. They're not depressed. Not all people who are aware of suffering are depressed. Does that make sense? So that's what I would say about such people. Three basic varieties. The enlightened, the one who is in training to be enlightened, and the one who is successfully distracting themselves from suffering.

[25:57]

Okay, another kind of mindfulness practice or insight practice is the one you might do in response to the Heart Sutra. Heart Sutra says that when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita, And by the way, right in Avalokiteshvara's name, in the Chinese translation of Avalokiteshvara's name, when we chant it in Chinese, we go kanji zai, kanji zai bodhisattva. Kanji zai is one Chinese translation of that bodhisattva's name. And kan is the Chinese character for insight. Right. It means insight or contemplation. So his name could be translated as contemplation or insight, ji, self, zai, existence.

[27:13]

So the name of this bodhisattva of compassion, the bodhisattva of compassion is a name which is contemplation or insight into the existence of the self, or the way the self exists. That a compassionate being is focusing on how the self exists. That meditation is at the core of the practice. According to this particular translation. We could spend time talking about the Sanskrit, but I'm just going to go back to the sutra and say that it's deeply practicing Prajnaparamita saw that the five aggregates are empty of own being. So this bodhisattva of compassion is meditating on the way the self exists, is doing insight work on the way the self exists.

[28:21]

That's his name. And then he, in the process of doing insight work on the way the self exists, he sees skandhas. Because in fact, that's one way the self might appear, is some composition of these aggregates. And he sees them, and he sees that the skandhas themselves have no own being. In other words, he sees the categories of existence wherein the self appears, that those categories actually don't hold up, that they're not really there. And that relieves all suffering. You know, universally, that vision is the vision that liberates beings. So this is a kind of insight work in a Mahayana scripture that we chant in Zen frequently, both in Chinese, I shouldn't say both, I should say in Chinese, Tibetan, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, English, Russian, Mongolian, and so on.

[29:37]

That's a wisdom text, right? This text we're studying now, again, is a little bit different type of insight instruction, where we're not just talking about just simply that all dharma is a lack of own being, but we're talking about now three types of lack of own being we will be talking about. So this sutra is elucidating, trying to help us understand more what the emptiness in the previous insight text was talking about. So this text, in some ways, is hard to understand, even though it's really completely in accord with the previous one. It's making some discrimination which helps us understand what that lack of own being that the skandhas are subject to means. It was written after the Heart Sutra? It's written after the Heart Sutra.

[30:41]

I don't know if it's written after the Heart Sutra. But the Heart Sutra is not an early Prajnaparamita text. So the Prajnaparamita text seemed to appear in the world about a hundred years before the beginning of the common era. And then they keep getting... Probably 600 years. And the Heart Sutra is in the later part of that. So while these Prajnaparamita texts are being studied and recreated in various ways, in that process, probably around third, fourth century, this sutra appears, which is trying to unravel the thought in the Buddha's mind when the Buddha taught the Prajnaparamita. Prajnaparamita is still held up as ultimate teaching, This teaching is trying to help us understand what was going on in Buddha's mind when he taught the Prajnaparamita, and what was going on in Buddha's mind when he taught the earlier teachings before the Prajnaparamita, which are the teachings, which are the, I mentioned first, which are the teachings which give the instruction of mindfulness in the early scriptures.

[31:56]

Does that make sense? So this text is written, the Heart Sutra might have been written a little after this because it's like It's like, kind of like, some people feel, actually, as you can see, it's a chant in so many places, some people feel like it. It is really like a wonderful, almost like the culmination, in a way, of the Prajnaparamita. It's such a nice, nice pairing. The other ones are wonderful, too, but they're, you know, they're so much longer that most people don't have time to read them every morning. Whereas this one text, in some sense, maybe gets a lot of the So this is, again, sort of like to give you a footing in these kinds of teachings. Any questions about this? How do you work with all this?

[32:57]

How are you doing for temperature? You okay? It's higher up here, hotter up here. Anything you want to bring up before we go forward? You. One thing that just popped in my mind is that if you're doing insight work, Like, for example, part of insight work is to with somebody or a whole bunch of people playing the role of the teacher or teachers. You could have a bunch of teachers teaching this text. That'd be fine. And in fact, we have people who have different levels of experience with this teaching. So in some of your Dhamma study groups, you may find that some people have been working so that in a sense, they can share with you some of their background.

[34:04]

A number of people here have memorized significant sections of the sutras. Some of them have memorized some of the most excellent sections. Some people have memorized some of the more boring sections. Anyway, there's various levels of thing going on here. So part of developing insight is to be in a class situation. with texts and chairs and tables and pens and notepads and talk. And that's part of insight work. That's the first part. Through hearing and seeing and so on. You learn the learning phase. And this happens pretty much on a literal level. Insight, it depends on words and it's literal. You do not yet understand at this level, this first level of the teaching. But this is the first level. And even during this level, insight work, insight work, generally speaking, can be, generally speaking, whatever level, well, she said whatever level, if you're extremely upset and you would go into a class of doing calm down,

[35:21]

just to see the other people, to be in a room of calm people. You might calm down just to be in their presence. But if you're feeling pretty calm, and you start hearing insight work, you might feel a little bit more excited or... If you're very calm, especially at the first levels of insight, and you start to do the insight work, you start, generally speaking, to feel more agitated and excited. Does that make sense? And a lot of people are agitated and excited in a negative way. They get very excited that they don't understand. Or I should say, well, they don't understand, actually, but they also, a lot of other people don't understand, but they think they don't understand. Some people are excited in a positive way. They feel good because they think they do understand. And they're like, you know, zipping around. So watch out for those. they have a positive, they're jolly.

[36:30]

They're actually quite agitated. They're not on drugs, but they're jolly, almost like they have roller skates on. And so if you get really excited about how wonderful it is that you understand this teaching, I mean, like you're really... excited that you understand this teaching, or if you're really excited and depressed and don't understand the teaching, then it's probably a good idea to what? Calm down. Yeah, calm down. Forget about the... Put aside insight work for a while. Put aside using discursive thought to penetrate these teachings and turn towards... for a while. with confidence that that is part of the practice and it will be. It's part of the course of developing wisdom, so you're not wasting your time. And you need to calm down a little bit.

[37:32]

So if you feel too upset, and some people are already telling me that sometimes they're already starting to go back to the calming work again. And if you're upset about your calming work not working, then give up your thoughts that it's not working. So your evaluations of your calming work is more discursive thought that you just give up and let that go too. So Nancy and... Is it Astrid or Astrid? Astrid. Astrid. No, I didn't. Earlier I was just thinking when you were speaking to Joe of the Dalai Lama, but just how... Yeah, Dalai Lama seems to be jolly. He also cries a lot. But... So... But, you know, he may be... But... He may be sometimes crying, for us. Even while he's feeling free, he may still be kind for us.

[38:37]

And he does maybe see tremendous suffering because his practice is strong enough at this point. And Astrid? What if giving up a dispersive thought makes me joyful? And John, when I feel joyful, when I stop doing a dispersive thought, Some people wonder if they've actually, they want to know if they've actually become calm and actually it's not too difficult to tell. It's not extremely subtle because you do feel joyful but you also feel calm. you have a lot of energy, but it's not like shaking the ship. It's more like, you know, round, firm, and fully packed. It's like sometimes they talk about, you know, concentrating on hara and feel like there's a bright, a new bright rubber ball in your tummy.

[39:50]

You know, not a cannonball. That's more like insight work. bright, firm, but soft ball in your stomach. So the round, bright, flexible, flexible, not soggy, but flexible and soft and pliant, workable, awake mind comes and you are happy with it. You feel the joy in your head and you feel the joy in your body. And you don't have to worry about that. And even if you don't have that, you don't have to worry either. Matter of fact, calming work is for people who worry about not being calm. If you're not worried about being calm, that goes quite nicely with developing calm. We do not recommend worry.

[40:57]

is not worried and refuses to worry. Then they don't have that pliancy. A person who is in shamatha or who is really tranquil, you go up to them and say, would you worry for a while? And they say, fine, how? Or some friend of mine, I was sitting next to her and somebody said to her, what kind of work do you do? And she said, what do you need? Laughter But in her case, that was because she was on drugs. Drugs can make you feel like you're tranquil, right? It feels like, okay, take my arms and legs. But after you feel like it's okay, then you might have some suggestion, some alternative. because you're willing to give up your unworried mind and receive a worried one when you're flexible.

[42:09]

But then after you've been willing to receive a worried mind, the worried mind doesn't necessarily work on you because you were so happy to receive it. Let it go. So, the Samatha mind is a mind in which, because of this training, you have temporarily become free of affliction. So you don't have to worry that you're free of worry. And you don't have to be afflicted and feel extreme pain about being free of extreme pain. You don't have to worry about it. It's okay. But this state is not permanent. That's why we need wisdom. Wisdom makes it so that we are permanently free of the affections. Okay? And then if you feel calm, you can just do calming practice this whole practice period, but if you come to this class, you'll get some exposure to insight work, and then something will happen on the insight level, but maybe not much.

[43:18]

Maybe you'll mostly be doing calm practice, but some insight teachings and some insight practice will touch you, because when you're calm, you're open. They're a characteristic of being calm as you're open. You don't sit there and say, I'm not going to listen to this bird. Or you might say that, but you just let go of that thought. Usually you don't say, I am going to listen to this bird. But if you did say it, you just hear yourself say, I'm going to listen to this bird. There might actually not be a bird. But you're just talking to yourself and you're relaxed with your own thoughts. Yes. Yes. I'm wondering if I understand the idea in the Zen, though, because I think about, well, maybe you'd be going over something you've memorized or trying to focus on aggregates or something that seems a lot different than not getting caught in your thoughts. Like, I know we'd have to keep grabbing the teachings in order to concentrate on them.

[44:24]

Is that the idea in that particular type of meditation? Ah, let's see. How's the temperature? I'm really hot. How are you doing? Can we open a little bit more? Can some people who are near the windows get a look? So, here's Shannon's question. Sort of. So anyway, if you're doing... If you're doing shamatha work... And if, for example, the words came into your head, how are bodhisattvas...

[45:50]

wise with respect to the character phenomena. How are bodhisattvas wise with the character phenomena? That's the sutra. If you're doing shamatha work, just relax with it. Right? Make sense? And if you actually do relax with it, you calm down and you become, you know, happy and all that good stuff. Okay? That possibility for human beings. So if you're at Green God during this practice period, if you were sitting, you might hear the sound of rain and you also might hear in your own mind, which is also where the rain sound is, you might hear some scripture might pop up in your head. Like you might hear Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva when practicing deeply the Prajnaparamita. That might come up All right? So then, if you're practicing shaman, you just let go of it.

[46:54]

Now, if you're practicing insight, then the question is, if you're practicing insight, would you intentionally bring up when some teaching comes up, sometimes it's skillful to hold it, sometimes it's not. That would be actually insight work. But if you get too upset in the zendo, doing that, drop it. Calm down. When you feel calm again, somewhat calm, you don't have to be super calm, but somewhat calm, you might go back to it again. Does that make sense? So, this is like an ongoing process of trying to understand what's the most skillful way of examining a teaching. Yes?

[47:54]

What Asgard said about giving up discursive thought... Just now, one interpretation I would make of what you said now, you've just described the limitations of calming practice. In that in calming practice, what you said is the articulation of your basic ideas, and I would just change that to basic misconceptions, a basic confusion, the articulation is attenuated. The articulation is attenuated, you do calm down. The more we talk and think, especially discursively, the more we run around in our head based on our misconceptions, the more upset we get, the more affliction we experience. When we attenuate, when we give up the conceptual of our misconceptions, we calm down through that giving up of conceptualization.

[49:08]

of conceptuality. But the basic concepts are still sitting there, waiting to come out and play again. And then when they get enacted or articulated or elaborated, they again cause affliction. So the insight work I mean, the calming work is not enough. We need instruction which will guide us back to refuse, overthrow, and be convinced that this is a misconception. When we're convinced, we have... First of all, when we understand that it's a misconception, we change, and some affliction starts to wane then. When we're convinced, we're changed even more, and more affliction starts. the fullest realization of being convinced that this is a misconception will happen when we take that and join it then with the state where we actually are in deep calm.

[50:13]

Does that make sense now? Yes. I just wonder, like, the invitation, it's not like anything, that anything can kind of be invitational, and anything that arises, I see that the other dependent, and so it seems to me like the inside practice is like sitting on the bottom of a huge ocean, trying to see that one is on a huge ocean, and what not the ocean. It seems to me so useless, wondering how to break down the invitational and the dependent, in a practical way, so we can practice. So you're wondering how to break the incutational and the other dependent in a practical way. Yes, well, everybody else is too, right? So that's what we're going to try to learn, how to do that. You haven't learned that, have you?

[51:15]

No. No. But you have specified you'd like to learn that. I learned is how to do that. Okay? Yes? In the process of Chandaka, is that where working with Karna, and does that, obviously unless you work with it, with Karna you're not going to... Did you say, what was your question again? Karma and Samatha, what was the question? I'm not sure what the question is, except that I can see that unless there's some, not only is there giving up the stress itself, but working also with one's karma, it's not going to be calm. Unless you work with your karma, you're not going to be calm? Yeah, what did you say? giving up discursive thought. What's the relationship between working with your karma and giving up discursive thought? Well, one relationship between working with karma and giving up discursive thought is that you start to become aware of your karma.

[52:26]

And your karma means, fundamentally, the fundamental definition of karma is, karma is translated as action, it's definition in Sanskrit, chetana. But the definition, early definition of karma is chetana, which is sort of the intention of your moment right now. What's your intention? Your intention definitely is related to achieving calm. Being aware of your intention is closely related to achieving calm. So it's good to notice if you have the intention to calm. If you do not have the intention to calm, and you don't look to see that you don't, and then you try to practice calm, of course you're going to have a problem.

[53:29]

Does that make sense? And that's what some people do. They go into the zendo and they have this idea floating in their head that they're going to practice calm, but they didn't check to see if they wanted to. So they sit down and then they don't. This is terrible. I thought I was coming here to practice calm, but I'm like all over the place. But they didn't actually look to see if they wanted to. And sometimes I might ask somebody at the door, I haven't done this practice period, but sometimes I stand at the door and people come in and say, what do you want to do? And then sometimes they come and say, you want to practice calm? And I say, yeah, and then they go in. And I sit down, and then they check to see. Sometimes when they sit down, they check again, and they say, whoops, I don't want to anymore. But if you're aware that you don't want to practice calm in Zendo, that awareness that you don't want to practice calm promotes the realization of calm.

[54:29]

Because you know you don't want to. And then you understand that you probably won't, because you don't want to. in order to practice kama, you sort of have to check to see whether you want to practice that or not. And your intention to practice it is actually the definition of your karma. So, good question. And now let me give some examples of some people in this room I know have confessed to me that they really don't, they kind of want to practice kama, but they don't think it's okay if they do. They just won't think it'd be all right. They don't trust that it would be okay to relax completely in this moment. They actually don't think it's okay. Can you believe that? Maybe they're angry. Yeah, maybe they're angry. Maybe they're anxious and maybe they think it's not okay to relax.

[55:33]

If they relax, then they think, that's too dangerous, I can't do that. I'll wet my pants. Or I'll drool. Or I'll go to sleep. Or a mosquito will bite me and I won't hit it. Or whatever. So I say to people like that, well, what do you need in order to feel it would be all right to relax? They say, they say, well, maybe all the things the person mentions are realistic and we can actually supply those resources and they can go ahead and relax. Or you may find out, nope, you can't have that. That item, that requirement for relaxation you can't have. But at least you said it, so now you know because that hasn't been satisfied you can't relax. For example, like Nancy has a little girl and if her little girl does not want her to practice shamatha, maybe she can't. Maybe if Olivia comes up to you and says, Mommy, do not relax. Nancy may say, okay, I'm not going to let go of discursive thought.

[56:42]

Mommy, keep doing discursive thought because if you stop, I'm going to totally freak out. And Nancy may say, okay, I'll choose her not being freaked out over me letting go of discursive thought. You might do that. But as far as Zendo, she still might think that she can't relax because Olivia told her yesterday not to do it. So she could say, well, but maybe it would be all right. Maybe she wouldn't mind if I did it now because she's with Daniel and she's keeping him not calm. But some people tell people who are coming to this practice period that they do not want them to relax vis-a-vis them. Some spouses are saying, don't relax when you get there. Keep thinking of me. Keep worrying about me. Don't, you know. So you have to learn how do you keep loving your spouse who's not here and find a way to do that and also let go of the discursive thoughts related to your spouse and become letting go of the discursive thoughts about your spouse.

[57:45]

Because there's some way to do that. And if you can't do that, you examine your mind. Look at your mind. This is part of mindfulness work, actually. You have to use discursive thought to give up discursive thought. So you have to examine your mind and see if the structure of your mind is shaped in such a way that its intention is to give up discursive thought. And a lot of people, if they look in their mind, they will see that the structure of the mind is not, the shape of the mind is not oriented towards giving up discursive thought. So then you would also be able to conclude that you would not be able to do it at that moment because your mind is not in that mode. So you're not going to be able, it's not going to happen. Your mind, whether you're really intending to practice Samatha, is study karma.

[58:47]

So studying your karma would be conducive to setting up the conditions for practicing stabilization of your consciousness. Yes, so that you're studying your intention in the moment, then that's what you should be doing with your history of karma. That's included. Your history is included in the present moment. Some people have a history of millions of hours of samatha in the background. Some people have the history of like ten minutes of samatha in the background. But it may be that the one who has zillions of hours of samatha doesn't want to practice samatha now. They want to do vipassana. They want to think of not thinking. They want to think non-thinking. That's the practice they want to do because they've got enough. They don't want to do samatha practice. And they check their karma before they sit down to see what their intention is for the moment. Some people want to sit there for the welfare of all beings and practice calm.

[59:49]

Some people want to sit there for the welfare of all beings and practice non-thinking. That's called checking out your intention. That is a very helpful aspect to check out to see which meditation you want to do. And a lot of people go and sit down and they sit the whole period without ever having checked to see what they were intending to do. So in that sense they seem to feel like, hmm, I kind of missed that period. Yeah, he's taking the backward step. Carding? When the backward step, is that another way of saying this? Taking the backward step? Take the backward step. See, this instruction, take the backward step, It goes also with turn the light around and shine it back. Turn the light around and shine it back. That sometimes it can translate as it goes with the backward step. That teaching could be an insight instruction or a shamatha instruction.

[60:54]

It's a shamatha instruction when you turn the light around on the mind that knows objects. So Samatha practice, another way to talk about it, which I think I said to you already, is you focus your, you learn through discursive thought, you learn how to focus on the non-discursive mind. And the non-discursive mind is always present. In other words, discursive thought is not always present. It's commonly present, but not always. But whenever there's consciousness of an object, the way that that object is known is always the same. So in Samatha practice you look back at the way the mind relates to everything the same. So then you're not moving from one object to another object, you're looking at the same object all the time, which is the mind which knows the different objects.

[61:57]

So you could be turning around to look at the mind which is always there. Well, not the mind we saw there, but the way the mind always appears. It always appears as a cognition. So you're turning around and looking at the basic mind-like quality of the mind. That's one way of taking the backward step. Another way to take the backward step is to look at your thinking. Look at your discursive thought and see if your discursive thought is engaging some teaching about the nature of phenomena. Or, and how is your mind confusing or not confusing what's happening with your... That's another... But basically, it could be either one. Just like, and I was also going to mention that the Zen teacher Wang Bo taught something like give up various ways of translating it, but he sometimes says give up conceptuality, sometimes he says give up conceptual thought. It doesn't say give up conceiving.

[63:02]

I've never heard that translation. It says sometimes give up conceptual thought, give up conceptualization, give up conceptuality. And again, that instruction could be instruction in calming. If you take it as meaning give up discursive thought, just let go of discursive thought, that could be a calming instruction. Or you could understand it as give up the confusion of the imputation of certain status of phenomena to phenomena. Give up the confusion of the imputation with the other dependent. Because the imputational is conceptualization. The imputation is a process of conceptualization. of a certain type of conceptualization in terms of essences or entities and attributes. So that type of conceptualization, give that up, means learn to find how it's absent and what's happening.

[64:11]

So that could be another meaning when he says, when he makes the simple instruction of give up conceptuality, he says that many times to different monks. And for this monk, it means it's a shamatha practice, and this monk, it's a vipassana practice. And if the monk for whom he means it as a shamatha practice adheres the practice the way he meant it, and practices according to the way he meant it, then he would say, I mean, he would see that the monk understood the way he meant it and was practicing in accordance with what he meant. And then he would say, But if the monk for whom he meant that instruction as a calming practice took it as an insight practice, he might just get upset. And he might say, I didn't mean it that way for you. For you, I meant it this way. And similarly, the monk for whom he felt it was enough calm already, or for whom he had previously given the instruction as a calming practice, became calm, he might

[65:20]

and the monk might continue to do it the way he had been doing it, and he said, now I want you to do it like this. Instead of just giving up discursive thought, I want you to notice how your discursive thought has nothing to do with the way things are actually happening. Can you find that? Bodhidharma taught his student to wake up. He said, outside have no involvements, inside no coughing and sighing in the mind. So those words could be taken as a calming practice. whether it's colors and sounds and so on, which seem to be outside, or opinions and feelings, which seem to be inside, he's saying, basically, don't get involved in that stuff. So what he's doing is, you could hear it as a calming practice, that he's suggesting to Hueyka to look around and look at non-involvement, look at the mind which is not involved with objects.

[66:28]

Another translation of that is, don't activate the mind around objects, internal or external. So, don't activate the mind around objects. In other words, when somebody's face appears to you, or a teaching appears to you, or you hear somebody say something about you that's an object which you're aware of, don't get your mind active around it. Don't elaborate on it. Just hear that and don't Another translation is, just don't get involved with any objects. Since you can take that as a calming practice, that would mean that whatever you hear when you're sitting, whatever you feel in your body, or whatever you see with your eyes, those objects, you don't get involved with them. You just relate to them face to face, heart to heart, body to body,

[67:30]

no involvement. In other words, you're turning your attention towards the mind which doesn't get involved. Each moment there's a mind which doesn't get involved in what's happening. Turning your mind in that direction will come. But the other way to understand it is, when an object comes, what would it be like to not get involved in the level of confusing imputations with what's happening? The object's happening, the object's arising and ceasing, it's an impermanent thing, Relate to these impermanent things without projecting your ideas on them, superimposing your ideas, without getting involved that way. When you look at that, then you're doing insight work. You're not looking at the mind which treats everything the same. You're looking at how the mind makes things different. How the mind makes things different rather than the way the universe makes things different. The universe makes things different too, like makes different people. But we... have our own internal superimposition in what the universe is doing.

[68:32]

So these instructions, turning the light around, shining it back, backward step, give up duality, give up involvements, those could all be taken as either insight. The one that I mentioned, not all of them are this way, but they can all be taken, these three I've mentioned, as Hanum Orton's insight. Yes? Can I just say something? Sure. It is that which is imputed as a name or symbol in terms of own being or attributes or phenomena, in order to subsequently designate any convention whatsoever. That's what the sutta says. Now, remember what the sutta says.

[69:36]

Yes? So it's like I see a bunch of things in front of me, and I call it a chair. Because that's the conventional designation, and it's something I've impeded to it, which isn't necessarily intrinsic to it. Am I getting that kind of right? Okay, now we're starting to study what this imputational character might be. That's her question, okay? So now we're starting to do the inside work. All right? Ready? And let me just . OD is other dependent character. And I, amputational. And maybe fairly established is TE. But maybe ET would be better.

[70:38]

The amputational character, when she's saying she looks and she sees, for example, what she calls a chair. All right? Now, she thought, what she was saying maybe is that the chair is not really there. And maybe T-E, but maybe E-T would be better. The imputational character, you know, she's saying, she said she looks and she sees, for example, what she calls a chair. All right? Now, she thought that the chair is not really there. Something like that. Can you say that? Well, it's not something essential to that. What's not something essential to it? The word chair? Yeah. So the word chair is not essential to present with this.

[71:39]

The word share is not essential to this, right? Right. Okay, so, I don't agree to that. No, no. Pardon? What? The meaning of it is part of the interdependentness of it. Yeah, well, once we call it a share, it is. Yeah. But you wouldn't have to call this a share. You'd call it a seek. A shiz. You wouldn't have to call it a seek either. Hmm? You could describe it. You could describe it. Right. But if you describe it with words, then you're... And the imputational is not the words. The imputational is not the words. Chair. But anyway, if you want to talk about, and I'm happy to talk about the fact that the words, the word chair is not necessary... It is necessary for the phenomena of the word chair.

[72:44]

But the imputational is not the word chair. The imputational is that which makes it possible to use the word chair. Because the imputational, you see, is what we have in order to subsequently designate any convention whatsoever. When you say chair, when you say chair on the occasion of this, the imputational is what made it possible. And get the little kick you get out of it when you say that. The imputational is not the word chair. The imputational functions as a name or a chair. own being or attributes of phenomena. So the imputation is not just the basis upon which we are able to put the word chair onto this object.

[73:53]

It's not just that. The imputation that we're talking about in the sutra here is imputation in terms of essences and attributes. If there were some basis for us to make a conventional designation in terms of words and symbols, and make that imputation in terms of essences and attributes, that type of imputation, that type of imagination, is not the type of imagination, the absence of which or the absence of which is the thoroughly established character. The thoroughly established character is the absence of imputation, not just in terms of names and symbols, so that we can make conventional designations as part of it.

[75:01]

It's also the imputation of essences and attitudes. And if you look in your mind, you perhaps can see how when you put the word chair onto this, that part of the reason why that is that some essence has been projected onto this. And part of the reason why you can do the essence is because this thing has satisfied certain attributes which you think are there. And therefore, it's a meaningful process to you to make the conventional designation chair. But if you could imagine taking away the attribution of essences and attributes, you might feel very differently about calling this a chair. And the absence of this type of imputation, which is in terms of the essences and attributes, the absence of that is ultimate truth.

[76:09]

for human beings. And this is what we're trying to learn how to see. But we have to examine the process of imputation to see the absocite. So everything minus I is thoroughly established? No. That's close, though. That's also what the sutra points out. It's not that everything minus I is thoroughly established. the I is the other dependent. All impermanent phenomena, not everything, but all impermanent phenomena, not everything, minus the I, is a thoroughly established. Because some things are the imputational. And the imputational doesn't really happen. Well, by I, I meant imputation. Right. But you say everything minus imputation, everything minus I, but that wouldn't work because you just left out the imputational events.

[77:13]

They're part of everything. But the other dependent, which is most permanent phenomenon, most of our life is, most of what's happening is impermanent phenomenon. All things that arise dependent on a condition They're impermanent. And that's most of what we're dealing with. That's really what's happening. The imputation is not really happening. The imputation is happening, but imputation is another cognitive act. It's another impermanent phenomenon. But the imputation doesn't really happen. The imputation of essences and attributes doesn't actually happen. It's just perfect, complete, unsurpassed fantasy. I think it's unsurpassed fantasy. But that imputation is part of everything.

[78:16]

We do have that very important thing called imputation. But the imputing is another dependent phenomenon. You take away the imputation from what's happening then you have what's happening. But you do not yet have the thoroughly established. The thoroughly established, the ultimate truth, what is happening. The ultimate truth is the fact that what's happening is pure of the imputation. In other words, the lack of the imputation It's the lack, it's actually, you see, it's the lack of involvement with objects that's the ultimate truth. So that instruction of Bodhidharma was really another meditation on think of not thinking or meditate on ultimate truth.

[79:19]

And would everybody that had a question raise your hands? One, two, three, four, five, six. Now, the kitchen is staying until 10.30. It's now 10.30. So do you want to go a little longer and let the kitchen person ask the question? So you can ask your question and then leave. And then you can listen to the answer on tape. What's your question? What, did the imputation happen? Yes? So it seems to me that one prerequisite to be able to speak of chair is to actually somehow claim that it is different from everything else. Yeah, right. And that is... Just that idea is okay, but to mix that idea up with the chair is delusion. So is that idea something that's coming closer to understanding computation than simply saying to say chair is imputation?

[80:32]

No, to say that chair is imputation is not correct. What I'm trying to express is that there's something before that, which is something. Something before what? Before calling a chip. Yes, that's right. The definition of imputational is saying that in order to call something a chip away, it depends on the imputational character. Otherwise, just to say glob doesn't necessarily mean anything yet, right? Somehow, when we say chair, that's based on something, and the thing is based on our ability to talk to each other and have language is based on and is based on imputing esotericism attributes. Based on that, we can talk and have language meaningfully.

[81:37]

Okay, so, yeah, so... Do we have any questions yet? Ray? So, education is also ultimate reality, ultimate truth. It's a convenient symbol that allows us to process conventional truth rapidly. When the soku says, Ray, go get another kettle, the word kettle subsumes lots of attributes of essence, which I quickly run through in my thinking, and I know what to get when I run back to the kitchens. And because it's useful, it has utility, it is also part of ultimate reality. Well, in this sutra, ultimate truth is not the same as everything.

[82:49]

Okay? Ultimate truth is not the same as the entire universe. Ultimate truth is an object which we can know, which when we know it our body and mind, our life becomes purified. But not everything that we look at will purify us. Now everything in the universe, all things, including sokus and pots and so on, all these things have an ultimate character. And when we see the ultimate character of anything in the universe, And when we see that, we become liberated, we become purified of affliction. But the ultimate truth is not the same as everything has this ultimate truth. Okay? Any other short questions? Liz? It seems like in the imputational world where we construct meaning,

[83:56]

Yeah. Right. That's the... It helps us get a certain kind of meaning. But we can also get meaning... After we got the meaning, then we have to like... I see you, Grace. After we get the meaning, then the yogic process is to like give up the way we... in a sense, the way we got the meaning, and seeing that the way we got the meaning is not actually reaching what's happening. It's like, again, I often use that story, that Woody Allen story of the guy who comes to the psychiatrist and says... You know that story, Liz? Who says... He thinks he's a chicken. And the psychiatrist says, well, why didn't you tell him he's not? And he said, because I need the eggs. Yeah. So, you need the chicken for a while to get the truth, but after you get the truth, this course is give up the chicken.

[85:02]

But you do need the chicken to get the truth in the first place, but then after you get the truth, then try to, like, peel the chicken away from the egg, or actually from the meaning of being an egg eater. Nancy? Um... In the incantational, you're talking about essences and what is the... Attributes. Attributes. That's the definition. That's the definition. Could you just go a little bit more into essences and attributes? Yeah. So, like, something's happening. And this, see, this sutra is a... This sutra's addressing often the first level, the first teaching of Buddhism. So usually people, what is it, something's happening and they think, you know, what, I'm here. And then they think that there's some essence in saying that.

[86:04]

And then you have a teaching of the aggregates, which teach you that really there's feeling here and there's body here and there's opinions here and there's emotions here. But really, if you look at all the things you actually can... C, this thing you meant by I. This sutra then looks at, for example, the skandhas, and particularly like, take a form, like a color. And this sutra says, when you say that's a form, that you have actually attributed an essence. And then when you talk about or the ceasing of the form, that's an attribute of form. That's it. Okay? So, as an example, or a feeling, this is a negative sensation. And when you say that, actually, that's the situation in which we attribute essence. We actually think there's an essence there in that color. in our experience of being a person before we analyzed our experience into actually what we're talking, what we're actually feeling, and what we're actually experiencing.

[87:10]

So the examples in the sutra, which you don't see yet, it's in the next chapter of Attributing Essences, this is a form.

[87:19]

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