November 28th, 2006, Serial No. 01402, Side B

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doing practice discussion yesterday several people mentioned when she was talking about during the lecture
how about if this is the most important thing if practices the most important thing in your life or what about if it's not where you fit in if it's not so i don't want to get into a big discussion about it but i just wanted to
express my understanding what he said which is only my understanding what he said i don't want to speak for him and maybe take a couple of comments but not to have an extended discussion about it

you know and mill or surgeon first started them the burpees ends and are for years and years before his mountain seed ceremony
on he would describe what is wrong was here he said my role is to provide a place for people to sit zazen that's what i'm supposed to be doing and providing a place for people to sip
and it wasn't until after he became an official teacher mountain seat ceremony
that that fell away and he became a an official teacher and so then he takes on the role of being a teacher but my feeling has always been that that that that first feeling that he had and role that he had has always been pervasive in his attitude
no matter what his teaching
status might happen to be
and my understanding of what he was talking about was not that
he was talking about a relationship between a particular student and a particular teacher it could be any particular student or any particular teacher he was not talking about he wasn't not making some big generalization about teachers and students that
teachers only one who relate to students who their practice is the most important thing in your life it was it's a sign of particular basis and so the the stories that we know about which are the most dramatic stories of intense you know cutting off your arms supposedly in the snow the city
all night and the snow your arm cut off
these are like illustrating you know
our way seeking mind in the in the strongest degree
so there's a kind of a model for a particular relationship between a student a teacher or student in practice but it doesn't mean that if you don't have that attitude that your second rate and where that your practice is not doesn't really count for much or you know we're just sort of humor and you by that you'd be here
you know
them because we don't want to be mean that's not the case now
and you know it will be at anybody who tries to measure somebody else's practice you cannot measure let it you can't measure your own practice little alone somebody else's so he didn't i don't think he meant it like that as he gets busier and you see this with all teachers as they get busier
and more popular and more people want to see them they have to limit their availability he used to be available all the time you just hang out he can do it so much right now so he you know naturally he would tend to know gravitate more towards people that are more involved but it doesn't mean that
there's a rejection of people who aren't some more involved in a certainly doesn't mean that you can't go to jokes on or that he wouldn't like to see you in jokes on if practices and the most important thing in your life that's not true in my understanding so i just wanted to clarify that that you on one hand you can stress how one
riffle it is when somebody is just totally engaged in practice and that's the main thing in life but it doesn't mean that somebody who's not like that
is inferior
so just take a couple of comments and then we'll move onto another subject soup yeah thank you run out with that was very lonely like up
it's tired me out my own life and expressing myself that seems to me as ourselves he said place
like that
and i certainly see that assumption
when i have a school i help her i was expressing myself that way and all have my pakistan at school at the same
i'm i'm
maybe has entered grief about that again i don't have any and ah
but how do i express my i guess that the question because for each person there's no i'm i expressed that that is a question
and ending that's what he was in is always said do what you love to do the most find what what whatever that is and just and try to do that if you can
and what whatever it may not be your ideal or may not be practical but whatever you have access to that you care about the most go for that that's a pretty common sensical
one more
would you
when i was in japan last one
it struck me what we want to chemicals to manage ag
but which had mumps with training on there
the me was how are you doing
of seems to me here no matter how i'm here if we're working hard over here
that effort we're putting out here
yes but also it may not it may not look like something to
the one person's effort may not be apparent so it is it's truth it's true for the expression of that effort but we can't necessarily see it sometimes you can see it sometimes care
or maybe most of us can't see it
me some people can see about just along the lines he goes on once someone asked now
what makes a good sense
the bad and
mount by that
i said well if on january first you bow it three hours a day and for three hundred sixty four days three hours a day last day of your you said to our and fifty nine minutes your badges
but
if i'm january for you say why some time during this year going to sit for five minutes and you forget about it all year and a saturday thirty first jan it allowed to get up
and you said and you sit for five minutes as you intended to him he said that he defense to

okay well we'll just hold that
the transponder
so moving right along
in the spirit of so just talked yesterday about suzuki roshi is talk which was about chewing brown rice were just coming back to the simplest thing
the simplest activity
in terms of the dharma i would like to return to the simplest one of the simplest aspects of the dharma which is the four noble truths
if you've been around a long time the four noble truths may not seem so interesting there are so basic
you know compared to how how interesting a dog in his are tibetan buddhism means are different levels of consciousness the four noble truths seems pre
we've been over that before
but
we've also been over chewing brown rice before and suzuki roshi felt necessary to to give a whole talk based on it so i like to go over the four noble truths but in a
yeah in my own way of doing it
just too
i give you a background for for the four noble truth is they should know that it's buddhists first sermon is his first teaching so of all the things that he could have said the first words out of his mouth as a know after his enlightenment experience and have just sitting for six years the first
words out of his mouth as a teacher where the four noble truths of that in itself is pretty insignificant
he had been he had a band of friends i think to respire them i'm not familiar landmarks than just five practitioners who were as x aesthetics and hit practice with them and they had done these extreme aesthetic practices in almost killed him he does
i did that wasn't the way and went off and sat under a tree for six years
and they thought that he had whipped out that he was kind of i gonna handle it so he had to sitting under a tree in our there's any in cold water and starving themselves to death he just sitting under a tree and they kind of look down on on him
but he he had this awakening after sport throughout his six years have this awakening and kind of collects them again and the other hand i'm skeptical of what he wants to say but so he then tells him about the four noble truths
so that's the context of how that that
they were presented first of the sermon and the four noble truths
i'm
and then one of the monks
became enlightened just to hearing his first sermon and he then he ordained monk and that was the first order me

so i just like to read you it's very short the four noble truths because we know we know the adjusted them sometimes the wording we forget about the wording which is rather important

and i'm just going to read the first part of the last part is more of a canada
accentuation of the first park scientist read the first part which is that the core of it
these two extremes or monks or not to be practiced by one who has gone forth from the world what are the two that conjoined with the passions low vulgar common ignoble and useless and that been joined the self torture painful ignoble and useless
avoiding these two extremes that the togheter has gained the knowledge of the middle way which gives site and knowledge and tends to com to incite enlightenment nirvana
what are monks is a middle way which gives so of course it's over on it is the noble eightfold path namely right views right intention right speech right action right livelihood right effort right mindfulness right concentration this or monks is
the middle way
now this whole monks is the noble truth of pain earth is painful old age is painful
sickness is painful death is painful sorrow lamentation dejection and despair or painful contact with unpleasant things is painful not getting what one wishes is painful in short the five scandals of grasping are painful
now this of monks is a noble truth of the cause of pain that craving which leads to rebirth combined with pleasures and lust finding pleasure here and there namely the craving for passion that craving for existence the craving for existence
now this amount is the noble choose of the cessation of pain the cessation without a remainder of that craving abandonment forsaking release non attachment
now this of monks is a noble truth of the way that leads to the cessation of pain this is a noble eightfold path namely right views right intention right speech action livelihood effort mindfulness right concentration this is a noble truth of pain
dazzle monks among doctrines unheard before and me site and knowledge arose wisdom knowledge light arose this noble truth of pain must be comprehended
so that's the core of his sermon

so the am
first interesting point is that
you know oftentimes people think that that what he said his life is suffering
and so if you tell somebody where they say what what is much so in a fundamental reality buddhism and if you start up miss they will life is suffering they think that that sounds really depressing and you know why would i i'm only does true because i have joy i have fun i have good times i are talking that life is just the
all suffering
but it if you can hear what he said was that the five condos and grasping are suffering the five scott as a grasping
so
in in if what he's really saying here is basically emptiness he's not using the word emptiness but we're always using the word mts exam zen practice here
and he doesn't say emptiness but it's exactly what is expressing nice insane at the five skylanders
cause or cause suffering are the the five scanned as which lead to a grasping and craving cause suffering with five mean he doesn't say that there's a self is causing suffering he saying that there's a composite of our personality which is causing suffering
and you know if you really if you reduce sort of examine what does that mean that these are just composites and there's now starting point there's no there's no core there are just five condos that are causing suffering
this is just a more ah
ha
it's another way of expressing emptiness there's there's there's no own being there
but he doesn't emphasize that that's not the point and he's trying to make

so it's our composite personality that and the end it can be craving that sets up
the creates are suffering

i think added a really important aspect of practices that is
we really have to pay attention if it the practice of how do we pay attention to our suffering
no
there are different ways there are a lot of ways of paying attention to suffering or to avoiding suffering or ignoring it but this practice is how do we pay it how do we pay attention to suffering

we could you know we can analyze suffering
yeah
which which can be helpful you know an analysis of suffering you can you can study iv dharma need to study all the constituents at how suffering works down to the minute degree
that's one way
and that is a buddhist method
you could avoid suffering you could ignore it you can avoid suffering but you can ignore it
in which is what
we most of us are this entire society actually does is in some way we ignore
or deny the depth and quality of our unhappiness or our discontent
and
for one thing you know the be
you know we're so speedy
this the society is so incredibly speedy and getting faster all the time
partly and i say wonder why is that in want why as a society so speedy
when partly i think it's that we just you know have this craving for stimulation which is are scanned is like that you know the whole process of consciousness and colors and sounds and projects and stuff you know we enjoyed a stimulating quality of that and so we want more as we can make a go
faster we get more we can use a computer we can get more stimulation if we have a car we can go more places
so more stimulation this is part of it
the
but we just like degree just like to move quickly and is we're moving quickly
we don't need to notice what feels uncomfortable
the more projects we have the more we're working on the more we're doing this we're doing that and moving from one place to the other
we don't have to deal with the fact that just as as is doesn't seem to be really sufficient as is is too boring or doesn't feel complete or as not interesting enough or doesn't compare well with somebody else is not what their mother and father wanted us to be
be it's not what our teacher wants us to be
are we think that aren't insurances can be

so yeah i think that
in in this in our practice that actually really paying attention to what are suffering is and we don't really use analytical method are method is is i would say mindfulness just being aware of the feeling
unpleasant feelings as they arise
it really being willing to just be there with unpleasant feelings
it's so simple as you really really simple and we are
all this ios libraries full of buddhist philosophy and interesting levels of consciousness and
wonderful kinds of practices and inspirational teachers
but really you know to actually really just paying attention to what is unpleasant and and how we
ha
being able to just be with something which is unpleasant and not run away from it not try to make it into something different but just actually be willing to experience it because that's what's here now
i'm
is it is my understanding of what wheels on practice gifts it's not all some practice but this is a really important aspect you just have to pay attention to hear this is like be here now if be in the moment well if the moment involves dissatisfaction that's what you've got

and so it's the sheen is this wonderful
it doesn't feel so wonderful sometimes big as this kind of has a laboratory where we can we slow down and are not speeding around where with just stay together in this relatively small space and we can notice are suffering we can really notice the quality of our
suffering it we don't have to work at it so much i weigh up the work at is just being awake because the suffering or the dissatisfaction is likely to already be there
it can be very subtle it needn't be like tears and crying or depression it can be extremely subtle and it's not necessary to make a big deal out of it either but the fact is in session is as chance to really
you know to really become intimate with what were uncomfortable with
if you don't have any issues with being uncomfortable anything if you have totally equanimity as great and you could just enjoy your equanimity drink machine but
most of us you know have not really in their deepest level paid attention to what ails us and what bothers us where we're where we're feel fearful angry where we feel may be disoriented at last sad others others
a quality even us we come
would prefer to kind of be know we know whether there but we'd rather go do something more interesting
i'm she can't really go do something more interesting you just have to secure and i'll be awake
has like chewing brown rice
but this will be pretty you know
not a great marketing
here's hoping to sell achieve it's not a great marketing
approach
the great marketing approach it a bet that we can fit your with an open mind so that even now we have things are to dissatisfying disturbing
and maybe we maybe we feel uninspired and can the a dreary whenever the kinds of feelings come up with an open mind it's not solid it it's it's not some kind of a solid fixed situation

and one of the problems with analysis is if you're analyzing states it can start to know we started fixing things you know we we hold it off and then we analyze it and then now we have the that we've analyzed and know we we think we know what it is but he had a moment by
long moment my moment just sitting in zazen
and feelings come up as you know
but with an open mind if you don't know what's coming next and you don't know how that feeling will change
so it looks like
fear or looks like anger looks like sadness one moment
can imperceptibly shift into something different and
you know potentially as great freedom in that
because we think that we have you know we think that we
that were a certain way we think we are certain way and maybe we're not the way we think we are
well cecina seen as a as a way we can find out there were not the way we think we are

so it's really an opportunity to study
our our discontent are suffering
but to do so

ah to to do so has more like an investigation
with no particular no specific goal looks a certain way it's just to become familiar with what we are and now the confidence that that familiarity

the confidence that fundamentally we're we're okay
and i can't explain why
so then he goes onto the the second truth which
is craving so we have this craving that this is what causes suffering or causes dissatisfaction because we constantly wants something
and
you know sometimes when i'm noticing my own the way my mind works or psychology works
the world being active
i'll notice did these various characteristics that i have and then i don't that i see as being problematic
i mostly just being eco centre and self centered ah character
and then the different
you know wanting it comes out of that
and then i think in sort of all the little complexities go with all those little wrinkles you know all the different situations where that shows up
and then i think that it is just it's really just
with all the little what about it just forget all those little details the details is this the scenery at the fundamentally it's this attachment of wanting wanting one thing that's is kind of energy and its own light
it looks like we will you know i want this particular thing and because of my life as a certain way i want this particular thing and so we're kind of constantly thinking about the thing but it's if you just look at the energy of the wanting as being not maybe so necessary
and again you can't just decide on is going to stop wanting things i'm just going to stop desiring i'm going to stop stop craving camp
newsweek and crave to start craving
but to the again not take that that craving energy so much for granted leave some space
what i had this thought that you know the way the sequence is presented
see first there's
first there is craving and in their suffering nestle a buddha described it first first
suffering arises out of craving but i was thinking that it's the know i even to take buddha's words for granted we should question evil and he said that feels to me if the if reverse that actually suffering arises and and out of the suffering
suffering comes up and out of suffering craving develops
am
if you're
see me just take some very extremely neutral situation you're just sitting still
that's no longer
was it wasn't my still no longer new
okay gimme a neutral situation i didn't give me give me a neutral situation i just sitting on the i know here
oh okay so you're holding a grocery bag
and you don't have any particular feeling one way or the other not happy or sad or excited or anything just sort of have a neutral feeling doesn't happen very often but just said isn't a microsecond were you ever need to a month
mutual feeling and and then ah this a kind of whoring standing here with this grocery bag you know i want more stimulation
it's the first of all there's a feeling of
it's not there's some feeling of what this is right now is not sufficient so it's not so much the craving for something to replace it comes second seems like first of all this isn't good enough right now is just not good enough
some feeling this is not good enough
so maybe we should have changed the second noble truth and maybe
in two thousand and six the buddhism shifted in
can you give what do you think
yeah well i think very active separate cars from that wanting something to be of that's the grading walking something to be different is i can kind of what uk is so and soda wanting use the creating and africa that leads to the suffering if you
didn't want it to be different track the when been suffering right that's sort of thing not afraid to walk into the cravings engraving
transfers
right
the the
but wanting the wanting is the craving
but what why would you start to want something
well that's that's that's the that's what do kids know wanting but beware that come from
that will that's that's the mystery to give someone a mystery i think i asked the the actor we're doing is that discovering for endings and finding ways that the bad duca doesn't on in some ways
there's always version so
doge ominous as mount saint live in the delusion they like and comes within that hard the man we've got these qantas they're gonna rise but what we do it so we're going to you don't have warm feelings perceptions that's going to happen but how that how we do that as a way that it can go to are suffering of the way that doesn't have
go towards a higher
so taking a wanting is going towards the suffering as true
i like that since we're in the says and know and we're sitting just still for seven days we have this chance to really start to notice in a more
smaller away how how this happens so that's what i'm kind of getting it is in in in a s'more small way how does this
the the dissatisfaction arise
and
i don't know where it comes from but my my experiences there's just some feeling of dissatisfaction
this isn't enough this moment isn't enough and then there's a craving for to make it better but there's an initial dissatisfaction then may nor comes from john on saturday i was talking to now
intention they have a person's breath
and
yeah you know what your practice in and put your intention on afra
seems to me
here's less craig
because your intentions on practice it's not on
being open to various alternative
the other important thing is that if you don't have a practice one will be assigned to you
ah
go on the black
movie ending hunger
the you think that everybody in the world has a practice
no very few people over out there
so why weren't they assigned one
they have good a sign why it's you know killing a bad guy
you know
whatever it might be

buy more gp
whatever
tomorrow
i am passionate tradition let me retreat
says explore first just feeling you not be like any actually sense experience and then after doing that quick and to the statute explore feeling and feelings to find new now he is just i liked it i don't like it and will care and then after a few
the that than you explore the mental formation and arise on i like
mark but i know i
so that's sort of the classic
approach to exploring
know how rising
summary if you actually do it at practice their clients for situation and indoctrinated every morning
actually it does seem to appear that you know
i i feel something in my mean i don't like it i wish i knew like a profession and went down and may be even you can sort of here
that i don't
it's real
there is that practice
it's not just an idea asset comes arises have an experienced chemical investigated
xperience that you explore
hm
ha yeah i would hope they would all be experience yeah so you likely to send made a it is suffering and pain
product to exploit your experience through trying to decide on the day when
hey and the hell does that get started with just a simple experience through your cent store can also with your mind so you can suddenly remembering here
your mother and my case and that's because some think them as of my life were not like fact that and pepper

but maybe was very radical but it seems like this it's kind of chicken and a view issue when you have suffering that creates craving fried creates more surfer built on and so containing like my word
doing here as breaking the cycle
ah
office treatments
hopefully already i say we're paying attention the cycle i think
ah
visit a cash every chance
right
the department
no but if you just a few
ninety percents don't forget that went to probably not going to bat whereas the second before the recession you know team have a more objective become a little
getting patched
i guess well what my point of i want to make us that it's the it that somehow
but what i trust his understanding is understanding
if we decide this
if we decide anything in advance can not really understanding
you know we decided something in advance an hour
we're kind of moving into what we decide what we're now we're living in the past because we decided something in the past and now we're trying to go back in the past to do something with our past bot
but to understand actually
in the same way as you understand what chocolate taste like you know you you you don't have to go back and past it's like an experience to to actually
in your own in your own language whatever mental physical language is your language and your own language to to
i feel this happening
is
what i think is that is the really is a part of mindfulness that doesn't get that sort of may be taken for granted or not talked about button
if not just it's not just it's observing but it's observing

very intimately observable not not observing from a distance image
but
who's suffered
whatever we whatever
whatever our understanding is of who we are as who suffered

and that amount that's what i'm saying is a moment by moment awareness if you have some idea based on on what's been said in the past
that's a that that can be helpful but the who is something which
you have to take your right now

a tricky i do too
yeah pick one mar down
bring language and
yeah i don't mean language like verbal that i was using language and a very loose way i'm so let me in language and get well works are some people but others like navy music as a bitter language so i would say some kind of awareness is better word than language
hang on a man
have you will get question

so good christian i can't answer
can somebody can up while i was gonna
yeah well you have to you have to answer the question
and now she's she ufc africa crushing made for
the you don't wanna move on we finisher
oh i'm choice i think it's the have you
when you telling me it was time to start know that's if i was
charlie good i
same time on is definitely not much in siberia not fixing it and asking them understand establishment
hooray
but and they almost getting at you know how is this year now talking about can direct perception which doesn't rely on thought and
ha
he have to talk to somebody else to explain that the last one from i as doesn't have earring rushing back to was the first one was parker
we return to silence the second was
right now
when it's to said babies don't have language that they certainly have a weapons
i wake up in the morning i don't maybe it would tell myself i'm awake
then i know that i'm a that once
it's interesting how difficult it is proper language enough during the day
so i can be aware that it happens on time but once i start thinking then i get confused even though most of my awareness is non verbal ends
i don't have to tell myself i'm not stepping in where were breathing but once the consciousness and i went to the modest gets him there the starts taking over and thinks things can go okay unless i'm telling myself that it's it's happening because i'm not particularly

case i hope we're all
don't know what we're doing in fact we
the or