About the brief talk sounds, I want to mention that once you sign up, if you would like to stop, you may stop. You may remove your name from the list. However, once you stop, then you can't get back on. Okay? You don't have to continue if you don't want to. But you can't get on the list and then say, well, I want to be off, and then can I be back on, and I want to be off. Okay? But the regular doksan, you can say, I want to be on, and then you can say, I want to be off, and I want to be on, and I want to be off. Or, I want to be off, and on, and then after you have your interview, then you're off. You automatically get taken off the regular list. All you've got to do is either come or say you want to be off. And you can get back on again. But the brief one is like, what do you call it?

[01:05]

No discrimination is involved. They sign up in that bit. And also, I wanted to mention that two people talked in the last class about, I think, well, Barrett was asking about, can you separate the calming and the insight work? And isn't there a way of presenting them so that they're not separated? And yes, basically, the insight work is never separated from the work of quiescence. OK? I mean, not insight work in the sense of the Buddhist insight work, which is looking at hoping the truth. That's always united with quiescence, with shamatha.

[02:13]

But shamatha can be practiced by itself. It's possible to practice concentration without connecting it to insight work. And then Jeff's question about where Dogen says, the sitting meditation that I'm teaching is not this learning concentration. But again, my understanding would be that what he means is that it's not just concentration by itself. It's concentration united with insight into emptiness. Okay? Is that clear? Is it that I said that? And again, I'd like to just review the classic, one of the classic definitions for samakandipashana in the Mahayana from the Samdhimirma Jnanasutra.

[03:16]

Dwelling in solitude, perfectly directing the mind inward, one attends just to the phenomena as they have been brought into consideration. And that attentive mind is mentally engaged, or it is continuously engaged, mentally engaged, inward. That state in which one is so directed and remains repeatedly in which physical and mental pliancy have arisen is called Samatha. And then Vipassana, when one has achieved this pliancy, mental and physical pliancy, and dwells therein, we've already

[04:18]

we already have samatha, one abandons the aspects of mind and inwardly examines and takes an interest in the phenomena under consideration as experienced images of samadhi. With respect to such experienced images of samadhi, the differentiation of objects of knowledge, their thorough differentiation, investigation, analysis, forbearance, acknowledgement, classification, view of those objects, and the ideation concerning them are called insight. But to make it shorter, dwelling in tranquility, one abandons aspects of mind. Now, There's two interpretations of abandoning aspects of mind.

[05:22]

One interpretation is you abandon the aspects of mind that you've been paying attention to in your tranquility work. Another interpretation is abandoning aspects of mind means that you abandon the view of the mind being mind. You abandon the idea that the mind is mind. The other one would be, you would abandon resting in the non-conceptual nature of mind. And then, inwardly examine and take an interest in phenomena under consideration as experienced images of samadhi.

[06:24]

So you're in samadhi, now you look at these images that are arising in the samadhi. And then the differentiation of the objects dot dot dot is called insight. The actual analysis and so on of these objects is the insight. Penetrating vision as to the nature of phenomena is the insight. So again, I would understand that Dogen is saying that in our sitting practice, in the Buddha's sitting practice, Not just calm, it's also the understanding simultaneous with it. And then a little rhapsody of different ways of talking about Samatha and Vipassana.

[07:31]

Samatha is single-minded attention. Vipassana is discernment. Samatha is to be known as the fixation of mental representations of phenomena. Vipassana is to be known as investigation of their reference. Independence upon genuine stability due to directing the mind upon itself And due to differentiation of phenomena, there are samatha and vipassana, or there is samatha and vipassana. In dependence on genuine samadhi, the placement of attention is said to be quiescent.

[08:34]

And the wisdom that examines phenomena is said to be insight. Upon calming distractions towards outer objects, abiding in the mind itself, endowed with pleasure and pliancy in continuously and naturally attending to the inner meditative object is called quiescence. While abiding in that quiescence, the analysis of thatness is insight. So I would think that most of these made sense to you, except maybe the second one might have been a little difficult. Quiescence is to be known as fixation of mental representations of phenomena.

[09:37]

And vipassana insight is to be known as investigation of the reference. Was that a hard one? So anybody care to explain what that might mean? Another way to say it, fixation of mental representations of phenomena? Huh? But they're mind objects, right? But in what way are they fixed? What is the fixation of them in Samatha? It's single-minded concentration on them, but how does the single-minded concentration fix the representation? You're paying attention to it, but in what way do you pay attention to it? Yes? There's a steadiness, yes. You could focus on the quality of awareness, yeah.

[10:45]

Or, in the quality of awareness you could focus on might be, for example, non-conceptuality. Hmm? That's the fixation of the mental representation of phenomena. It's a mental representation of phenomena you're looking at. Right? And you're looking at a concept. And how do you look at the concept? In the many ways of looking at a concept, you look at it non-conceptually, which means what? You don't have ideas about it. In other words, you don't have concepts about the concept. or you don't have ideas about the ideation. Okay, so a mental representation is an idea, right? So the fixation, or maybe a simple way, the fixation of mental representations of phenomena would mean no representations about the mental representations about the phenomena.

[11:56]

Okay? Or... The fixation of mental ideations about phenomena would be having no ideas about the ideational representations, the mental representations, and so on. That makes it into a Samatha practice. Okay? Yes? An example. You hear something? There are four, the Buddha talked about in one of his earlier utterances, he categorized experience, the four different, the four basic categories of conceptual experience as the seen, the heard, the reflected and the cognized. But

[12:57]

reflected actually is kind of like jargon, I guess it would be, or an idiomatic expression among the yogis for smelled, tasted, and touched. So these are four categories of conception which cover sensory experience and thoughts or mind objects. They're all mind objects, but mental phenomena. The way the Buddha said it in Udana number eight is, Udana means inspired utterances. These are like things that Buddha just coughed up occasionally. So Udana number eight, he said the categories were seen, heard, reflected, and cognized.

[14:01]

So then he says, train yourself thus, in the seen there will be just the seen. So when you're experiencing seeing something, you've got actually an idea there of a color. For example, blue. There is sensation, but there's no actual blue out there. But there is a blue in here, which is a concept, and that concept can arise dependently in relationship to sensation. And so when blue arises, there is just blue. There's no elaboration, there's no ideas about that. This is a non-conceptual way of watching the concept of blue. or the sound of the stream, a non-conceptual way of dealing with that sound, with that concept of sound.

[15:07]

And then the vipassana of insight would be to investigate the referent of that concept what the representation refers to. What is the nature of the phenomena? There's a phenomena... See, the phenomena are not the representation of the phenomena. Phenomena arise and cease and we know phenomena in relationship to our conception of them. We usually do. Now it's possible that you would, by non-conceptionally watching your conception of phenomena and becoming calm through that process of non-conceptionally observing the process of conception, which is our normal access to phenomenal experience,

[16:19]

that one could then start to investigate, well, what is actually this concept referring to? A phenomenon is not the concept. However, there's no phenomenon without concepts. But there's more to a phenomenon than just the concept. There's also the dependable arising, or the fact that that phenomenon depends on other things. So one could investigate the dependent core arising, which means you're investigating the emptiness of the phenomena. But that's connected to, it's right in the neighborhood of the conception. But if you're elaborating the conception, then you don't have much ability to actually examine or discern what this conception is referring to. Okay?

[17:28]

So that was kind of a difficult definition, but actually kind of a helpful one because it kind of unpacks the process of insight. This particular definition is from the Mahayana Sutralankara. Sutra, you know, Mahayana, you know that one, right? In Sutra. And Alankara means light upon. So it's a light upon the Mahayana Sutras by Asanga. Chapter 14, verse 8. And this is not translated into English in total. But Asanga is, what is it? Mahayana Sutra Langkara and Mahayana Sutra Samgaraha that has been translated into English. The Compendium of Mahayana Sutras by Asanga, that's been translated, which is related.

[18:32]

And both those texts are somewhat, are often considered to be Yogacara commentaries on the Mahayana Sutras. And that other one too, the independence upon genuine stability due to directing the mind upon itself. Of course, that already sounds like Yogacara, right? And so that is from the Mahayana Sutra Alankara also. And in particular, I thought that... I thought that, and one I didn't read was, when the dispersion of attention to externals is calmed, and the mind remains upon its meditative object, so the mind's on a meditative object without being dispersed, without the attention being dispersed to external objects,

[19:47]

And this other one is calming the mind, in calming distractions towards outer objects, abiding in the mind itself. I thought those two sounded very much like, what? Huh? That sound familiar? Yeah, Bodhidharma, the Bodhidharma Prajnatara lineage. our lineage where Bodhidharma says outwardly don't activate the mind around objects. Not dispersing the attention to external objects or calming distraction towards outer objects. So those two definitions I thought were very similar to Bodhidharma's instruction. And those are instructions on shamatha.

[20:51]

Here's some more. This is from Mahamudra people and Akyoga people. Akyoga is sometimes called Dzogchen. In relationship, in relation to conception, steadily and non-conceptually, observe their nature in relationship to conceptions or conceptualization. You're looking at conceptualization. All of your ordinary mental experience is conceptualization. You're studying this conceptualization. In relationship to this conceptualization, steadily and non-conceptually observe the nature of these conceptions. In doing so, All these thoughts, all these conceptions are calmed in non-grasping.

[22:04]

Thus transforming the process of conception into the path. Another one is without distraction and without grasping. Okay? And what's his name? Wong Bo. Wong Bo says, if you want to be enlightened, just don't grasp or seek anything in mind. Just don't grasp or seek anything in mind. And here again, this is using, this is Wang Bo using the goal of the practice, of the path, as the meditation method.

[23:22]

Because non-grasping and non-seeking is Buddha. So, you want to realize Buddhahood? Just don't grasp or seek anything. Okay, so... All sentient beings just have karmic consciousness. Karmic consciousness is our... It's our way. It's our conditioning. Our conditioning to always be grasping for something. Grasping for some ground. However, there is no ground, but we don't let that stop us because although there's no ground, we've got conditioning working for us, so we just keep going for it even though there's no ground.

[24:31]

So our program is to grasp and seek and to conceptually elaborate conception and have ideas about ideas and make representations about representations. This is our programming and Some smart people think that that's pretty much it and you cannot get out of that programming. There's no way to do anything about it. And everything that you do try to do about it is the programming trying to change the programming and just makes the programming stronger and more devious and sleazy. And the proposal is that non-attachment, non-grasping, non-seeking actually is not part of that system and can revolutionize the organism.

[25:34]

And anything else the organism tries to do about the situation just makes it stronger and promotes the status quo. So that's a program. The deprogramming is don't grasp or seek anything in mind. Don't conceptually elaborate the categories of conception. And OK, so maybe perhaps I'll just stop there for a little while before I go on to the next major thing. Yes? . All objects of meditation are mental representations. The object is not mind.

[26:44]

The object is a concept. Now, mind always arises with concepts, but concepts are not mind. Consciousness is not a concept. Well, consciousness is a concept, but when consciousness arises, it arises with concepts. And the concepts are what the consciousness is aware of. Right? So when you have an experience, the things that usually you're watching arising and ceasing, your ordinary experiences, these are concepts arising and ceasing. So, this is what you're ordinarily seeing. Now you're paying attention to these concepts. What's the shamatha? The shamatha is looking at the concept, you relate to the concept, in a sense, like the mind relates to it. And by relating to the concept the way the mind relates to it, you in a sense are engaging with the mind. Pardon? Yeah, so you try to develop, you train yourself, you train yourself to be non-conceptual with the conceptions

[27:52]

which account from your experience, from your experiences or conceptions. So you try to develop this new way of being with concepts, which means you abide in the mind itself. So you kind of like jump back into the mind, sit in the mind, and do like the mind. The meditator sort of just becomes like the consciousness. And there's other aspects of consciousness you could use as modes of relating to concepts that are also like the nature of mind. I'm just choosing one so far. And I can mention others in a little while, but I'm just mentioning that the mind is basically non-conceptual about everything it's aware of. It just receives everything The mind sort of says, something's happening, phenomenon's happening, let it in. There's no kind of like, you know, St. Peter at the gate with the mind. Everything gets let in. And you'd be like that too.

[28:55]

You, the meditator or the meditating consciousness now, is just like that. So you're like, in that sense, you're engaging with the mind itself by taking on one of the main characteristics of consciousness, which is non-conceptualization or not having ideas about those ideas. So whenever there's a moment of experience, you got an idea, but there's not an idea about the idea. Consciousness doesn't have a bunch of ideas about idea. Now there are potential concepts, potential ideas about those ideas, but they're not activated. Right now, anyway, one idea is queen for the day, or queen for the moment, and consciousness is like aware of that, non-conceptually. So the meditation, the shamatha meditation, is you be like that. Whatever concept I give you, you kind of go, oh, okay.

[29:58]

And give me it back. You say, okay. Now take this one. All right. Give me it back. Okay. Okay. It's not kind of like, here's a concept. No thanks. Take it back. Here's a concept. Thanks, I like that one. Give it back to me. No, I'm keeping it. No, that's not shamatha. That's called being upset. That's what we're programmed to do, right? Give me those ideas. Don't give me those ideas. Give me those faces, not those faces. You know, give me a B. Give me a U. Give me a D. Give me a D. And so on. Not, you know, not those other concepts. I just want the Buddha. Okay? And this is, this turns out to be training in non-conceptualization, which is going to be very handy later, but also it's calming.

[31:05]

stabilize it and I don't want to say too many good things about it because you get excited and you won't be able to practice it okay any more questions about that the one thing that what whatever is arising whatever phenomena is arising Whenever a phenomena arises, whenever a concept, whenever a phenomena arises, it comes with a conventional designation, comes with this concept. Okay? Pardon? You just leave that one alone. Just leave it alone. That's called relating to this concept, which all phenomena come with, concepts, Leaving the concept alone as just a concept.

[32:07]

Don't elaborate on that at all. For example, don't say, that concept actually is what's happening. And it's actually identical to its Pentecostal writing. This is reality. Don't get into that. This is not going to calm you down. This is what you're ordinarily doing, going around saying, this is happening, it's true, blah, blah, blah. Don't do that. Give that up. You can't give up experience and conceptualization at the start. It's going on, but you can just let it be like that. You can let the seen be the seen, the heard be the heard, and the cognized be the cognized. Okay? It is possible to train yourself that way, supposedly. And it is calming to do so. And that is the cadence of a cigarette hat from the 50s. Yes? Oh, excuse me.

[33:11]

Christine is next. It gone? Yes, John? When you're leaning toward Samatha? Ready for Samatha? Ready for Samatha? Yeah? What problem does it have with engaging in shamatha? I see, yeah. Yeah, the conditioning. The program's coming in and saying, you know, we have what we call deprogramming for religious groups, right? So they deprogram the deprogramming of the deprogramming of the programming of the programming.

[34:17]

Yeah, there's a strong tendency to say you should be making comments on all this stuff. You shouldn't be, like, looking at something without a wisecrack or a criticism or something. Like, you just listen to the sound of the stream without saying, whoa, that is like beautiful. I mean, like, am I in like, and not that, but like that black sludge is washing away, so now it's getting even more beautiful, right? When I first was practicing with Suzuki Roshi, he said one time, when you see a flower and you say it's beautiful, that's a sin. So to see a flower, you see a flower like, you know, and then say, it's beautiful. That's like conceptual elaboration. You sinner. You shamata, you know, what do you call it? You shamata negligent. What? You shamata backslider.

[35:18]

Yeah, so there's a strong tendency to think you're, well, like I might even think your brain's going to die if it doesn't make these comments on your conceptions. That's why you need lots of quotes from lots of great masters to make you convinced that it won't do brain damage for you to just watch your conceptions without elaborating them. That this kind of training will not hurt you. And by the way, this is not mindlessness. Everything is going on as usual to some extent. It's just that there isn't this conceptual elaboration all the time. You're learning to be simple. Yes, yes and yes. Sitting here?

[36:28]

Yeah, here is a good start here. Your mind's gotten totally distracted now. Yes. Right, that's more like, well that's more like what we call, which I'm not talking about too much, but that's what we call excitation, that being excited. It's possible to not be excited and be into like this elaborate chatter about what's going on and be settled down and see a phenomena arising and not be excited and still be mentally elaborating.

[37:28]

But it's possible you'd be so excited you can't even like watch the arising and falling of phenomena. And in that case, what's usually recommended is following your breath. You say, well, I just said I was trying to follow my breath and I couldn't. But you may have to just keep working on following your breath until things calm down enough for you to do the Samatha practice. What you just described sounded pretty high level. High level meaning excessive. That sounded pretty excessive. Oh, okay. Well, no problem then. It's a what? It's a ripple. Okay. Well, wait a second now. If it's a ripple, now you switch from ripple to distracted. Now you're elaborating on that ripple, calling it distracted.

[38:35]

Are you going to leave it at ripple, or are you going to make it ripple, distraction, long time, wasting time? What's it going to be? What's the story here now? Let's have the straight story. You tell me the story, I'll tell you what it is, but you keep changing the story. You can't let it be without naming it. There's no phenomenon without naming. But you cannot elaborate on the name. Yeah. How do you give up elaborating on that? Oh, and yet. Yes. And yet maintain. And yet maintain. And yet maintain. Well, maybe you should, first of all, forget about and yet maintain effort. So not only give up mental elaboration, also give up the mental elaboration of maintain effort.

[39:41]

We're talking about something quite a bit harder than talking to yourself about maintaining effort. This is a big effort. This is like paying attention to what's happening, watch stuff happen, and then watch yourself Start to elaborate and give that up. Just talk about maintaining effort is a distraction. If you're doing this, you are maintaining effort. This is a big effort to pay attention to what's going on and catch yourself at elaborating on it and drop it. That's a big effort. This is called training yourself in stabilization. And to get into other talks like, well, this is not okay, I'm becoming a blah, blah, or how am I going to maintain effort? Those are more phenomena arising that you might get caught by and stop practicing this way. You can ask, yes, 70,000 more questions.

[40:44]

What does it mean to be distracted? It means that you are mentally, that you are conceptually elaborating on what's going on. It means that you're getting excited about external objects. It means that you're becoming, you're dispersing the attention to external objects. It means that you're conceptually elaborating on your experience, on the words that are what you're attending to. I don't know, was Adam or Samantha next?

[41:52]

I mean, Kendra or, was it Kendra? Yeah? Yeah, whatever's happening, it wouldn't be there if the mind wasn't letting it in. Yeah, kind of like, oh yeah. What elaborates? Conception. Conception can elaborate on conception. Well, you can have a concept like blue, and then you can have a concept like pretty, and you have a concept called distracted, and you can have a concept like bad meditator.

[42:59]

These are concepts. This is the process of conceptualization. Building in some coherent or incoherent fantasy way on what's going on until you have this wonderful mass of conceptualization and excitement. Where do conceptions come from? They come from, well, the brain. They come from the sun. They come from the moon. They come from the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas. But whenever you have an experience, every moment of your life, every experience you have, comes with a conception. Otherwise, it couldn't form into a phenomena. So when consciousness arises, it arises with a bunch of other four factors, like concentration, bending the mind towards the object, adverting towards the object,

[44:12]

feeling, overall conscious shape, and so on. Many factors always arise with consciousness, but those factors are called mental processes. They aren't consciousness itself. And consciousness can be aware of any of that stuff. But in a given moment, just one of them gets to be conceptualized as the phenomena that we're experiencing. Well, they keep coming in, but they can be like, you know, it can be like Kendra, Carol, Paul, Jane, Rosie, rather than Kendra,

[45:27]

Carol hates Kendra. Paul thinks Carol's stupid for that. Jane thinks I'm stupid for paying attention to this whole thing, and so do I. You know? You can, that's like, everything's a elaboration on what happened rather than concept, [...] concept. You make everything into this, you stick everything together. Plus also, Kendra, and that's like true. It's true that that's Kendra, that really is Kendra. And Kendra, and that's a solid thing called Kendra.

[46:05]

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