I'm really enjoying studying these early teachings of the Buddha. And I'm just amazed by this person. What a storyteller he was. There's so many examples of daylight situations like acrobats, carpenters, stone masons, magicians, bath attendants, cooks, housewives, merchants, all these examples from their life. And then he says, and like that, then he gives us all these different kinds of teachings which apply to these different situations. Such a profound philosopher, and yet so much folky kind of examples, too, which didn't strike me so much until these last few months, seeing all these different stories.

[01:03]

It starts out with many cases as examples. Like I said, I've enjoyed this, but the attendance in this class have been, you're the people who are here, so, you know, you're here. But the other half of the class, I don't know where they went, and I mentioned this to some people, and they said, well, maybe this stuff is a little dry for some people. And... So I was thinking maybe to continue studying more of these teachings involved in the 37 Wings, but I'm not sure if anybody would come. And so, yeah, so Rochelle would be here. I would be here. I will be here. So if you would be here, but also if there's something you'd rather study, Some of you might come and yet there might be something you'd rather study. Like, anyway, if you have some other suggestions, if you could tell Donald or me, Donald to the yoga room, or me at Green Gulch, or at Revit Assistant at hotmail.com, if you have some suggestions about doing, continuing this or doing something different, I'd like to know because I,

[02:22]

Kind of would like to keep going, but a lot of other stuff I'm interested in too, so please help me decide what to do this summer in July and August. I have another series. Rebassistant. Rebassistant at hotmail.com. Rebassistant at 9. Email address through Zen Center. And then I had three things that I'd like to do tonight. One would be just to sort of ask if you have any questions and just have that approach. Another would be to open up a little bit onto what the four right efforts are, and in particular then to talk about how they apply to what are called in Sanskrit asarava and what are called in Pali asaba, asaba, which is translated as literally floods, flooding out or flooding in, which are the basic kind of ways we look at things such that we kind of knock ourselves into suffering.

[03:49]

and these outflows are very important in traditional Zen teaching and they're closely related to the four right efforts. So I guess I just, I think I would just like to do a little bit on the four right efforts and see what happens. Maybe there'll be some time for open discussion, but the four right efforts are basically guarding against the arising of unskillful states, guarding against the arising of unarisen states. So unwholesome states having arisen is a way of paying attention such that they don't arise. The first is like guarding the unarisen, unwholesome, unskillful states. Next is to abandon any unskillful, unwholesome states that have arisen.

[04:57]

So guarding and abandoning. And the third is to develop unarisen, wholesome states or skillful states. And then if there are wholesome states that have arisen, to maintain them. So it's guarding and abandoning the unwholesome and developing and maintaining the wholesome. And the key factors in this kind of work are mindfulness and discernment. the mindfulness, in other words, of being aware of what's happening, that we've been talking about, and discernment, to be able to tell what's wholesome and what's unwholesome. So it's an effort. It's basically effort. That's the key ingredient in this effort. But the things that make the effort right or appropriate or skillful

[06:04]

uh... mindfulness and discernment so in the first group of things we studied the four foundations of mindfulness is about mindfulness but the mindfulness depends on effort and concentration and discernment the first group is emphasizing mindfulness and depends on effort concentration and discernment the second group the main point is effort but it depends on mindfulness discernment, and concentration. The third group is about power, and it depends on effort, mindfulness, and discernment. So effort, mindfulness, discernment, and concentration, those four are involved in these first three groups of the 37 wings. But in each case, one of the four one of the four is the main point and the other three help. So you can make, and also you can make an effort at mindfulness.

[07:17]

So to give an example of how you, to go through in a summary way, practicing the four right efforts with regard to practicing the four foundations of mindfulness. So you're practicing the four foundations of mindfulness, let's say, and then the four foundations of mindfulness depend on effort, of course. You're developing mindfulness so that mindfulness is developed depending on effort, discernment, and concentration. And the effort is now looked at, and the effort is that when you first start practicing mindfulness thank you when you first start practicing mindfulness uh... you're basically trying to keep your attention on whatever foundation you're trying to establish if you're using body as foundation of your mindfulness practice

[08:30]

then your effort is to continue to pay attention to that foundation. Continue to be mindful of that foundation. Now, in the process of doing that, certain states may arise, like those fetters, which deflect you or distract you or derail you from your mindfulness. If they arise, then the appropriate effort, the right effort, would be to somehow find a way to abandon them, to let them drop. If they haven't arisen, then you're successful at this practice of mindfulness and you're paying attention to your body. And you're paying attention to your body. You're paying attention to your breath. You're paying attention to your breath. You're being ardent, which is basically the effort to stay with your breath.

[09:35]

So the ardency in the Four Foundations is the effort part. So that's the part that keeps you on the ball that you've chosen. Or feeling is what you've chosen. Ardency is what keeps you on the feeling. So the mindfulness is your awareness of it and your memory of what it is. Mindfulness is that you're aware of your breath right now. Excuse me, you're aware of your breath, and you remember that the breath is the thing, but the ardency is the effort to stay with it. And the alertness is to be sharp and catch the present example of your breath or your posture. If you're actually able to do that, to remember, oh yeah, I'm meditating on my breath, for a while now, for 40 minutes, or two hours, or today I'm going to meditate on my breath.

[10:37]

I remember that. I remember that. And now that I remember that, that's what I've decided to do. But I'm doing it. The I'm doing it part is the ardency, is the effort. I'm actually practicing it. And being able to see that you're working with the actual present example of the breath is the alertness. and the discernment is involved there too of being able to tell what the breath is and what the breath isn't and being able to tell whether you actually have remembered or haven't or whether you're there or not or whether there's alertness so if you're actually able to be there then the unwholesome distracting mind states have not arisen and you're practicing this way And your intense practice of this way guards from the arising of these things. But you also have a sense that these things can arise.

[11:40]

So you kind of know that that can happen. And if they start to arise, then you pay attention to them and change your mindfulness temporarily in a sense of being aware of how those things relate. And they relate in an undermining way. And you acknowledge them for what they are. and that's the abandoning process now if you are and then so guarding against the arising of things that distract you and having them not arisen yet but watching out for that is similar to that if they haven't arisen then in a sense you are successful and all the things i said you're successful at are the ways practicing mindfulness of the body for example you're aware that you are and you're aware of your body you're aware of your breath you're aware of your breathing and you're staying with it and you're working with the present one and you're not getting and you're working with in and of itself and also you're not getting involved in grief or covetousness with regard to the world about this meditation this is a wholesome state

[12:59]

and you're developing it it's happening and now you try to just continue that and maintain that so that's the basic way of practicing the four right efforts with the practice of the four foundations and that's that way of practicing the four right efforts is similar to the first way of practicing this way of practicing the four right efforts with the four foundations is similar to the first way that the four foundations were described in the text about the four foundations. Namely, you're establishing the practice. And in establishing the practice, you're watching out for things that distract you from the establishment or undermine the foundation. You're dropping things that undermine the foundation. You're building the foundation. You're maintaining the foundation. So that first way of practicing the four right efforts is similar to the first way of practicing the four foundations, up to the point where it just says, and your practice is internally, externally, internally, externally, and then it says, or.

[14:17]

And where it says, or, you shift into a different type of practice of four foundations, but also when you're practicing the four right efforts, you shift as a second phase, too. So for example, if you're practicing the four right efforts with regard to mindfulness practice, then what you do, you kind of find a way to let go of or ward off the tendency, the kind of predisposition we have, of getting involved in what's happening. So your second phase is based on the first phase. In the first phase, you are actually able to pay attention to what's happening steadily. Your mindfulness is established. You're a success at being aware of what's happening.

[15:23]

This is good. This is the foundation. and you're even aware of just the present moment of it. That's the foundation. But the second phase of the mindfulness is to be aware of the arising of these, of sort of watching how these things that you're, how these things that you're aware of that are happening, how they happen. You're watching the arising of them and how they cease and then how they arise and cease. Similarly, in making the right effort, you're shifting now from looking so much just at what's involved, and you're guarding against a tendency which hasn't been mentioned before, and that is a tendency to get involved in what's happening. So you can be aware of what's happening and yet kind of get involved in it. And not just get involved in it, but get involved in

[16:24]

what's happening which is similar to slipping into grief and covetousness with regard to the world you get concerned with not paying attention to what's happening period but you get into attention get involved in what's happening but instead of getting involved in what's happening what's recommended is getting involved in how what's happening is happening switch from being concerned with what to be more aware of how. So it's the second phase of mindfulness and it's the second phase of right effort. But in the mindfulness you shift from, it's more like you shift in the mindfulness from getting settled on what it is to watching the arising and ceasing. In this case, you actually kind of like make an effort to not get involved in what's happening and get more attuned to how it's happening.

[17:31]

Not so much even watching for the arising and ceasing, which is part of the mindfulness practice, but watching for that tendency to sink into what? We do not so much have a tendency actually. Our normal tendency is not to get into how things happen, but what. So like if you look at somebody, our normal thing is to look at the person and see how they are, see sort of what they are. Is this my friend? Is this somebody who approves of me or disapproves of me? Is this somebody who's helping me or hindering me? That's what all these different types of people are, right? But you look at a person and see how they are, how they're changing. You watch how they're changing rather than what's the state they're in now and what's the state they're in now. Well, you have to watch what's the state they're in now and what's the state they're in now in order to see the process. The second level of right effort is to, like, notice that you kind of have a tendency to sink into what it is.

[18:33]

You don't have much of a tendency or habit to sink into how it is. And as a matter of fact, You don't have to worry too much about that. We don't sink into how it is, we sink into what it is. But anyway, that's the second phase. And in that process you may notice a tendency to get involved in what and have trouble seeing how. The third phase is similar to the third phase in the mindfulness practice, The third phase is you have kind of an empty effort. Again, you make the effort to make this radically empirical study of what's happening.

[19:35]

So now you make the effort. to practice this bare awareness where you're not even getting involved in the process. You're just getting involved in the radical simplicity of the moment. You're not getting involved in what or even how now. First you get involved, get focused on what and settled on what. Then you get focused and settled on how. Now you even drop how. And you're not even studying. And also, you're not even being skillful. You're not really doing anything. So those are, in a sense, the three. And the third one also sometimes, which sounds kind of Zen, the third one, you're not pushing forward into the practice or staying in place.

[20:36]

See, the first two are more like, in some sense, a little bit like staying in place is the first phase and pushing forward with the processes. In the third phase, you're not going forward or staying. You're not holding still or moving. Neither. Well, I think there's another big step I wanted to take if there was time, and we'll see if there is, but I think I'm actually stopping now because that was quite a bit of words.

[21:50]

Do you have any questions about what I said or about the Four Foundations and how they relate to themselves or how the Fulbright efforts work with them? can be applied to other practices too, not just these four foundations. Laurie and Lynn? Lynn and Laurie? It seems like you're saying you've got a shift in levels with your scholarship and then your new levels. You go by instinct if you're enlightened. So if you're enlightened just go by your instincts. But if you're not enlightened, then you have to use some discernment, your present level of discernment.

[23:04]

You don't just by instinct. But your instinct, you know, the way you're relating to the world might be as informed by your development of insight and discernment. So you've heard some teachings about getting settled, getting established is the first phase. So there is a sense of discernment about whether you feel established. And if you're established, you're actually... The first level of establishment is you're actually quite calm. You haven't even been... There is a concentration that develops when you get settled, when you get established in the foundation of the body or breath. I mean, body, which includes posture and breathing. You're actually, I think, pretty concentrated. And you can discern that you are. And if you don't know how to discern you are... it might be good to talk to somebody who can help you discern. You could be concentrated but not have enough discernment to tell that you're concentrated enough.

[24:09]

Or you could have both. You could be concentrated and know enough about what it's like to be concentrated and be able to make a discernment about that and say, I think I'm calm enough now to shift my attention a little bit and to not so much look at my posture but look at the arising of my posture. to watch my posture, watch how my posture, as I experience it, arises, I think I'm ready to make that shift in terms of mindfulness practice. And in terms of effort, you feel like you've been able to make efforts successfully at getting settled in one of the foundations, or the foundation of mindfulness practice. You feel that you've been able to do it, and you can discern, there's a discernment there, you're actually paying attention to what's going on and you're discerning that you have achieved the first level of mindfulness practice and now you feel like you can make an effort to do the next kind and you even maybe can make the discernment that you're that there still is this kind of like normal kind of being involved in what's happening

[25:23]

And there's still a little thing about some, you know, we say, you know, give up grief and covetousness with regard to the world about your breathing or posture. You're giving it up. That's your practice. But you haven't completely attained that. until you finish the whole course there's still a little bit of like you still care a little bit about about whether it's you're with somebody loathsome or somebody unloathsome whether you're with an repulsive person or a very attractive person there's still a little bit of lack of equanimity there but you've been working on that and you're pretty settled with If it's an unpleasant feeling, it's an unpleasant feeling. Almost period. If it's a pleasant feeling, it's a pleasant feeling. Almost period. And you're steady with that. But there's still a little bit of investment in what it is.

[26:26]

But you've heard now, there's another step. which is not completely to like overcome this concern with what but just direct the attention to now not some not so much i should say not you're still paying attention to what but now you're adding awareness of the arising of it and if you add the awareness of the rising of it and you feel like you're getting agitated you may have discerned wrong you may not be concentrated enough If I can get established on something like my posture and my breathing and become calm with it, you can actually enter into deep state of calm just by meditating on your breath or your posture. However, when you also observe the process of change of your posture or breathing, you become calmer.

[27:30]

and clearer. When you first start looking at the process of change or the process of arising and ceasing, you have a certain level of clarity about the arising and ceasing. But as you practice, if you can practice this, as you become more, as you study the if you're calm and you study the arising and ceasing you will become more calm and you'll become more clear and if you're not becoming calmer and clearer it may be you can maybe discern that you're not becoming calmer and clearer and then you can also maybe try to find this look at the scriptures or talk to your teacher and try to figure out if you maybe should go back to the earlier stage where you're just establishing mindfulness of, for example, your feelings or your posture.

[28:33]

And then when you feel really clear that you're calm enough, and you can also still also discern that you're calm, but there's still a little bit of concern with this thing, then you can do the of mindfulness of the arising and ceasing. As you become aware of the arising of something that you somewhat invested in, or you somewhat, as they say, affected in, if you now look at the arising of it, it will start to relieve your investment. And if that doesn't work, then the ceasing of it probably will. but actually the arising and ceasing help you let go of whatever it is. Does that make sense? But you have to be fairly... we don't start with that phase. You don't go up to your body and immediately start before you're settled with it, before you're calmly mindful of it.

[29:37]

You don't start by watching the arising and ceasing. First you just look at the body as it's sort of in a risen state, having not noticed or watched how it arose, but just see it as it appears to you. It's coming to you, but it's like it's here. And then you calm down with that. And when you're calm enough, then you can get into this new way of being with it, which is, let's say, less conducive to getting stuck in it or more conducive to being unattached to it and flowing with it. And then you get calmer. And then you get clearer about the arising and ceasing. Just like when you first start practicing mindfulness before you settle down, it's not really realistic to get into the arising and ceasing of things because you're not clear enough about it yet. You have to be fairly settled with it to try on this arising and ceasing of it. I don't know, like holding a ball in your hand.

[30:38]

You have to sort of have some sense of what it's like to grip the ball and know a little bit about the ball in your hand before you start tossing it up in the air and catching it. But I think generally speaking, somebody who holds a ball in their hand has a certain level of concentration. But most people, if they start throwing the ball up in the air and catching it, they'll become more concentrated than they were just holding it in their hand. And then again, most people will get more concentrated if they throw two balls up with two hands and then start tossing it from hand to hand. You'll get more concentrated as you do that. Does that make sense? And of course, three balls, even you get more concentrated, which is part of the fun of doing things like that, is you get more and more concentrated as you get more and more into the process of these balls. rather than just this is the ball but you have to start with this is one ball in this hand and it's in my right hand and now here's another ball in my left hand and now the ball's going out of my hand it's up in the air and it's that high here it comes back down and now it's in my hand again the movement deepens your concentration and also starts to click clarify your vision of the process when you first start throwing juggling the ball

[32:05]

you're not so clear about the process of the balls moving, right? You're not so skilled, but as you do it more, you get more and more skillful about where the balls are going and how they're rising, how they're going up and how they're coming down. You get more and more into that. If you drop the balls, sometimes you should just pick them up again and try again, and sometimes maybe you should reduce the number of balls if you've got too many balls. If you get too upset, you can't even hold one ball in your hand after a while. You can imagine that you just break down into tears maybe after a while if you push too hard. So that's another part of right effort is to know how hard you should push and when you should move to the next phase and how deeply into the process of change you should enter. Okay? And it takes discernment... about your, it takes concentration and discernment about your concentration to say about when to move.

[33:11]

Is that okay for you, Annette? I see John, but maybe Lynn is next. When you're talking about the how, the rising and falling, it's a different state of feeling. At feelings? Yes. And if you really are looking at it, wouldn't you see it go away? No, no, you don't necessarily... I can be aware of my feeling without having... without seeing it arise. When you see a feeling and you're working, you're taking it on feeling now. Yes. And it's there and you watch it and it goes away and then you see another one coming. You might be able to, but you might not. I mean... One time I was, this is kind of a long sample, but one time I was waiting for a parking spot at the Dolphin Club where I swim in a bay.

[34:23]

And I was sitting in the car waiting for the park span. I couldn't really do much else but watch the situation for the parking spot to come up or open. And I noticed that I was feeling sad, but I didn't notice the arising of the sadness. I just noticed I was actually driving around looking for a parking spot, and then I stopped to wait for the parking spot. And because I stopped and was just sitting there waiting for the parking spot, I noticed that I was sad. I didn't really notice the arising of the sadness. I hardly even noticed the arising of my awareness of the sadness. But then I thought, well, since you've got nothing else to do, why don't you just look at the sadness here? And I watched it, and I didn't turn the radio on to distract myself.

[35:27]

partly because it wouldn't work so well to watch for the parking space but i could have listened to the radio and watched but i thought no don't just just feel this and i kind of just like felt it and then i could feel it deepening but i didn't sort of notice the arising i didn't say well there's the arising of the deepening of the sense or the opening to the sadness i noticed that that happened but i didn't notice that it that it was the arising of the deepening. And then I noticed that I kind of like completely opened to it and just like really relaxed with this sadness. And then before the parking space came, it just dropped. And then I did notice this arising of this feeling of tremendous buoyancy and freshness. But it was right after this feeling of really deep sadness, right there just sitting in the car waiting for parking space.

[36:30]

It was like about as sad as I've ever been in my life. But it wasn't so much that it was so sad, but that it was like I was so open to it and gave it my total, almost complete attention other than a little bit watching for the parking space. But it wasn't that difficult to watch because there was a line of cars parked, you know, at an angle, and I could see. So I just didn't take much attention to the cars. So most of my attention was just going to opening, opening, opening. And then this, it went away. And then in its place, this other feeling arose, which was a feeling of tremendous freshness. I never knew what the sad, I didn't get into what sadness was about. because that was too much I couldn't do that and watch for the party space but I got open to this feeling so I didn't really notice the coming up I didn't really notice the beginning of the sadness as like there is a sadness arising although I do remember I did start to notice also sometimes the pleasant sensation it arises and ceases but sometimes it arises and ceases and is followed by another pleasant sensation those aren't so easy to see

[37:45]

And sometimes there's neutral ones between the pleasant ones that you don't necessarily see. Like Thich Nhat Hanh says, really the neutral ones are not negative, so really they're positive. So it's not that sharp sometimes to tell the difference between the positive, when it looks like... This is like pleasure and not unpleasure. But there is a difference, and as you get more calm, you can notice, that's pleasure and that's... I'm not sure. I'm not sure. This is pleasure. I'm not sure. But pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, you may not notice that actually they're rising and ceasing because they are rising and ceasing. They don't... Pleasure doesn't... In this kind of mindfulness, you're talking about the present moment of it. We're not talking about the last second of it even. Feelings are changing very fast. So you may not be able to notice at first how rapidly... Like you could feel good for like... I don't know, sometimes you might feel really good for like three seconds or something, like actually like no neutral sensations for three seconds, but there's a lot of positive sensations there.

[38:55]

And after you get more calm, you can actually see there were like 55 positive sensations in that short period of time. Because you get that calm, you can actually like... So, and then when you're calm, you're ready to like notice. Before that, you may be able to be aware of your feelings and be aware, oh, it's a negative feeling. Oh, it's a positive feeling. It's a positive feeling. It's a negative feeling. And that kind of awareness, is good, that's the foundation, and you calm down with that, and as you become more calm, then you're ready to like, okay, now let's just watch and see the process in this thing. Not ignoring whether they're positive, negative, or neutral, but more emphasizing the arising and the ceasing. It's more intense, it's more refined, and it also takes you out of sinking into whether it is positive or negative.

[40:03]

You're becoming free of your state. And then you get calmer, and then you get clearer, and then you're ready to even withdraw your attention to the arising and the ceasing, and what the conditions are for the arising and ceasing, and how they relate to each other, and stuff like that. It feels like when there's painful thoughts in my mind, all of a sudden, once it goes away, it just bounces off of me. And then it starts again. Yeah. The problem of sitting in meditation is that you think you already have your parking spot, so then you think, well, I can listen to the radio, or I can read a book. So it's nice to somehow have some reason to say, I'm not going to distract myself from my feeling.

[41:05]

I'm going to actually sit here and feel my feelings, because I can't do anything else. I'm not allowing myself to do anything else. I'm just going to open to this feeling and this feeling and this feeling and this feeling. And sometimes your bodily situation is such that it will keep feeding you sadness because it wants you to work on that. You don't have to stay on that painful sensation of sadness. The body wants you to look at it, wants you to open to it so you can be refreshed. So your karmic situation keeps feeding you this same sensation, same type of sensation repeatedly. It keeps being in the category of sadness, but it's not the same feeling. It's a kind of species of feelings that call out for you to open to them and relax with them. And you're doing your body's assigning this to you.

[42:09]

And so there it is. but you can also, in addition to that healthy thing of feeling this and being refreshed, you can also develop your mindfulness in that process. But again, you have to get pretty calm before it's a good idea to shift to the process of arising and ceasing about this. And again, you probably, it would be good to find teacher when you feel like you're at that stage to see if the teacher would agree that you're ready to move to that second phase. No, I thought that was very helpful because he was talking about launching the process to how I found out how it worked well. But you're still talking about a long way to go.

[43:15]

You're talking about still taking attention. And my original question, I was willing to evolve, and so we stopped, we got to the third stage, and I was wondering, because that was making sense too, because the first one you're just, it's kind of like, it sounds like you started to pay attention, so it says things become an object. Yeah, thanks for that. We should go on to the third phase of the ball thing. Yeah, and then you're holding the ball, and it's an object. Then, you know, it's like dropping the ball. I picked it up, and you begin to see how the ball gets in your hand. It's a process. But you're not, like, focusing on the ball as an object so much as... Right. Right. Right.

[44:16]

And then there's a third phase. In the third phase... which third phase of right effort really helps you with, the third phase is that you go beyond your skill. So that the juggling, for example, is happening, but it's no longer your skill. You don't feel like that anymore. So the first level of skill was, you know, by being able to pay attention. The higher level of skill Bye, Ricky. Thanks for coming every week. The second level, you get more concentrated and you understand more about what really is involved with it by juggling them, by tossing them back and forth and all over the place. You understand more about what's going on in that, and you're less involved in what. You can't be so involved in the... You can't be involved the way you were in the earlier phase as you really start moving with the balls. Third phase...

[45:18]

You even get more simple. You get so simple that there's not even room for you to be skillful at this. And what happens then, I can't say that you can become more skillful at that point or less skillful. But it's possible that things that would happen that were inconceivable before could now occur for you. which is namely that you get more skillful, more skillful, and then skill's not an issue anymore. And there's no separation between making an effort and not making an effort. It's not that you're not making an effort or that you are making an effort. You can't say it's either one at that point. Like we say in one of our Zen poems about an archer who had a teacher. And this archer was really good.

[46:22]

And he had archery contests and he could beat everybody in China. And he thought, well, am I the best archer in China? And he thought, actually there's one person who I think might be better than me, my teacher. Then he had an archery contest with his teacher and he tried to kill his teacher. not just win the contest once, but get rid of this guy, his dear teacher. So he shot the arrows at his teacher, and every time he shot an arrow at his teacher, his teacher shot an arrow back at him, and the arrow points met in midair and dropped to the earth. And when they hit the earth, no dust came up. and uh... i think that what happened next was that they just kept doing that for a while, arrow points in mid-air dropping to the earth and no dust coming up finally he came down to his last arrow but his last arrow was one more than his teacher had his teacher didn't have an arrow so then he shot his teacher but as the arrow came to his teacher

[47:45]

his teacher did something like he held up like a blade of hair or something. What do you call a shaft of hair? A strand? A fiber? He held up something anyway and held it so that the arrow went right through it. And then he went over to his teacher and said, I'm sorry, Daddy. I get it. And they lived happily ever after. And he never became the best archer in China. And at that point, it's not really skill anymore. At that point, it's more like the wondrous possibilities of the universe. And so that's where the right effort finally winds up.

[48:48]

There's no here or there or in between. There's no you and the teacher. There's no you and somebody else. There's no, like, best archer. It's beyond skill at that point. And getting beyond skill is the way we need to be in order to achieve enlightenment. We can't still be like doing skillful stuff. First we have to give up the unskillful stuff. Then we have to do the skillful stuff. Then we have to watch the arising and ceasing of the skillful stuff so that we don't get caught in how stuff is skillful, but how skillful stuff happens. And then we have to let go of the skill and go beyond it. And then we're in a state for awakening. Because skill, you know, is different from not skill. It's a problem in But you have to be pretty skillful before you can get beyond skill. You don't get more and more unskillful and more and more unskillful and more and more unskillful and then go beyond skill.

[49:56]

You get more and more skillful and more and more skillful and then you realize that's not the point. All these skills, all these Buddhist skills, all these practices here are not the point. The point is to become a Buddha so you can help people in the best way. The way to help people in the best way is not for you to be the skillful one, but to help them become give up their skillful unskillfulness and become skillful and go beyond skillful. So the Buddha is not like the skillful one. But the Buddha offers ways for us to be skillful and go beyond our skill. So that's what these 37 wings are about. Yes, Miriam? When you're talking about these levels of skill Right. So, as you may have noticed in the scripture, a number of places it talks about

[50:59]

continuous, continuous, continuous, that you become... First of all, you do this long enough so you actually, like, calm down. Don't just... Doing it one moment is... The moment is the place of practice. But then there's continuity. And so it's like... It's not just when you're, like, you're an artist. It's not just when you're doing your art. It's also when you're driving a car, talking to your family, watching TV. Maybe, maybe you can watch TV mindfully, but maybe the mindful way to watch TV is to turn it on. Like for me, the mindful way to listen to the radio that day was not to turn it on. For me... At that time, turning the radio on, I could see, I kind of, I think I did sort of consider, well, I've got to sit here and watch for parking places to up, listen to NPR, you know, listen to some wholesome music, listen to classical music.

[52:14]

But basically, it's not that those things are bad, except they would have distracted me from doing this work, which is like, hey, man, you've got some work to do here. You stop driving the car, here's some sadness. deal with it. Oh, I see. Read a book. No. Sometimes reading a book, even a scripture, is a distraction. So in our retreats at Zen Center, we sometimes say to people during the retreats, don't read books. Not that if they did read books, it would be a distraction, but it might be. People often do, what do they call that kind of reading? Escapist. A lot of reading is escapist, but it's not that the book's escapist. There are certain books that are built to be escapist. But Buddha might be able to open that book and not the slightest bit of escape occurs. Just like, wow, this is sad. Whatever. This is like, I never touched something like this before.

[53:17]

No escaping. So it's not that this person or that person or that person or that person is something which, when I look at it, I escape from my meditation. But if you go to certain things because you think they will take you away, then those things you probably wouldn't be involved with. And so what are those things that distract you. Well then those things those things in a way are abandoned but really it's not those things but the way you pay attention to those things what takes you away that you want to give up and then not looking at those things will help you look at something else which you don't tend to run away from. So you have a wholesome state.

[54:29]

All right? So... You're practicing mindfulness. You're paying attention to what's happening in a way that, how would I put it? For the level that's appropriate for you, you're looking at things in such a way that you're calming down, your mind is calming down, clearing up, you're getting less involved

[55:45]

in things that distract you, and you're just continuing that. You're just continuing that, which sounds, as I say that, similar to maintaining. So developing and maintaining. Right now I'm not being given the words to talk about the difference between developing a wholesome attitude and maintaining. But, yes? Oh, that's right. That's right. So if there's some kind, you might be practicing fairly well. You might actually have some wholesome state that you're in. But there may be some other wholesomeness which is kind of appropriate right now, which hasn't arisen.

[56:53]

So that probably, although you might be in a wholesome state, not an unwholesome state, still, there's some wholesome states or some skillful states that haven't arisen, but it may be time for them to arise. Now, some wholesome states that haven't arisen, it may not be time for them to arise. So at that time, all you can do is maintain the wholesome state that you have. No, you don't have power over it. But let's say you're... Again, let's say you're just establishing yourself in the foundation of mindfulness of your feelings. And let's say you're getting started on that, but you're not yet fully established in mindfulness of your feelings.

[58:02]

You're not real calm in your mindfulness of your feelings. There's still a little bit of for example, maybe some slothfulness or a little bit of agitation. You're not completely settled. And you're noticing these kind of hindrances to you being well-established in mindfulness of your feelings. And you're enough mindful of your feelings to be able to spot that sometimes you're a little, sometimes you forget. At that time, you just forgot. But sometimes you're aware of them, but you're a little worried about them, or you're a little bit agitated about them, or you're a little bit sleepy about them. But you still notice that.

[59:05]

So then that's appropriate, so you're working on that. And you keep noticing these things which kind of undermine your awareness of your feelings, your mindfulness of your feelings. And then gradually you're, less often and less often, are you sleepy around your feelings? When I first met my wife and she used to start, you know, her program of harassment, which has been very beneficial, by the way. I used to fall asleep right in the middle of our conversations. Whenever they got difficult, I would just... Anyway, sometimes we have difficulty facing our feelings, positive, negative, or neutral, or facing our breath. Many people look at their breath and go to sleep, right? Many other people are very tense around their breath. They don't go to sleep. Some people, many people oscillate between being tense around their breath and being sleepy around their breath.

[60:14]

So the tension is the agitation and the worry, the restlessness. So you can have all that. You can be restless and agitated. The next moment, you can be sleepy. The next moment, you can worry. The next moment, you can have, what, sensual lust. You know, try to find some really juicy kind of way to be with your breath, some kind of like tantric sex way to be with your breath. The other way is you can have ill will towards your breath. I have the lousiest breath. I have the lousiest breath. All those things take you away. But little by little, those things drop away. Pretty soon, you're just with your breath or just with your feelings. Those fetters kind of like get abandoned, let's say. Now you're getting pretty settled. Matter of fact, now when they drop away, it's kind of like you're there with your feelings, period. You're just like really well established. And you're calm. Now, now might be time to develop this next phase in the mindfulness practice.

[61:16]

Now you're calm. Now these fetters are backed off. And you're just like This is not the highest level. This is a basic, wonderful level, but it's not that high because there's still Ivan and her feelings. But Ivan is like with her feelings calmly. So now Ivan can be maybe ready to develop this new kind of wholesomeness, this new kind of skill called watching the arising and ceasing of her feelings. And then And so you start to develop that. I'm not saying you have the power to develop it. It's like I didn't say you had the power to abandon the fetters, but in fact, if the fetters are there, if those hindrances are there, and you notice them, I'm not saying you have the power to notice them, but I think you probably have noticed such things, haven't you? Excuse me, you probably have noticed such things, haven't you?

[62:20]

You probably noticed some restlessness and some sleepiness. Some people are almost always restless and never sleepy, and some people are almost never restless and always sleepy. But most people have a little bit of both. So you've noticed those things, but you weren't in control of noticing those things, were you? Right? Were you? I don't think so. But somehow your karmic situation was such that you wound up in a meditation hall sitting there period after period, people talking to you about paying attention to what you're doing. You noticed you were sitting there. You weren't in control of it, but you did notice you were sitting there. People do sometimes in those meditation halls notice that they're in the meditation hall sitting because they are. And then they notice this stuff. They're not in control, but somehow they have a life such that they're in a situation where conditions are supporting them to notice what's going on.

[63:23]

And sometimes they get to a place where they're just there with what's going on. And then if you've heard this teaching, then you feel, well, maybe I think I've heard about this, and I think what's happening here is that I'm calm. And you can go talk to your teacher and say, I think I got calm here. And I heard about meditating on the arising and ceasing. The teacher says, yeah, I think you're ready for it. Go ahead. And you go there, but you're not in control of that. So you might sit there and not be able to actually remember to do that. But you're still okay because you're maintaining the wholesome state of being established in mindfulness of your feelings or your posture. But eventually, with people talking to you about various things, it's going to come up again. Oh yeah, there's another phase called studying dependent core arising. of these feelings or these postures or these mind states. Huh. Maybe I should consider that. This guy's talking to me hour after hour about it. Maybe I'll let it, you know. It's starting to sink in.

[64:24]

Dependent core rising. Oh, yeah. Well, maybe I could, like, think about that now that I'm calm. And he told me, don't think about dependent core rising before I'm calm. But now I'm calm. And he's or she has, like, authenticated my calm. and told me it's okay for me to meditate on dependent core arising now. So maybe I will. So you go in there and suddenly you're meditating on the arising and ceasing. So now you're developing something. And once it's developed, then you can maintain it. You may, but then there would be a maintaining of it. And then once there's maintaining of that and you're good at that, then you've heard, well, there's another phase, which is even beyond meditating on dependent core arising. which is called meditating on emptiness, which has to do with being with things in kind of an empty way. Realizing the emptiness is based on meditating on dependent core arising, and meditating on dependent core arising is based on being calmly present with something that's dependent on the core arising.

[65:31]

So, the level you're on now, try to, like, maintain it. If you maintain it long enough, it'll be time to develop a stage you haven't yet developed. Then you develop that stage, then you maintain that until you're ready for the next level. So, does that make sense? And you can consult with your meditation instructor about whether you should just maintain or whether it is time to develop. Suzuki Roshi one time I was in his room, and he took a piece of paper, and he... I think I was... I think this was the conversation where I went to him. I had been, like, trying to develop something for quite a while, you know? Like, I was trying to develop my sitting practice, and I had a real hard time the first couple years of practice. I really struggled hard to be able to sit still, cross-legged, you know?

[66:39]

It was real hard for me. And I got to a place after about two years where I suddenly realized it wasn't hard. And I went to see him and I said, you know, it's not hard anymore. Am I missing something? And he said, practice may not be hard for you for a while. And then he took a piece of paper and he said, when we practice origami in Japan, we fold the paper And then we press on it for a while before we fold it again. In other words, they don't just fold it, and then as soon as it folds, they fold it again. And it doesn't seem like anything's happening much. You've already folded it, but somehow you just sit on it for a while. And it's not very hard. Once it's folded, it's not that easy just to press on it. I mean, not that hard to press on it. And then, suddenly, it's time to make the next poll.

[67:47]

And the next day, the board of directors of the city center asked me to leave Tassajara and go to the city center to be director. And I went to him and I said, well, I guess it's time for the next poll. So, you know, Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy when it's easy, just have to be easy for a while and then the next thing comes and then hopefully the next wholesome thing comes for you to develop. Now if it's an unwholesome thing, then the next thing comes. You know, somebody's unfolding your papers, right? Or ripping your papers up. That somebody is your own mind, of course. So that you have to sort of guard against because it's always possible to slip back and lose your mindfulness It's always possible. I mean, well, there's a certain level at which you don't slip back, but don't worry about that right now.

[68:55]

That happens when you're not guarding and you're not really in that position of rest. Well, you know, guarding in a sense, if you're in a state of, if you're in a wholesome state that you're maintaining or you're developing a, a new wholesome state that hasn't arisen yet. You're working, you're making efforts to develop a new state like, for example, you're calm and now you're trying to learn how to meditate on causal processes. The guarding part is just that you're aware that even while you're at this fairly advanced stage, you know, you've actually got established and now you're moving into a deeper or a higher stage of meditation based on success at an earlier phase. you're aware that you could slip so guarding is partly just knowing that you could slip at any time and also to learn how to be aware that you could slip at any time without making that disturb your calm you're calm now you're ready to try something more profound in a way something more dynamic but even while you're calm even while you're doing this excellent practice at any point

[70:12]

could slip you could lose your mindfulness you should know that that's part of like you should be aware you could slip and to be aware of that in a wholesome way means that you're not aware of it and then you start getting tense about it or sleepy if you don't go to take a nap because of the possibility of flipping like that makes sense in other words you have to be skillful about guarding against unskillfulness, which means don't get tense about the fact that you can slip at any time. Because you can slip at any time. As you know, many stories of spiritual teachers who slip. So they can slip, but sometimes they slip because they think, I can't slip. But sometimes they slip because they're so scared of slipping. They're fairly successful, but some of them, because they're so worried about slipping, they slip. now yeah they get back to they get somewhat calm and they say this is great and then I lose this and then they slip or other times they say okay I'm calm now I'm never I'll never be on calm I don't listen nope never slip but to be calm and settled in where mindfulness and relaxed

[71:29]

At the same time, no, this could end at any moment. I could be flat into hysteria any moment. And I'm relaxed with that, too. Okay, and now, again, I can slip right now. I can make a big mistake. You know, a car can smash me into smithereens. Stuff like that can happen. I am vulnerable to death. Then as you become successful in meditation, you don't. you don't get hooked on the bliss of meditation because you know you could slip it out of it any moment. Plus, you have to be relaxed with that and gentle and at ease with the fact that you're on a precipice all the time. And then, if it does happen, you're also ready for it. If you know it could happen, then when it does, say, and sure enough, I lost it all. Wow, it's amazing. Oh, embarrassing, but it's happening. Well, maybe then it's gone.

[72:34]

It's abandoned because you, like, acknowledged it, relaxed with it. Your mindfulness is back. It's gone. So actually, you might think, you go, the first two and then they're gone. But no, it's all four all the time, actually. I mean, that's what you're working towards is all four all the time. So even though you seem to be maintaining some wholesome practice, you're also knowing, yes, this is a wholesome practice, but there's a whole bunch of other ones. Lord Buddha is inviting me to practice when it's the right time. So the developing thing is still sitting there even though you're like mostly maintaining. And if you are maintaining, you also know any moment you could slip and sometimes you do. But you're ready for it. Partly because you're calm, you're ready. So when you slip, you notice it. And also because you're calm, you can also tolerate being ready to slip. So this is also part of right effort to learn how to work with these.

[73:36]

It's more like all four are there, and you're just emphasizing one at a particular time. It seems to be a center one, but the other three are hovering around there. Because at any moment, you may have to switch into the other one being primary. Does that make sense? At first, these four sound so mechanical. But the more you work with them, the more they become kind of like soft and pliable and more, you know, homogenized. And always coming up in new forms. John? No, before I got into more detail, I was thinking it sounded very good to slip. So I was thinking really very much about how can you balance, you know, slip, right? Right. And also, as you start to develop the new things, of course... Some of you have already heard about this one.

[74:42]

It's a... I think it's a... I think it's a Gary Larson cartoon, which I found at Tassajara during a practice period. It's a picture of a dog... riding a bicycle on a tightrope. Heard this story, Leslie? No. So you picture a tightrope, right, high up in the air, and a dog's riding a bicycle on the tightrope, and he's balancing some stuff on his hat, on his head, and he's juggling billiard balls. Not billiard balls. Bowling. Bowling pens. He's juggling bowling pens. And I think there's a cat someplace, too.

[75:42]

There's a cat on the end of his balancing bar or something like that. Anyway, it looks like a pretty touchy situation. Easy to slip. Very skillful. Well, he's very skillful. And So it says, and then also you see way down below him there's the bleachers where the people in the circus are watching him, you know, perform this trick. And then the caption says, high above the packed crowd, the thought occurred to Rover that he was an old dog. And this was a new trick. So, you know, if you don't try any new tricks, maybe you'll be all right. But as you evolve, in some ways, the higher you go, the easier it is to slip. Until finally you get so high that all you can do is slip.

[76:47]

And you know, you're beyond. you know, you're beyond it. And so you can slip with total ease and love and, you know, enlightenment. And some people would say, that's not worth slipping. That was great. I'd say, well, really? And some people would say, no, he slipped. That could be a debate. Well, thank you very much. And there's more that I didn't get to just about these poor right efforts. And then there's the four bases of psychic power and the eight limbs of enlightenment and all that stuff. So let me know what you want to do this summer and I'll try to understand what is the best course of study for the summer session. In the meantime, to those of you who are here, thank you very much for being here. And to those of you who aren't here, please tell me what's going on.

[77:49]

Because I don't... Actually, some people did. Susan told me and Don told me that they were sick. And another gentleman told me that he was leaving the class. He had to go leave the country. But the other... And some of you also told me the reasons why you missed the classes. I appreciate that helps me understand what's going on to some extent. So I do have a little bit of... Part of my difficulty is understanding your hearts, you know, whether... whether I'm meeting you or not. So please help me by telling me what's going on. Then you'll guide me to bring up things. Not under my power, right? And yet, if you guide me, good topics will probably come up. Thank you.

[78:46]

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