In thinking about how to study these, teaching the Four Noble Truths, I spent the first two talks in the Zendo just laying down the, you know, usual practice of upright sitting in our Soto Zen tradition. And I feel that that fundamental practice of our school is the excellent way to receive the revelation of these teachings directly in terms of your own experience and your own conceptualizations.

[01:09]

And again tonight I would like to emphasize or start with the practice that could make this teaching of the Buddha direct and experiential, or based on experience anyway. The Buddha didn't have the teaching of the Four Noble Truths taught to him by some Buddhist teacher. He discovered these Four Noble Truths in the process of his meditations. And in some sense, I ask, well, maybe it's better not to study the Four Noble Truths because then we'll start maybe like looking for the Four Noble Truths or thinking in terms of the teaching of the Four Noble Truths rather than working with what's happening with us moment by moment.

[02:13]

And so I wouldn't want to get off and have the teaching of the Four Noble Truths be a distraction to realizing the Four Noble Truths. I think for me it's more like the teaching about them would be helpful to you to interpret your own experience of it and to have the historical precedent of the teaching to dialogue with your own experience as hopefully your own experiences start to develop, not that you would look over to the scriptures as your primary mode of practice, back and forth with your basic practice, and that they would help each other. That if your basic practice doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Four Noble Truths, then that's kind of a feedback to your practice.

[03:15]

On the other hand, if you study the Four Noble Truths and don't bring it back to your practice, That's not not the best way. So tonight, I'd like to. Just to you that the practice of being upright. Is one where we. we develop an unprejudiced posture, an unprejudiced attitude in the middle of our experience, an unbiased, unsentimental posture.

[04:20]

So literally, an unbiased posture, physically, but an unbiased heart, unbiased mind also, emotionally, intellectually, philosophically, religiously, politically, physically. In every dimension of our being, It's unprejudiced, unbiased, not leaning forward, backward, left. It isn't that there aren't sentiments and biases and judgments and positions. It's just that we don't lean into any of them. We may have preferences, but we don't lean into our preferences. We may have likes and dislikes. We stay upright in the middle of our dislikes and dislikes. That posture in the middle of all this is the entrance into the kind of awareness of the Buddhas, which we call the self-fulfilling samadhi.

[05:37]

And in that samadhi, you'll see, right out of the book, you'll see four noble truths that can pop up there to you. You might even see six noble truths, but gradually you'll come in line and distill them down to four. or rather your vision will come in line, and you realize... Although, as the Avatamsaka Sutra says, in the uncountable, incalculable myriads of world systems, each one has four quadrillion ways of talking about the Four Noble Truths. Still Four Noble Truths, though. So in particular, in terms of the stuff flying around us, I'd like to emphasize tonight what's called the outflows.

[06:49]

In Sanskrit, here goes a new block. In Sanskrit, uh, means a flood or flow. It can be flowing in or flowing out. So all around us, ordinary human beings have these outflows, habitual, dispositional ways of relating to what happens. So we start out in a sense, first of all, Whatever we meet, whatever we subjectively experience, kind of like interest, self-interest in there, and the interest over time becomes a prejudice or a disposition to respond to things in habitual ways.

[08:11]

Basically, in two ways. Towards in a way, which is like, dislike, greed, hate. So the Buddha taught, well, I'm not saying Buddha taught this. But generally speaking, in the traditional Buddhism, there's four types of these outflows. So I don't know if I just read some of the blackboard. Anyway, I'll just say it in English. The outflow of desire. The second one is the outflow of becoming. The third one is the outflow of view. And the fourth is the outflow of ignorance or confusion.

[09:13]

So the outflow of desire is not just desire, but like an established constant thirst, sort of ongoing established thirst for pleasure, and is a thirst for desire to avoid displeasure. And generally speaking, again, what's pleasureful is what promotes us. And what's displeasureful is what demotes us or threatens us. Now, there's also like thirsting for tastes and temperatures and stuff like that. That's part of it. But in a sense, you know, Our constant thirst for the... Not so much constantly in search for a pleasant taste.

[10:23]

Personally, I don't go around for constantly in search for a pleasant taste. If I brush my teeth, that's generally speaking good enough. You know? Also, smell. I'm not constantly in search of a good smell. They're working in the fire pit there, and there's this funny smell out there around the compost pit. I actually wasn't constantly in search for somehow to get away from that compost pile. It was really strong smelling, and of course, I was very close to it. Kern and Jeremy. And Tracy were like right up there. But anyway, maybe they were constantly in search of a difference. But I wasn't. Even though it was obnoxious, I was not. And also, even around where I was, it wouldn't smell real bad, but it was real dusty and hot. I wasn't constantly in search for like... I wasn't. I can get into that, but that's not constantly my thing.

[11:27]

But the constant thing is what will promote you. what will, like, you know, make you a better... You know, what's your real issue? Your issue isn't, like, the best smelling things. Your issue is, like, to be, you know, the best Zen student or the best looking woman or the best cook or, you know... It's, like, stuff that, I mean, really promotes yourself and makes you more likely to be, you know, something real good. That's what really... That's what we're striving for all the time. Every motion... What can we do to promote? Self-interest, right? There's a thirst there that's fairly constant. Always looking out for, you know, if I do this, how will that work? If I do that, how will that work? Always calculating these terms. This is constant. The other stuff, you know, if it gets like, hey, this is poisonous, then it's different. But that's not a constant thing. That's just situational. This really moves us around, this kind of stuff.

[12:32]

This is called the influence or the being affected around desire. That's around pretty much human beings all the time. Again, what to do there? About that, you don't have a desire. You don't desire to have it or not have it. You have no prejudice. I'm prejudiced. Then you cut off that outflow. Now, if you don't know what I just talked about, you should find out about that. Or you should tell me, well, just, you know, you're nuts. Maybe you're that way, but I'm not. And then we can find out that maybe you're the only person It's not that way. Maybe there's six of you. Or maybe there's 50 of you and just one of me. See, that's what I'm afraid of. So if you don't know what I'm talking about, you don't know what I'm talking about.

[13:39]

If you do, then just be upright in the middle of such concerns. And then what you cause, the influence of that concern starts to weaken, and you can actually end that outflow. First of all, you've got it. Then when you spot it, then you meet it with its upright posture and work with it appropriately. Sometimes you should dance with it. Sometimes you should just say hello. Sometimes you should say anything. It depends on the situation. But anyway, the point is passionate, unsentimental acknowledgement of this particular flood or outflow. Next one is the outflow of becoming, which is similar, but it's a constant yearning for self-aggrandizement. But it's not so much desire or hatred, but a kind of like a becoming kind of thing.

[14:47]

You want to become greater or become lesser. So you want to become or de-become. You have a thirst for actually being something. which is actually to be something is an aggrandizement. It's a conceit. It's too much. Or if that's not going to work, then get rid of it. So pride and self-contempt. That's the second one. Third one is a view. We're influenced by the view of existence and non-existence, but in extreme form of things ultimately really existing or ultimate, you know, actually not existing. Being and not being. These views. It's another. We're affected if something exists or doesn't exist, and we're... So that also affects us. Again, with these last two, if you did, again, just be upright...

[15:50]

and dispassionate and unsentimental about your experience with these things, you end those outflows too. The last one's a little complicated. It's called literally the outflow of ignorance. But maybe it'd be better to call it the outflow of confusion. It's going to sound like the previous one of view, but the outflow around view is more like the outflow around a set philosophical position on something, which we all have. We all have certain truth positions on certain phenomena. This one's a little like a view, But it's more like emphasizing not so much the rigidity of the position or the fixedness in its philosophical positioning, but the pervertedness of some of our views.

[17:05]

And so actually, this view is sometimes taught in terms of what are called the topsy-turvy views, upside-down views, or like the perverted views that we speak of in the Heart Sutra. They're called viparyasa in Sanskrit. Viparyasa, which means upside-down. And again, there's four of these under this heading. And it has to do with identifying the impermanent with the permanent. That's the first one. By impermanent phenomena with the permanent. To see impermanent things as permanent.

[18:11]

Next is to see things which are not unsatisfactory. To identify them with what's unsatisfactory. You take things which are... The other way is easier, maybe. You take what's unsatisfactory... and you identify that with what's not unsatisfactory. A simpler way to put it is you equate the unsatisfactory with the satisfactory. But that isn't the way the Buddha put it. He said you equate the unsatisfactory with the not unsatisfactory. In other words, you have unsatisfactory things and you think they're not unsatisfactory.

[19:14]

It's a little bit different than saying they're satisfactory. Do you see the difference? You have something that's not unsatisfactory, and you identify it as something that is unsatisfactory. We have an unsatisfactory something, and we think it's satisfactory. In other words, we don't look... To go the other way, let's see... It sounded like you took the reverse to start with. The usual thing is to confuse... We call the unsatisfactory satisfactory. We identify those two. We don't exactly call it. We identify them. But I thought it was interesting that the way the Buddha put it is confusing the not unsatisfactory with the unsatisfactory. That sounds like something that is not unsatisfactory, but we think it's unsatisfactory. We identify with the unsatisfactory, which sounds a little different to me.

[20:15]

It's not this way or that way. It's the identification. So it can go either way. It can go either way. But usually the way I've heard it is identifying or confusing the satisfactory with the unsatisfactory. But that isn't the way that Buddha put it. He said the not unsatisfactory with the unsatisfactory. The unsatisfactory in the equation is just not unsatisfactory. Not unsatisfactory is not the same as satisfactory. We do not know. There's not like some confusion of like there's a satisfaction and we're confusing the unsatisfactory with it. The unsatisfactory is not one of the... We can't confuse that with something, right? I mean, not right, but that's probably not well known, that the satisfactory is not out there to be confused with.

[21:18]

The satisfactory is not, like, available to work with. All right. It's not one of those things we have on the table. Impermanence, you can work with impermanence. But impermanence, you can't work with. So what is actually satisfactory in this thing is release from this situation, is release from the situation of being entangled in these concerns. That's actually satisfactory. But the outflow that we're being flooded with is the confusion of things that aren't unsatisfactory. And we do have such things with the unsatisfactory. That's the confusion. The third one is confusing not-self with self. And then the fourth one is confusing the pleasant.

[22:28]

We do have pleasant with the unpleasant. Excuse me. Well, same thing. To identify these things is... They're not, strictly speaking, they can't be identified, but we do it anyway because we're confused. So confusion and identification in this case is the same thing. This is the outflow of confusion. But we do have pleasant and unpleasant experiences. Sometimes identify the two. Now, of course there, practicing mindfulness of feelings will be very useful. Practicing mindfulness of feelings will help you clarify that. And then, also being upright, once you, and when you start practicing mindfulness of feelings, noticing, not confusing them, upright in the middle of that. And then also to be upright in the recurrent confusion about that, that keeps popping up. Recurrent and well-established confusion because many things we do are based on that confusion of unexamined confusion of pleasant and unpleasant between those two.

[23:41]

For example, we sometimes eat things which we think taste good, which we don't, which don't taste good. They're unpleasant and we identify them with pleasant because we're not mindful of the fact that they actually don't taste good. We've confused that taste, the unpleasant taste with a pleasant taste. We do that. So if you can be upright with that and practice mindfulness with it, you cut that one. You can cut these things too. So all these four main types, and then this one has four subtypes, by practicing dispassionate mindfulness with these things, there is from outflows, which is like a big-time deal. I mean, it's like nirvana. You're not kidding, right? This is nirvana, to be like that. That's nirvana. You're free. You're even free of trying to figure out what I'm talking about and seeing whether that might be true or not.

[24:49]

You still might try to find out what I'm talking about and see whether it's true or not, but you can be free of it while you're doing that. Do you understand? Or you can be totally like, what do you call it, have to be totally flooded by the project of trying to figure out what I was just talking about. Or leaking your energy in the process of it. But you can uprightly examine what I've just been talking about with no biases about the activity. And no self-interest there either. Just natural inquiry into, first of all, is there any kind of like leaking reaction response to what I just said? Any outflows come up in response to this teaching which you just heard? And this kind of presence

[25:57]

This kind of awareness is the awareness which realizes this unfabricated presence. And although it's unfabricated, it still can actually be interested in studying. It still can read books about dharma without leaning into any of these outflows. And a lot of people have asked, you know, if you end these things, would there be any interest in even studying anymore? Would you care about anything? Would you care about yourself? The answer is you wouldn't care about yourself anymore in terms of being self-concerned. No, you wouldn't. But you would have compassion as a suffering being to whatever extent you were suffering.

[27:07]

You can still be compassionate even when you see things free of these outflows. And you can respond to that compassionate feeling wholeheartedly. And the way you might respond to that is maybe by not doing anything. That might be your compassionate response to your own suffering. But not doing anything also means you wouldn't necessarily protect yourself at all from the experience of your suffering. Could one still experience suffering in nirvana, in this situation where the outflows have been cut off? I would say, yes. But one is free. The main kind of suffering one experiences in this state is called compassion.

[28:14]

Your happiness is marred and dented by the suffering of the world. But that's not a problem, because you don't have any outflows in regard to that pain. So you very skillfully respond to it. In the 15th case of the Blue Cliff record, it's the case where I think a monk asks, maybe it's not that case. Anyway, it's Yunmen, right? Yunmen. It's the one upside down statement. You know, topsy turvy statement. In that one, there's a commentary where a commentator whose name is Yaron Wu.

[29:27]

He's the commentator of the record and he praises the compiler sway though. And the person in the case, Yun Men, as being people, they can hold hands with each other and they can take your hand and walk through birth and death with you, as the commentator suggested. You do that, and also if you don't ask, they'll do it. They naturally take hands, join hands with all beings, and walk through birth and death. This is their thing. And they do that in order to help people become free. But also they just do it before they can help people become free. First, that's a... The commentator says, how can they do that? How can they walk through birth and death? How can they go into the mud? in the water for our sake and die with us and be born with us over and over.

[30:34]

How can they do that? They can do it because they have ended all these leakage. And then Dongshan says, if you want to tell, check out whether somebody has actually, like, you know, Genuinely gone beyond. You've got these three, you can check it out, but these are a way of checking, so you just, you know. But he has three. He consolidated the four down to three. And that's one of the ways you do check. You want to check? We'll see what they do. Do they bat it away? Do they duck it? Do they gobble it up? How do they respond to the outflow? Do they handle it in a way that shows that they've actually cut it off?

[31:39]

you know, the appropriate way might be to catch it and juggle it for a while and say, would you like to try it for a while? There's many ways to respond to these outflows, but the point is that they don't go in or out. You're free of them. So, Dung Shan's five three-letter books are in that book. You can read them. His way of putting it is the outflow of emotion or feeling, the outflow of views, and the outflow of speech, those three. Motion, view, and speech. So he distilled these traditional four, including those four upside-down views into these three. So, this is kind of like a colon.

[32:46]

This is a commentary under the case, right, of Upside Down View. But this is another colon of this guy's, of Dung Shan's. Dung Shan's giving you this colon, this case. He says, you people should know these linkages in yourself. You should know them in yourself. If you're going to end them, you should know them in yourself. It seems to me that this is not an optional assignment. That in order to, if you want to help people in a thorough way, help them even if they go into death, to go with them to help them. And even if they're born, you really want to be able to really help people. This is not an optional assignment. You need to learn about these things in yourself. You don't need to learn about other people right away.

[33:49]

First in yourself. That's the most important. If you can learn them in yourself, you can help other people learn about you. But again, let's point out to somebody that it's not really something that's more like to help them get to see it in themselves. If you understand yourself, you become free yourself, plus then you'll be more able to help other people see it. This is really something we need to do Fortunately, most people have them available. Pretty much 24 hours a day, unless you're in some really deep, deep, deep sleep or some really deep, deep, deep samadhi. But they're just sort of like waiting until you come out. And it's like you haven't missed a beat. So don't worry, you won't miss anything. You don't have to go looking for them, but spot them. If you can spot these and cut them off, then the Four Noble Truths will come right up to meet you. The Four Noble Truths are sitting right in the middle of these outflows.

[34:58]

Pushing around you more, the Four Noble Truths become clear. This is exactly what the Buddha... Look in the Buddha's stories. He said, then I attained... the knowledge of the end of the outflows, and then he sees the pentacle rising. And I think it's really interesting, the Chinese characters are really interesting in this case, partly because one of the characters isn't my name. as in Zenki. And this character is in, when he's talking about what happens in the three kinds, when Dongshan's talking about what happens in the three kinds of outflows, this character, Ki, appears in all three.

[36:07]

And Ki means opportunity, energy, working, function. activity, process. So when they use the Chinese character there, that character in some situation, the surrounding situation then colors what you plunk into. So like if you're talking about the functioning of mind, then qi becomes intellect. Talking about emotions, ki will become a feeling or emotion. If you're talking about language, ki will be a linguistic thing. It provides an opportunity or it points to the function of the situation. So, in the emotional situation, which sounds to be quite similar to the first of the traditional ones and maybe the second, he says, you know,

[37:19]

And again, the word knowing is that word key. The opportunity here in the emotional realm is when you know something, you always turn towards and against. So the key in the situation of emotion, it turns into knowing. And whenever you're knowing, whenever the key is operating in the realm of knowing, you turn towards and against things. And because you're turning towards and against things, because things are always like something you avoid or go towards, because you're like this, then your view gets prejudiced. In other words, because you turn towards and against, you can't see. you have a biased view. Next one is the view, this sounds like the view one.

[38:21]

The intellect, okay, in this case this one, the key now in terms of view will be intellect. The intellect does not stir from its fixed position And that rigidity around positions, like this exists, doesn't exist, and so on, that rigidity of the intellect not moving, throws you all over the place. It says it throws you into a poisonous sea. So the first one, you're moving back and forth, towards and away, you know, trying to aggrandize or whatever. and you can't see straight. The other one, you're not moving back and forth, you're holding rigidly to your view of the situation, and then, you know, you're like a dead, you're sitting duck, and you just take and get thrown, right?

[39:25]

In some ways, worse. The other one, you're just, you know, kind of pleasantly confused and getting thrown all over the place and can't see straight and think it is straight and all. This one, you get thrown into, because of that rigidity, you're like, really get knocked hard into a big turbulence. Of course, some people are even... There's maybe relative degrees of strength of holding. The harder you hold, the more the holding gets you. If you hold hard, you're pushed hard. The last one is very subtle. It's the one of language. And he says there that you embody the marvel but lose the fundamental. And the intellect, again, is key. The opportunity confuses beginning and end. So that's one to think about.

[40:27]

You can read that in the book. You embody the marble, but lose the fundamental, and you confuse beginning and end. Yeah, it's the outflow around verbal outflow. So I would guess here that it might be okay to let your mind reflect on the fact that this one includes all those four perverted views, that this might be the last one. that all these identifications that we make might be included under this one. So with the aid of this language, maybe you'll be more readily able to spot these outflows in yourself.

[41:34]

And if you can spot them, then you know how to respond. Basically, you don't exactly know what to do, but you kind of know the basic posture with which to experience them for starters. And then see what happens from there. Then do you lean into them or what? Some of you, I think, have had a little bit of experience of actually being upright, at least for a little while, and have experienced a taste of freedom by being upright and unmoving, and not leaning away or towards or anything in these situations, and experience how that's freedom. That kind of presence is freedom. That's not the end of the story, though. But it's the beginning of the big story, which is now, at that point, you not only have been able to... Another name for this is selfless practice.

[42:44]

Because when you practice this way, you've been able to put aside your selfish concerns long enough to not... constantly orient towards this material in terms of what will benefit you. You have to put that aside a little bit, at least for a period of time, in order to not mess with this stuff. And this selfless practice then can actually help you become an actual change, change your position on the whole thing of self. ...the Four Noble Truths and dependent co-arising in that situation. However, you still can see suffering in the situation. It isn't like you don't see suffering. You still do. But by being freed from these influences, to do the silly things... What does that lady say? What's that term that lady says that's on the bumper sticker?

[43:49]

Outrageous acts of kindness or whatever. Random acts of kindness and what's the other one? Senseless acts of beauty. Anyway, foolish acts of compassion. Whatever will be an expression of your compassion, you're free to do it. because you're free of these influences. So with that kind of basic approach, if you're working on that kind of basic balanced posture in the middle of your suffering, then the Four Noble Truths I think the study of them will not take you so much up into your head. Or if it does go up into your head, that's okay, but also be someplace else at the same time, not just in your head.

[44:56]

Even though some people have had some experience of this, spotting the outflows and leaving them alone and not getting influenced by them for a little while, they haven't been thoroughly enough convinced to not stick their head in them anymore. Some people have had a second or a minute or 10 minutes or I don't know what. of actually dropping the stuff and experiencing that freedom, but it wasn't strong enough yet for them to be convinced that they should just never dabble in, you know, never be prejudiced towards the stuff again. Like, we're going to finally just cut the outflows. Forever. Or, you know, no doubt there would be a good thing to do. And, you know, also in the scriptures, when the Buddhists Translations of what he said when he saw the end of outflows.

[46:04]

But I like this one. He says, Future births have ended. The higher life has been lived. Done is what has been done. Done is what has to be done. There is no more of this. So, in other words, I'm not going to fool around with this stuff anymore. That's it. But this is like a real happy thing. I'm so happy I'm not going to fool with this stuff anymore. Which is similar to there's not a rebirth. Of course, unless it would help people, then I'd be happy to do it. I'd be happy to mess with this stuff. Or if I need to mess with this stuff in order to get a chance to practice more, I'll do it.

[47:13]

No, it comes from you being convinced. And like I said, you could have a major encouragement in this way. Like you could have, like I say, a second of this. A second of this is a big encouragement. Just a flash. from this stuff. It would have to be a flash where something was actually coming to give you an opportunity. It wouldn't be the flash where nothing was happening. But when a nice strong leak comes and it gets cut, just like that, that would be a big encouragement. If that happened, then several of them, like one came, and the next one's going to come very fast. But a minute of that would be a really big encouragement. But enough of that so that you would be totally convinced. It wouldn't be that you then say, well, there's going to be no more of this, like that's a decision. That's the way you talk when the decision's been made. When you're convinced, you might talk that way. But it isn't that the decision hasn't been made, and now I'm going to talk that way.

[48:23]

Before the decision's made, we say, I vow to end all outflows. From what I understand, and from what I've experienced, I vow to end all outflows. I've heard enough to make the vow. I'm convinced that it'd be good to make the vow. I can't anymore say it isn't going to be anymore. That's like when you receive the precepts, you say, I vow to keep practicing these precepts even after acquiring Buddhahood. After achieving Buddhahood, it wouldn't be a vow anymore. You keep practicing, but it wouldn't be a vow. It would just be something that's going to happen from now on. This is a state of affairs. It's not a will thing. It's just like saying, this is Tassajara. It's just like that. It's not a will thing. It's a community decision. We decide this is Tassajara. I didn't make it up. No. So we say it's Tassajara. It's like that. It's not a will thing.

[49:25]

But there is such a thing as being certain. And you're certain when you're convinced. When you've been convinced, the Buddha was convinced and he said that. And one more quote I want to tell you. And that is, when Dung Shan was studying with, he went, he was traveling around, he went to visit Guishan. Somewhat inconclusive meeting with Guishan. inconclusive but very important, because Guishan's meeting with him set up the next meeting with his teacher, Yunyan. But as he was leaving Guishan, he said, when these masters left their teachers, their various teachers, They never knew what was going to happen after they left. You might get enlightened later as you're walking down the hill, and then you become the person's disciple, retrospectively.

[50:36]

That actually happened with his next teacher, right? And he says, if somebody asked me about your teaching, what should I say? And Guishan said, just don't tell anybody where I am. And he said, do you have any instructions for me? And he said, yeah. So then Dongshan didn't do it right at the time. It took him a little bit of time to do it. But then when he did, then he gave his teaching to us. But he found these things in himself. And the idea is, anyway, to end them. End them means that you're convinced you can't play with them anymore. And then that's it. You can end them in a given moment. When you don't mess with them in a given moment, that's an end in the moment. But you have to be convinced how wonderful that is to actually be able to say, now they're done. And I think, honestly speaking, not too many of

[51:39]

But it's not kind of, OK, say it. It's just more and more, I'm really convinced. So the Buddha was convinced, not the person. The Buddha was convinced. And then there's a Buddha available right near you that can be convinced. And then she won't have to willfully say that. But until she's ready to say that, maybe it won't be said. Maybe those words won't come from you for a little while. Maybe a part of me is absolutely convinced. Some other part that I don't quite know. Yeah. And when I heard you say that, I thought, well, one way to read that is you can end some outflows, but not others yet. Some you can recognize, and once you recognize them, you can not meddle with them.

[52:42]

Others you haven't seen yet even, really, and therefore they're still pushing you around. Others you've seen, but you still don't know how to respond to. So you can say some part of ourselves, or you can say some part of our skill. Our skill doesn't necessarily develop evenly. All of our problems, sometimes we get much better at one of them. You know, let's go do the other one. And sometimes we get pretty good at one and we can't get better at this one until we get better at the other one. We get better at this one. This one gets better and they gradually come up like that. So this is the basic, you know, you can forget about everything I said, but somehow then after you forget it, you're going to remember something else. Something else is going to happen to you. In other words, you're going to have a day tomorrow, I guess, you know. The day is going to come to you and it's going to influence you. How are you going to react? So I'm talking about how to respond to the rest of your life and be aware if there's any kind of outflows in your life, be aware of them and don't give up playing, give up your old games with them.

[53:59]

I don't want to say give up playing with them because playing with them may be part of giving them up. I don't know. The point is that you're not biased, you're not leaning into the play. For some people, not playing might be leaning backwards. For some other people, playing might be the perfect expression of being upright in response to the stuff. So you need to see what would be recognized in the thing without indulging. Not get stuck. Recognize without getting stuck. And getting stuck could manifest as what one person would call getting stuck for another person would not be getting stuck. Depends on your background. Depends on your prejudices. For some people to be homosexual would be not getting stuck. Getting stuck. Some people being heterosexual is being stuck.

[55:05]

For other people it would be not. But still, there is a sense of what it's like to lean. There's a sense of that. You do have some sense of what it means to be balanced. You do have some sense of it. What it means to be balanced is that you're not balanced. You have a sense of being off balance. You have a sense of, that's why this word outflow is nice because, or flood, because you experience them as energetic floods. Again, this word ki means energy. There's a flood of energy into the intellect or into the feelings. There's a flood in or a flood out. You're inflated or deflated. There's energetic consequences of these positions. You can feel that. Tassajara, in some ways, I find is a very good place. In that regard, I don't know if it's the altitude or the people or the mountains, but I find that I get overheated more easily here, even when it's cold.

[56:09]

In other words, I sense outflows more here. Maybe not as much as I should, but more, anyway. End cut. Yeah, right. Well, it's not doing anything. It's just being balanced at present and upright. That will end them. And usually when we when these things happen, we we have we have a leaning or biased response. And that's that's they knock and they push us around usually. And so when you feel that being pushed around, you notice that. And then also to be not even prejudiced against that would be being upright. So I've used before, I like the image of the windmill because the windmill. When the wind blows on the wind bell, the wind bell swings. First of all, the wind bell hangs upright.

[57:11]

Wind bells don't hang sideways. They hang upright. And they relate to gravity. But when things affect them, they move. When the wind blows, they move so that they're flexible. And when the effects go on, they swing back. So this uprightness and flexibility are part of the way you'll learn about this. But study the situation like this. The influence will gradually not be an influence anymore. It won't be like the fact that you're affected by these things won't really bother you. So it isn't that you stop the wind or, you know, resist the wind. You actually pour into what's appropriate. And you notice how these different factors cause increase and decrease of energy. And by that, not by that intelligence.

[58:13]

You become free of these. Right in the middle of the situation, there's this wisdom, which is the understanding of the end of these influences. But the way the wisdom is expressed will be in your response to the influence. What used to be an influence is now a stimulus for the expression. So basically, you get pushed this way and you say, You push that way and you say, freedom. But the freedom sounds differently because, you know, the way your little things work this way will sound a little bit differently than that way. It's basically the same message, you know. Freedom. [...] Whatever, you know. It's always the same sound. Always the same message. Namely, I'm free of this. This is something I'm not going to fight. These are causes and conditions.

[59:18]

And then sometimes there's pleasure in the freedom. And then you start seeing the four noble truths. So if you keep it, if we start talking about paranormal truths, it might be that there's plenty. It might be that things will get intellectual. So you need to keep you need to keep the practice going in the midst of the study so it doesn't get too abstract. And involving is part of your your being back and reiterate the posture. The next time we can start actually studying the first truth, while the concern is still, you know, operating at its maximum level. It still operates, you know, at a cellular genetic level.

[60:25]

You still feel, your body still feels some kind of ripple or some kind of vibration aspect of drinking several gallons of other people's saliva. Actually, the actual tactile experience being brought to your lips. So there's still that, but you're free of it at some level, but you haven't been totally transformed. I think part of the theory of Buddhism is that the being can actually be transformed physically eventually. ...practices which people have been exposed to, to push them over the edge. Usually you need a very... But there can be freedom prior to that.

[61:36]

And when you're actually walking around most of the time with self-concern at almost all the normal levels that it operates, you can express yourself almost very freely and so on. But still the self-concern is still coming up, generating these outflows. ...knocking at the door, and you're more or less saying, no way, I'm not going to play, or whatever. I shouldn't say no way. Confidence that you're not going to get caught up in them again. And yet they're still going to be generated out of your body. At some point, they don't even get generated anymore. Well, I'm not laughing. Well, let's find out who they are, shall we? The Buddha supposedly didn't get reborn.

[62:45]

He worked that all out, so he didn't come back. He wouldn't be drawn into, even your karmic contention wouldn't slip into the outflows. So that would be like he finished his work. But bodhisattvas, even highly developed bodhisattvas, sometimes get involved in that. take on that concern so they ground themselves into kind of physicality and take up that genetic imperative in order to be reborn so they can continue to work. So yes, you can live after that. You can live and be very active in practice and relating to people and teaching. You know, very full, active life after that. The universe of the description here is two different views of a sentient being.

[63:54]

One's from the karmic point of view. This one's more from a meditative point of view, this up-flow thing. Not so much in terms of action, but in terms of influences and responses. Not so much influence and then killing or stealing, but influence and like or dislike. This kind of teaching is more about the meditative experience. Now, if you switch over to karma, acts of karma will be based on these outflows. And those acts strongly develop these outflows. And then the acts based on these outflows, which then reinforce these outflows, those acts also develop these outflows. These outflows themselves, we do not pin on these outflows credit for creating the world. These outflows have developed in the world. Karma gets credit for creating the world.

[64:58]

The discussion of actions is a separate discussion, and that has a lot to do with cause and effect and the creation of the world. How we meditate on karma is a different meditation than the meditation on outflows. You have to meditate on karma also in order to do the meditation on outflows. If you don't meditate on karma, you won't be able to meditate on outflows. Outputs are a little bit more subtle meditation. Meditation on karma means to be aware of your karma. It means to be aware of how you think in terms of subject and object and all that. So there are different kinds of awareness. Mindfulness of this kind of thing and mindfulness of karma go nicely together, but there's some different concerns. I don't know if I answered your question. I think the self-concern is that karma is more like input-output It's more like a programmatic organization of the whole system.

[66:10]

Whereas this is like the basic motivation and direction of the situation, the basic concern. And if you look at the patterns of concerns resolved among themselves, then that becomes the prototype for action. But Action Man, you see, has a little bit of gross in this. Action Man has these gross effects of creating the world. Whereas these things are more gross. more subtle things about disturbing or clarifying your vision of what's happening. Karma is not about clarifying so much your vision. Karma is based on your vision being already confused. It's an extrapolation of delusion. This is more like addressing the work and the psycho-energetic disturbances created around illusion and how to orient yourself in such a space. Generally speaking, the Four Noble Truths do not dawn on a person in the midst of meditation on karma.

[67:17]

The Buddha wasn't meditating on his karma when he had vision of the Four Noble Truths. And I think that it makes sense that you won't be having these insights into the Four Noble Truths. The highest wisdom will not dawn on you while you're meditating on the gross level of karma. But you can't skip over that level of meditation on your karma, otherwise your karma will grossly interfere with your meditation on more subtle matters. Meditation on karma I haven't been addressing because we're just telling you Four Noble Truths. Four Noble Truths is a basic teaching that addresses highest wisdom. It's also wisdom about meditation on karma. It also leads to wisdom about karma. But it's a grosser level. at the more summary level of the situation rather than getting down to the subtleties of how do you respond to these influences of your... Okay? I'm happy to fly over to the karmic level because, of course, you need to take care of that too, but fortunately for you, if you follow the schedule, you've already taken care of that.

[68:33]

Yes? What? Yeah. Yeah, like when the bell rings, do you go or not? That kind of thing. How do you use your orioke? Positioning your body as a karmic act. I'm doing this. How do you do that? And are you aware that you think you did that? That kind of thing. So just mindfulness. And understanding that that's karmic, if you think that you're doing that, this is meditation on karma. So we need to do that too in order to take up residence in the actor and then study how the actor then is influenced by various dispositions and outflows. Most of the work needs to be done. But in fact, as I said, if you do the practice here, it happens almost spontaneously. And if it doesn't, we have things like bells being hit 15 minutes early and bells being hit when it's supposed to be a Han and stuff like that.

[69:39]

Or people planting various things in walls instead of on the ground and stuff like that. People not showing back to you and things like that. There's various ways that we have of bringing our attention to the fact that we're not watching our karma. Then I hope you're doing that, and then by centering yourself in the middle of that awareness and using these outflows as a way to find your true balance, then you're going to actually be able to see what the actual responsible truth business is. This is like that we're going to follow the same course as Buddha. Just go right through the sutra the way he did. That's what I'm talking about here. And he did a lot of karma before he got to that point. He tried a lot of stuff, big time. He did lots of heavy karmic spiritual practice.

[70:43]

He tried before he got down to this practice, this practice of studying and becoming overcoming or becoming free of, developing the appropriate relationship with. Ending the outflows means developing a proper relationship with. Ending the relationship with the outflows, you see the Four Noble Truths. But developing a proper relationship with such dynamic entities in our life is, of course, you know, takes total, total effort. But total effort, just for one moment, is just for one moment. So try it just for one moment. That's all you got to do, one moment. You need the one moment of Buddha back. And then see if one's enough for tonight. And so we have two Dharma events this week coming up, scheduled. One on the 11th and one on the 12th.

[71:44]

So there's various kinds of Dharma events we can have. We can have discussion groups, classes, Dharma talks in the Zendo. Choson, etc. Those are the more common ones I just mentioned. But if you wanted to add in square dancing or something. So between those choices of discussion groups, Dharma Talk, Choson, and class, I'd appreciate some feedback. So some feedback would be appreciated. I don't know what's a good way to do it. One way to do it is you can vote for each one, in favor of all of them, or one's more popular than the other.

[72:45]

That's one way. Then you don't have to exclude anything, except by not raising your hand. Want to do it that way? So how many people want the discussions? These next two meetings.

[72:59]

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