How's the volume? It's a little low? How's the volume? 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, is so familiar to us in one sense that I'm almost a little embarrassed because it's so simple. And that is our thought process, which is not simple actually, but the instruction for what to do with our thought process when we sit instruction knows, the instruction that we give is, once you've settled your body in an upright position that's hopefully relaxed, but up, that when thoughts come, just let them come.

[01:26]

You don't need to get rid of your thought process, but don't hold on to it. So if thoughts arise, that's fine. and let them arise, but don't take them up and start a story. And then when you realize you're doing that, which we all do, just let go and then come back to just being here. And then more thoughts arise. You recognize they're arising and let them go. Just relax, let them go, come back. That's the instruction. Everybody here has heard that, and yet, have we really gotten to the bottom of that? time, but sometimes we might read something, or somebody might say something to us, or some event happens, and we see things in a different way than we have before.

[02:51]

Maybe not conceptually. Conceptually it's all the same. But somehow there's levels that aren't necessarily conceptual. They're not anti-conceptual, but they're just more feeling something energetically, intuitively, something like that. The grand examples are when you read enlightenment experiences that various teachers have had. The bamboo hitting the rock with the sound of the pebble hitting the bamboo. The monk is enlightened practicing all the way along, not because there was something magic about that particular action. So I think we have maybe less dramatic versions of that all the time, where we've understood something in a certain way, especially conceptually, and then we see something, maybe a deeper experience about what that is.

[04:08]

So that's been my feeling So it's kind of subjective, but I will impose it on you, my subjective feelings about that. There's two teachers who I've read just in the last year or so, just briefly, well actually more than briefly, but two teachers who really appeal to me from the past. One is Tibetan and one is Japanese. Tibetan teacher is Khenpo Gangsar, which nobody knows who he is because he's a very obscure person in Tibet who faded out of sight when the communists took over in the 50s. But he was Chögyam Trungpa's teacher. There's a book called Vivid Awakening, a current book, which is out

[05:16]

And then the other teacher is Banke, who is very famous and appears to be eccentric, but isn't really eccentric, just has his own way of teaching, who lived in the 1600s. So both these teachers have discussed and also during activity. So Khenpo Gongchar is not unique among Tibetan teachers in speaking this way, but somehow it just got through to me. He says, Don't pursue the past and don't invite the future.

[06:34]

Simply rest naturally in the naked ordinary mind of the immediate present without trying to correct it or replace it, to put it in a different place. and don't invite the future. Simply rest naturally in the naked ordinary mind of the immediate present without trying to correct it or replace it. So this feeling of resting really caught me in a good way. but resting like settling. So it's not like so much we're trying to discipline ourself or really concentrate or really get to the bottom of things, but we're willing to just settle in what we actually are right now and just keep settling.

[07:55]

which might seem kind of stagnant, except that each moment is changing. It's not the same moment. So to rest, in the way that he's talking about, each moment is still a different moment. And the feeling of resting, and the Tibetan teachers talk more like this than the Zen teachers do, but the feeling of resting is energetic. It's like settling your whole body and your whole mind. It's not any different instruction than any of the Zen teachers. It's the same instruction, but the tone of it is a little different. The energetic tone is different. And it also implies some contentment. to be able to rest in this present moment implies that we're content enough to settle.

[09:07]

If we're constantly wanting something to be better, or we want to think about how bad things are, which is equally vivid, we're not willing to just We're not content with what's happening right now. So this very simple instruction, actually this is the heart of Buddhism, right? Is that we're not content with what's happening right now. We're always wanting something to be a little bit different, even if it's really subtle. The second teacher who I really like is Bankei. Bankei does not speak in Buddhist terms very much. He tries to avoid using Buddhist terminology. He is very charismatic, popular, straightforward.

[10:12]

He had hundreds, if not thousands of people would come to his talks and come to his retreats. And we studied him for a few sessions in Sojins study group, I think it was last year, maybe earlier this year, I can't remember. And Banke's whole thing is the unborn Buddha mind, which I won't try to explain. We'll leave that for others. But when it comes to describing what to do with our thought process, here's Banke's tone. The reason people misunderstand the difference between thoughts and delusions is that everyone imagines thoughts all exist at the bottom and arise from there. But originally there's no actual substance at the bottom from which thoughts arise.

[11:19]

Instead, you retain the things you see and hear, and from time to time in response to circumstances, the impressions created by these experiences are reflected back to you in precise detail. So when they're reflected, just let them be, and refrain from attaching to them. Even if evil thoughts come up, just let them come up. Don't involve yourself with them, and they can't help but stop. Isn't this just the same as if they didn't arise? That way, there won't be any evil thoughts for you to drive out forcefully, or any remorse about having had them. Because the Buddha mind is marvelously illuminating, mental impressions from the past are reflected, and you make the mistake of labeling as delusions things that aren't delusions at all. Delusions means the anguish of thought feeding on thought.

[12:25]

really interesting, it's like, to me, Bompi is like a wise uncle who sits down with you and just says, you know, this is the way it is. I just want to tell you some common sense things that you should know in your life. And what he's saying here is that, you know, he's not laying it out in detail, but the implications I hear are that we think that thoughts are we identify with our thoughts. And he's saying, no, you know, you think that these thoughts are you, and you have some idea of yourself, but actually they're just like neurological reflections from the past. And there are millions, if not billions, of those possibilities, because we can retain so much from the past, even though we're not conscious of it. And so rather than taking our thoughts so seriously, as this is me thinking here, and these thoughts are really important, because I feel so gripped by them.

[13:46]

Well, yeah, we can feel gripped by them, but to also understand that, question them, actually. And not just to say, oh yeah, well Buddhism says there's no self, so there must not be a self, but to actually question it. Is he right? Are our thoughts just reflections from the past? It sounds very impersonal. It doesn't sound very cozy, does it? And so his point is that that thoughts arise from the past and are reflections, and of course you can reassemble the past into something which looks like the future, but it's usually just a reassembling of something that we've experienced in the past. If you try to create a Hollywood monster, if that's your job, create monsters for Hollywood, and you think, what's the weirdest, strangest thing I could think of?

[14:48]

The elements that you'll be working with are all things that you've experienced in the past. I mean, you may not agree with that. Think about if you can think of an exception. But you'll just combine eyes and claws and noses and skin and all that stuff. You just recombine them, that's all. But you already know the elements from the past. And the problem, as he's saying, is not the fact that this happens. This is just natural that this happens. It's the way our brains work. But the problem is that we start taking it so seriously and make such a drama out of it, such a very domestic drama, that it builds and creates all kinds of static and suffering. Mostly, many of these thoughts have to do with agitation, something that we don't like, something that we wish would happen, something that bothers us, something that we don't understand, that we're uncomfortable with not understanding.

[16:01]

So the tone I get from Banki is somebody just saying, look, here's how it is. Don't be fooled. So, because of reading those two teachers, in my own practice, I have felt the fading away of thought, when a thought comes up, not getting rid of it, not blocking it, and not judging so much. Although there's some judgment implied. But letting it fade. Let a thought just fade away. Different than trying to concentrate.

[17:13]

However, remaining mindful of this and not getting carried away with the ... instead of fading, making more and more vivid, because we do that too. A thought or memory comes up and anything is better than a feeling of nothingness or blankness, so we want to hold on to something which is really juicy and so we amplify it. You know that for our school, for the Soto school and the Suzuki Roshi lineage, you all know that his famous image that Suzuki Roshi used about not inviting thoughts into tea, right? That's his version of it. He says, you don't have to invite each thought to sit down and have a cup of tea.

[18:19]

Open the front door and let them come in. open the back door and let them go out. So that's Suzuki Roshi's saying more or less the exact same thing as the two previous teachers, but that's just his way of saying it. And I can't help but think of the coyote chasing the roadrunner and the roadrunner runs into the house and opens the front door and the coyote comes running in really fast Their roadrunner opens up the back door and the coyote keeps on going out the back door and then over the cliff. It's not that dramatic. So Suzuki Roshi's, the feeling of this kind of image is more interactive. It's cordial. We're not judging. But we're not really going to hang out. And the front door is open, the back door is open, I'm not going to push you out the back door.

[19:21]

I'm not going to suck you in the front door. It's just open. You can come and go. And sometimes in a thought process, especially during Sushi, you can start to feel like the doors are not open and we're just going around in circles. And Uchiyama Roshi is a somewhat different lineage, but very close to what we're doing. And Uchiyama is famous, I don't know if he's famous, if his saying is famous, but his way of describing this is, opening the hand of thought. He has a book called that. And he refers to that image frequently, and actually next four weeks, and tomorrow we'll be doing that.

[20:26]

And Uchiyama's commentary is part of the material, and all the way through his commentary on Vamdova, he's talking about the thought process, our thought process, and opening the hand of thought. So, this image I was thinking like, you know how you have this game you play with kids where they want to open up your hand, so they kind of peel back a little, and kind of let them, so they think you're getting some place, but then you won't let them get the next figure, and then you really get into it, because there's some progress, and then gradually you let them win, or not, you may have some better game plan, and open up your hand, so he's saying our hand is like this, we're holding our thoughts tight, And then I think, okay, why? Because we want to protect ourselves, we want to protect, we want to guard against, and we need to guard against being wiped out somehow, or uncomfortable, or pain, we don't want pain.

[21:41]

It's just that we overdo it, that's all. So, this is like the resting, Ganga Sarva's resting. There's a modern Tibetan teacher, Geshe Tenzin Wangal, who has his version of this. It's more up-to-date and technologically up-to-date. His version is, when I began using a smartphone, my battery would frequently lose its charge in a very short period of time.

[22:59]

Then I was shown a way to shut down the unnecessary applications many of which I had no idea were even running on my phone. Thus, the battery life was greatly extended. See where it's gone? Likewise, we also constantly run unnecessary applications of hope and fear. Many that we are barely aware of And we are convinced that those we do know about are necessary and important. Non-conceptual meditation, which is what Zazen is, non-conceptual meditation exposes these constantly running applications. As we no longer feed them or participate in them through engaging our thinking, moving mind, they release and dissolve into openness. we're no longer being drained.

[24:04]

So it depends if we're into energy, you know, and body and energy, this whole feeling of being. We're tiring ourselves out, actually, and don't realize it. And running these applications, you know, I don't have a smartphone. And I don't have applications. Sorry. I think the application of app apps can be great. I hear. You can see what the constellations are just by holding your phone up to the sky and stuff like that. They're useful, but do we need them? How many are there now? 25,000 or 75,000 apps that are available? Do we need all those? We need to constantly, every time we're walking the dog, be looking at our cell phone at the same time.

[25:08]

So sometimes I feel, what he's saying makes sense, clear, easy to understand, but think about how this feels for you. I mean, for myself, I tire myself out with my thinking process. I get tired in my thinking process. You know, there's this Bob Dylan song, there's the, well, Queen Jane. One of the verses says, when you're tired of yourself and all of your creations, won't you come see me, Queen Jane? I get very tired in my mental creations. to take care of our breathing, to take care of our thinking process.

[26:27]

This is in Naro So, he's talking, I think it's Naro So, he's talking about breathing, because we can also, during Zazen, we can focus on our breath. And he said that focusing on our breath is not just a method or a technique to gain concentration, You see the difference? That here we are breathing. We know that this is a technique or this is the instruction. Just focus on your breath and then you'll have fewer wandering thoughts and you won't be so distracted and more concentration. But that bypasses the actual... It doesn't bypass it. It doesn't mention that Beyond that, that this is where we are right now, and this is our life right now, period.

[27:39]

This is just our life right now. This breath is our life. Why not do it? Why not really do it, rather than see it as a means to something else, which is what we're always doing. This is a means to something better, later. But he's suggesting that we practice not just seeing these instructions as a method, but at the same time to be so rather spiritually snobby and think that we're beyond the method, but also I think that's a mistake. Ultimately you can say yes, just dissolve the methods. You don't need to have a method in your life and in your Like everything is here, what need is there for a method?

[28:42]

But that's kind of an ultimate viewpoint, or absolute viewpoint. It's not wrong, but to only hold on to that, or to only see it from that point of view would be very narrow. it will be a method that has heart, that it doesn't just see the method as meat to an end. And so the same thing with thinking, and letting go of thinking. Not to be at war with thought, and to appreciate thinking. I mean, we need to think. There is, for instance, you know, Dogen talks about in the Guidelines for Practicing the Way, he talks about raising the thought of enlightenment.

[29:59]

So is that a thought you just want to let fade away? That's a good thought. Or the thought of, you know, I vow to awaken with all beings. That's not a thought that we necessarily would like to just have fade away. But the catch is in those thoughts, those kinds of thoughts are not self-centered thoughts. So, you know, thinking is very necessary, but then the next question is, well, is my thinking self-centered, or how self-centered, or not self-centered? The real problem of thinking is the fact that it's so self-centered. Not that thoughts have any particular problem in themselves, but that we are always establishing our territory with our thought process.

[31:07]

And if we let go of trying to establish our territory all the time, that still may be thinking, but it's not gripped by our self our self-desire. So not to condemn thinking at all. And finally, I'd just like to mention Dogen's version of this, which is in the Fukanza Zengi, Dogen, his famous saying is, think not thinking.

[32:09]

How do you think not thinking? Non-thinking. in the Fukanza Zenge's introduction to Zazen and the original text that he had for this said if you remain for a long time forgetful of objects you will eventually become unified if you remain for a long time forgetful of objects but then Endogen included this in his writing when he was in his early 30s. In his 40s he revised it to say, think not thinking. How do you think not thinking non-thinking? So, you could go, we could go a lot, we could get into that, but I don't want to try. But one thing we could know is that what he's pointing at is non-duality.

[33:16]

That In other words, don't get caught by thinking, don't get caught by not thinking. So where does that leave us? And that's the question that he wants us to address, not necessarily intellectually. Because we want to say, oh, it's thinking or it's not thinking. But when you don't hold on to either one, then what happens? So I'll stop, and if you'd like to make a comment, ask questions, please do. Thanks, John. I have a question about how to work differently, if you have any thoughts on this, how to work differently with... I mean, it's one thing when you have certain thoughts passing by, and they don't have a huge charge, right?

[34:20]

I mean, then it's no big deal to sort of let it come and go, but one of the things I sometimes struggle with is that entire core identities come up in such a powerful way. I mean, it's like, and it's very quick. It's not like it happens within seconds. So, you know, it happened recently, so it's pretty fresh in my memory. And at those times, it doesn't really feel like I can just do this shifting. Some, it seems like something more radical is needed, but which is different from this, oh yeah, I just let it come and go, which really works a lot of the time, but what do you do while you're sitting if it's a really core identity that suddenly colors your reality, you really believe it, you know what it is, but it overtakes the moment, you know what I mean?

[35:23]

And then it feels like even if you do try to refocus, half-hearted, because the pull of the identity is strong. Is this making sense? Yeah. It happens to me all the time. So then what? What do you do differently? It happens to me in the middle of the night, usually. When I realize that's happening, At the same time, simultaneously with that happening, I'm also realizing how ... It's hard to explain. I have a deep feeling that my projections and my imagination about what I am

[36:29]

are very partial, not the whole picture. And the more obsessive that I feel, the more obsessive I feel during that instant that you're talking about, the more I'm cautious. That there's so much charge and so much power makes me suspicious. But at the same time, interested. Interested and suspicious at the same time. And if it's just got a hold of you, you just have to kind of let it go for a while. If you do that for ten minutes, it's not going to kill you. But if it goes on for two hours, it might.

[37:31]

But what do you do to react? My feeling is that if a thought comes up and it's something about yourself, your identity or somebody else, it's really bothersome to you and really vivid that you don't have to think about it to feel it. You can actually feel what's happening And the thought is a way of trying to... What I try to do is just at that point tell myself, just feel what this is, you don't need to think it all out, but don't run away from feeling it. In other words, you don't need to conceptualize it to... You have expectations and then they're shattered.

[38:46]

You don't need to think about it to feel it. But I'm very cerebral, and it's hard for me to do, but I know I'm interested in that. If I can just feel the vividness of this, just let me feel it. I don't need to analyze it so much. And then I work with that. But it's not black or white. Oh, now I've made up my mind. It just goes back and forth. But I don't think there's a formula that, oh, you do this and then that happens. But it's a dance. But practice is a matter of doing that dance. Well, I just heard something by a teacher last night from the Bhasma style. And they said, she said, When these thoughts come up about yourself, and I guess you mean negative thoughts probably, something negative or painful.

[40:00]

So she said to send yourself compassion. And I really like that as something to do. If you want something to do, just send yourself compassion. May I be peaceful. May I be happy. at ease, maybe at ease. I thought that was something to do. It is, and that's a kind of practice in itself. But I like ... I don't want to get into trouble, but I will. There's also the problem, potential problem, and this is the whole thing about affirmations and positive thinking, and how can I say this in a way that's not dualistic? I can't. I respect that kind of practice, but Zen practice is not a matter of being non-compassionate, it is a matter of dealing with what's actually right here, whether you like it or not.

[41:08]

It's not a better practice, I wouldn't say that, I'd just say that Zen practice is more I don't like this, and I'm going to stay with it, and I don't like it. On the other hand, to see that we don't see the complete picture. We know that we don't see the complete picture, so how negative we might feel, we always know that's just a partial picture. That's not the whole picture. And I was going to talk a little bit about positive and negative thinking, but I just thought it would go on too long. But it's very interesting, you know, the differences. Because positive thinking, which is a version of what you're talking about, is very powerful. And there's many, many versions you can see in society about how that works, and it can be extremely powerful and effective.

[42:15]

but not necessarily wisdom. But I don't want to be black or white about it. We should get to the end. Linda and then Judy, and that'll be it. Well, this is just popping up in response to this exchange. I don't necessarily see the example that she gave as as the same as positive thinking. Compassion could be seen as another word for just accepting without judgment whatever is arising. My favorite quote that you gave in your talk was, Yankei's saying, delusion is the anguish of the thought feeding on thought. Of what? Of a thought feeding on thought. Yeah. So in this kind of obsessive thinking or hard thinking that I think she and also Kata were referring to, usually the thought feeds on the thought in a way that's very self-critical, self-condemning.

[43:32]

This is so bad. So compassion could be seen as just letting go of that anguish and saying, the thought is arising, it is not being judged, you know. Yes, I hear that. The letting go. The letting go is being compassionate. Yeah, that's the difference of the anguish of thought going on to the next thought. It's judgmental. So from that point of view, yes, I would agree with that. Yes, and that's another piece is being non-judgmental. That's Zen, yeah. Yes. Except sometimes. Judy, at the end. Yeah. Two other things that I have heard recently that I think are helpful are equanimity and amicia, or things that are constantly in motion.

[44:35]

Everything is, whether one's perceiving it or not, including ourselves. So nothing exists forever, whether it's good or bad. And even if it seems like something very bad has taken over and is persisting, in fact, it's constantly changing. So acronymity, as I understand it, is involved with awareness of what is without grasping or without aversion. And that doesn't mean that you don't have any preference at all, as I understand it. But it means that you don't grasp onto either, I must keep this or I must get rid of this. And instead, you just are autonomous with it.

[45:41]

And what helps, again, is this notion that it is all things arise and they pass away. And anyway. Yes, actually, in that, when I mentioned the raising the thought of enlightenment that Dogen talks about, he basically says what you're saying. He says when you really realize the impermanence of things, And also the fact that our grasping at both birth and death, when you realize that and see through that, that thought of enlightenment is a different kind of thought. But it's basically what you're saying. But seeing that as a thought, even, is okay. All right, thank you for listening.

[46:32]

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