Good morning, well this morning my intention is to talk about the seven factors of enlightenment which I present periodically. The first two are, I'm trying to figure this out, mindfulness and clear comprehension. So, now I know. So, this is a seven factors of enlightenment, sometimes called the seven limbs of enlightenment, as if you were, it were, enlightenment is a tree with branches.

[01:04]

And the seven factors, so-called, are the attributes or the juice which motivates our enlightened activity. And many of you are familiar with these, and you know, given that there are, there's so many things to study in Buddhadharma, so many books, so little time, and we keep focusing on the simplest, most easily accessible fundamentals. So, I agree with that. And often people, students, get involved in complex Buddhist theories without actually understanding the very fundamentals.

[02:18]

So, I like repeating the fundamentals over and over, because often I'll ask somebody about the fundamentals, and they've never heard of them, even though they've been practicing for 20 years. What? So, I'm going to tell you what they are, and then talk about each one. Mindfulness, of course, is the first one. And investigation, it's called. But I like using clear comp, she wants to come in, clear comprehension. And mindfulness and clear comprehension go together. They work together as a kind of unit, and I'll explain that. The third one is called virya, like virility. A lot of Sanskrit words

[03:26]

are the foundations of English words. I think virya is one of them, but it means effort or energy or enthusiasm. And then there's the fourth one is ease or calm mind, developing a calm mind. And the fifth one is joy, which happiness is a derivative. And then the sixth one is concentration, which we usually call samadhi. And the seventh one is equanimity, equality or equanimity. So, those are the seven. So, these seven are somewhat independent, but they all relate to each other.

[04:31]

And they relate to each other sometimes as counter qualities. For instance, virya, which is enthusiasm or great effort, is often countered by ease or settledness, because it's easy for effort to get out of control, and it's easy for ease to fall into sloths and torpor. So, these qualities match each other and encounter and are interdependent with each other. And each one of these qualities contains all the others. So, if I talk about one, I can talk about it in connection with each of the others. So, although there are seven factors, each one contains the other. So, seven times seven is 48, 49. I learned that a long time ago.

[05:46]

I never needed to use it again. So, mindfulness is, you know, nowadays, mindfulness is really popular. And so, mindfulness can be used, you know, it's not necessarily, when mindfulness started becoming very popular outside of the dharma, a lot of dharma practitioners didn't feel good about that. They felt that it was cheapening the dharma. But, you know, mindfulness is universal. And I knew about mindfulness before I ever heard of Buddhism. And a thief is mindful not to be caught, and to be careful how he sneaks into somebody's bedroom and

[06:51]

takes the jewels, right? So, mindfulness is a kind of universal quality. But Buddhist mindfulness is how you be mindful of the dharma, how your mindfulness of staying on the Buddhist path, the Buddha, the dharma, and the sangha, and to keep Buddha, dharma, sangha as your guiding principle throughout day and night. So, that's Buddhist mindfulness, always returning to the dharma. You know, we're always getting caught by seduction. Seduction is the name of the game in this world of humans in developing countries, developed countries. I don't know about

[07:52]

countries, probably the same. We're always seducing each other in one way or another. We want to sell somebody something, we're seducing them. They don't want it, but we talk them into buying it. And that's called fair trade. So, and if we didn't do that, we'd all be very poor, according to the way things are set up, of course. Anyway, so, mindfulness is to keep returning. Every time we get off the path, we remember what we're doing. We remember our vows, we remember our intentions, and we get back on. And we don't have to blame ourselves. We don't have to feel sad or bad. We just say, oh yeah, I got off. Then we get back on. So, this is called entering the stream.

[08:53]

Once we've entered the stream, that's our path. So, mindfulness, basically, is staying, recollecting, it's called the practice of recollection. Remembering what we're doing, remembering what our intentions are, and staying with it. And then investigation, or clear comprehension, is to take care of the details, take care of how to do something. When it's investigation, it's really to analyze. It's a kind of analysis, practice of analysis. And to investigate and find out whether something is worthwhile or not worthwhile to do, or to take up, or to hold, or to reject.

[09:56]

Suzuki Roshi used to, it reminds me of Suzuki Roshi's talk about the frog sitting on the rock. There's the lake down there, and the frog is sitting on the rock, very still. And then a fly goes by, and the frog is just sitting there, investigating without moving. And then just open, just totally open without moving. And then when the fly goes by, the tongue goes, catch the fly. And then the frog investigates, do I want this or not? No. Or yes. That's investigation, clear comprehension. This I know I want, this I know I don't want. This fits with the Dharma,

[10:59]

this doesn't fit with the Dharma. So then virya is usually called energy, but I like to think of it, we don't produce energy, energy is produced. We do engaging activities which allow energy to arise, but we don't produce it any more than we produce anything else in our body, the way the fingernails grow, right? We don't grow them. But we do release energy, we uncover ourself so the energy could flow. So, to practice various practices which release energy is what this fastical factor is about. So, I always like to think of it as enthusiastic effort.

[12:08]

When we sit zazen, we release energy. You know, zazen is called total dynamic activity, total dynamic activity, zinki. So, we assume the right posture for zazen with effort, big effort. When we begin to practice, we have to exert really big effort. And then as our practice becomes mature, it's all about balance and effort, and we reduce the effort to just the right amount of effort to do the most work, the conservation of energy. You reduce the effort to just,

[13:11]

where is the best place? Where are the best places to allow me to sit up straight? And then we let go of the rest. So, this is also an aspect of clear comprehension to understand and investigate where the energy is focused, where the effort is focused to do the right amount of work, and to be able to let go of the rest, which is called ease. So, zazen is a combination of effort and ease. But often, either we do one or the other. We either don't, we think often that meditation means to just kind of relax. But that's only one part of zazen. The other part is to exert full effort.

[14:16]

So, when you reach the balance of full effort and ease, letting go, that's when you can actually sit in zazen comfortably. So, this takes a long time to develop that kind of maturity. We have to go through various stages, even though they're not exactly stages, in order to get to that place where we can balance ease with effort. This is why I say to people, when you sit zazen, you should give yourself zazen instruction every time, full zazen instruction every time you sit. Then you know what you're doing. That's called investigation, clear comprehension of what you're doing.

[15:22]

When we sit zazen, there's nothing else but zazen. But zazen covers everything. So, I like to apply these seven factors to zazen. This is what we experience in zazen. This is our zazen. The factors of zazen, basically, mindfulness, clear comprehension or investigation, great effort, total effort, total effort. But total effort doesn't mean to strain yourself. It means that you're totally there, totally present with nothing left out. And then, with enthusiasm. I like enthusiasm. So, ease or calm mind. Suzuki Roshi, one of his favorite things to talk about was calm mind. You should develop a calm

[16:29]

mind. Otherwise, it's hard to sit with effort and ease unless we have a calm mind. Calm mind means not being bothered by anything. And not being bothered by anything means to let go of self-centeredness. Because what it is that's bothered by things is the self. Some of the qualities of ease are tranquility and serenity. Tranquility is like a lake with no ripples. And serenity is like a sunset, a very quiet, calm sunset. The sun goes down, and everything goes down with the sun and goes to rest. That's nice. So, those are two qualities of

[17:40]

a settledness or ease, to have a settled practice. And then, joy is a product. It's not a thing. You can't create a joy. I mean, we can create some kind of joy. We can do certain things that make us happy. But those are fleeing joys. Fundamental joy is always present. So, these factors are not gaining something. They're revealing what we already have. So, our basic nature is to be joyful. And when the conditions are right, we feel that joy in one way or another. But true joy is not dependent on conditions.

[18:42]

No matter whether we're feeling happy or sad, there is joy in a deep, very deep stream that's not disturbed by happiness or unhappiness, or like or dislike, or pain or pleasure. And that joy, to mine that joy or allow that joy to arise, is our constant state. In that way, we can take up things and let them go without attachment. And whatever happens, that's our touchstone. And then, number six is concentration. In various walks of life, concentration

[19:52]

is highly developed. But this is concentration, a selfless concentration called samadhi. The difference between ordinary concentration, which can be very highly developed, and samadhi, is that samadhi is concentration without self, without self-centeredness, selfless concentration. Concentration is an aspect of samadhi. But samadhi is a state of oneness. There are many different samadhis. You know, in the history of Buddhadharma, there are many different samadhis. There's Komyozo samadhi, which means the samadhi of

[20:56]

infinite light, or samadhi of radiant light, in which in this samadhi, it's very difficult to explain this because it's not like a light. It's a metaphor. You shouldn't think of it as a white light. Togen says it's not white light, or some blue light, or the light of a firefly. It's things as it is. It's like everything that we see is light. Everything that we experience is light. So, this is enlightenment. Enlightenment is this light, is experiencing

[22:03]

the light of the universe without self-centeredness. So, there's samadhi of various meanings. Togen talks about jijuyu samadhi. Samadhi means samadhi, meaning self-illuminating, or self- enjoying, the samadhi of self-enjoyment, basically. And then there's jijuyu, and then there's tajuyu, which means other, the samadhi which is experienced by others. So, basically, it means through your practice, you develop this samadhi, and then you offer it to others.

[23:04]

You offer the experience or the possibility of this to others. So, it's called teaching. It's called teaching without teaching. It's just being. You teach through your samadhi. You teach just through being who you are. There's also teaching, which is learning things. When we think about teaching, we think about learning things. And sometimes people, students, will say, well, isn't it time for me to start teaching? That's teaching things. But this samadhi is teaching through who you are, just being who you are, which is rare, more rare. But we're always teaching through who we are anyway.

[24:06]

When you start to practice with others, everybody knows who you are. So, you're teaching something. We're always teaching something. When we have a conversation with somebody or we meet somebody, we teach each other how to relate to each other, even though we don't think that's what we're doing, but we do. So, when we meet someone, have a conversation, we notice how the other person acts, and we take our cue. And if that person sees how we act, and that's their cue. So, we're trading cues and finding a middle space in which we can act. So, we're always teaching. We're always, this is who I am, and this is what I'm doing. So, a person who is always in samadhi in this way, when people meet that person,

[25:08]

that they have an influence. So, any one of us who has a mature practice, when we meet somebody, that we influence that person knowingly or unknowingly. And that's the basic teaching. Suzuki Roshi always used to say, you come to the zendo and sit zazen, and then you just leave and do your activity without thinking about it. But you carry that samadhi practice with you, and that's how you teach people. You teach people through the way you interact with them. So, that's why we have to be very careful and mindful of what our practice is. We have to be very mindful of what our practice is, because whoever we meet and wherever we are,

[26:13]

we're influencing people one way or another. So, this is a world of influences. If you look at how people are influenced to do various things, we say sometimes people are really crazy. So, we teach each other crazy things, but we don't want to teach people crazy things. We want to teach them the dharma. And sometimes we do it through teaching, you know, what we ordinarily call teaching, but mostly we do it through who we are. So, that's why it's so important. We may think that we have this or that understanding, but when we actually interact with people, we see actually who we are and what our understanding is and what it lacks. That's called investigation. So, samadhi is like the still point.

[27:17]

When we know how to reach the still point, then everything comes out from the still point, because the still point is the fundamental. That's why we sit zazen. We say, don't move. Get your posture. Sit up straight. Balance your body. Think not thinking, which means think the thought of zazen. And don't move. Don't move means find the still point of the universe. When you find the still point of yourself, you're at the still point of the universe, and all the teaching comes out from there. It's a very simple practice. That's why we don't like to mix it up too much with other things. The only thing we teach is the still point. And people may not get it, but that's where everything comes from. So,

[28:31]

there's the still point and the activity. It's like sometimes called the unwobbling pivot. This is Confucianism. Confucius said this, but we also—the unwobbling pivot is like a pillar that is totally balanced, and nothing happens because it's totally balanced. You know, the world, this world, is not a circle. It's a kind of circle, but it's not perfect. It's an oblate spheroid. That's what my third grade teacher said. I've always remembered that. It's an oblate spheroid. And so, it doesn't go concentrically. It has a kind of wobble. And because we're human beings, a part of this world, we also have a wobble. But the wobble is what makes everything work. So, when something is perfectly still,

[29:35]

nothing is working. It's not dead. It's totally alive, but the liveliness of it is totally encapsulated. So, that energy is like an atom. When you bust the atom, all that energy flows out. But when the pole leans, then it starts going around. And when it starts going around, that's when activity starts. That's called eccentric. All of our activity is eccentric, but it's eccentric. Sazen, or our Buddhist activity, is eccentric within concentricity because we don't lose the pillar. We don't lose the still point within our activity. That's called samadhi. We don't lose the still point. Whatever our activity is,

[30:42]

the still point is always there. Even though we may lose it, we know where to go to get it back or to get back to it. So, we can do whatever we want, but we do it based on stillness or emptiness or whatever you want to call it. Stillness. I like stillness. Emptiness has other meanings. Emptiness means interdependence. So, that's the reason we said Sazen, is to get to the still point and realize that all of our activity, once we start moving, comes out of the still point, and the still point is the center of our activity, at wherever we're coming or going or whatever activity is. Then, that leads us into equanimity. So, samadhi and equanimity or concentration and equanimity are very close to

[31:50]

each other because equanimity is like the activity of samadhi. Equa, equal. So, our ego, so-called ego, the seventh level of consciousness in the model of Buddhist consciousness, is a false sense of self. It's our false sense of self because we think that it's something, but it's not. Everything it thinks is wrong because it's based on activity which is not anchored in stillness. When our activity is based on stillness, then it's true activity,

[32:51]

but when it's free of stillness or foundation… So, ego is without foundation, basically, and so that's why it's always false. But when that's turned on its basis, when our ego is turned around, it becomes wisdom. It's no longer called ego. It's called wisdom. So, ego turns, we say it turns into, but maybe that's the way of speaking. It becomes wisdom, and it becomes wisdom of equanimity or equality. So, the practice is a practice of transformation, and a transformation is to let go of ego and

[33:53]

let the energy that is sucked up by ego work as equanimity or equality. So, and that's called non-partiality, because there's no false self. What partiality is is a product of self, self-centeredness. So, in the Dharma, we say there's no self, right? Even though there is a self, it's not a self. The self that we think is a self is not a self. But anyway, it walks and talks and eats and does all those things, right? But when the self is transformed, it still does those

[35:02]

things. But what was the center of those activities is no longer the center of those activities. Buddha is the center of those activities. So, that's called enlightenment. When Buddha is the center of all those activities, it's called enlightenment. So, what do we do with our ego? Well, I like to think that we enter practice and offer up our ego to Buddha, who will take it and transform it into a beneficial action. So, those are the seven, a little bit about the seven factors of awakening or enlightenment. Do you have any questions?

[36:07]

Can you speak a little bit about how the Buddha absorbs our ego? When we say Buddha, it means reality, not some guy with a beard called Buddha. But Buddha, it's a way of saying that reality will support us if we actually let go of the false self. That's called faith. We have to have faith that reality will support us. That's the hard part. The hard part is letting go. There's this koan about climbing up to the top of a 100-foot pole and then stepping off, right? Basically, that's applied to somebody who thinks that they're enlightened, and they climb up to the top, and they say, here I am. I'm enlightened. And then we say, well, you have to take another step off and

[37:14]

see where you go. You have to have faith that the universe will pick you up. So, reality will support you. Can you please balance that with what one thinks needs to be done? And I think you said something about basing the activity on not the false sense of self. Is that the way you look at it? Meaning, the universe will take care of you, but then I feel I have to run around and do something. Well, it depends on what you have to run around and do and why. And if it is something to say, for example, I have to find a job to feed myself and all that,

[38:27]

then I have these unlimited choices of what I can go find a job in. And if I do that with not the false sense of self, even if I say, oh, I want to go help somebody, that maybe could be a false sense of self because it is centered on me. But if I find something that is not from that place, then it is balancing it. Is that it? Yes. You know, that's what makes our life difficult. Ideally, we know what to do. But practically, we're faced with these difficulties of compromise. So, giving our responsibilities makes it even harder.

[39:31]

Family, living space, all these things, you know, make it difficult. That's what makes it really difficult. I mean, it definitely makes it difficult. So, there has to be some compromise. But within that compromise, that's where you have to find yourself. Even though you take a job that you don't like, you say, I'm compromising, so that you're not fooling yourself. But I have to do this, and so I'll do it willingly for now, right? Until I find what works best. So, you should go get a job. And then from there, you can figure it out. Because as long as you know that you're not attached to that, and that it's an expedient, and then you treat everybody around you with love.

[40:37]

Because, simply put, letting go of self is universal love. So, you can, you know, think about figuring it out, but it's very simple, you know? Unequivocal. Even though you may hate or dislike somebody, it's still there. It's just like joy is still there. Love is, you know, a river that flows right beside joy. It's no matter what's happening. So, that's really the touchstone. And so, you always have, even though you have pessimism, it's overridden by optimism.

[41:39]

So, that's the end. Okay, one more. Two more. Oh, this book, it's called The Way of Mindfulness. Well, it's the Satipatthana Sutra and Commentary with other things. But it's really hard to study, I have to say. The language is so... Anyway. I'm not seeing the distinction between equanimity and calm mind. Well, they're very closely related. Calm mind is a quality of equanimity. And equanimity works best with a calm mind. So, there are the passive factors and the active factors.

[42:46]

Let me just look at this for a minute. Mindfulness is like the fulcrum. It's in the middle. And there's mindfulness in every wholesome state of mind. And on the one side is ease and equanimity and ease and concentration. So, those are somewhat passive. The active ones are investigation, effort, and joy. So, the passive ones balance the active ones and the active ones balance the passive ones. Is that what you're asking? Well, I did ask calm mind and equanimity.

[43:56]

Yes, so calm mind and equanimity are on the passive side. Would you give the Sanskrit for those two? No. You can study them. They're easy to find. Virya is effort. But I can't give you... I could look it up, but it would take too much time and we're over. So, Gary. By saying accept? Oh, I see.

[45:00]

Yes, yes. Well, yes. Accepting means to see as it is. It doesn't mean you like it or dislike it. It means you see as it is. And when you see self as it is, you see that it isn't. Yes, no self means no permanent self, no inherent self. It doesn't mean that it's not you. You're there, but you there is not permanent.

[46:00]

It's just a bunch of, a collection of dharmas at this moment. There's some history and maybe some future. That's what it means. It means, yes, there is this changing, constantly changing entity called Gary. It's passing through. And nobody knows where it's going. Nobody knows where it's going. So, that's accepting. Anyways, there are many meanings to Sanskrit words, but they're pretty much universally

[47:05]

accepted meanings. I didn't make any of them up. I might make some up. Sometimes I make them up.

[47:11]

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