Last week we began talking about what is called in Sanskrit, shamatha practice. And shamatha means, can be translated as tranquility, stabilization, calm, concentration, acquiescence, resting. And this aspect of meditation goes with the other kind of vipassana, which means insight or higher vision. And the higher vision of insight, to be fully realized, depends on

[01:01]

being joined together with this stabilized awareness. But Samatha isn't just calm. It's also, it isn't just a calm mind, it's also a buoyant, flexible, and lucid and vivid mind. It's a mind which is calm and flexible and ready to respond appropriately, ready to be devoted to wholesome activities, ready to be of service So it's a very healthy mind.

[02:06]

One could have this kind of tranquility, which includes these various elements, and still hold deeply some misconceptions about reality. And when one is blessed by such a serviceable a buoyant, clear, calm, joyful, and flexible mind, one at that time is not afflicted by ordinary afflictions. However, the potential to be afflicted is still there in our misconceptions, so we must also bring vision together with this calm to penetrate our misconceptions. And then the source of affliction due to misconceptions, due to misunderstandings, is completely disempowered.

[03:25]

I wouldn't say necessarily, sometimes I say destroyed, I don't like to say that. But first we're emphasizing the tranquility meditation and last week and more this week I'm emphasizing the calming side but these other aspects are also that this calm can be sustained or there can be continuity in the calm and also there should be a vividness, freshness, liveliness in the calm. But I'd like to spend again a little bit more time on the the relaxing, resting side of it. And sometimes people also would think that tranquility would be like maybe typified by silent repose.

[04:48]

And certainly sometimes when tranquility is realized, we might be in silent repose. which we might be sitting still, calm, and quiet. But I think in some ways Zen meditation, and I think really what this tranquility is about, has more to do with meeting whatever comes with complete relaxation. So it's actually a dynamic, it's a calm that is fully realized in being able to meet whatever comes and be relaxed with it. So there's meeting with whatever comes means there's a vividness there, there's a freshness in whatever's coming, and there's a meeting clearly with what it is, and there's a relaxation or detachment at the same time.

[06:02]

To just be calm and not be able to meet what come, then the calm lacks the vividness and freshness of the moment of what's being offered. To just meet what's fresh without calm, we tend to get upset and agitated and feel afflicted by what comes. So to be able to meet whatever happens, complete relaxation, letting go of discursive thoughts about what's coming. So a face comes, a person comes, and we meet that. Even though there may be some discursive thoughts arising, like, this is my friend, this is my enemy, this person's cute, this person's dangerous, even though those thoughts may be arising, we don't push those thoughts away. We don't grasp them. We release them.

[07:06]

We let go. We relax in the presence of what's becoming and in the presence of discursive thoughts which might take us away from simply meeting what's being given. And then we meet what's given with confidence and composure and flexibility. When first trying to relax with what's happening, for example, let's say what's happening, what's coming is an awareness or a sensation of breath. There's an awareness of a sensation of breath in the body. There's an awareness of an inhale, and then there's awareness of an exhale. If there's not an awareness of inhale and exhale, you might, just for the sake of training, try to bring your attention to the sensation of the inhale.

[08:18]

In terms of bringing your awareness to the sensation of breathing, it's often good to start with the inhale. Inhales are easier to find, generally. so bring your awareness to the inhale and then see if you can be aware of the whole inhale and be aware of the exhale and then be aware of the next inhale and then if you can be aware of the process then see if in the awareness of the process you can then release any ideas you have about the breath, any kinds of discursive thoughts that arise around the breath. See, you can just release any involvement in anything. And even the breath, being aware of the breath, release involvement with the breath.

[09:23]

So part of what you can get involved in is talking about the breath. You're aware of the breath. but you don't elaborate on it. For example, there might be an elaboration, this is a long breath. So you're aware that there's this comment, long breath, but you let go of long breath. Or this might be this comment, this is a short breath. You release that thought, it's a short breath. This is a deep breath and a long breath and a calm breath. And I wish I had more of such breaths. And I'm so glad to have one of these once in a while. And now I have that, but I'm worried about this election situation.

[10:29]

So at some point in that process, just let it go. You might start at the beginning. This is a long breath. Just let it go. Release it. Relax with everything that's going on. Relax with the breath. Relax with anything that seems to be taking you away from it. But the things don't take you away from them unless you're holding them. The sound of the person outside The sound of airplanes, the sound of children, the sound of dogs don't take you away from your breath. They just happen. They won't take you away unless you grab them. If you release them, you stay with your breath. And also, if you're aware of your breath and release your breath, you also are closer to your breath. So sometimes you hear they say, breathing in, I'm aware that I'm breathing in. Breathing out, I'm aware that I'm breathing out.

[11:33]

Breathing in, breathing out. But the most intimate and calming way to be with breathing in and breathing out is to even let go of the words breathing in when you say the words breathing in. Don't use breathing in in any way to try to control or get a hold of your breath. Don't grip your breath. Relax with your breath. So last week I suggested see if you can like follow one inhale and one exhale completely And I would say with complete relaxation, letting go of everything, releasing everything while you follow intimately one inhale and one exhale. In order to become aware of the breathing, it often is good to start with an inhale. In order to release with the breathing, it's often good to use the exhale to start releasing.

[12:35]

So use inhale to become aware, and then on the exhale, begin to release and relax. Working with this relaxation side of tranquility training, one of the main challenges is what's sometimes called gross excitation. There's also subtle excitation, but this gross excitation is that in

[13:42]

being aware of sensations like the breath, you grasp some kind of discursive thought and you go off with it. So the main way to to subdue this gross excitation is to then start to move on to try to have more continuity with the awareness of the breath. But it's very important to be gentle about this. Do not fight anything that's taking you away from the awareness of the breath.

[14:49]

So at this point, if you're able to follow like one cycle of breath, and then you notice that you forget, try to follow two. Maybe you can't. Then you try again, and you can only do one. You try to follow through, gently. You don't fight this tendency to go away. It would be all right to feel urgent, some urgency about like, you know, after maybe several times not being able to follow more than one cycle. You might feel some urgency about trying to extend the continuity of the awareness of the breath to two cycles or three cycles or ten cycles.

[16:08]

You might feel some urgency about that since you maybe feel like you don't have forever. But the urgency should be joined with lightness and buoyancy and gentleness. Otherwise the urgency will be something else that will take you away. But that might be more confusing because you might think that's good, whereas the other distractions you're urgently concerned with getting rid of. Release, don't banish. And one other point I want to make at this time is that it isn't just that we want to extend this awareness just to extend it for extension's sake. The reason for developing continuity is not just to do it longer, because really there is no longer. The reason for developing continuity

[17:11]

is that continuity subdues the gross excitation. Really all you have to do is follow one cycle of breath. You don't have to be concerned about another one or whether there was one before that. One's enough because the one you're on is always enough. gross excitation, being together with it, manifests as in the form of not being able to do a second one. So we're not doing a second one, we're not developing continuity just for continuity.

[18:13]

There's something about continuity, which is kind of an illusion, but anyway, the sense of continuity addresses this excitation. And the excitation manifests as not making continuity possible because it manifests as forgetting that you're meditating and getting excited about meditating. Getting excited about meditation rather than meditating. Here I am meditating. This is great, isn't it? That sounds fine. But that's not the meditation. Meditation is to pay attention. To, for example, you could pay attention to the thought, this is great, I'm meditating. You could pay attention to that and if you let go of that, if you release that, if you relax with that, you're starting to develop this healthy mind.

[19:26]

But to forget the breath and to forget to release when the thought of something other than the breath happens, in fact, the mind starts to become turbulent again. So this is kind of a subtle point, but I'm trying to say this because I think it's important to understand that it's not just to develop continuity and stability and lengthen the awareness just to sort of accomplish that, but rather this is a way to address the excitation that's there right while you're in the moment. It's in the moment, but you can't get at it in the moment except by extending the concentration of the moment longer. As you extend it longer, the gross excitation is subdued. And if you can't extend it longer, the gross excitation is still operating. So you feel like you're present, and you don't feel like grossly excited, necessarily.

[20:33]

It manifests in the fact that you forget what you're doing. That's the way it manifests. And forgetting what you're doing is not a problem, really. except that it's manifesting because you're excited, because your mind's out of control. Not I shouldn't say out of control, but your mind's basically kind of untrained. So this is a way to train it, but it's not really to accomplish that, it's to train it. But again, if you get rough with yourself about this, you counteract what you're trying to remember to do, which is to relax and let go and rest. So somehow you're trying to extend it, but gently. And as you're able to extend it, that gross excitation starts to settle down. Okay.

[21:43]

First, become aware. Next, start relaxing, resting. Next, start to extend that resting a little bit. If you can, gently. And that may take a while. Just to be extended a little bit may take a while. But then if you can, and this gross excitation is subdued, then you can try to make a little bit more effort to make it even more stable. And again, try to do this, try to sustain this continuity without tightening. in body or mind. The next thing is that when you're pretty much free of this gross excitation and you have this calm and stability, even for a short time,

[23:11]

at that point you you very likely to slip into what's called sinking mind or feeling good and almost as though you've finished the work of calm. Or even if you don't get that grandiose about it, you do kind of feel a little bit like... You got it. And... This is called laxity or complacency or sinking mind.

[24:21]

Sinking mind happens to you when you get... when you've calmed down, when you've relaxed into your awareness of the object and you're not being taken away. You can stay with it now for a while. So you're somewhat of a success and you start to feel like you're a success, and you kind of feel like this is pretty much it. You become collected to some extent. But if you stop there, you tend to go from being collected to being over-collected. You're no longer being dragged away, sort of like the centripetal No. The centrifugal, the centrifugal, centrifugal tendencies of your mind to go out, to fly out, have been released.

[25:27]

And you're calmed down now. So there, there, that tendency's dropped and you're present. But if you stop there, then the centripetal forces of the mind start to take over and the mind starts to sink and become over collected and kind of collapse into itself and then you can get into go from laxity or complacency into lethargy a heaviness and that can then go into simply a sloth and sleep but you got there not from just being not getting enough sleep It's also important to get enough sleep. But sometimes even when you get enough sleep and you're successful at collecting your mind into this relaxation and calming and letting go of the forces taking you away from what you're doing, when you're not getting taken away anymore and you stop there, you don't just stop there.

[26:32]

You keep going and you kind of collapse into that. I often think of these brownies that I used to be able to eat. They're called, I think, They're sometimes called, what is something kind of a cow? Or black bottom brownies. They're the kind of brownies that kind of like, they have chocolate in the middle and they cave in. You know those kind? You don't know those kind? Huh? What? They're cupcakes, right. And they have chocolate in the middle and they sort of, they collapse down into the chocolate after they cook. What are those called? Black bottom cupcake, yeah. So you get, as a result of being somewhat successful at collecting yourself, if you just stop there, then you just kind of collapse into yourself. And at first you're too sensitive to the environment. You're too, you know, you're too sensitive to the sounds of the pianos and trucks and stuff like that.

[27:36]

You're too sensitive to the various thoughts and comments of your mind. You're being responsive to them too much, too much so that you grasp them, get entangled in them. And that entanglement takes you away from being present. You've given that up. Now you're just present with your object for a while. And you stop there. Then you collapse into it. Then it gets heavy and dark and there's no vividness And it could stop there, or it can get... It can stop before the heaviness and darkness sets in, though. It could just stop at the point where you feel, I kind of got it. So at that point, before you get into this lethargy and sleepiness, at that point, you need to bring vividness in.

[28:47]

So how can you bring vividness at that point? So at first, in the first phase, when you felt somewhat relaxed, you tried to extend the relaxation or the resting feeling with in the letting go and the releasing of distractions try to extend that but you extend it gently because if you don't extend it gently a rough or harsh pushing of continuity will disturb the sense of relaxation and rest so you want to extend the releasing of distraction without disturbing the releasing of distraction. The extending without counteracting the releasing.

[29:52]

And the extending is to subdue the excitation around this mind. Now here you want to develop vividness, but not at the cost of the continuity. So if you try to vivify or enliven the mind a little bit and you notice that you lose the continuity, then let go of the vividness and go back to the continuity. And then when you get back to the continuity, even if you don't feel even if you don't feel that you're getting lax, you might just go back to the vividness. Go back to the vividness a little bit and watch to see if it disturbs the continuity.

[30:55]

Now, if you went so far as to get sleepy or heavy, then in order to bring yourself out of that you may need to actually get involved in the discursive thoughts which you let go of at the beginning. Discursive thoughts are like, I would like to meditate. I came here to meditate, and I think I should start doing it again. As soon as you say that kind of thing, you come up out of the... Just that kind of thought and getting involved in that kind of thought brings you up out of the sleepiness. Or even to say, I'm getting sleepy and I think I should find some way to get out of this. Getting involved in that, you know, brings you up out of it. You don't have to get really heavy, but, or you could say, you know, make some aspiration, you know, say some sentences to yourself to encourage yourself or to inspire yourself if you're really down. really getting heavy and sleepy.

[32:00]

But if you're not that sleepy, you're just sort of more like, I feel okay. I think this is fine. I actually don't have a problem. This is... I feel fairly concentrated. If that happens, that's good that you feel that way. You're not talking about it, but you feel that way. You feel like, I got it. But not even saying that, probably you're sinking. So at that point, Vividness. But not discursive vividness. Just vividness. Vividness of what? Whatever you're aware of. Where's the vividness of it? Where's the freshness of it? Where's the distinctive sharpness of the experience? Just be kind of aware of the vividness. That's probably enough. Because before that, you weren't paying attention to that, you thought you had done enough.

[33:01]

And you keep working on that until you have a sense of vividness, until you feel the vividness and the freshness of the experience. When you're first starting to try to develop concentration, there may be vividness already, and that's fine. And vividness is part of the way you know what to grasp onto. So you have very vivid objects of awareness and you are interested in these vivid things, but you're gripping them, so you're not relaxed, so you've got problems. And when you release grabbing onto these vivid topics, and maybe even paying attention to something that's not quite as vivid as some other things, like the breath might not be as vivid as some other things, but you're releasing.

[34:18]

The vividness should not deteriorate. As a matter of fact, things should become more vivid. Because when your mind's turbulent, things are not as vivid as when it's calm. So I think I said enough. Maybe you have some questions about that. So these three aspects are the relaxation, the releasing, the resting in the experience, which means releasing also anything that distracts you from it, letting go of what distracts you from it. So it's a gentle, soft, beginning and then there's this excitation which is overcome by extending this relaxed presence and then when you get the hang of that pretty well and you feel calm and good

[35:20]

Even if you don't think, like, that you're getting complacent, just check to see, are things vivid? And if they're not, you probably have slipped into complacency and maybe not yet slipped into lethargy and drowsiness. You can catch it right then just by, where's the vividness? And again, you're not going to get really excited about this. But just assume that you're in danger of slipping into complacency and counteract it by requiring that the world be as vivid now that you're not clinging to things and not distracted to them as it was before when you were involved with this stuff, when you couldn't resist it. Now see if you can bring back the vividness without now disturbing the continuity and start grasping them again. If you bring the vividness back and then things get real interesting and you start grabbing them again, then, you know, then let go of the vividness and go back to the continuity.

[36:25]

When you're successful at the continuity, Don't wait to get busted before you bring in the vividness. So then go back and forth between continuity and vividness, continuity and vividness, continuity in relaxation, continuity in releasing discursive thought together with the vividness. Okay? Yes, Lucy? Yes. Could I talk about that when we get to it later? OK. So how does that seep? Yes. You mentioned that the hand breath is a little easier to get hold of. And it seems like that could be one way to all... It's a little bit easier to... Be aware.

[37:30]

If you're trying to become aware of it, I think the inbreath is often easier to find. If you want to turn into your breathing process, sometimes it's easier to tune in on an inbreath. It's kind of like, just I got the image of jumping a rope, you know. There's a certain place in the cycle where it might be easier to jump in. I think the in-breath is the easier place to jump in. Once you're in on it, once you're sort of with it, then take up the issue of letting go of discursive thought. And the place to let go, the easiest place to let go, start letting go, is on the exhale. It seems like that there's vividness and continuation kind of issue with the in-breath and out-breath too, where it seems like it can be more vivid in your awareness on the in-breath.

[38:34]

Yeah. Is that helpful? Likely to be. Yeah. So if you felt you had continuity... For a while, maybe, I don't know, five minutes of continuity. That's a lot. Imagine being able to stay with the breathing cycle, for example, for five minutes without getting taken away. That's a long time, actually. Twenty minutes is a really long time. It's a major... That's a lot of development of your concentration to be able to do it for five or twenty minutes, okay? If you're able to do it then, you're going to feel pretty good about that, which is reasonable. And you're going to kind of think you got the hang of it, which is true. But thinking that you got the hang of it is going to lead you to collapse. There's got to be more energy there because there is some energy there. And you have given, in some sense, you've given up involvement with that in order to be concentrated for this, you know.

[39:45]

So part of what I think you're saying is that if you, as a way to get in touch with vividness, inhale might be helpful. Because inhale is inspiration. Just maybe using the inhale to protect you from laxity. Feel the vividness of the inhale. Not necessarily to the exclusion of exhale, but just sort of enjoy the vividness of that new breath coming in, the vitality of that rush of the, what do you call it, the flood tide. You know, just feel the excitement of this air coming in, the vigorousness and freshness of a new breath. all that dusty old carbon dioxide is out. Now you've got all this oxygen coming in. So maybe that's still a bit too much, because if you get too much into it, then you're going to lose the continuity, because you're going to start like, this is really fantastic inspiration.

[40:46]

But just noticing that might be enough to bring the clarity side into the picture. Yes, Paula, is it? If you have relaxed into the breathing and a feeling of joy, the word joy or something, would that automatically be something that was too much excitement? If the feeling of joy or the thought of joy arose, And you felt like you grasped it and start going off with it. Then it's disturbed the continuity and then that's gross excitation. No. Anything can come up in this space.

[41:50]

And whatever it is, the training is release any kind of grasping of it. So in that way, as much as possible, this settling is uncontrived. You're not trying to get yourself to settle. So even the idea of getting settled, you let go of that. Letting go of the idea of settling, letting go of the idea of relaxing, is relaxing. And if joy arises, letting go of the thought, the feeling, the idea of joy, is relaxing. So whatever comes, try to just let it go. Try to find the capacity of the mind which doesn't elaborate on what's happening so you don't want to do this you're just training your attention to the to the ability of your mind to just know and to do nothing more in fact

[42:55]

Your mind just knows the breath. It's just aware of the breath and doesn't do anything more. But the mind has other abilities which can elaborate on and get carried away by many things. So we're trying to train our mind towards the way the mind just knows things and lets it go at that. You're training your mind on letting the sound be the sound, the smell be the smell, the touch be the touch. not making your mind that way you're training your attention to notice that your mind's already that way the more you notice the quality of your mind which is always there you're basically just noticing a resource that's always with you and if you can train your attention onto that resource no matter where you are you're paying attention to a resource of your mind it's actually a quality of your mind It's a quality of your cognition which, when you train your attention onto it, stabilizes the whole psychic field.

[43:59]

But whatever comes up, even like dark heaviness or laziness, anything that comes up, dealing with it that way, is part of what calms you. However, what I mentioned before is that when you get into... when you start to collapse and become overly collected, if you pay attention to the aspect of mind which calms you, then you go even more collected. You can even go down more. So you're still paying attention to that aspect of mind, which is that the mind in some way has this way of knowing which is very simple. When you pay attention to that, you calm down. But if you do it too much, you lose track of another side of mind, which is that mind has vividness and clarity and brightness. So we're starting with one aspect of mind, which is that it's non-elaborative. And paying attention, training the attention on that aspect of mind, you calm down.

[45:08]

So non-elaborative means if joy arises in this process, the mind knows that joy and doesn't elaborate on it. If you keep training your attention on the way the mind doesn't elaborate on the joy, the joy arises and the joy doesn't... I shouldn't say that... I wouldn't say that joy doesn't disturb you. The joy never disturbs you. It's the elaboration on the joy that disturbs you. So turning the attention towards the ability of the mind to elaborate on the joy then when the joy arises, your mind's paying attention to the elaboration of the joy. Paying attention to the elaboration of the joy creates turbulence. At the same time, the mind is paying attention to the joy. Very simply, without elaboration, training the attention on that aspect of mind calms the mind. So whether it's joy or pain, if you pay attention to the way the mind does not elaborate on the joy or pain, you calm down with the joy or pain. whether it's joy or pain, if you pay attention to the way the mind can discourse and be discursive about the joy or the pain, if you pay attention to discursive thought about the joy and pain, you develop turbulence.

[46:21]

So, there's this Zen story which I've told a number of times. It's about this. It's about two Zen monks. One of them is a monk you're really busy, aren't you? And the one who's sweeping says, you should know that there's one who's not busy. So, you know, you're busy means you're elaborating on what's going on all the time. You're involved in discursive thought, aren't you? Well, yeah, I'm sweeping the ground. That's kind of discursive thought. And I'm sweeping a pile over here, and I'll be done in a few minutes. That's discursive thought. You're busy, right? He didn't say yes, but anyway, his brothers thought he was involved in that. He said, you should know there's one who's not busy. Right while you're sleeping, right while you're involved in discursive thought, there still is that resource of that cognition of just knowing things with no discursive thought.

[47:26]

That's a resource in the sense if you train your attention on that, you calm down even while you're sleeping. So even while the discursive thought's going on, without stopping it even, you can calm down because you don't get involved in it. The story goes on after he says, you should know there's one who's not busy. He says, well, then are there two moons, two truths? And the one who's sleeping raises his broom and says, which truth is this? In other words, is this the busy one or the un-busy one? No matter how busy you get, the unbusy one's there. No matter how busy you get, your awareness, which just knows with no elaboration, is always there. If you lose track of the unbusy one, your mind is turbulent. If you're only paying attention to the busy one, your mind is turbulent. If the busy one's there and discursive thought's going on, but you pay attention to the unbusy one, then the busyness can be as busy as it is,

[48:36]

but you don't forget the unbusy one, and you're calm with the busyness. So you can meet the busyness with this complete relaxation. And no matter how busy, how much sweeping is going on, you can be relaxed with it, because you're tuned in to the unbusy one, and you're stable with that. But again, there has to be vividness, otherwise you'll get overly stable, and then you get sleepy and then you lose contact with the unbusy one because you go to sleep. So you won't, you know, you go from being calm to asleep and then, what is it, to die, to sleep, to dream. And then in the dreams there will be... So you go round and round that way and you get back into a busy world to get over-collected. Any other questions about this? Rama, it's not a question?

[49:44]

It's something other than a question? That's okay. Any comment? Yes. Yeah, right. Yeah. Right. Sometimes, you know, you might get quite collected and then a breeze comes and the breeze, the vividness of the breeze saves you from being complacent. So your mind is quite concentrated. You're not distracted. and you feel a cool breeze touch you and in that vividness you've realized a more complete picture of calm that you're stable and also you can feel that very definite cool touch on the forehead without even trying to like be more vivid in fact your mind noticed that and you were now you see the mind wouldn't have noticed that

[51:03]

If the cool breeze comes in and touches you and you don't feel the freshness of it, then you become lax, complacent, and on the verge of lethargy. So there still is this sharp quality of things touching you. It's just that you're not grabbing them anymore. But again, if you give up grabbing them, And you stop there and lose tact of them touching you, then you're starting to collapse. You're sinking. And if you're somewhat successful in this, that probably will happen to you. And then maybe without any effort, you come up out of it, something will happen, something crisp will happen, and then that'd be enough. Then you back up, something very sharp and clear, and you're balanced again. And maybe your balance means it happens, but that doesn't take you away and break the continuity and the excitation arrives again.

[52:05]

But that can happen too, that you're sinking, but then something vivid happens, you come up out of it, and then you break the continuity. Or you're sinking, something vivid happens, but it just doesn't disturb the continuity. You don't become excited by it. But you can imagine how that might be, that you're quite calm, And then this wonderful thing happens, a breeze touching you. And you could easily get excited about that because it would be so vivid, you know? Like, you might feel like, I've never felt such a vivid, cool November breeze in Berkeley. I mean, this is like, you know, this is the pleasure of Zen. And you're off, you broke the continuity. Even though it's a wonderful thing to break continuity on. In fact, you did. But breaking continuity is okay. It's just that what's happening is you're getting excited again. So you've lost the calm. So just let go of that wonderful, you know, material for poetry.

[53:09]

And the poetry that you're starting to write about this thing of the breath touching your head. Just let go of it and go back to, then you come back. Anything else about this? Is this clear? Yes, Diana? Say a little bit more about letting go. I notice I'm grabbing on things. Sometimes I notice that I'm grabbing on stuff that's coming. Yes. And then I want to let go, but there's some disconnect between the wanting attention and letting go. Maybe there's a split second, but the next instant I'm grabbing it again. Right. Again and again. But I'm aware that I'm grabbing. This is the great impulse to grab things, right? So this is going to be quite a feat to, like, become free of that. But again, I'm saying be gentle about it.

[54:16]

Okay? Be gentle about it because this is a strong habit and it's going to... If you fight it, that's the same thing. Some things are really stupid. Right. And accepting that they're sticky is letting go. Like that story, you know, that I always tell about the... from the movie The Song of the South. It's about the Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Bear and Br'er Fox. And the Br'er Bear and the Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Fox are always trying to catch Br'er Rabbit. So they got... And Br'er Fox is pretty smart. And Brer Bear is pretty big. And so they make this little sticky tar baby. They make a baby, they shape some tar into the shape of a baby and put it by the road. So then Brer Rabbit comes along and says hi to the tar baby, and the tar baby doesn't say anything. But he doesn't let it go.

[55:16]

He doesn't say, oh, tar baby doesn't, I say hi, tar baby. Tar baby doesn't answer me. Okay, relax, Brer Rabbit. Relax, Bear Rabbit. I mean, like, let it go. Like, rest in the tactile experience of not hearing an answer. Pay attention to the fact that you're able to know this quiet Tar Baby. See, he doesn't think of the Tar Baby. He thinks it's a little black boy. Pay attention to the awareness of that little black boy, which doesn't elaborate on it. Like, say, what kind of a jerk is this not answering my question? Just, there's a little black boy. I'm talking to him. He's not answering. That's it. Now I'm calm. I'm cool with this black boy. He didn't do that. He said, he had discursive thought.

[56:18]

How come you're not answering me? What's the matter with you? He got upset. So then he goes over to the little, goes over and he grabs the little tar baby. So then he gets stuck in the tar baby. So when he's stuck in the tar baby, what does he do? He tries to get unstuck. So he puts the other hand in. So now he's more stuck, because he tried to be less stuck. He didn't say, okay, I'm stuck, fine. If he had said he was stuck, you know, eventually the tar baby would have melted, you know. His hand would have come loose if he just sort of accept, my hand's stuck. I got a stuck hand here. That's relaxation. I didn't relax, so now I'm stuck. I didn't relax, so I grabbed. Since I grabbed, I'm stuck. I accept, I'm free. No, he didn't.

[57:19]

He said, I don't accept that I'm stuck, so now I'm more stuck. Okay, now I'm more stuck, so I don't accept that I'm more stuck. Now it's even harder to accept that I'm stuck because I'm more stuck, so I'm going to really not, I'm going to use my foot, so he pushes with his foot too. Now he's in big, really big trouble, so now he's definitely got to get out of here, so he puts his other foot in. And now it's like totally, I really got to use my whole effort to get unstuck, so he puts his head in. So now he's caught. So now Bear, Fox, and Bear come and get him. Okay? Huh? You want to hear the rest of the story? So, okay, so then they got him, right? So then they have a little discussion. They have a discursive discussion. These guys are... One's got a very bright discursive mind. The other one's got a sort of not such a well-developed discursive mind. So these two discursive minds, the fox and the bear, talk about what are they going to do with this rabbit that they caught.

[58:21]

So the fox said, I think we should put him in a pot and cook him. And the bear says, I want to knock his head off with this club. And the fox said, no, no, no, no, no. Let's cut him up in little pieces and have him rabbit-tar-tar-tar. And the bear says, I want to knock his head off. And they're arguing back and forth. And the rabbit says, by the way, the rabbit you'll be happy to hear, during this process, has had a little awakening experience. He understands the fault of his ways. He understands that he should have just left that thing alone, you know, released and relaxed. He understood that he would have been cool. He sees. He saw how he made a mistake. He saw how he didn't accept his mistake and his mistake got worse and worse. And finally he accept, I made a mistake.

[59:24]

Now his mind's become stabilized and vivid and creative. Now his creative potential, see his mind's becoming serviceable. Now his mind's available for service in his cause. It's ready for wholesome activity because he's accepted his situation of being one stuck rabbit. And when you accept your situation of being one stuck whatever you think you are, relax and so on. So now he's calmed down and now he can think because he's got shamatha. So he hears them talking. He says, hey, they're discussing what to do with me. So he says, could I say something? I have a suggestion. And they say, What do you want? I have a suggestion. I think it would be good if you cut me up in little pieces and then beat me up with that drum, then smash me with your club.

[60:30]

So that way, you both get your way. You get to cut me up in little pieces and you get to smash me. I think it would be better. And now that, I think it would be good to set me on fire, too. But there's one thing I don't want you to do. You can do that stuff. I think that wouldn't be so bad. But I'm asking you, please, to do that stuff. Please cut me up into little pieces and smash me with your club. Please do that. Please, I beg you to do that. But there's one thing I don't want you to do. Do not throw me over into that terrible, terrible briar patch full of those poisonous thorns. Don't throw my little body in there. That would be too terrible. Please don't do that. So they think, hmm. So they said, let's do that. So they take him and throw him. They pull him out of the tower, and they throw him into the briar patch. And he lands in the briar patch, and then he makes these excruciating cries of pain, anguish, and then it's silent.

[61:40]

And then, after a little while, they hear laughter. and more laughter and then he starts singing born and raised in a briar patch and so on so anyway that's the story and that's you know But it's hard, you know, to resist getting involved in certain vivid situations like, you know, people not talking to you and stuff like that. It's hard to, like, just let it go and relax. And also, by people talking to you, I'm also talking about you talking to yourself when you're sitting. Just let it go. Don't slug it and knock it out of the way. Don't encourage it and cling to it. Just relax. and then notice how you can relax into it and how that helps you be more intimate with it and how you calm down and how you're training yourself into this non-discursive non-elaborative aspect of consciousness which stabilizes itself and then again as you move on to these other aspects of extension continuity and vividness

[63:00]

Okay? Any other questions about this for now? There's quite a, there's, you know, a lot more to it, but this is a, this gives you quite a bit to work with. I mean, and don't be discouraged if you don't need the latter part of what I brought up. I mean, I, in a few seconds, I could talk about what's going to take you maybe a while, but just in case you happen to get collected, I'm warning you ahead of time how to, you know, Take care of yourself in that success situation and not let the success go too far of moving away from distraction and becoming overly collected and cut off from sensation. Another way to talk about what happens is to get over-collected is you get moody. Moody in the sense of you get too much into your mood and you're not responsive enough to your neighbors. Because you're kind of collected, overly subjective.

[64:08]

Anything else tonight? Okay, I think that's a pretty good first two nights then on this topic. And so I... I want to tell you that you can practice this kind of Samatha. It's possible to practice this even when you're not sitting. Just try to meet people and look at people when you meet them without thinking about what they look like. In other words, don't grasp the discursive thought about what they look like. Like, you look great today, or you look like hell today. Just don't grasp those thoughts. Or you look like somebody else today. Just see if you can meet people and really just look at them before you think anything about them. Add anything or just subtract anything.

[65:12]

Wish anything other than what you're looking at. Just tune into that immediate meeting, whatever happens. And again, meet whatever happens immediately. with no holding to what you think about it. Or another way to put it, just try to meet whatever comes with complete relaxation in various situations. Okay? And did you tell people about the books?

[65:43]

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