So, starting over again. So, this evening we're going to talk about the fourth foundation of mindfulness, which in the translation that was in your packet of the Satipatthana Sutta is called, not Foundations of Mindfulness, the great frames of reference, which I thought, you know, sometimes these different translations sort of shine a light and open things up a little bit. And what that opened up for me was realizing that with mindfulness, we have to be mindful of something. With consciousness we have to be conscious of something. And these foundations are the frames of reference for the operation of mindfulness itself or their attention.

[01:08]

It points to the way that the subject and object arise together. The mindfulness and the object of mindfulness. And in the introduction, Tanisaro Bhikkhu says that sati, mindfulness, is sometimes translated as non-reactive awareness, free from agendas, simply present with whatever arises, which sounds a lot like how we talk about zazen, no gaining intention. But he goes on to say, the activity of satipatthana, however, definitely has a motivating agenda. The desire for awakening, which is classed not as a cause of suffering, but as part of the path to its ending. The role of mindfulness is to keep the mind properly grounded in the present moment in a way that will keep it on the path.

[02:16]

And the fourth foundation, I think, really makes that explicit. It's the mindfulness of objects of mind, of what in the translation in your packet calls mental qualities. But I think objects of mind or mental contents, which is the way that this is rendered in many other translations, really brings it out more. The objects of mind or mental contents are are the dharmas, the uppercase dharmas, which are the teachings of the Buddhas and the Bodhisattvas, and the lowercase dharmas, which are the 10,000 things, anything that your mind can focus on.

[03:22]

It just means objects of mind. This fourth foundation of mindfulness is sometimes called the realm of dharma or the realm of dharmas. And it's what is made clear in that part of the sutra is how they operate together for good or for ill depending on how we practice with them. So it's in this fourth foundation where it's pretty clear how that agenda of the Satipatthana, of mindfulness, to use mindfulness to keep us on the path, how that is really explicitly operating. Sanusaro Bhikkhu talks about how this is a place where we are actively getting engaged in maximizing skillful mental qualities

[04:27]

and minimizing unskillful ones. So the dharmas that are focused on and explored most explicitly in this sutra include both skillful things that have to do with skillful and unskillful mental qualities, hindrances, fetters, and also factors of enlightenment. One book that I like a lot that focuses on the Satipaṭṭhāna is this book, Nāyāna Prāṇakātāra's The Heart of Buddhist Meditation, and it's about the Satipaṭṭhāna citta. And he says, the practice of direct observation of circumstances that favor or obstruct the arising and non-arising of the hindrances, fetters, and factors of enlightenment which

[05:29]

experiences which arise within the experiences of daily life, so that the single experiences of life interpenetrate with the Dharma, with the teaching, especially the Four Noble Truths. As we go into more detail about this, and Jerry's going to go into quite a bit more detail about how they all kind of weave and interpenetrate, you see that mutual activity Do you want that light raised? What? Do you want that light raised? I think it's okay. I think it's pretty good. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So that our life, our experience of one Dharma after another, phenomenon, one thing, the lamp is a lowercase dharma, the cup, a ballot, an election, a plank in a political platform, all of those dharmas.

[06:47]

The action of our practice includes the uppercase dharmas with which we operate in relation to those. and the spiritual practice becomes our life. So there are really a whole lot of dharmas, and I brought this book, it's The List of Lists, and it is a list of dharmas, of uppercase dharmas. So there are the 1s, the 2s, the 10s, the 15s, the 18s, the 27s, And on and on and on, and all these amazing lists. I just opened to the 14s, the 14 sins of slandering the law, which are haughtiness, neglect, self-centeredness, shallowness, sensuality, irrationality, unbelief, sullenness, doubting, slander,

[07:57]

scorning goodness, hating goodness, jealousy of goodness, and grudging goodness. So it goes all the way up to the 3000, which are the 3000 realms in Tendai. And when Bruce and I were looking at this earlier, You were the one who said it's missing the 75, what? Peter. The 75. Well, the list of dharmas in all the various schools have slightly different lists and they're all 75 to 100 or so. So those ones don't appear there. And I was looking for the seven niyamas, which are sometimes called the laws of the universe, and karma is just one of those. the laws of physics and biology and seeds and some other laws. And that wasn't in here, so there are even more of this.

[09:01]

We all got kind of just sort of sucked into looking at this because it's kind of fun. But I think that just the bulkiness of it shows the extent to which the complexity of the whole thing and the extent to which there's been an effort to penetrate that complexity. So in the Satipatthana Sutta, the dharmas that are focused on there are the five hindrances, desire, aversion, torpor, sometimes called sloth, restlessness and anxiety, and doubt or uncertainty. So those are the five hindrances. The five clinging aggregates, which we call the five skandhas, form, feeling, perceptions, formations, and consciousness.

[10:10]

The six senses, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind, The seven factors of awakening, which include mindfulness, effort or persistence, rapture, serenity, concentration, and analysis of qualities or investigation of the Dharma. That's a list we don't rattle off real often in our practice, the seven factors of enlightenment. And then the four noble truths. And particularly the Eightfold Path, where right mindfulness is one of the factors. Jerry's going to talk a lot about the inner penetration of all of these dharmas with each other. And a lot of this sutra is concerned with that.

[11:13]

how the clinging attributes, aggregates, cause, are the source of suffering, which tenisorobicu in your packet renders as stress, which I think is another word that kind of opens it up and shines a light, and broadens the sense of it, at least for me it does. So Nyanaponika says, the dharmas should be absorbed as much as possible into the thought patterns of daily life and should replace those concepts which cannot stand the scrutiny of right understanding. So avoiding the hindrances of the fetters and developing the factors of awakening and practicing the Eightfold Path. It was also interesting to find him talking about things that cannot stand the scrutiny of right understanding, and it made me think back to Alan's talk about the Kalama Sutta and how the Buddha said, you know, we are to subject everything to the scrutiny of our own testing, to not believe anything just because it's

[12:47]

It's taught, but we have to prove everything true for ourselves and subjecting it to the scrutiny of right understanding. So in addition to that, I wanted to talk about the parts of this that are repeated over and over again in all of the foundations of mindfulness. I think it was Peter who talked about those repetitive parts that often get rendered as dot dot dot because we've encountered them and they're wordy and they're long and they keep coming back and keep coming back. Sometimes it seems like they're there because it's an oral tradition and it helps people remember.

[13:54]

But actually, I think also it's the most important part. It's how to do it. And what repeats over and over again is in the practice of mindfulness, the monk remains focused on the body, the breath, feeling, the mind state, the object of mind, remaining focused on it in and of itself, in and of itself, putting aside reference to the world. So I think what that's really describing is their attention. What it called up for me was I used to go to a yoga class and the teacher would say to feel the asana, the posture inside the body.

[15:03]

To know and understand and explore the posture inside the body, not trying to make it look like her or not trying to make it look like our idea of an ideal of how it would look. So remaining focused on whatever it is in and of itself, putting aside reference to the world. And then remaining ardent, alert, and mindful. So I think this describes the quality of effort. I think it describes effort itself. The effort of Zazen that is simply Zazen for the sake of Zazen.

[16:08]

Ardent, alert, and mindful. I got really interested in effort. I sat the election session. or walked the election session. And we were really involved in putting forth a lot of effort without getting attached to results. So I got really interested in effort. What is effort? Just as effort. And I think this describes kind of the flavor of it. The alertness, the paying attention, and the word ardent.

[17:10]

A kind of a devotion. So ardent, alert, and mindful, remaining focused on the phenomenon of origination, remaining focused on the phenomenon of passing away, remaining focused on the phenomenon of origination and passing away, which is what we do in Zazen, watching things arise, abide, and pass away. He's pointing to not watching the thing itself arising, abiding, and passing away, but that phenomenon of arising, of origination, and passing away.

[18:18]

And I think for me, I experience it in that time between the end of the out-breath and the beginning of the in-breath when somehow there is that origination of the breath. And applying that to all of these frames of reference, these foundations, the body, the breath, feeling, mind state, and then these objects of mind, how they first begin to make themselves seen. Somebody once described the attitude of mindfulness as being like two sumo wrestlers.

[19:22]

They're poised, very balanced, very, very carefully. And each one trying to see the movement of the other one before it actually quite begins. So they can be ahead of that. Attending so carefully that you can see the the origination of the movement right at the beginning. Not the movement itself, but that origination, that spot between when it's not there and when it is there. So remaining focused on dharmas, on the dharma, in and of itself, putting aside reference to the world, ardent, alert, and mindful, effortful, remaining focused on the phenomenon of origination, of passing away, of origination and passing away.

[20:36]

Mindfulness that there is a whatever it is. Mindfulness that there is a body. Mindfulness that there is feeling. Mindfulness that there is a state of mind. Mindfulness that there is a Dharma. Is maintained simply to the extent of knowledge and recollection. And she remains independent, unsustained by not clinging to anything in the world. Empty of whatever is not there. So just this. Just this Dharma. Just this thing. Just this teaching.

[21:38]

Just this. Just this. And nothing extra. Which is what we do in Shikantaza. So as I studied this, it really began to seem to me like a description of Zazen practice, of how we actually do it, even though it's coming from a different approach to Buddhist practice and understanding. doing Zazen practice with regard to the actual experience of Dharma in daily life, remaining focused on it in and of itself, making an effort, watching it arise and pass away and being mindful of it in and of itself.

[22:48]

So it reminded me of an instruction I heard once of how to listen to a Dharma talk. And the instruction was to just let it come in, not to think about it, not to try to remember it, not to try to hang on to it, but just to let it come in, being attentive to it and mindful of it as it comes in. but not thinking about it. And then finding that at exactly the right moment, somehow that phrase that shines a light on what's happening, that word or that bit of Dharma arises right in the middle of daily life when I need it. Nyanaponika Thera in here says that among the Mahayana schools Chan and Zen are closest to the spirit of Satipatthana and he points out that what we have what they have in common is direct confrontation with actuality including one's mind and the objects of mind merging of everyday life with meditation practice

[24:23]

and the transcending of conceptual thought with direct observation, the emphasis on the here and now. So it was pretty striking to me. You know, it felt like he started out saying, no, no, that's not what's going on here and then wound up there in the conclusion. So I'm going to Stop now and see if you have questions or comments or Jerry if you have something you want to throw in. Okay. These are the awarenesses that arise as I kind of have a series of nows.

[25:31]

As my day flows and as time flows. It's the awareness of watching things arise and go back down. To realize that arising does create a passing away. And all these things come and all these things go. And it brings me to an end of the flow. And it allows the flow to happen. I'm more willing to let go and to not seize any part of the middle of the flow and try to make it something that it's not. Just to experience it and be exactly what it is. And as we internalize this, as the flow includes receiving teaching, that becomes part of it. Yes, thank you very much. Did you have a question? I'm sorry, I don't know your name. Joanna, yeah. All right. similarities of our experience in Zazen with looking at, you know, kind of getting this understanding of the multiplicity of dharmas, sort of like the contents of Zazen experiences, all these little pieces that just sort of go by one after another.

[26:52]

It's kind of like in Ghana, you know, all the little stuff that's happening. Yeah. And then just recognizing it. Oh. I had an experience recently where I was really recognizing my own hindrances, you know, while just in the midst of them, first experiencing the suffering of it, And then being able to name, oh, that's that hindrance that's coming up. And then to watch it, you know, watch the sensation in my body, watch the knowledge that it was a hindrance, not what I want to feed, not where I want to go.

[27:55]

And simply to allow that to affect, to kind of watch it affect what was going on rather than make it affect that. I was struck and appreciated your description of flow of the origination and passing away, which the Satipatthana Sutra directs us to. As it so happens, today I was reading a little something about how Stephen Hawking makes the point that time is a dimension like space. and thus there's no beginning or end.

[29:08]

Which brought me back to Gengar Khan. On the one hand, as all things are Buddhadharma, there's birth and death. There's origination and passing away. As the myriad things are without an abiding self, there's no origination and no passing away. We chant this pretty much every day with the heart sutra, the core of the heart sutra. And in sitting with breath, there's that moment in between one breath and another, where on the one hand there's a transition, which you can be very aware of, and on the other hand, at a certain moment, there's no stopping or starting.

[30:13]

One moment is not, and the next minute... That's right. It does not flow from moment to moment. It's moment, moment, moment... Each moment is eternal. I don't know that I'm going anywhere with this, but the Satipaṭṭhāna, I guess what I struggle with the Satipaṭṭhāna Sutra is it seems heavily weighted in one direction, in the coming and going direction, and watching it appear and watching it disappear, as compared to some of the more dialectical Buddhist Mahayana pieces. And I'm wondering, how you reconcile the two practices? So are they two practices or are they one practice? Yeah, I do. That's an interesting question. I'm thinking about when Alexandra and I did a class on the Four Foundations of Mindfulness and that question was raised at the beginning, you know, is there some

[31:25]

conflict or some disagreement between this kind of approach and what we do. And it didn't seem to me at the time, and it doesn't seem to me now, but I don't know. And I particularly appreciated finding that non-contradiction right in the middle of this. On the other hand, you know, different strokes for different folks. You know, what is helpful on the path in the practice for one person may be rather different from what is helpful for another, and they don't necessarily stand against each other or contradict each other. and one, which is sort of impossible, except that that's what we are.

[32:40]

Are you raising your hand over there? Yeah, I have it, but it's not for me. I feel so unschooled with all of this that we talked about earlier. What comes to mind in this question is also, is there any relevance to it being the relative and the absolute? That looking at just this moment, just this moment, just this moment would kind of align with the absolute perspective and the kind of more wave of coming and going and abiding would feel like the more relative because this is the everyday world and we have that sensation. Yeah, is it a particle or a wave? Where is it when we're trying to look at it? Where was it before we started trying to look at it? Yeah, in terms of, you know, Bob's question in this basic sort of issue is like, you know, basically it's like, you know, the different screens say this, which is really kind of like the dynamics of how the mind works. like in the Madhyamaka, which really kind of talking about just the nature of things ultimately.

[33:51]

And I think there's kind of like that issue of like, okay, this is the way things are in a sense, but then the fact that this However it happened that things got carried along from the previous moment, here we have something and yet everything has no permanent reality, but things do happen and we do have cause and effect. We have conditions. We have causes and conditions that are just like stewing around in this big pot. Yeah, yeah, [...] yeah. It just seems that there's a possibility of getting really entranced and engaged in figuring it all out, which might not happen at any point.

[35:32]

Yeah, and then you find in a moment the thing that's happening is rage and the desire to hurt somebody. And what uppercase Dharma steps in there and helps you, you know, what in the whole practice of your life is there for you, happens along with the rage and the urge to hurt somebody, you know, where the rubber hits the road. How did we get there in a way so as to not harm, so as to move in the direction of the good, so as to move in the direction of awakening? How does that happen? Sue? Yeah, I think that in the midst of rage or upset, the place of benefit is to recognize it and what is the most beneficial outcome?

[36:42]

What can I call it? Because the worst thing is, if you're in an argument, which I was today, to figure out whose fault it was first. We want to get down to how it started, the origin of it. There's sort of a useless, futile energy in that. In family systems work, the classic thing on that is, if you're working with couples, one person said, well, I withdraw because you nag. The other person said, well, I nag because you withdraw. And so actually, it's usually referred to in the family existence therapy system, it's arbitrary punctuation of continuous flow. But that's what we do.

[37:42]

We punctuate. I'm starting from this point. Oh, you're starting from that point. And it looks pretty different. And, you know, in this whole part with the dharmas, particularly I'm thinking about the Eightfold Path and the precepts that we work with, which are also dharmas. And, you know, one person withdraws because the other person nags when, you know, and how an argument happens. And I think about Martin Luther King Jr. saying, you know, at some point somebody has to stand up and say, no, not going forward with this. You know, somehow that dharma comes up. That dharma originates in the moment and arbitrarily punctuates a flow that otherwise would keep going.

[38:46]

I think I saw a hand over here. Thank you. My question is, what are the signs of starting getting out of awareness and going to the realms of sacrosanct? Before we get in the center of the storm of evolving with all those, what could be the sign, what can be the sign of, you know, getting out of mindfulness. Especially the point of decision making. It's important to not be involved with any specific thinking. Be mindful and make a decision. But how we can make it, how we can be sure that at this point of decision making, we are mindful.

[39:54]

What are the signs of that? How can we recognize? That's a good question. How to recognize when mindfulness is present. When mindfulness... When there is mindfulness. When there is not mindfulness. My sense of it is more we have a sense of when there is not mindfulness because it hurts. But I'd love to hear from other people. You were referring to making choices, is that right? It was a question about how do we know when we are being mindful in decision-making or making choices.

[40:57]

Is that right? It's not just about making choices, but also one kind of decision-making is choosing among the choices. The other thing that came to me in reference to that was, is there a sense of freedom? Is choice really choice? Maybe that's a time that you are mindful of. I was going to say that sometimes when I don't know how to make a decision, I feel ambivalent about a situation.

[42:14]

I'll flip a coin. I'll say, heads will be this and tails will be that. I'll flip a coin. And then the coin tells me what I'm supposed to do. And then I recognize or I feel how I feel about that. Am I disappointed by that? It's just one way to help me bring myself to an awareness of how I really feel about it and what's really going on. I was thinking basically, you know, when an action takes place, a thought forms or a word comes out of your mouth or you do something, that there is, there has been, there's some volition somewhere along the way.

[43:23]

So it's not like there wasn't, I mean, so you can see the output. Am I, is that, so you can see the output You're seeing it way down the line. You're not seeing where the choice was made. So often we watch people's reactions and people's actions. And maybe they don't know where it came from. But at some point in their mental process, there was some volition there. There was some intention that came up in that sequence of events that led to whatever it is the outcome is. And looking for that, actually searching for that. I mean, why did I say that? Yeah. How could I have done that? Reverse engineering. Yeah. Some decision was made. Some mind object forms, some sequence of feelings happened, and then there you were. Yeah, and then that becomes part of what you bring to the next time.

[44:27]

Yeah. You know, your own self... developing Dharma in a learning school of hard knocks. I wonder if the question also had something in it about safety, that when I want to make a decision, I want to make a decision that's going to be safe. don't do anything. Decision is the one that arises. So sometimes I have to just jump off route. I just have to do something. And not worry about the safety of it. One of the things I find that's really really helpful for myself in terms of mindfulness is the question of where am I?

[45:34]

because if my body is not relaxed and at ease and if I feel as if my energy is up above the neck and that's where everything is taking place, the whole universe just exists from here on up, I'm not being the least bit mindful. But it's this kind of question, we talk about here again and again, it's like, where's your breath? you know, doing things, awareness of your feet, where are you standing, what's going on, it's just like these basic, very, very body things of, you know, it's like, this is a body process, mindfulness. So, and it's Just to underline, or add a little to what John was saying, in answer to your question for signs, if it feels supple and pliant, that's usually a good sign.

[47:01]

And if it feels rigid or hard, that's usually a little bit of a warning, for me anyway. So I'm seeing the timekeeper. We'll have a five-minute break, I think, yeah. And please try to maintain two minutes, three minutes. A very short break. Please try to remain silent during that time. Like this.

[48:07]

Remember this on the rising and passing away. Bye. So I took a different tack and basically went back to, why are we doing all of this anyway?

[49:55]

It felt a lot, reading this, or reading these approaches, felt a lot like reading Nagarjuna, talking about the Middle Way. Basically, all of these mindfulness practices are leading to the same place. So, which dharma, which phenomenon that you're looking at, is irrelevant, in a way, taking this view of it. Because every Dharma, looking at every Dharma, we learn the same thing. Basically, we learn that it's impermanent, we learn that it's empty, we learn that it rises and falls. So we just repeat this pattern, this formula, over and over again, of how we deal with everything. And so, it feels very formulaic to me. But I also went back to looking at kind of what we mean by a mental object.

[51:12]

What do we mean by a mental object? And so I thought about, and why is it important and how does it come to be? And through the investigation of each dharma, that's what we look for is where Where does it come to be? What are the processes that happen? What's going on as these things happen? And the basic happening is a phenomena arises and there's a series of reactions that we have and part of it, one of those reactions is the formation of a mental object. And that mental object is something that we store, that we construct. So that it no longer exists as some external object that becomes our own construction. And we put those in a pile and we store them away in our storehouse consciousness.

[52:19]

And they begin to have a life of their own. But never forgetting, and that's where the issue starts. It starts with the initial contact. It starts with the contact with the sense organ or the mind organ and then proceeds from there in terms of our reaction. I thought about the Sandokai, we chant eye and sight, ear and sounds, nose and smells, tongue and taste, thus with each and everything depending upon these roots, the leaves spread forth. In other words, all these inputs that we have are the source and the rest of it, the contact of the eye organ with a stimulus, is all that it takes for us to begin our construction of a world of suffering for ourselves.

[53:23]

The only thing that happens really externally is that initial contact. Everything else is kind of an interdependence of things that are going on with the different parts of our consciousness and the different parts of our minds. So we store these and we store them and we construct then this sense of separateness based on the mental objects that we use or that we construct. And then based on that we just start to develop patterns of reactivity that come from these patterns, these stored pictures, these stored mental objects become the way that we react. An example of this would be if anger arises

[54:28]

We have a mental picture, a mental object of anger and a whole way of reactivity pattern that we deal with that mental object. For example, we often have an idea that when we feel angry, that means that someone externally has done something to us, has wronged us. And then we have a certain way of reacting to that. So we might, and that way of reacting then creates a kind of cycle of karmic actions that have effects in the world that are harmful to us. And all of that is based on this same delusion of separateness and permanence and basically the basic ignorance. So to overcome our ignorance the sutra tells us to be present and curious about all the dharmas. and to ask questions about them.

[55:33]

And it does this in this repetitive way, but then it kind of, it basically comes up with a formula. So it gives us a formula for every time we encounter a mental object. A mental object arises for us from contact with a phenomenon. We go through the series of questions, and I think Catherine talked about them. How does a monk remain focused on mental qualities in and of themselves with reference to the five hindrances? There is a case where there being sensual desire present within a monk, a monk discerns there is sensual desire present within me. He discerns how the arising of the non-arisen sensuality comes to be. He discerns how there is an abandoning of sensual desire once it is arisen. And he discerns how there is no future arising of sensual desire that has been abandoned. This sequence is repeated for all of the same dharmas.

[56:35]

And so we are just given a formula, and it's kind of irrelevant what the particular dharmas are. Whatever we encounter, we treat in the same way. We treat with this curiosity, with asking these questions and these observations. So I thought about the list a lot, and whether or not given, because I was resistant to the list, And so I thought, well, is there a list that I use? Is there a favorite list? Bob said, you're going to tell us about the list, right? So I sort of decided on a list. This is a list that I use. And it is a list that I'm going to fall on my face with. So here's a list. This is a list. for me that I use, actually similar to Lori's, that she gave a talk on some time ago. And it's basically pulling apart our creation of mental objects and our creation by using mindfulness to look at all the basic steps that underlie all of the phenomenon, our experience with all of the external phenomenon.

[57:54]

These are called the five ever-present mental factors. And I like them because they're ever-present. So I can have them for any situation without picking up a different one. So here's the first ever-present factor is contact. And that's what Catherine was talking about is bare awareness. Basically, some object meets our sense organs, or some object arises in our mind. some dharma arises in our mind, and that it is just there. Contact, if we just stop at contact, we just have this experience, we see the color red, we have the experience. If we stop at that, if we let it go, there we are. No karma is created. But generally, what happens is we go from contact to discrimination or discernment. We talked a little bit about that last week. So what happens there is then We start checking into our storehouse consciousness.

[58:58]

We start checking into our mind consciousness and our sense consciousness. We start checking in with the other parts of our mind. And we start making descriptions of what this phenomena is. So it's red. It's square. It looks like a female figure. It looks like a male figure. use our mind to tell us something about what was happening with this contact and the bare awareness. If we left it a bare awareness, it would just be eye red. Now it's not. Now it becomes something because we immediately are creating here. And the minute we start to create, we start creating a separate object. We start creating an object that has certain characteristics and then we check in with our memories and our storehouse consciousness, so we have some reactions to that. So pretty soon we have created a separate mind object. We've pulled up an object, or we've created an object.

[60:01]

And it's an object that's separate from us that has certain characteristics. If we sit with that, maybe we can go a little deeper and do more discernment, more being with that object, rather than reacting. or feeling, but we're just more curious to that object, and we let ourselves be with that. But then, almost always, and often we don't even see this part, because we go contact, storehouse consciousness, and feeling. So we bypass the actual discrimination or discernment process to get into the feeling part. And the feeling part is primarily a lot, there are some, some actual sense-oriented response, but also a lot of it, a lot of the feeling, the emotional feeling, as opposed to just the sensate feeling, is really something that has been created a long time ago.

[61:04]

The seeds of this have been created a long time ago. So it's a programmed response. It becomes a programmed response after a while. And so we have our automatic responses. But then there is the next. part of the ever-present mental factor of intention or volition. And that is really important to me, because that is the factor where we have a choice. We have free will. We can form an intention. We have a picture of what's going on. We have our mental object. We have our feelings about it. We don't have to react as if it's real. If we react as if it's real, then we want it. We might want it. We might have an aversion to it. We might be indifferent to it. But some volitional or intentional intention which results in volitional action then. And this is where our habitual responses are.

[62:08]

So this is where we end up over and over again getting caught in some repetitive harmful action of grasping action or an aversion action that we have that we're programmed to do. And the last ever-present factor is attention. And Catherine talked about that a little bit. And that is basically paying attention to the rest of it. So if we concentrate our attention, then we're aware of the contact. And we're aware of the discernment process or discrimination process. we're aware of the feeling and we're aware of the illusion. So I like that list. Because for me it kind of speaks to the dynamism of what goes on as we're going through this and how quickly it races around with each other. And the whole point of these... Can I just ask a question? Sure. Would you say that attention is what we're talking about as mindfulness in this book?

[63:13]

Yeah, I think so. I think attention is mindfulness, but it has a certain energy to it that feels like it also has some effort involved. Yeah, that ardent... The ardent paying attention. Yeah. It's not calmly doing a body scan. It's ardent and alert and directed. So it's connected with volition rather than your attention is drawn to some object of desire or Like paying attention. Yeah, being really and paying attention. Right. So... I think what I like about this is the slowing down of everything. Because you can catch it at any point.

[64:15]

You can catch it at a point where you immediately go to constructing your mental object. You can catch it at a feeling state, you can catch it at different places, but paying attention to it slows everything down. Just like asking the question, when did it arise? I mean, all of these things seem to me to be designed to slow everything down and to develop a pattern of how you react to phenomena. Every phenomena gets reacted to by, oh, this phenomena, what happened? How did it arise? What was the contact? What's the feeling associated with it? What am I making out of this contact? What have I constructed here? So it's a pattern of being. And it doesn't really matter which of the negative hindrances or which of the wholesome factors or which of these lists of things you're coming in contact with, they all kind of come from the same process. Part of or triggers of an analytical process?

[65:22]

Well, an observant process. I don't know about an analytical process, but it's like when I start to look at how something arose, right? How did it arise? This is kind of how I would look at, how did it arise? You're talking about how did it arise? It arose from the unarisen. So how did this arise? How did this pass away? Because you can watch this process and depending upon your, you can see something, you can discriminate and make something out of it. Then you can kind of check in with your past experience or where you can say, this is an unwholesome feeling, I'm going to just let this one go. So you can slow it down at each place and stop the progression to the point where you get into this perhaps harmful volitional action. So I was thinking about the thing where he was talking about the monk being sensual, right?

[66:28]

So the monk's there, monk sees object of sexual, potential sexual desire, but not necessarily. Monk sees woman. You know, without the, you know, monk sees person, being. Monk sees being. Then discrimination happens. Oh, this being has blonde hair. This being has a nice figure. This being, you know, so pretty soon a construction of a desirable being has been created. And then that triggers the feeling of, oh, hmm, desire. I want this. This being that I created separate from myself is something that I can desire. So now I want that being. And so then I have to go through my intention. Then I get, if I can stop myself or think about it, then I can kind of look at, okay, now what's going on here? How am I reacting to this? What kind of mental action am I taking, which could be dwelling on it?

[67:33]

I could be dwelling on it, or I could say something, or I could do something, that all would then have some karmic effects. And also, at that point of, oh, I'm this celibate monk and I'm noticing the arising of desire here, if I'm schooled in the hindrances, I may think, oh, desire, that's a hindrance. Yeah. Right. I might think of my vow naturally arising because it's so completely internalized into who I am at that point that it naturally arises at that point and affects whether I dwell on it or I don't. Right. And if you're mindful of that process, the process is slowed down enough that by the time you really feel the feeling, you're feeling the feeling in your body and your mind so that

[68:35]

It's not like you can do something stupid before you notice. Yeah. So it seems like in this scenario here, that's the place where there's really the opportunity to come with the question, how do I want to create my internal and external world? Yeah. Make a choice there. It's also the most dangerous place because, you know, philosophical action creates a bigger impression. Consciousness or something. Like it's karma. Yeah, that's where the karma happens. Yeah. That's where it's happening. That's where the karmic action happens. It seems like some of the earlier phases, you have to be pretty slow, pretty slow down to get that. Well, yeah, I remember I was in there talking a lot about the slowing down.

[69:37]

about the slowing down and how critical that is as we apply this in formal sitting meditation and then take it out the gate into where we can't slow it down quite as much but that what we've trained ourselves in comes up in those moments. I mean, there was another diagram that I couldn't find, but it was too complicated to show anyway. But it was kind of in following from the volitional action, which comes out of generally desire or aversion. Then these other negative factors start to happen. So you kind of have these sprawl out from that place of desire then. a whole bunch of other negative mental factors will show up for a place of wholesome action or wholesome action and positive, wholesome mental factors.

[70:44]

But when you start to trace it back, looking at the outcome of it, that's another, you can start back, you can start with the volitional action. The learning process taking place by sort of, well I got myself into quite a mess here, how do I get here? How do I get here? and that becoming part of what you bring to the next time. Right. The other list that I thought was helpful for me in terms of actually are regularly using these lists in some kind of meaningful way on a day-to-day basis was when the end of the section really goes from all of these other dharmas, from all of the more complex or remote dharmas to the Four Noble Truths.

[71:58]

And then what's associated with dealing with the causes of suffering is sometimes called the six realms, which is craving, freedom from craving, anger, absence of anger, harming and non-harming. So it seemed, again, looking into craving and being mindful of craving. That points again to some process in which I have constructed something separate from myself. So it's again going back to I've constructed a mental object separate from myself that I want.

[73:00]

And so looking at, again, looking at spending time on looking at where craving came from in this sequence of events, where craving came from and when craving lets go. And anger, these are the kind of, which generally comes from an aversion process, how that is arising from this process, what are the habitual reactions and what are the habitual patterned responses to anger and how I see those arise or not arise knowing that when these strong feelings, these basic feelings of desire and craving or aversion and anger come up they're based on the original construction of something separate and I have to go back to go follow and follow them back to where that process started to where that creation of the separate separateness in this particular situation

[74:03]

started and have to go back to how it was constructed and how, again, what kind of stored responses, stored memories, and stored pictures there are that actually brought this stuff up. So I was thinking about If I look at anger, if I look at the anger, I can see the color of the anger, I can feel the anger in my body, where it's affecting my body. And my body can be tense and painful. And then I can also watch the patterns of reaction to that anger. If that anger results in hurtful speech, in hurtful action towards others, then I know that's karmic action, that that action is going to cause harm.

[75:11]

And then if I practice letting go of that anger, then I can experience, and I watch the letting go of that anger, I can experience the relaxation of the body. I can experience the place where I make a decision to take action in that situation or not take action. And I can feel what that feels like and I'm mindful of what that feels like. So I can see the whole picture as I'm doing it and slow it all down in a way so that I get a chance to actually perhaps transform what would be a habitual pattern. So if I have a pattern that tends to be reactivity in a certain way, as I slow it down and as I watch taking a different action, making a different choice, a different volitional action, then I can also watch it backwards. This is like the lesson plan for the karmic school of hard not.

[76:18]

Yeah. through this process, where does emptiness enter into it for you, and how does it form at different stages of the transactions? The fact that you can watch the change and the process happen, and you can watch it go. That very watching of this pattern, that you're making something out of nothing, and that if you stop making something, then there isn't anything separate from you.

[77:28]

if you stop at that place where I make that separateness, where I create that form separate from myself. So if you watch yourself create it, you can watch that it's a mirage, something that you've totally fabricated yourself. I mean, I've had this experience, I'll let you bring up the example of driving for example. While we drive home, all of a sudden they don't come to me on the first reaction. It's crazy. And we're all going, it's crazy. It's like, oh, what? And so we're listening. But at some point, we might get in front of them and breathe. Then all of a sudden, I realize that I'm connected to the person in the car. I'm connected to the motor car. That I don't have to create car recognition because, really, this is all just my own delusion. And that if I come back to the present moment, being in the here and now, in the place in which I sit, and I proceed along at some kind of pace. Yeah. Do we have any other questions?

[78:34]

So I was just thinking about that, wondering whether or not it's something about agitation that's born of the recognition that either I'm going to get something I don't want, or I'm not going to get something I want. It's connected either with desire or ill will or aversion. So some kind of agitation intense anxiety about it. I don't know. Anyway, I'm just trying to deconstruct the word into the language that we have in front of us. The mental construction of fear? Yeah. Something that identifies fear is something that I don't see a word for it in the dharmic language that I'm familiar with. Chögyam Trungpa has a wonderful piece on the four foundations of mindfulness that's quite different from what we usually get.

[80:08]

And he names the foundations quite differently. And where we usually have the mindfulness of feeling, he calls it mindfulness of life. and he says that at its base it is raw anxiety and that it is raw anxiety about survival and that that is what underlies, you know, the Satipatthana Sutra talks about feeling in terms of positive, negative, or neutral. And what he says is, support survival, threaten survival, doesn't have anything to do with survival. And that's all about fear. And it's just because we're bodies. There's another sutra, the Buddha Tuka Sutra, which actually talks about fear and anxiety and actually looks at

[81:13]

that is based on believing in a self that can die, basically. And so by going through the same pattern of very meticulously taking things apart and looking element by element in the same way that this sutta is talking about, or the way that Nagarjuna is talking about, if you take it apart bit by bit, then you see the emptiness of it, and then you are liberated. you no longer are subject to birth and death. So that ultimate anxiety of non-existence is at the heart of it. Or belief in a self. Belief in a self. And then you're subject to birth and death. Or belief in a body. Belief in a body that can deteriorate. That is I. Belief that I am my body. And that is terrifying. Old age and death, you know. Yes? I'd like to come back to volition and intention. Peter mentioned that's a way, a possible opening and a way in, which I think you've talked about.

[82:28]

And he also mentioned it's a risky place. And I confess when he said, so we have free will. For me, the verdict's kind of still out on that one. This is actually a fairly serious issue for me. I'm pretty impressed with how I can form intentions, wholesome intentions, and have them totally fall apart. and fail. It actually was about 10 years ago. I had a pretty intense incident where I really was clear about my intention and summoned all of my willpower, et cetera, and totally wound up doing something that I really did not want to do, which had very bad consequences for me.

[83:34]

And it was very humbling and scary. On the one hand, I kind of like to feel like intention and volition are helpful. On the other hand, I sometimes feel like the more I rely on volition, the more I reinforce my illusory sense of self. And if I don't rely on volition, The only thing I kind of know to do is sort of fall back on faith and just kind of practice and keep on doing it and hope that somehow this whole conglomeration of whatever somehow shapes things in some kind of positive direction. But I must say, faith kind of gets a little shaky too. Then I kind of go to intention. Well, what's the difference? Oh, now that's interesting.

[84:36]

What's the difference between intention and faith? Isn't faith an act of intention? Actually, not for me. What was faith in neglect? Well, I can see you're putting it into an intention. I have faith in the teachings of the Buddha. I have faith in the vows. I have faith in the practice. Therefore, I'll trust the practice. I turn my self. You do something. There's some giving. There's some surrendering to the practice. There is an action. It's a karmic action. It is an action. Yes? that if you don't have some kind of intention within yourself or some kind of volition in yourself, then there's always going to be some force out there.

[85:49]

There's always going to be something that's going to cause you to act. So I think it's like, if you're having intention, then you're consciously saying, this is my intention. And whether or not that action works one way or the other, you can't know. That's sort of the arbitrariness of life, I think. It's funny because there's the phrase, I did this in good faith. At least I know that when I started doing this, I had this intention. And I do believe that counts for something. Whereas if you say, when I did this, I just said, sometimes I have an intention, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. So I'm just not even going to have an intention. Then I think in a way, there is some, in terms of karma, which is kind of the way it's talking about responsibility in a way for actions. I feel like that's why intention is important, but you never know. You never know. I mean, sometimes you need something. Well, well, I think you're getting at something important, especially when you said you never know, because in intention, you know, intention conditions karmic effects, but we never really know

[87:07]

what they are entirely. So you know the our intention in living by vow is very important and at the same time there's an enormous amount of faith involved because we don't know. But there's also a kind of a it's also a safety valve the fact that we actually don't have to act on our on the feelings that come up. Automatically. Automatically. There's some place where we process that, right? We can feel murderous rage and only a handful of people act on that. If everyone, you know, and some of it is biological and all this other stuff, but also part of it is if I really do a vow and I really, that vow is really sacred to me, then the feelings don't turn into something that's unwholesome in terms of... I may still have a feeling that has an effect on me that's a negative and unwholesome effect just by having that feeling, but the way that I work with that feeling is different if I set an intention.

[88:30]

And if we talk about intention and we talk about it from a grounding in non-self, that basically kind of pulls the rug out from under our normal way of thinking about my intention to be this or that. And what we're really left with when we talk about intention from that perspective is faith. It is throwing body and mind into the house of Buddha. It's that kind of intention. There's no self. So that faith issue I think is just really current. That's all there is. And we have to make an effort. The time comes when you have to make the call. You know, it comes, coming back to what Ahura was saying, you know, when I have to make a decision, when I have to do this or that, not do this or that, whoa, how do I know if I'm being mindful, bringing my full self to it, dwelling in that place?

[90:03]

What were you saying? I didn't get you. Oh, yeah, I was just signaling that. Yeah, it's time. He's waving the big stick. Yeah, he's waving the big stick. But, yeah, it doesn't mean that you've already. If there's anybody else who has anything to say. Yeah. I think about something that you were commenting, you think about, and it came to me, too, that sometimes I really sway between having a really strong intention and then going But I just thought about the whole idea of gaining an idea, and I would try to do something, and I think that this is what I really want. And then that faith and that intention, I end up learning something about myself that I didn't know before. And I think what really gets me in trouble is the whole concept of gaining something, getting somewhere. As opposed to? Or as opposed to really the intention is to be compassionate to all beings.

[91:11]

No, you're not. It's like just doing it by the sake of doing it. Without thinking that I'm going to get there. So I just, the whole concept of getting there just came up for me. That has gotten me in trouble a lot. When I set up my intention and then I think I'm going to get somewhere. I always get somewhere, but I may not be necessarily where I thought I would get. No, I really agree. Thank you, everyone. I appreciate your comments. I guess one other thought that sparks sort of tangential, because I don't have complete faith in the power of my intention, I'm sometimes very careful about what I put myself in contact with.

[92:14]

Because that makes a big difference. And in terms of which intentions are going to arise. So I like your systematic. You can sort of go in any direction. Yeah, the arrows go all over the place. But going backwards, when you start observing your whole pattern and what your intention or volitional action tends to be, you say, hmm, yeah, you can just skip directly to where it all starts.

[92:50]

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