There's an announcement for this class and it says, Three Wisdoms of Buddhist Yoga, a Course in Zen Meditation. And I wanted to teach about the three kinds of wisdom that are taught in the Buddhist tradition, or three, yeah, three kinds of wisdom. But I also wanted people to understand that this wisdom practice is part of a yoga system or a yoga program, partly because I'd like people to understand that people always ask me, well, do you have yoga in Buddhism? And it's kind of like, well, that's what it is. Buddhism, Buddhist practice is yoga. So the part of what I'd like to also accomplish is for you to have an understanding of what we mean by yoga and Buddhism. And then also it says it's a course in Zen meditation.

[01:05]

And in some of the last classes, previous classes, I talked a little bit about Zen meditation. Remember? And the Zen meditation is, in a way, the type of meditation or the type of practice which which makes it possible to learn about the three wisdoms of Buddhist yoga without defiling the three wisdoms of Buddhist yoga. So Zen meditation is basically a way not to ruin the practice. It's an attitude towards a wide ocean, an extensive ocean of Buddhist practices of Buddhist yoga practices, of Buddhist wisdom practices, lots of them. And Zen is trying to emphasize, well, how can you enter this ocean of Buddhist teaching and Buddhist meditation and Buddhist yoga and Buddhist wisdom and so on, all these practices, without basically letting any selfish little person screw it up?

[02:18]

So the basic thing about Zen is, well, just forget about yourself, for starters. Just drop away and have no attachment, no grasping, and no seeking. So enter this course on Buddhist yoga, but please, before you come into the course, don't try to get anything. Because if you do, that's going to undermine the whole point of the exercise program. Like it'd be like having a spa for losing weight. But to make it work, before you go into the spa to lose weight, you have to like not seek to lose weight. Because of course the reason why these people are so fat is because they're so concerned about what they look like that they're eating all the time. They're so nervous and upset about whether people like them or not that in order to assuage their anxiety about this world, they stuff themselves with

[03:23]

So then when they go to the spa, if they have that attitude too, it's not gonna work. Matter of fact, if they would just give up that attitude of trying to like get people to like them, they would lose weight spontaneously. I just lost quite a bit of weight there myself. We're losing weight all the time. It's just a question of whether you're taking in, you know, an antidote to it. So anyway, The Zen meditation I talked about last week, didn't I? You don't remember, huh? Did I? Did I? You don't want to answer my question? I didn't, huh? Did I or didn't I? I did. Laurie heard me. Nobody else did. Well, that's good. If you have any questions, ask Laurie. Did I talk about the week before? First week I did also? more more people heard it that week and lori wasn't here so and neither was carlos so anyway i emphasized that in zen teaching in the early parts of zen teaching one of the first concerns was how do you practice the way of buddha without getting in caught up in steps and stages because

[04:49]

It turns out that Buddha is sometimes sitting on the ground, and sometimes Buddha sits up on top of a very high throne. So to visit Buddha, you have to climb up steps to get there, because Buddha is like way up there on this huge lion throne that's like much bigger than the universe. So if you want to come up and shake hands with Buddha, you've got to climb the stairs. But it's very important not to get caught up in climbing the stairs while you're climbing them. Otherwise, it turns out to be a reverse escalator. Because you can't meet Buddha if you're trying to get something from the meeting. You get up there and you say, okay, now what do you got for me, man? That isn't the way you meet Buddha. You meet Buddha like, hi, this is great. Ten seconds of this is so wonderful. Rather than, well, can I have some more? Does that make sense? as opposed to John, anyway, and Elena.

[05:54]

That's the Zen part. So you're gonna have to sort of keep practicing Zen meditation during this whole rest of the course, okay? In other words, give up trying to get anything out of what's being taught here. And then, if you're able to do that, this is gonna, like, come across to you. You're gonna meet Buddha. because this is Buddha's teaching about how to be a Buddha. There's basically two kinds of yoga practice in Buddhism. You know, I'm just talking, right? There's two kinds of practices in yoga practices in Buddhism, and they're both Buddhist in the sense that Buddha taught both of them. One type of practice that Buddha taught, a kind of yoga practice, is a yoga by which you can become free of suffering. Free and wise, wise and therefore free of all your suffering, all your personal suffering.

[07:11]

Buddha taught that way and people heard it and they realized personal liberation. and they were very happy about that, and so was Buddha, and so am I. And these are like fabulously free beings, and there's still some of them around who are still practicing that way on this planet right now, and they're totally cool, free, happy, wise, kind, great people. Okay? So that's one kind of yoga Buddha taught to people. He also gave a few tips to non-humans, too, about how to practice, but I won't get into that right now. Then he taught another kind of yoga. The other kind of yoga is the type which I'm going to be presenting to you, and it's the yoga for not attaining, not concerned with attaining personal liberation. It's the yoga for attaining Buddhahood.

[08:13]

It's the yoga to attain Buddhahood. And Buddhahood is not just to be wise enough for you to be free, but to be wise enough to free everybody when they're ready. And, you know, they don't want to do it yet, but anyway, you're ready to help them when they want to. The path to Buddhahood, the yoga path to Buddhahood is the one that I'm going to be looking at it. And again, looking at it without seeking that you understand. I hope you do, but I'm not seeking it. Therefore, if you don't, I'm not going to, like, be hard on you. If you don't learn anything, say, you know, thanks a lot for coming. Okay? Now, the... As part of this yogic system, part of this yogic system includes training in these three kinds of wisdom.

[09:18]

And last week, I gave a one-page, two-sided, one-page summary of the bodhisattva yoga course. And bodhisattvas are those who are on the path to Buddha. So when Buddha was on the path towards realizing Buddha, he called himself a bodhisattva. So everybody that's heading, wants to realize Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings, just like Buddha, you're on the Buddha path, you're on the Buddha track. And so I passed out a summary of this path. How many people did not get the piece of paper that has that summary on it? You were here last week and didn't get one? Well, you weren't here. Oh, I know you weren't here.

[10:25]

But you weren't here, Paula? Well, I'm glad you're here this week because here's your paper. Okay, there's two. Weren't you here last week? Oh, and rewarding. These are prodigal students coming back to get their summary of the bodhisattva course. Anybody else didn't get one? Huh? I lost one. You lost yours. Oh, my god. You want another one? OK. Buddha's not stingy. Here comes another one. That it then? Everybody's got their summaries? Not Yvonne still. Okay, now, would you take this to Yvonne, please? Don't give it to anybody else, okay? One more, would you give this passage back there? Well, fortunately, I still have some left in case anybody else shows up.

[11:30]

So this... By the way, this is the standard, the scriptural... presentation of the path to Buddhahood, the Bodhisattva path to Buddhahood. There's other presentations besides this one. But like the Zen presentation doesn't sound like this. I already told you about that. So let's see. I'm not going to read the whole thing, but I'm going to read part of it again. And I hope that I don't take too long reading this. The entire path of the Mahayana, the great vehicle of the Bodhisattva, the universal vehicle for the liberation of all beings, may be seen as one of yogic practice and realization.

[12:40]

Yogacara, a path of yogic meditation. The Mahayana is three things, or can be summarized by three points. Compassion, bodhicitta, which is the aspiration to become a Buddha for the welfare of all beings, and realization. Realization of the ultimate truth. Realization of the truth which is the only real antidote to all suffering. Another way to put it is the meditation or yoga of compassion, the meditation or yoga of bodhicitta, and the meditation or yoga which is the full realization of the bodhicitta. of the aspiration to be Buddha.

[13:43]

It is a full realization of the wisdom which knows ultimate truth. And the yogic meditation finally becomes the full realization of what we call means and wisdom being practiced in perfect union. And means are all kinds of virtuous practices. You name them, they're on the list. All kinds of virtuous practices in the world with ordinary people and super ordinary people joined together with wisdom which gradually comes to know the ultimate truth. So the means are the way to develop all kinds of positive energy and the wisdom, the vision, and you join that together, you have a Buddha. The means are practiced under the supervision of the wisdom, and the wisdom is brought into life by practicing virtues in the world.

[14:56]

So it says that the means are like giving, ethical discipline, patience, diligence, and concentration. And any other kind of thing that benefits beings, any other kind of service to living beings are virtue practices. And the wisdom is the... the way of protecting those practices from any kind of defilement, from any kind of duality, from any kind of duality. When you join wisdom with these practices, then finally, when you're giving or when there's giving going on, you're free of the view that you're giving to somebody else or that somebody else is giving to you. You're free of the duality of giver-receiver. You're free of the distinction between giver-receiver and what's given. And this makes giving like supremely beneficial and supremely fun.

[16:10]

Giving can be a little fun even while you still have dualistic attitude. And in fact, and also giving can help you overcome your dualistic attitude, can lead you toward wisdom because as you get better and better at giving, you get more and more over the sense that there's somebody other than you out there. which is ignorance, that kind of attitude, and so on. Patience, you know, when people are afflicting you, it becomes perfected when you realize that there's nobody out there separate from you, that this is really just the one mind training you to be Buddha, that this is really love coming to you, and so on. Anyway, so then we come into the three kinds of wisdom. So now we're at the three kinds of wisdom which are for the developing of the antidote to suffering of all beings.

[17:22]

All right? So the three kinds of wisdom are the wisdom of hearing. Shruta, which means sound. Wisdom of hearing. Wisdom of thinking or reflecting or investigation. Chintamai, prajna. So prajna is wisdom. Mai means arisen from. So shrutamai prajna means wisdom which is arisen from hearing. Chintamai prajna means wisdom which is arisen from reflection. And then the third type is called wisdom which has arisen from meditation. Bhavana Mai Prajna. Would you call my assistant and ask him to make up a reading list for this class? And the reading list is going to have...

[18:26]

at least three books on it, all of which are the translations of the same scripture. So this book, which one translator named this book Buddhist Yoga. This scripture is called, it's a scripture on Buddhist Yoga. Particularly the seventh chapter, which is the biggest chapter, is called Analysis of Yoga. So this scripture is very good in a lot of ways, but one of the ways it's especially good is by giving a very detailed and amazing picture of the Buddhist yoga process. So there's three translations, and it just occurred to me today that this sutra, this scripture, which has now been translated into English, and I was looking for this sutra for decades. And I was, you know, I finally found it. I heard about it, heard all these things about it, about the practices that were in there.

[19:31]

I wanted to read about them. And finally I found that there was a French translation. I tried to get the French translation, you know, not too hard, for a long time. And just about when I almost had the French translation, somebody gave me an English translation. And then a little while later I got another English translation. So in the last few years I got these two English translations, and then this year I got a third English translation. And I'd just like to point out to you people that these two translations were both published in Berkeley. The two English translations of this very important scripture of the bodhisattva path to Buddhahood, the yogic path to Buddhahood, these two were published in Berkeley. Berkeley, I mean, God, that's great. And this third translation is published by Shambhala, which started in Berkeley. But they moved to Boston for some reason.

[20:32]

So Berkeley is somehow helping Buddhism really nicely. So this is the yoga room. And, but, you know, originally it was not the Buddhist yoga room, but as you can see, the last few weeks, it's kind of getting into the Buddhist yoga room. Okay, so in this seventh chapter, the chapter which is about the bodhisattva yoga, and which in Chinese they call, the name of this chapter in Sanskrit is the questions of love.

[21:39]

love is the name of a bodhisattva and this bodhisattva in sanskrit is called maitreya bodhisattva the bodhisattva maitreya and this bodhisattva and maitreya means love or loving kindness this bodhisattva is predicted by the buddha to be the buddha of the next the next eon of this planetary system. So after, like, after somehow, you know, whatever's going to happen, Buddhism's going to, like, disappear around here. Then it's going to be re-found again. And the Buddha's going to be this bodhisattva of love. And this bodhisattva of love, this love bodhisattva, is the one who's asking questions of the Buddha in this chapter on yoga. Now I said at the beginning, I read at the beginning, the first point, the first point in Mahayana, the first aspect, the first thing about Mahayana is what?

[22:54]

Compassion. Now this is a class on the third point, realization of wisdom. Okay, so we're not going to talk too much about compassion, but Please remember that the chapter on the yoga of wisdom is asked by the bodhisattva. The questions are coming from the bodhisattva of love. And that this whole class on wisdom is founded on the point of it all is love, is to develop and realize love in this world. That's the main point of the whole thing about Buddha. The whole course is fundamentally about love and compassion. But we're not going to spend, I mean, I'm spending some time on it now, but we could easily spend much more than this class just on that first point of how to develop the yoga of compassion, how you can meditate on compassion in deeper and deeper and wider and more and more wonderful ways.

[23:56]

So even though we're not going to go into the details, Please remember that underlying this whole discussion of wisdom is the ground, the pith, the essence of the path of the bodhisattva, compassion. Now, I'm not asking for any personal favors, but, you know, be compassionate for me who has to, you know, bring this stuff up and be compassionate for the other people in the class. you know, who are trying not to get anything from the class, but are slipping into that occasionally. And be compassionate to yourself, of course. Okay, so this is the chapter on yoga, and it starts out with the bodhisattva love, Maitreya, asking the Bhagavan. That's a name for the Buddha. Bhagavan means...

[25:01]

somebody who's worthy of respect because this person has become completely free of all ignorance. So somebody who's become completely free of ignorance and is not, you know, kind of proud about it, kind of dignified about this great attainment, we call Bhagavan. or Buddha. So he asked the Bhagavan and he said, Bhagavan, abiding in what and depending on what do bodhisattvas in the great vehicle cultivate? I would say, first of all, meditation or yoga. But what it actually says is, how do the bodhisattvas cultivate? You know, abiding in what and depending on what do bodhisattvas cultivate?

[26:06]

Samatha and vipassana. Samatha is calm abiding and vipassana is higher vision. So abiding in what and relying on what do the bodhisattvas, the people on the course to Buddhahood, What do they rely on and abide in as they practice yogic meditation? And the Buddha says, Maitreya, abiding in and depending upon an unwavering resolution to expound the doctrinal teachings... and become unsurpassably, perfectly enlightened. So, as we approach this course in yoga as bodhisattvas, if we are bodhisattvas, or if one wishes to be a bodhisattva, you approach the course of meditation and you abide in and depend on an unwavering resolution

[27:18]

to teach the teachings of Buddhism, the teachings of how to do this path and all you need to learn to do it. And also that you're also to become an unwavering resolution to become unsurpassably perfectly enlightened. And that's the second point. That's the bodhicitta, the second aspect of the bodhisattva's path, that you actually have the resolution and eventually unwavering resolution to achieve Buddhahood for the welfare of this world. That's the basis of this yoga course. That's the second point. My next paragraph is pretty difficult, and I'm tempted to skip it.

[28:45]

I kind of feel like maybe I shouldn't. What do you think? Should I chicken out and just go to the next one? Okay, here it is. I'll just read it and then I'll talk to you about it. Now, Maitreyi is talking again, I think, and says, The Bhagavan has taught that four things are objects of observation for calming and insight. Four things are objects. One is conceptual images. Two is non-conceptual images. And three and four are, three is the limits of phenomena and four is the accomplishment of the purpose.

[30:04]

Yeah. And then he says, Bhagavan, how many of these objects are observation of calming meditation? And the Bhagavan says, one. One of those four is what you look at when you're doing the calming side of meditation. Non-conceptual. And then he says, how many objects are observation for the higher vision or insight? And the Bhagavan says, the Buddha says, one, conceptual images. And then Maitreya says, how many are objects of observation of both? In other words, when you practice Samatha and Vipassana together, How many are objects of both?

[31:26]

Can you guess what he's going to say? Can't, okay. Two. The limits of phenomena and the accomplishment of purpose. Now, just so you don't lose the thread, because I know you're not trying to get anything, But when you're not trying to get anything, one of the advantages of that is you're calm because you're not trying to get anything. But the other side is you get kind of sleepy because you're not trying to get anything. So who cares what he's saying? It's kind of hard. Even if I was like really wrought up, it'd still be hard to follow it. But, you know, that could be just going to let this whole thing go. And that's okay to relax like that and let it go. And if you stay awake after you let go, it's just going to go right into you. You can like both stay awake and relax. then this teaching is going to like go in you and it's going to go out the door with you. So if you can stay awake without trying to, you know, get anything, that would be like a real good way to listen to this.

[32:32]

Okay, so now I'm going to go back over these things because these are the meditation which is going to be the basis of the third type of wisdom. Now, I just might parenthetically mention that While I'm talking to you and you're listening to me, when you start to understand what I'm saying to you... Pardon? What were you going to say? Yeah, let it go. And then after you let it go and understand even more deeply because you let go and your understanding gets more developed, that understanding based on listening to what I'm saying and understanding what I'm saying is the first type of wisdom. So actually we're working on the first type of wisdom right now. the wisdom which comes from hearing the teaching, listening to the teaching, discussing the teaching, you know, and so on. Okay? So we're actually doing the first type of wisdom now.

[33:34]

We're working on it. Okay? The first type of understanding we're working on. Okay? And the part we're working on now is understanding about the meditation which is the basis of the third. Does that make sense? Okay. Now I'd like to go over these three, these different objects. The first object is the object of meditation for calming, for stabilizing the mind and body, mind and body, calming mind and body. This is different from like cigarettes. No. Yeah, cigarettes. Cigarettes calm your body and stimulate your mind, right? Coffee stimulates your mind and your body. Well, this kind of meditation calms your mind and your body. But it doesn't stimulate either one of them. However, it calms them in such a way that you're full of energy.

[34:36]

It's calm energy. It's kind of like... Did you get that? You know what I'm talking about? Could I tell a story? Please do. Okay, I will. Since you asked and have no attachment to me doing it, right? Well, when I went to Tassajara for my first practice period in January of 1969, at the end of the practice period, we had an intense meditation period. And during one of those periods, it was a seven-day meditation retreat where we sat from early morning to late at night in periods of 40-minute periods with walking meditation in between.

[35:45]

And one time, for the first time in all the time I'd been practicing... I was like significantly late to the period. Like I came into the meditation during like maybe halfway through it. I don't know why I was that late, but anyway, it was like right in the middle of period and it was like it was a sunny day and the sun was coming in the windows so that it was quite bright in the meditation hall and all the monks, all the yogis were sitting there And I went in, and it was the first time I ever saw... Usually when we're sitting in meditation, we're looking at the wall, so you don't get up and look at the other people meditating. Now, since I'm in teaching position, I get to see this sight quite frequently of these people just sitting there. But this is the first time I saw it, and I walked in there, and I saw all these people just sitting there. I mean, on this planet. It wasn't Berkeley, you know, but it was on this planet.

[36:49]

And the room was pretty much full of human beings just sitting there. And really nobody was moving that you could see. And I just felt like I walked into the generator room of the Hoover Dam. I'd never been in the generator room, but I've seen pictures of it. And I've seen movies of it. So you know what it's like in there? Got these big, long banks, energy banks, right? These big generators. And these people looked like these generators, just a row of generators, or a row of people looked like a big, long generator. And it was like, you know, just so much energy and so calm, you know, ready to light up California, you know. Just, it's, that's what the meditation was like sometimes here. you're just emanating life in a very calm way.

[37:50]

So that's the calm side. The object of meditation for the calming process is a non-conceptual image. So it's an image. So in a sense, it's an image. It is kind of a concept. But it's an image which is an image about something inward, not an object. It's not really exactly an idea about things. It's more like an idea about how to relate to things. And it's the basic... So it's kind of like what you're focusing on is an object which is a way of relating to objects. And what do you think that image, what do you think the image of the way of relating to all objects, what do you think that image is?

[38:54]

I'll give you a hint. I mentioned it already. What image are you looking at about how to relate to all objects? What's the image? Compassion. Yeah, compassion, but what aspect of compassion are we going to use in this case? Presence is close. What else did I say? Love, yeah. Those are all true. But in particular, what it is, is not grasping or seeking. In other words, what you're looking at is just knowing things without any without any analysis, without any discursive thought, just knowing things without trying to get anything from them or avoid anything. So just presence is right. This is also, however, meditation or calming practice is compassion.

[39:59]

It's a type of compassion. Concentration practice is a type of compassion. It's an aspect of compassion. But it's the aspect of compassion that calms the mind. It's the aspect of skillful means of attracting people by this calm presence. And the way we develop it is by looking at a non-conceptual object. In other words, looking at not something, but actually a way that the mind is with what's happening. And the way that the mind is with what's happening that's calming is basically don't get involved with it. So it's actually kind of like you're training your attention in a sense away from objects. You're not getting involved in concepts.

[40:59]

You're training your mind away from them. You're looking backwards into a way of being with everything. That's the calming practice. So you're like focusing your attention on not grasping anything that comes up and not getting involved. So like I also said, this is very much like the Zen meditation instruction which Bodhidharma gave where he said, outwardly have no involvements. Cease all involvements. So you look at somebody's face or you look at the floor or you hear a bird, or you feel a twitch, or you think a thought, all these different things happen. But no matter what happens, you're focusing on a way that is always the same.

[42:03]

Namely, no matter what happens, you're not grasping it. And that way, Although this happens and that happens, although I meet this person and that person, my mind doesn't move from this person to that person. Or I realize the not moving between this person and that person. Because when I meet this person, I'm focusing on not grasping this person. And when I meet this other person, I'm focusing on not grasping that person. So I'm focusing on something that doesn't move among the different things that come up. And this is calming. So that's the object of the calming side of meditation. And this is a Buddhist yoga practice. The other type of object is a conceptual object. And that's the object for the higher vision, for the insight.

[43:08]

You actually, instead of withdrawing from the object by looking back all the time inwardly, by being settled inwardly in withdrawal from involvement with the object, looking inwardly, genuinely inwardly, at a steady, unmoving way of meeting all things. The insight work, you look at the objects, you look at what's happening, and you examine it, and you actually intend to penetrate deeper and deeper into what it is you're looking at and to see and understand and discern all that there is to know about whatever is happening. That's the other side of the meditation. It looks at conceptual objects. And this type of looking at things penetrates them but doesn't calm you. Matter of fact, if you're not calm and you look deeply at things, you get more excited and less calm.

[44:13]

Yes, Judith? Could you give an example of looking at something and penetrating it? I don't know what that is. Say, anxiety. Would anxiety be something... Well, you could say, you could look at it, and then you could wonder, what's it about? So you're doing that conceptually? You're actually discursively thinking. You're actually analyzing. So you say, well... He might say, well, whose anxiety is this? He might say, what part of the body is it in? He might say, is it based on any kind of understanding? Or what kind of understanding is this anxiety based on? And you might get an answer and go from there. So questioning, examining, probing, that that way of of of looking at things is what's involved in this type of uh this this this side of the meditation process okay now i'm going to parenthetically mention to you again okay that this kind of analysis this kind of and also reasoning you also practice reasoning with regard to for example anxiety

[45:45]

you apply reasoning. We have powers of reasoning which have something to do with our body, which have something to do with the place we feel the anxiety. So we use the body, the body reasoning, we apply the body reasoning to bodily events. and understand them. And that type of reasoning and analysis and penetration, that's the type of thing that is involved in the second type of wisdom, the wisdom that comes from reflection, pondering, and investigation. About the insight type of work, or the type of work where you're not trying to actually observe the concepts and be conceptual about the concepts and analyze or elaborate and work over the concept. That type of meditation is very similar to the second type of wisdom.

[46:48]

In the second type of wisdom you do the same type of analysis as you do in the insight part of the meditation. The difference being that when you do it in the second type of wisdom, to develop the second type of wisdom, you're not doing it together with the calming meditation. So, strictly speaking, it isn't really yogic meditation yet. It's the same mental processes of penetration, and you can deepen your understanding over the first type of wisdom by that second type of wisdom by analysis. But it occurs, the same type of activity, similar type of activity occurs again under the meditation section. But there's a difference because it's happening in a situation of the mind being concentrated.

[47:55]

It's happening under the situation of calm. And I'll go into more detail about what that difference is like. Let me just finish the list. And then he said that two of those types of objects, the next two of the four, they're the objects of both. In other words, they're the object of where they're working together. When calm and insight are together, then there's two things that they look at. One is the limits of all phenomena. Now previously you were doing insight work or investigation by itself and you were observing objects, but there's a limit to what you can observe there. But when you join your investigation of what's going on with the calm, you can penetrate all objects.

[48:57]

The total limit of phenomena can be studied. But that can't be studied at all by the calming side, because the calming side doesn't study the objects. And then the third, the fourth object that they both look at is the accomplishment of purpose. In other words, they look at the purpose of all these meditations. They look at the transformation into a Buddha. you actually get to finally look at this, the accomplishment of the whole path. And it is in that yogic state that you actually see it. Okay? So those are the four. And those are the four objects. And that explains the way that the two sides of meditation, which are the basis of the third type of wisdom,

[49:59]

how those two aspects of meditation work with these four types of objects. Now, I suppose you didn't follow that. That may be too complicated, but we have some time for you to ask questions, and maybe that will help. Was that kind of like too much? Could you do the four, the black, the yellow, without any words in between? The four objects? The four objects are conceptual objects, well, I should say non-conceptual objects, conceptual objects, the limits of phenomena, and the accomplishment of purpose. Those are the four objects. The three types of wisdom are wisdom by hearing, then wisdom by reflection or pondering, and then wisdom which arises from the meditation which I've just talked about. Those are three types of wisdom, and they're relatively deeper. By the way, I just want to mention that last week Roy was the star of the class and this week could be John.

[51:12]

That was very noble of you to relinquish your crown. We will hold it for you in case you... You were going to say more about... That's what I want to hear about. I think which was... I got this feeling you were talking about calm, the non-conceptual side that you were talking about. calm in the investigation yes right together yes then you were saying the investigation could take place separate from investigating within the comments that's right and and i was thinking about and you said you'd say more about that and that's kind of what i was interested in okay like Okay. Okay, good. Did you understand his question, pretty much? Okay. So that's a very good question.

[52:24]

So you turned out to be the star after all, at least up to this point. Somebody else may come ahead of you, but that was a great question. So, you know, Judah's question drew out, I wasn't thinking of mentioning it, but drew out the teaching of This is teaching, but teaching that there's some very, there's a lot of similarity between the vipassana, the insight work that's done in the meditation process and the kind of work you do to develop the second type of wisdom. There's a similarity. And John's sort of wondering, what about, what's the relationship there between the type of pondering, the type of investigation, the type of analysis, the type of reasoning you do to develop the second type of wisdom? And that's somewhat similar, kind of, to basically the same stuff that you do when it's done in conjunction with the comm. So anyway, okay, that was just a repeat. Now, to take a step backwards, I would just say that that's, he just said the difference.

[53:31]

One of the main differences is, first of all, is that when you first do, analysis of what you learn. You say you learned something. You do learn it, and because you learn it, you have some wisdom about this teaching. Okay? And you... Then you start analyzing it. You start actually pondering it and reflecting it and reasoning about it. You start interpreting it. You start wondering if, you know, if you should take it literally. And you actually, by wondering if you should take it literally, you're starting not to take it literally. Does that make sense? When you wonder if something should be taken literally, the literalness is starting to slip. And that starts to happen when you start to analyze something. Like when you see a couple, and you start to analyze the couple into the man and the woman, you've just stopped taking the couple literally as a couple. You know what I mean?

[54:32]

You're now taking the couple as a man and a woman. That's not a couple. Well, it's a kind of interpretation of a couple. You see what I mean? So the main difference, first of all, is that you do this analysis but not in a state of calm. You may be relatively calm. You may be... As a matter of fact, you have to be somewhat calm even to listen to the teaching. Otherwise, it just bounces off you. But you're calm enough, first of all, to hear something... and learn it well, then you're calm enough to do some analysis on it, to actually ponder it, to use your mind skillfully to learn more about what you learned. But you're learning more not from the teacher or from the book. You're learning more by using your own mind. And you have resources, and you're applying the resources of your uncalmed mind to this analysis. But in order to do that, you have to be somewhat calm. Otherwise, you just get distracted, and you don't stay on the topic.

[55:34]

So you do stay concentrated enough to follow a line of analysis. But you haven't done this other kind of calm, which makes you kind of like... You may have some of that, but when you do more of that so that you get to a place where actually your body starts to feel relaxed and buoyant and flexible and radiant, calm and energetic, then, and here's the key point, then based on that you do pretty much the same thing you did before. And you now have been pre-trained at this kind of analysis and reasoning. You've learned how to do it prior to calming down. And now you basically do the same thing again except that the way things look

[56:35]

in this new situation is different because the images now have a different look. They appear to you differently in this deeper calm than they did in the other place. It's kind of like, I would just say, they're more inviting. They almost remind you to look at them. They almost remind you to relax. They tell you, take it easy. They're much more educational. They're more docile or they make it easier for you to be docile in the sense of docile means flexible but also teachable. You can learn. So that's the main difference is that in the second time, the same teachings which if you took a teaching, like even the teaching you're getting here, if you took the teaching of how to do this meditation, and you analyzed it and reasoned about it and questioned it and understood it more deeply. And when you actually do that, you actually can feel like, kind of like, you can feel yourself settling deeper.

[57:39]

You can feel you shifted, that your attitude and understanding shifted, and you have a tangible sense of deepening your understanding through this using your mind over and above the way you used it when you were just taking it in through your ears and your eyes. You have this deeper understanding and you've also become more skillful at doing this analysis. And this analysis can be done on anything. It can be done on Buddhist scriptures or any kind of thing. And this kind of analysis will be later very useful in higher or deeper stages of meditation. Now we come into practicing this vipassana, this insight based on calm. And then we look at the same types of things again, not necessarily the same, could be different topics, different teachings, different practices, but we look at something again And it could be the same thing, but now we look at it as it appears in the state of samadhi, in the state of concentration, and the way it looks in the concentration, in the calm, is different.

[58:51]

But that's the way you look at it. And then you understand even more correctly what you understood before, more deeply. I'm not going to say it tonight, but next week I'll go, I'll tell you a little bit, I'm going to tell you what the sutra says about how much more you see when you look at the same things again and you do the same analysis that revealed more to you before, but now you do the same analysis again, but much more is revealed to you. It's like you, you know, it's like you go down into the intersanctum of whatever it is. Yes? There's more space. There's more space, yeah. You know, you can like just... There's more space. So you can get in between things where you didn't even know there was an in between before. So that's a third type of wisdom that can come up in that space.

[59:57]

So there's a lot of questions. Let's see. I don't know which person. I see Dorit and Marsha and Jennifer and somebody else over there. What's your name again? Barry, okay. And Carolyn? Okay. Okay, Marsha? Accomplishment of purpose is, well, in this sutra, what the accomplishment of purpose is, is that basically you kind of like get turned inside out. You know, you become... Like all your latent tendencies of ignorance kind of get turned inside out and dumped out. The purpose, in other words, you actually see, you actually can see with this common insight, you can see that you've accomplished Buddhahood.

[61:00]

And also, you not only can see it, but you have accomplished it. You have changed. Your whole body and mind have been transformed by moving the teachings through your meditation. And also, taking the wisdom which has been developing through this meditation and joining it with all these virtue practices. Until they're perfectly purified of any confusion and ignorance and the wisdom is joined with them perfectly then, this is the purpose to have accomplished it. And it is known in this meditation, in this wisdom, I mean in this combination, it is known and it is known non-dually. In other words, you've accomplished it. You understand that you've accomplished the whole path.

[62:03]

Is that something that you might have for an instant? Or it must happen? Well, no. You have it for an instant, but you have it for an instant that has no duration. In other words, part of what comes along with this is what I would call an authentic experience of time. The usual way we experience time is the usual way we experience meditation, namely we measure it. Usually we experience time as something that has duration. So usually the way we experience time is that things are impermanent. But when you accomplish Buddhahood, the way you see any event, is that it's like, it's measureless. You don't apply, you're not trying to measure anything. You're not trying to measure the practice or the taste of a strawberry. And because this strawberry taste is not measured, you're experiencing eternity through this taste.

[63:12]

In other words, you're experiencing time that way. So it isn't really into momentaries like a short time or three momentaries that's longer than the other momentary. But when you have momentary insights, having momentary insights is fine. But that momentariness of insights is the point of view of a mind which is being dominated by segmenting things and cutting things apart. When you're free of that, then even if there's still a mind which is producing segmented events, you see that they're measureless. So you experience eternity even while some other aspect of mind is packaging things in little moments.

[64:15]

So you can look at impermanence and see Buddha nature at the same time, see eternal, immeasurable reality at the same time that you look at the bark of a dog. Because you understand how not to measure that and how that can't be measured. And we also say at the end of one of the things we chanted in Zen Center, if all the Buddhas in ten directions gathered together all their wisdom and tried to measure the merit of one person's Zazen for one moment, I would add, they would not be able to fully comprehend it. They could measure it. You know, Buddhas can measure things. But all Buddhas can also not measure things. And nobody's Zazen, nobody's meditation can actually be measured because that's not what it is. So eternity is not like the same as everlasting. And in one of the documents which I was just working with someone on, it says everlasting Shakyamuni Buddha.

[65:21]

And I thought, oh no, I've got to change the document. And it's written on silk. It shouldn't say everlasting. Shakyamuni doesn't last. Even the Buddha doesn't last. Nothing lasts because last is measurement. Buddha is eternal. It has nothing to do with duration. So there can, however, be flashes of insight, but flashes of insight, temporary things like that, that way of looking at it is inauthentic. Because you can say, well, it started here and it ended there. I measured it. But there still can be this inauthentic sense of our enlightenment, that it comes in little packages. So it can come that way. But that's not the accomplishment of purpose. Accomplishment of purpose is that you realize the eternal truth, the truth which nobody can measure, which doesn't come and go, and so on.

[66:33]

Let's see, next was Dorit. Sorry, Dorit. . Okay, so Dorit heard that in Zazen, you... something with your breath? What do you do with your breath? You don't try to grasp thoughts. Oh, you don't try to grasp thoughts. Did you say something about your breath, too? You can concentrate on your breath. You can concentrate on your breath. Okay. So this is quite relevant question. Now, we talked about this before.

[67:35]

Somebody in this class said, I thought in Zazen you're supposed to be following your breath or counting your breath. And I said something like, I don't know what I said, but I would say, as I usually do, if you're sitting in meditation or walking down the street, particularly if you're sitting, I don't see any problem in you counting your breath. But that's not Zazen. So I was closer to what Dorit said when she said, she said try not to grasp thoughts. And I think she also said it was okay not to grasp thoughts. Did you say that? Maybe I'm making you try to grasp thoughts now. But anyway, she said something about not grasping thoughts. Remember? She, first she said, try not to grasp thoughts. But trying not to grasp thoughts is grasping thoughts. Okay? Can you understand that? Okay. So, Zazen is not trying not to grasp thoughts. But it's okay if anybody wants to grasp any thoughts.

[68:37]

It's a free country, especially Berkeley. It's free. This is sutra land here. So you can, like, try not to grasp thoughts. And you can also try to grasp thoughts, just like you can try to grasp thoughts in San Jose. It's fine to try to grasp thoughts, and it's fine to try not to grasp thoughts. However, neither of those are zazen. Zazen is not grasping the thoughts. It's not trying not to. Trying not to is a particularly pernicious type of grasping. Because you think, well, you're not practicing because I'm trying not to grasp thoughts, so I must be a Zen student. So you grasp that too. So now you grasp your merit badge and blah, blah. So anyway, but just not grasping thoughts, that is zazen. In other words, zazen is body and mind dropping off. So it's not grasping body, it's not grasping mind. In other words, you are just body and mind dropping off, body and mind dropping off, body and mind dropping off.

[69:45]

You're just a drop-drop body and mind. That's what you are. That's zazen. Now, it turns out that the body-mind that's dropping off could be a body that's trying to grasp thoughts. That could be the type of body you have. You've got a thought-grasping body. Or you could have a body that's trying not to grasp thoughts. That could be the one you have. But either type you have, grasping or not grasping, whatever kind of body you've got, the dropping off of that is the zazen, is the zazen of the Buddha. Okay? Does that handle the first part of your question, Dorit? No. In zazen you don't grasp thoughts. It seems as though... It's not so much in zazen you don't grasp thoughts, but rather... In zazen there is no grasping of thoughts.

[70:47]

Now you're talking about vipassana. See? Okay. Okay. So in this situation of Zazen, and we're talking about the Zazen of the Buddha, in that situation, all these thoughts are happening and they're not being grasped. Okay? That's the situation. Things are happening, but there's no grasping of them. That's what it's like in Zazen. Things are happening, but there's no grasping of them also means there's no measuring of them. And one of the things that can be happening is measuring it. Like you have a thought, you have a little experience of thoughts being measured, okay, it's arising there, but the zazen is not grasping that. Now, what else can happen? There can also be awareness of the thoughts that are arising. And there can be examination of them, too, and penetration of them.

[71:53]

There can be, you know, investigation, reasoning can be going on right in this space of no grasping. And that's what it's like to do the reasoning with the calm. Because when you're calm like that, you're not grasping at this stuff. Your attention is back onto not grasping. And based on that not grasping, you start to analyze. But now you're analyzing with no reading this. So there is vipassana in the zazen world, but it's an insight, it's an investigation, it's an analysis with no grasping, with no seeking, with no greed, which of course makes it go much more smoothly and much deeper. And that's what people experience when they get calm is that they can just see. Not always, but they just like, like a friend of mine once got kind of concentrated and he went to a sewing class, you know, it was a meditation intensive, but part of the meditation intensive was to sew.

[73:04]

And he could see his stitches, you know, and he was like a sewing machine. And his stitches were all like perfect because he could see, he could like look at the needle go into the fabric and come back out and you could see how wide the stitch was and you could you could see and usually when we're when we're trying to sew something even in the zen center a lot of the people who are trying to sew these buddhist road a lot of them are trying to get done with the sewing they want to finish the rope so they can get it and go to have the ceremony and wear it Some of them do that. I tell them when I start sewing, I say, do not rush. Enjoy this. It's wonderful. Just don't try to get down to the end of the row of stitches. But when you're calm, it's like, although you're not trying to get to the end of the stitcher, you get there very fast because there's physical space, but also there's this time space. So like, anyway, you get very fast because you're not trying to go anywhere.

[74:07]

So you do penetrate, there is penetration, there is vipassana in the Buddha's zazen. You just let it arise, you don't switch from one to the other. You just let it arise, you don't switch from one to the other. Exactly. That's the con side. The con side is you're not switching from one thing to the other. So things are being switched on you, you know, people keep putting up different worlds in front of you. or they put up several worlds at once to you, but you're not scurrying back and forth between them like a chicken with her head cut off. You're kind of like not scurrying back and forth between them like a chicken with her head cut off. It's kind of like they show you a bell and you go, oh. They show you a cushion and you go, oh. They show you a bow and a cushion and you go, oh. You know, it's kind of like, oh, oh, oh.

[75:11]

And if they keep showing the cushion over and over, you go, oh, oh, oh, oh. You're like really stupid in a way. Or you're also really innocent. It's like you can't, you're not into like, well, didn't we just have one of those cushions before? Yeah. Wasn't this breath a lot like the last breath? You're not into this breath and that breath. Somebody else, namely all the beings in the world, are presenting you, maybe, with a variety of objects. But the calming part is you're not moving around among them. You're focused on not grasping whatever you're given. No matter what comes, you just say, oh. Or, Hi, or welcome, welcome, welcome. This is calming.

[76:15]

But then when you calm down, if you've been doing these other two types of wisdom, if you've been working on these other two types of wisdom, And, I mean, working, like learning, listening to the lectures, listening to talks, talking to the teacher, studying the text, and then pondering it, analyzing it, reasoning with it. I mean, this is when you're spending your time doing this. This is like what you do. Like I said last night, if you're a carpenter, when you sit still, you probably think of carpentry. If you're a mother, you sit down you think your kids if you're a physicist and you just been working in a laboratory you probably think of that but it isn't that you have to drag that in there and think about it it just naturally comes up if you've been listening to the teaching analyzing it reasoning it pondering it and not only that but enjoying this because you can experience your Your wisdom is growing through this process.

[77:17]

You're very happy about this. And you're like, this wisdom is growing and this wisdom is soon going to perfect my poor little compassion practice. This is great. This is wonderful. Then when you sit down and practice calm, it's going to pop up again. I don't know when, but it will. And when it pops up, it's going to pop up in this new world. It's going to look differently. And everything you learned before, you already know. And now you're going to, based on what you already learned, and also the way you learned it, that's naturally going to happen again, but you're going to see something different, and it's going to go deeper. So, okay? Well, there was... What's your name again? Tell me again. Barry. Barry. Barry's question, and was there anybody else, or just Barry? Oh, Kathy. Kathy. No? That's it.

[78:20]

I have one question for you. Ah, you're not going to star again this week, though. John definitely got it, don't you think? Or maybe Dorit. I don't know. Anyway, yes, Roy? Yes, Roy? Okay, because it is getting to the time when the class is supposed to end. And we follow the rules around here, right? So anyway, I felt that that was really a lot. And I felt like you did really well to sit through that. And I'm really happy what we talked about tonight. I thought it was really good. We got farther than I thought we would into these three types of wisdom. So we will continue next week, if that's okay with you. And I'll try to tell you more about the similarities and differences between these three types of insight.

[79:23]

Okay? Thank you very much.

[79:26]

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