I'll just start by reciting what the Buddha is supposed to have said in one of his early discourses. Birth is suffering, old age is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow, lamentation, dejection are suffering. association with the unpleasant is suffering, not getting what one wishes for is suffering. In brief, the five aggregates of grasping are suffering. In brief, the five aggregates of suffering are suffering is a key point.

[01:05]

Someone said that it's hard to find a statement in the scriptures that the five aggregates, the five skandhas of suffering, it's hard to find that statement. The definition is the five aggregates of grasping are suffering. So the five aggregates, if they were just the five aggregates, you might not need to say that they were suffering, but the five aggregates of grasping are suffering, for sure. The key difference is the grasping. If there's no grasping, birth or life is not suffering. If you don't grasp, growing old is not suffering.

[02:17]

Even death is not suffering if you don't grasp, if you don't cling, if there's not attachment. Without this key point, then this, you know, this point of view that people say, you know, like, like, there's this book out called, it's called The Dollar Pooh. Buddhism is quoted, I think it is a very popular book now, called Way Less Travelism, The Road Less Traveling. And I think at the beginning of that book, Scott Peck says that it's suffering. A lot of people say that Buddhism teaches life is suffering or universal suffering. It's not true. However, you know, how do they say? It's the world we'll little know nor long remember. But they're going to remember what Scott Peck said.

[03:23]

And he's out there saying Buddhism is saying Buddha says life is suffering. Well, Buddha didn't say that. Buddha said life, if you grasp this suffering, is an opportunity. If you grasp this opportunity, life is suffering. And so my name is Zen. Total opportunity or complete opportunity. Not only does life offer to complete our health, to totalize, to totalize, to complete it, to fulfill it, to squeeze it, we can grasp it, try to grasp it anyway, we can try to grasp it, try to cling to it, If you try to cling to this opportunity, I'll throw you for a loop. However, if you study it, sit upright with it, it becomes total.

[04:27]

Totally. And the first part of my name is Ten Shin, which means basically just, you know, Cesar George, when he gave me that name, he said, Ten Shin. So, Barrett is Barrett and Leslie is Leslie. That's Zenki. In other words, when you don't cling, you just let things be completely. And don't spend your time letting things be. But the Buddha, you know, sometimes I think the Buddha did say, I don't know, I can't find myself a quote, but I think maybe somebody found someplace that the Buddha said, the five skandhas are suffering. He might have said that sometime when he was sleeping. Five skandhas are suffering. What did you say again, Buddha? Did you say five skandhas are suffering? Uh-huh. Maybe he did say that.

[05:33]

So here also he said birth is suffering. That's an abbreviation for birth that you cling to is suffering. And he says the association with the unpleasant is suffering and not getting what you wish is suffering. So it's the excessive craving for the pleasant that's suffering. Even wanting pleasure is actually okay. That isn't even suffering. Even not wanting pain, even that's not suffering. It's the excessive wanting of the pleasure and the excessive wanting of the pain. Again, if you're sitting upright, you know, and some pain comes by, especially a nice strong one without much warning, there'll probably be, before you can do anything about it, you know, some little animal's going to say, yikes, let's get out of here.

[06:36]

Some little squirrel. That's okay. That's not so bad. It isn't that bad. They say, oh, there's that kind of little chicken there again. It's the, like, making that into a big-scale project that turns into suffering. And the same with pleasure. You know, cakes. But, like, actually, like, not getting mad at the Admiral for not bringing them, that's too much. It's okay. Natural to avoid. But you can just let it go at that. And it can be just a little, like a, just a little flip on top of pleasure. Like that. And even a characteristic of a great person is having few desires. That's a characteristic of a great person. The last thing Dogen wrote. Very simple. Eight qualities of a great person. One of the qualities of a great person is having few desires.

[07:39]

How do you make a great Zen master happy? Bring the cake. Oh, wonderful. I'm so happy. That's all it takes. You know, a little cake. Or, you know, Gassho. Oh, that's sweet. Thank you. Just some little thing is enough. A person is easily satisfied. Doesn't have big desires. But they have some desire. Which they, you know, have a desire. You said Zazen. But it's not an excessive desire. So if they're going to the Zendo and you need some help, they don't like, you know, it's not that big a deal to stop for a second. Maybe even be late. So it's not that there's nothing. It's the excessive, I mean, big-scale desire for the pleasure part. The big-scale holding on to life. I mean, the actual sincere attachment. Not, you know, kind of like, yeah, I'm attached, but, you know, not really. Yeah, it's still attached. Even not even be afraid to admit that you're a little attached.

[08:43]

moderate, middle way, little desire. Just enough desire to get you in this world so you can be able to self-love. And then drop it, basically. But let it come up again if it's necessary. In the Abhidharma Kosha, in the chapter 6 on the sometimes called the path and the saints, or the path and the sacred ones. It starts off by saying, it has been said that defilements are abandoned through seeing the truths and through meditation. The path of meditation is of two types. The path of seeing is of one type. I didn't really say that.

[09:46]

It says the path of seeing is pure. The path of meditation is of two types, namely pure and impure. Without outflows is pure. Without outflows is impure. There's two kinds of paths of meditation that the Buddhist recommends. One kind has outflows. And the path of seeing the truth, however, doesn't have outflows. To see the truth, the vision of truth does not have outflows. So, the defilements of existence are abandoned through the vision of truth which has no outflows, and also through a meditation practice which has no outflows.

[10:52]

However, there is a meditation practice which leads up to, for most people, the vision of truth. So, the path of meditation, which has outflows, the path of meditation where there's some, you know, gaming idea, where there's still belief in self and other, a strong inclination, a serious inclination to be a Tathagata rather than someplace else. We still have lots of habits which were established under the auspices of belief in a self and a cling to the self. And those habits don't drop off all of a sudden. So then those habits are gradually dropped off by practicing meditation in this non-dual, not having outflows.

[12:02]

which follows the vision of the Four Noble Truths. And then it also mentions, you know, in the earlier chapter they present the Four Truths in various orders, but in this chapter they now present And Batsu Banu asked the question, is this the order of the truth? Some unusual order. And he says, no, rather the order is suffering, origin, extinction, path. Suffering in this order because this is the order that they understood. So they're presented in this order because they understood in this order. And the third verse is that the impure dharmas, whether they are agreeable or disagreeable or otherwise, are suffering.

[13:08]

Impure, again, means dharmas that have outflows, whether they are agreeable, disagreeable, or otherwise, are suffering. Now, this is a... of specification of suffering. So, if the five, which is actually just a microscopic version of the five aggregates. The five aggregates, if you cling to those, they're suffering. But then the five aggregates broken down into, basically, in this system, 72 elements of experience. And the 72 elements of experience, when they have outflows, they are suffering. Five aggregates. One of the aggregates has in this system 64 elements. All kinds of things like attention, many, many mental factors. Those dharmas, along with conception, perception, healing, and also the form aggregate.

[14:19]

Many, many different elements of experience. All of those, if they have outflows, each one of them is suffering. So the five aggregates, if you cling to that, plus all the little tiny elements in the five aggregates, if you cling to any one of those, or in other words, if there's any one of those, each of those are something. But it also says in the beginning of the book that it asks, you know, what are the pure dharmas and what are the impure dharmas? What are the dharmas that don't have outflows and what are the dharmas that do have outflows? There are 75 dharmas in the system. Which ones don't? Three. What are the three? Nirvana, which comes from... Nirvana that comes through effort. Nirvana which arises without any effort. spontaneously, and space. Those are the three.

[15:21]

In the totality of what a being can experience, or realize, or have something to bear in their life, those are the three that don't have all-flows. And they're the way. That also is nothing but the 72 dharmas. That's nothing but all-flow experience. That's nothing but the five aggregates. But the path doesn't have all-flows. But the path is nothing but these 72 dharmas, nothing but in a grosser classification for five areas. It's just the working of the 72 dharmas that are appearing, or the total working of five skandhas. It's the interdependence of what's happening. That doesn't have all the purpose. But any one of those things by themselves, anything that's seen in isolation, leaks. And isolation is a partial circuit.

[16:24]

But all the different elements together are a complete circuit. There's no gain or loss in the total system.

[16:31]

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