Yeah. Yeah. We could do a Cohen class here. Also, I wanted to say again that we don't often get together in classes and recite texts in this modern world. And part of the reason for that is that we have books. And they didn't used to have books for a long time. Or even when they had books, not everybody had a book. So the way that they kept track of the teaching was by getting together in groups and reciting it. So although in some sense we don't need to do it, we are actually experiencing what early Buddhism was like, what people needed to get together, otherwise the teaching would be lost. We do at Zen temples recite scriptures in service, but usually in classes we don't do it there either, although we do sometimes have people memorize texts, which is good.

[01:17]

Part of me just wants to ask you if you have any questions, but another part of me wants to introduce some new material. So I'll introduce a little bit of material and see if you have questions. And if you do, we'll deal with those. Part of what I wanted to talk to you about tonight was that in this scripture, let me just tell you first of all that it seems to be traditional to use the expression right mindfulness as interchangeable with these four foundations of mindfulness. And also in this text and other places the word mindfulness, the word for mindfulness which in Pali is sati and in Sanskrit is smriti, that word is often conjoined with another term which is

[02:30]

sampajana, S-A-M-P-A-J-A-N-N-A with a little squiggle over the A, so it's jnana, jnana, which means clear comprehension, or in this text, full awareness. So these two are often put together. literally mindfulness and the other one is clear comprehension or full awareness or full alertness or fully alert. These are different translations of these two. And basically there's some tendency to use the mindfulness particularly for when you're just paying attention to sort of what's coming to you.

[03:39]

And the other one, the clear comprehension, is also mindfulness, but it has more to do with the moment of taking action. So in a sense, I feel like these two terms are, can I talk to you after class, read for a minute? These two terms are like a receptive dimension to the mindfulness practice and an expressive or active dimension to the mindfulness. And in a sense, in terms of the text, the receptive part, for example, under the contemplation of mindfulness, the receptive part or the pure mindfulness part, in a sense, I would say that that corresponds to everything up to, for example, mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of the body up to full awareness section.

[04:48]

And at that point, we switch to the full awareness type of mindfulness. And I just briefly mention now, and I'll go into more detail later, that this reminds me of the kind of what's the word it's the in a sense it's the essential quality of Zen meditation that is spoken of in Soto Zen school is we're sitting in a certain kind of concentrated state and this concentrated state is called the concentrated state of receiving a self and employing a self so it's it's an awareness concentrated awareness of receiving the self and employing the self but just anyway receiving what's happening based on this reception of what's happening acting from there employing

[06:05]

the awareness that is just noticed what you have been given and what you have received and the focus is on the self but it could be on anything you receive because the self that you get in a given moment is really just the arrival of everything that's happening in the moment the basic meditation is to be aware of what you're receiving and how you're receiving and then look to notice that that's where you are that's what you are and then based on that awareness to act from what's been given to you in the moment and this particular this early presentation has these two dimensions also one being this focus on the pure receptive mode of what's given to you, like the body that's arising, the breath that's arising, the body that's vanishing, the breath that's vanishing, the feelings that are arising, the mind states that are arising, the hindrances that are arising, and then based on that

[07:29]

more and more pure receptivity, then actions are taken from that base. I talked already about this, and you probably thought about this too, about this instruction which in the scripture it says, the bhikkhu, the monk, abides contemplating the body as the body, abides contemplating the body in and of itself. The same for feelings, feelings in and of themselves. The same for mind states, in and of themselves. This in and of themselves we talked about, and this is often called, at least in English, this is often called bare awareness. It's a type of mindfulness which is mindful of the body, for example, in and of itself called bare awareness. And again I think a purely receptive state or a state of pure receptivity where you're really, you work towards it anyway, and you finally attain this state of where you're actually aware of how you are receiving what's happening.

[08:56]

And some of you have heard me play with this a little bit. And one of the ways to play with it is just, I don't know how to nuance or put emphasis on that, but this is an awareness of how you are what you're receiving. So one way of saying it is you're aware of how you're receiving what's happening. Another way to say it is you're aware of how you are what you're receiving. That's what you are. People sometimes think there's something in addition to what they're receiving in a given moment. But I think the Buddha Dharma is that we are nothing more than what we receive in the moment. And this awareness in early literature is called, for example, if it's a body awareness, be aware of the body in and of itself.

[10:14]

So these frames or these foundations are a way to like use the body as a way to start to learn to observe how you receive the body and how you are you are the receiving of the body how or switch to use the feelings or so on eventually you wouldn't necessarily have to have these frames in other words if a body sensation came in the arrival of the body sensation you'd see, you'd see how that was, that would be the meditation. If a feeling came, you'd see how you received that, that would be the meditation. If a mind state came, you'd see how that was. At the beginning, though, it's recommended to use one of these at a time often so that to help you be more pure in your receptivity because if you switch from, if you're receiving the body and then you're receiving a feeling and then you're receiving a mind state, in other words, you're aware of a feeling,

[11:30]

then you're aware of a mind state and then you're aware of the body it may be more difficult for you to do each one in and of itself but if you could do one in and of itself then you would just be quickly switching your frame from moment to moment which is also okay One way of recommending is you're working on the body, like on the breath, and if a feeling arises, you're aware of the feeling, but you're aware of the feeling in relationship to this, your focus on the body. You're abiding, contemplating the body. You're remaining focused on the body in and of itself. If a feeling arises, you keep focusing on the body and you see how that feeling relates to the body. Or if a mind state appears to you, you become aware that you have a concentrated mind state or an unconcentrated mind state.

[12:33]

You're aware of the mind state, but you relate it to your focus on your body. Okay? That's the way they usually recommend starting. But you could do it differently. You could be focusing on the body as in and of itself, as it's coming to you. But again, even if you're focused on the body in and of itself as it's coming to you, or I shouldn't say as it's coming to you, but as it's coming, you're focused in and of the body as it's being received. But then the next thing that's given to you, or the next thing that comes, is a feeling. The body is not coming to you. The body's not coming. What's coming is a feeling. Or what's coming is a mind state. That's actually what's arising. but again some people recommend when the feeling arises remember that you're focusing on your body when the mind state arises remember you're focusing on your body so you notice the feeling in and of itself but then you come back to the body that's one way another way is you could say you're focusing on your body but be very flexible about it or you could say you're just doing these three foundations of mindfulness body

[13:55]

and you just watch which one it is. And whichever one it is, you receive it in and of itself. You receive it in and of itself. You receive it in and of itself. Ultimately, that's the way it would be. You wouldn't necessarily have to be relating the feelings to the body, because sometimes you're focusing on the feeling, you're relating the body sensations to the feeling. So, you know, body could be your focus and you relate the other two to the body a feeling could be and you relate the other two a mind states could be and relate the other two but you could also whichever one's there you could relate the other one to the other two too you could also not relate the other two too if they're not happening so then instead of having one that you focus on and relate the other two to it you just deal with the one that's happening But you learn certain things in focusing on one and watching when the other two arise, how they relate to it.

[15:02]

You learn relational information that you don't get necessarily if you just stay with the one. And when the other two arise, you just let them drop. But these are all different types of possibilities. And we can go on. You learn different things from the different possibilities. I think some of you have heard me quote this scripture before. It's in what's called Udana, which is a collection of kind of inspired utterances of the Buddha. And he's talking to this one monk. And he says, the monk asks him how to practice in a kind of simple way. And the Buddha says, I think his name is Bahiya, train yourself thus. In the scene, and this is seen, S-E-E-N, but it works nice for S-C-E-N-E, too. In the scene, there would just be the scene.

[16:06]

And in the herd, there would be just the herd. I'm not referring to hearing with the ear, but it also would apply to a herd of elephants. But anyway, in the heard, there will be just the heard. Train yourself thus. In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the heard. And then it says, in the reflected, that's an abbreviation for, in the smelled, there will be just the smelled. In the tasted, there will be just the tasted. In the touched, there will be just the touched. And then in the thought, or the imagined, there will be just the imagined. So those are six, right? So six categories. So each one of them, basically, it's those things in and of themselves. So that's the basic training of mindfulness, of attention, of body in and of itself, feelings in and of themselves,

[17:15]

and concepts or mental qualities in and of themselves. The Buddha then goes on to say that when for you in the seen there's just the seen and in the heard there's just the heard and in the reflected there's just the reflected, and in the imagined or just the imagined, then you will not identify with it, with any of those things. And when you don't identify with them, you will not locate yourself in them. And I add, you will also not locate yourself outside of them. And then there will be no here or there or in between. And this will mean the end of suffering. The training in this mindfulness is kind of the training of, in the scene, there will be just a scene.

[18:30]

and when you train yourself that way eventually it gets to be the case that for you in the scene there's just a scene there's a big space between this training and when it gets to be that that's how it is for you so that you would train yourself so after a while you would actually like look at somebody or look at something and for you in what you see, that's all there would be is what you see. There would be no additions or subtractions from it. There wouldn't even be the addition, the very, very important addition to what you see of you. In other words, you'd be in the mode of receiving this visual data, this appearance, which in some sense you could say is mindfulness of the body externally.

[19:35]

If you look at somebody else, that's mindfulness of the body externally. You see another person's body. You can also be aware of whether they seem to be practicing mindfulness. Anyway, you're seeing something and you've developed this pure receptivity where you're just receiving and you are aware of how you're receiving. you're aware of how you're receiving and that's it you're aware of how you are just receiving that all you are is just receiving so you're not in addition to what you see not to mention there's not a judgment in things in addition to what you see there's no evaluations in what you or greed or aversion in addition to what you see you just see it but again that you actually get to the point where you wouldn't you wouldn't be something in addition you wouldn't be something in addition to what you see in a scene there would just be the scene not the scene plus you seeing it so then

[20:54]

There would be no identification with it or disidentification. It wouldn't be like, that's my friend or that's not my friend. That's my blue shirt or that's not my blue shirt. There wouldn't be that going on anymore. There would just be like blue shirt or blue. That's it. And it wouldn't be like identifying with it. There wouldn't be this person out there separate from it. So then you wouldn't locate yourself in the color or outside the color. If it was your body, if you saw your body or felt your body, that body sensation that you receive, that's all there would be in that body sensation is the body sensation. Touch. You wouldn't be identifying with it. and you wouldn't be locating yourself in it or outside of it.

[21:55]

You wouldn't be putting yourself in the body or outside the body. So then there would be no here or there or in between. And this is the end of suffering because suffering originates from this sense that the things we're experiencing are out there, that we're here and they're there. This is the basic appearance which we tend to believe as substantially true. So this process, according to that simple teaching, was actually a very short description of a huge process of enlightenment. I mean a long training program, but very simple. It starts with this bare awareness. but to get to the point where you're not even training yourself that way anymore where just that's how things are for you that would be in the place of that would be where this pure awareness is just the way you are namely everything you see is just the seeing you're just seeing it as it comes to you you're directly

[23:18]

intimately experiencing the reception of the color or the sound. And so there's quite a bit of discussion of how we get to that point. Another thing I wanted to mention about this training in this bare mindfulness So one expression is this training, this bare mindfulness trains us in letting go. It weans us from busyness. It weans us from impulsive interfering with what's happening. sometimes interference is really good but our impulsive interference or habitual interference we wean ourselves from this by doing this bare attention and i thought about and here's an exercise in this is you might try uh... for a few days practicing this bare mindfulness now bare mindfulness is not

[24:41]

It's not so well suited for when you're like just trying to decide what to do. It's not so good for decisions and judgments. It's more like, just like for example, if you're sitting in meditation, you're just paying attention to how you're receiving what's happening. Okay? But you can get up and move around in that mode. You can walk down the street in that mode. So you have to use a clear comprehension to decide to practice this bare mindfulness on a walk. So then you'd use clear comprehension. Let's say I would use clear comprehension. I would say, I think it would be a good idea for me to take a walk now and practice bare mindfulness or bare attention on this walk. So I use clear comprehension to do this thing, which I think would be good, be useful. I'm mindful of, you know, that a walk where I'm an experiment with practicing bare attention would be good and would be in accord with my values to achieve liberation.

[26:02]

So I use clear comprehension for that. Bare awareness is not really kind of attention to the situation by which I make the decision to take a walk. And bare attention is not the activity of deciding to practice bear attention that make sense we actually receive the mind state which is deciding to practice bear attention and then we can make that decision and now we're tuned into practicing bear attention and now we have to remember that and train and try to understand how to practice it so then you take a walk and you can take a walk in a very busy situation like berkeley walked on the streets here walked on college which is really busy a lot of time but you could walk on one of the side streets which are less busy but even though they're less busy with people and stuff they're still busy with trees and stuff like that and sky and earth so you're moving through this world with all this stuff that's coming to you but you're moving through with this bare attention attitude

[27:12]

and you're coming with the basic feeling of training yourself and not interfering now of course if interference is necessary it seems necessary and clear comprehension comes in to say i think i should stop now because a car is coming so you kind of intervene in the walking process because it seems dangerous to go out there that kind of decision though is not bare mindfulness but you can walk into bare mindfulness through a busy situation and I also thought about how if you train in a monastery you learn actually how to not interfere habitually because you feel some impulses to interfere with what's going on or metal with what's going on and it's clear by the forms of the practice place that it's not appropriate for you to be meddling or interfering so you get to take a break from the interfering uh... because it's not your job to interfere for example if things seem to be going really i shouldn't say really bad if things if people are like if the schedule's off if people are late

[28:41]

if the chanting's bad, if the food's bad, if the people are lousy students, stuff like that, if you've seen these kinds of things, you learn after not too long that it's not your business to do anything about it. Some people, it's their job to do something about it, so they have a little more advanced practice, but you can actually take a break from interfering with what's going on. And there's some debate about that sometimes, but actually you can take a break from what's going on, from interfering. And then when you leave the monastery and go back in the city, you can walk down the street and you notice you feel differently about walking down the street. That even if you're walking down a street like one of these streets over here, and even if... Even if you don't do anything about the trees or the cars that are parked along the side of the road or the grass on the people's yards or the people's yards or the people's houses, even if you don't go up there and interfere and meddle with all these people who live along the street you're walking, even if you don't do that, you still are kind of in the mode of doing that, of like, you know, should I or should I not meddle?

[30:01]

Should I or should I not meddle? and when you actually drop that you feel differently when you're walking down the street so again probably most of us most the time we walk down the street we don't meet anybody we know we just walk by them right but by training yourself in this way you walk by them you know, in a less interfering way than you ordinarily would because you're kind of usually in the mode of interfering as just a general way of being with what's happening. And interfering, again, basically means you interfere by... How do you usually interfere with somebody? You walk by. You got an opinion about them, right. you intrude or interfere with the meeting with what's going on in your head, which oftentimes leads to some other kind of interference, like you judge them and then you interfere further by thinking that they're unfriendly.

[31:09]

The judgment could be they're unfriendly. And you think, what a such and such. And you might even give them a dirty look or whatever, you know. Which, you know, that might happen, right? Or you might even yell at the people on the street, yell at each other who don't even know each other. They yell at each other on the street. And well, we know that's sometimes a really good thing, right? We know when you're crossing the street and the car cuts in front of you or the driver yells at you and you drive, yell at the driver. We know that that's really a good idea a lot of the time, right? The problem is that you don't know maybe what it's like to walk not in the mode of having something clever to say to everybody that comes by. Again, this kind of practice creates a temporary and partial detachment as you move through the world so that you can re-enter

[32:21]

even a hustle and bustle situation with serenity and content it's not permanent though until you reach the later part of the instruction where there's no here or there when that's how it is for you as you're walking down the street There's just, the street is just the street, the person's just the person, and so on. And there's no here or there or in between. So maybe I should stop now, and let's see if you have any questions. I'd like to bear attention. Yes? Is having a smile or smiling at a person or having a laughing at a walking on the street, is that one? Is that one? I think that when you're practicing this, and when you're practicing it enough so you actually are kind of in the mode for the time being, that I think then you love everything you see.

[33:39]

When you're in a state, when you actually get to a state where you're actually in this, pretty much in this pure receptivity, that pure receptivity is basically love. And not to mention pure receptivity when it gets to the point where you realize that everybody you meet or everybody that comes forth is giving you your life. so not you know if you're training at this you can actually get a taste of this by training at it but you get to a point where actually you would be that way and you would love everything that you meet but this aspect of love is not the totality of love because there's an active phase of it too which comes from this receptive phase but it starts According to this teaching, it sounds to me like it starts, you basically start with the receptive.

[34:43]

And in Soto Zen, the center of our practice is receptive, and the surround is active. And that seems like the way that it is in this thing, too, that the center is this bare attention, this pure receptivity, and in the surround is the clear comprehension in action. And again, you said about this, is loving humanity... And again, this is saying... I'm saying at this point that love is not habitual interfering with people. There could be an interfering with people that arises from non-interference with people. You basically are receiving... And based on that being stationed in that pure receptivity, an action could arise which appears like an intervention or an interference. Like, for example, you could throw your body in harm's way to protect someone.

[35:53]

You could interfere with the harm of someone. But the interfering would be coming from this non-habitual interfering. it would be the appropriate interfering of the moment, not your habit, not your habit of being somebody who's helping or whatever. So what about walking down the street and just having pleasant exchange rather than cross somebody, say hi, smile. Is that your fear? um the the um the the the meeting the person and the being tuned into this bare awareness okay is that when the person comes as as as a visual aspect in the in the way that they're seen there will be just a scene and if you hear them in the hearing of them there will be just a hearing so you'll be in this mode okay in that mode then

[37:05]

If the person might smile at you and there might be a clear comprehension that it would be good to say, good morning. But it would be not coming from interference. It would be just you're responding in a way that you think would be beneficial. But it's coming from a non-interfering source. It's coming from a source where you're actually looking at how you are created in the moment. And in that state, then, action, the other aspect of love is to be active or expressive. But you see it's saying starting with it being in this state of uh... bear awareness which is similar to that story about the acrobat he says first of all in a sense first of all take care of yourself so you can take care of others and understand of course that if you are helping others that's a way to take care of yourself but first of all take care of yourself and how do you take care of yourself well by practicing four foundations of mindfulness

[38:28]

how to take care of yourself by not getting caught by the things that can be added to what's happening receive what's happening right away purely before any additions to it so this is getting down to first of all practicing four foundations of mindfulness will make you a person who can help other people but now we're zeroing in on the core of the foundation of mindfulness which is this pure receptivity this pure bare attention and that will be the source or the basis for actions where there will be judgment where there will be decisions where there will be evaluations that that's part of what our mind does but we're trying to like have that stuff come up out of this pure bare awareness because then they could come up and eventually come up without any belief in duality between ourselves and our actions or between ourselves and other people and there might be the enactment of interference but it would not be

[39:57]

Impulsive, obsessive, compulsive interference would be the appropriate response. Non-interfering core with a sometimes interfering surround. Yes? So it sounds like their attention as far as that these five senses are, it would be like a child. In the innocence of a child, you see something. It doesn't have to comment on it. It would be like innocence in the sense of the etymological origin of innocence. Innocence means not harming. So it would be a non-harming way of seeing things. that kind of innocence.

[41:00]

Yes? But it's not just the senses. It's also for thoughts you have about people, the thoughts you have about yourself, the thoughts you have. All the thoughts that arise in your mind, all of those are supposed to be treated that same way of just how do you receive them to tune into before you get into any elaboration Check out how you first receive your own thoughts about what's going on in this life. Your own feelings. Wow. This is happening. Well, a little bit before wow. It's like wow. To walk down the street like that, if somebody says it's time to talk, you might say wow. You know, I once said, you know, this is just part of what I like to look at in monastery. When I was at Tassajara and I came up to the city center in 1970 to be the director of the building and also in charge of the meditation hall.

[42:13]

And I lived in the city, but I stayed in the building all the time. I mean, I didn't go out of the building. In San Francisco, I could see out the windows. And I'd go up the roof and look out at the city. But I actually didn't go out the door. for a long time. And on weekends, sometimes people would go out to movies and stuff. I didn't go with them. And one day, some people invited me to go out. And I went out. And I was like, wow. It's amazing out there. And one time, someone took me to North Beach to a place called Stella's. It's a bakery. They bought a coffee cake. And then they took me to Cafe Trieste. and had coffee, and I said, boy, you people know how to live. And I said, this is amazing. So yeah, when you tune into this, things are, life becomes more and more just astounding at this level.

[43:14]

But you still have to respond to things. Like you might say, wow, thank you. Or you might say, I don't like you talking to that person that way, you might say. But there might be a while before that, like, wow, you're really, that really looks harmful. That looks harmful. Or like, what is it, the emperor's clothes, you know? The emperor doesn't have any clothes on. This is amazing. So if you treat your thoughts or your mind states with the same kind of, freshness you allow it to be, even though you have a strong feeling about it. You try to see it. You said treat it with freshness, and then I thought you were going to say you allow it to be fresh. I thought you said you allow it. I thought you were going to say, I thought you were going to switch from treat it with freshness to allow it to be fresh. It's more like this training, you allow things to be fresh.

[44:21]

You train yourself to allow Things are fresh. You don't have to make them fresh. Every moment actually is fresh. But we don't allow it to be fresh. We say, oh, yeah, I've seen that before. I know you. I mean, I love you. You're great, but same old. The new one, I mean, you're great, but I don't need a new version of you. Please, that's enough. You're enough. The fresh you, no. Thank you. But this is to train yourself in the freshness of the experience, to allow the experience to be fresh by weaning yourself from the busyness around everything. And then when you do that, so maybe you're in a special situation, like sitting alone or sitting in a group of people sitting in silence. It's easier in silence to wean yourself from the busyness, from the non-innocence.

[45:27]

from the easy to lean yourself, the staleness of language when we're quiet. So we sit quietly. We put ourselves in a situation where we don't have to worry about the schedule, or who's following it, or what's for lunch, or when lunch is going to be, or how much is lunch going to be. We don't have to worry about that stuff. So we can turn off our interfering, deadening activity that we are kind of used to. Then you can go back in the same situation where you're usually busy, but you're in the freshness of it. So it's really astounding and wonderful that you've trained yourself to be ready for that. However, you still have to train yourself for a long time until you're just that way. So a highly trained meditator is like a constantly seeing They were doing research on Zen students over at the UC Medical Center, and one of the tests that I heard that they did was they ring a bell, and then they had electrodes connected to the person, and then they watched the electrical reaction in their brain or whatever to the ringing of the bell.

[46:55]

So they ring the bell, and then they ring the bell. Most people, the next time they ring the bell, the reaction will be a little bit shorter. And then, ring it again, it gets shorter. Ring it again, it gets shorter. In fact, ringing it pretty soon, there's almost no reaction to the sound of the bell. But the person doing it, this kind of mindfulness meditation, you ring it, every time you ring it, it's like, oh, oh, God. It just stayed in the same height each time. In other words, kind of like a child, that children can repeat things, like, oh, yeah, let's do this again, and [...] again. It's like, it don't... But they seem to be able to It's like that. It's fresh, but we have to train ourselves usually to get into this freshness by this radical receptivity.

[48:03]

You know, when you're in that mode of freshness, you have a lot more appreciation for whatever it is. Even if it's painful, the freshness is your ally. Because you appreciate the vitality even of an uncomfortable thing. So then you can come with a good response to something. Just uncomfortable or comfortable. But if things start getting stale, then pain or pleasure, it's like... So in dealing with mind states, normally we'd have an immediate problem with them. Keeping it fresh in it. Help would help you not to get Well, you said keeping the freshness would help you not be entangled with it But it's it's also like when you're not entangled with it. You see the freshness of it So when something combines state comes when it first comes before you have a chance to like Get all the entanglements kicked in about it

[49:12]

You actually like watching it before you do all the associations. Associative type of thinking is part of what we have to do, but that more will happen over in the clear comprehension side where you start planning actions. At this level, you're trying to tune in to the way you experience things before the associations kick in, like to look at me or somebody else before all your associations with all the things you know about them. All your history. Before it kicks in, it's pretty fast that it can kick in. But if you're training yourself, it slows the kick in a little bit. Sometimes it almost stops it. But you're really focused on who is this person before the associations. which is similar to the word respect, which means look again. It's almost like sometimes you may look at people and the association kicking so fast that you just start over again.

[50:15]

In other words, OK, I know who that is. Forget that. Now look again. So yeah, I missed the first time. The first time I saw him and I already identified him with a bunch of cluster of associations. Drop that and look again right after that. You know what I mean? Because sometimes in order to identify them, you need to do the associations. But now you've made, identified them in some sense, have harmed them in terms of your own vision of them. Drop that and look again. Now this time you might be able to catch it earlier and realize the first time you say, oh yeah, that's Gloria. She's a nice person and everything, but now look at Gloria again and wow, who's that? Right after the Gloria I know, then there's this other Gloria like, and the other one kind of like makes my hair stand on me. It's like... Does that make sense? So then you train yourself at that, and then take a walk, see if you can do it down the street. And if you lose it, maybe pause and try to regain it.

[51:17]

So you can actually practice this, but you can't really practice it if you're deciding, you know... you know, whether to do something or not. So, like, you have to sort of be in a mode of sitting or in a mode of walking, because as soon as the decisions come in, you're switching to the other aspect, this, you know, this clear comprehension thing where he's saying, when you go out and come back, you do it with clear comprehension. But the source is the upper part of it, the earlier part of the sutra, the in-and-of-itself part of everything. Yes? It's true that there's a problem with that. When, the first what? I couldn't see how it was different from the first one. I couldn't read the whole time on the cell. Yeah, so what? I couldn't find it. I tried and I couldn't find it on the cell. But I didn't get enough reading.

[52:18]

I didn't want to use it. That's why it's more of a... Well, tell me about what you mean by self-absorption. I'll get what that would look like. Would you, please? Well, what I was thinking earlier was that if I'm aware of my body, I'm not aware of other people. At that moment, at the moment that you're aware of your breath, you're actually aware of your breath, and you're not at that moment aware of other people. That's right. right that's right but also remember that the sutra says you practice it internally externally internally and externally so then but you start internally usually it's hard to like tune into your turn into somebody else's breathing if you haven't tuned into your own not impossible

[53:21]

My first meeting with Suzuki Rush, my first doksan, at the end of it he says, you seem to be breathing rather naturally. So he was aware of my breathing by watching me. So internally, externally, internally, and externally. So all these things that are mentioned here, we're doing internally, externally, internally, and externally. That's part of why it's not just about you. And that's what we're starting usually inside. Usually more people have time, but if somebody couldn't do it inside and they could do it outside, say, okay, do it outside then. Start contemplating other people's posture and other people's breathing, if that works better for you, and then come back and do it your own. But this actually is a way, this bare awareness will be a way to strip away the sense of separation with other people.

[54:25]

And it will make you not exactly less self-absorbed, but it will make you actually realize how your self is born of all your relationships with others. And you're not anything in addition to all your relationships with others. You're not one shred in addition to your relationships. This meditation will open you to that understanding, which is the end of suffering. But it takes a while to get there. Yes? What's your name again? Bill. Bill. What is my voice? What am I? Well, it's a deep question, but to some extent, your voice Your experience of your voice could be a physical sensation, a touch thing in your body, or it could be something you hear.

[55:32]

So it could be those two things in terms of your experience. But also it could be something you think about. So it could be a mind object. It could be a... auditory sound object, ear object, and it could be a touch or skin object, tactile experience. But I don't think that exhausts what your voice is. I'm just saying, at this level of the meditation, that's how you would be aware of it, as an idea, as a sound, as a touch. And you start there, you start there, then you start meditating in this bare-awareness way, you may be able to see how when your voice arises, as you tune in to the pure receptivity of your voice as a tactile experience or an auditory experience or an idea,

[56:44]

you realize that you are nothing in addition to your voice. It could be a source of your awakening from the delusion that you are one thing and your voice is another. But you're something that exists prior to your voice, which is what we usually think. Yes? I notice sometimes I take ownership of my voice, like when it's kind of strange coming out, like right now. And at times it just comes out perfectly normal. I'm not really aware. It just kind of comes out. So seeing that when I take ownership of situations, it's really helpful for seeing when I'm not taking ownership of situations. Like it says, under the hindrances, if you notice that there's still will, When you use your will, you know you have your will.

[57:47]

If you know that you're taking possession of your body or your voice, you notice that you're being possessive or claiming ownership over this thing. You notice that. That would be appropriate. You see, in this case, it's not a conscious... Oh, it's just changed now. In this case, it's not a conscious thing. But somehow there's a sort of reverberation or some sort of resonance in the body that corresponds with some sort of, something not picking up, I guess. It must be something picking up. And then a little nervousness in the breathing or something like that. So, but now it's gone. It's kind of weird. It's not a sort of conscious decision or a... There's different possibilities. One possibility is that we generally speaking, when we hear a certain kind of sound and we feel a certain vibration in our body, we think that sounds our voice.

[59:00]

Now some of us would have trouble recognizing our own voice if we heard tape recording of it. But we could learn that that was the sound of our voice. But we usually hear our voice and what it's like to hear it from inside this body. But we may not, generally speaking, be aware of our sense of possession of our sense of our voice. And this bare awareness might surface that sense of possession, which Sometimes it may not be because of bare awareness that you notice that you think you own your voice. You just happen to get tipped off to that you have that attitude towards it. Other times you lose track of the fact that you think you own your own voice, or that you're one thing, owner of your voice. This bare awareness will probably help you actually spot any ownership, and it will be probably quite surprising to see you shift back into the ownership thing because the ownership thing is that you already got it rather than you're receiving it.

[60:03]

When you're in receiving mode and you switch back into the mode you already have your voice, it's already yours, right? That mode is my voice. But it's being given to you, you don't think it's yours, you think it's a gift. You see it's a gift, it is a gift. And not only is it a gift, but it's a gift that makes you It's the gift that keeps on giving. It gives you sound and then it gives you a light. So this kind of training will make you more aware of the sense of in the herd, there's not just the herd. There is the possession of the herd. But when in the herd there's not the herd, then there will not be possession of the herd. So I said identification, but another translation would be When in the herd there's just a herd, then there will not be the possession of the herd. But prior to that, when you're training at in the herd, there's just a herd, you start to notice that there's a possessiveness of the herd.

[61:07]

And then you can realize, I'm not quite in the herd, there's just a herd, because there's still a little bit of ownership. So there's some ownership in the area of this thing that's being heard, or the seed. ownership of this hand. Let's see. But imagine looking at your hand in such a way that it's prior to the ownership of it. And you do have experiences like that, right? Somehow the hand comes up and you go, oh, it's mine. For a second there, it wasn't yours, right? That does happen once in a while. Now, is it that really you didn't think it was yours and there was a break in the idea of this in your hand? Maybe. possible. Anyway, at that time, the freshness of a hand that isn't yours, that usually is called yours, that's kind of fresh. Somebody else's hand that's not yours is not fresh. But somebody else's hand that's yours is quite fresh.

[62:11]

And that somebody else's hand that's yours, that's quite fresh, might be yours. Somebody else's hand that's not yours is pretty stale, right? Does that make sense? It looked like it didn't. Your hand, okay, your hand, what's your name again? Mary's hand that's not mine is stale. Mary's hand that's mine is fresh. My hand that's not Mary's is stale for Mary. And my hand that's not Mary's is stale for me too. My hand that's Mary's and my hand that Mary thinks is Mary's, that's fresh. And Mary's hand that's mine, that's fresh. And my hand that's not mine is fresh. In all cases, all those examples, it's before the usual associations occur, and you're surprised and refreshed.

[63:16]

It's kind of like... It's stupid, but I feel refreshed. I mean, of course, this is my hand. So the fact that I didn't identify, it was really kind of dumb. But actually, I got a refreshment from being dumb by seeing my hand before mine, or as she said, by seeing this hand before it belonged to me. This hand doesn't come as mine. You and me put that on here and make it stay, right? Do we do it all the time? I don't know. Well, when we don't, there's a surprise, there's a freshness, and you can train yourself so that kind of stuff will happen more often. So, like, when you walk out of the meditation hall and you see your, you see your, what do you call it, your nemesis, and you say, that's me? Yeah. It tells you how we had these really obnoxious blue jays.

[64:17]

And one time I came out of the zindo and I saw this blue jay sitting there and I said, oh, yeah, right. This is totally like flesh blue jay. So why don't you work on this? Try to practice this. this bare mindfulness. In simple situations, like when you're sitting alone, be quiet, try it there. And if you can get it going in a simple, still, quiet situation, then use your clear comprehension and make a decision about a safe walk you can go on. See if you can continue on a walk out in the world, and in some busy situation where you really feel like it would be all right if you if you continue the practice of just receiving the first part of it without getting into the judgments and decision-makings about things. Try to see how long you can keep it up down the street. It might be quite successful.

[65:19]

Yes, Mary? If the ownership is at the clinging? The sense of ownership would be one of the attitudes, one of the additions that you make on things that facilitate clinging. But you can cling to things also that you think I'm, also that if you think something's not yours, like I said, if you think my, that's why I use that example, if you think my hand is not your hand, okay, that's clingy. That's the usual thing, you're hung up on the usual thing of my hand is not yours, and yours is yours. But when your hand is mine, I can see your hand is like mine, and my hand, I don't know whose it is, maybe it's yours, that attitude sets up like not clean. Because I actually don't go around cleaning the married hand as mine. My hand is mine. You clean your hand as mine, but you also clean my hand as not being your hand.

[66:22]

So then you don't have to clean my hands, right? But as you know, it's an ancient religious tradition to clean other people's hands and feet. Wash other people's feet. It's a good practice. And you can do it really well when you don't know whose feet are whose. You can get free of knowing whose feet are whose by just receiving the foot as the foot. He said, well, whose foot is this? Later, later, let's get into that later, whose foot it is. Try it now, just like foot is foot. Bird is bird. Seen is seen. Heard is heard. Smell the smell. And all kinds of thoughts are just thoughts. See if you can get down to that first way you receive it, and if you miss the boat, then do it again, right away. Maybe you can catch it a second time, because you've already done that. gross practical stuff of identifying it was very hard to but give it up on that but now you've got rochelle now forget that and look to see what she is after you've identified and drop that and then what is she you know for me it works every time you know drop bernardine and look drop beer and then look it's like if there's a little shock there when you don't realize well now i've identified so i don't have to do that again so now look again

[67:43]

without doing the identification thing. It's just safe. You know this is not a gorilla. Just, okay, one, two, three. Boom. And then you see that you can do it. Try it. This didn't get recorded because this fell off my body. Maybe it did. Way down there.

[68:06]

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