This is probably our last class, and we start sashin tomorrow. And I wanted to say something, and that is, at the end of practice period I would probably feel moved to say thank you very much for all your wonderful effort and devotion to the practice period. But when I say it at the end there, it's just like, well, you have to say that. Because if you say, you know, you guys did a lousy job, people kind of get upset. So I thought it would be good to say it earlier. and I don't have to say it. So thank you very much, earlier.

[01:03]

I thought it's really been a wonderful practice period, and it's because all of you have made such an effort, and particularly the residents of Green Gulch have Sometimes, in the past, they've been so busy that they could hardly participate in the practice period. At this time, they've somehow managed to take care of Gringalch and also be really very present. That's made a big difference. And people, you seem to have, you know, you're usual human difficulties, but also be very happy, most of you. So, thank you very much. And I just wanted to say that when I don't have to say it, so you know I'm not saying it just because I had to say it.

[02:07]

And now you have a new chart. It's a little bit more detailed. Does that look pretty familiar? Nothing surprising on there? Is that okay, that chart? How would I feel about it? I think it's okay if you make those lines dotted lines. You can actually erase the lines if you want to. No, that's kind of nice too, yogi, arhat, bodhisattva, or it's like, yeah, or maybe goal, goal, yogi, goal, arhat, no-goal bodhisattva.

[03:44]

But yeah, that's right, that's good. Buddhists can be yogis, and then they can be yogi arhats, and then they can be yogi bodhisattvas. So bodhisattvas should eventually learn how to be arhats. A lot of bodhisattvas don't particularly want to be arhats. They kind of skip over that. But that's part of the training, is to do the arhat thing. but not grasping our hot ship, just attain it. Yes? I have a question about the words supermundane and mundane in this context. What does that mean? Mundane means you're still in a circumscribed dualistic world.

[04:50]

You're still in the world of grasping the idea of self. That's what it says there, it says, still holding the view of self, in number two. So you're a yogi, you've attained samadhi, but it's a mundane samadhi because you're still holding some view of self. Worlds are created by, you know, self-clinging. Yes. Conceivable practice? It means that the practice you're doing is conceiving this way and conceiving that way. I think I'm doing this, I conceive of me, doing meditation I conceive of me, doing wholesome action.

[05:54]

I conceive of me doing unwholesome action and confessing unwholesome action, and I experience that I attain Nirvana, and so on. That's conceivable. And I did these practices, and these are the wonderful results. This is a wonderful practice, and I am psychologically liberated from suffering, in other words, I have a psychological experience of that, my psychology is liberated. The inconceivable practices, you know, we talk about it like in the chant we do at noon, they describe the inconceivable function of that samadhi, but the way actually the way everything is helping everything else, the imperceptible mutual assistance. Imperceptible means inconceivable mutual assistance.

[06:55]

We can have ideas of how we're helping each other, but that's not the way we're actually helping each other. So we get hints sometimes of how we help each other beyond what we knew. Somebody told me once, he said, you know, you don't know the ways you're helping people. He said, for example, my wife and I went to buy wedding rings. We went into this store and this guy, this jeweler showed us these rings and told us the prices and so on. And And we looked at a Buddha behind him on the shelf and we mentioned that we go to Gringotts and that we're friends of yours. And then he said, well actually, you know, I don't have to sell it quite that expensively. So we don't know how we're helping people.

[08:01]

So then you have this idea of how you're helping people, right? But that's not how you're helping people either. Anyway, the way you're helping people and the way people are helping you, this is not something which you are going to understand through your conception. However, that doesn't mean you won't understand it at all. It just won't be conceivable. So, entering this fourth level of Samadhi, you enter the realm where you understand this help, but you know, it's not conceptual. It's an inconceivable, non-conceptual understanding of how we help each other in this fourth kind of Samadhi. In the third kind of Samadhi, it's conceivable how you do these practices, and how they remove these hindrances and how you see these things, it's conceivable. It's okay? And also, in the conceivable practice and realization, so we understand how the practice and realization, but it's kind of inconceivable in a way how practice and realization are one.

[09:16]

So I put a dot in the second case and an and in the first case. Yes? Where does this kind of koan practice and realization, where does that fit in, in terms of goal-oriented? Well, just let me tag this right now and say that I was thinking of introducing a contemplation today, and I'll just say for now that that type of contemplation which I'm going to introduce serves a similar function that Koan practice serves. So when we get to that, maybe you'll understand that what I'm saying about the virtues of this practice would also apply to the virtues of Koan practice. And you can bring it, ask questions at that time. I was going to bring up the contemplation pretty soon, and shall I do that now?

[10:18]

So we're now going to enter into contemplation, we're going to enter into contemplations which will help us enter into Samadhi 3 and 4. Yes. Can you talk just a little bit louder, please? Yes, I can talk a little louder. How's that? Now, after practicing the instruction of meeting whatever comes with complete relaxation, meeting whatever comes with compassion, meaning whatever comes with no mind, meaning whatever comes with no grasping and no seeking, meaning whatever comes and letting go of our distinctions, these kinds of practices, they can initially be understood as tranquility practices, practices of

[11:33]

introducing us into the tranquil aspect of samadhi. So we've been doing, sort of studying and practicing this way for a couple of weeks or longer. And in a sense, this kind of practice is sometimes called abstract meditation, in the sense of that you're abstracting yourself from phenomena. You're kind of withdrawing from certain kinds of involvement with objects of awareness. So the Dhyana practice is often called abstractive contemplation or abstractive concentration, concentration where you pull away from phenomena in order to develop tranquility.

[12:40]

And so you pull away from phenomena in a sense, you pull away from grasping them when you relax with them. So you give up certain kinds of involvements and that's an initial relaxation which initially promotes calm, calming. That's what we've been working on. Now, the same instruction can also be continued as you enter into contemplating, instead of just withdrawing from your usual involvements with objects, you can then continue after you've withdrawn and calmed down. Withdrawn involvement and calmed down, you can then turn around in a sense and start looking at the objects.

[13:52]

And even, not exactly getting involved with the objects, but observing how you get involved with the objects, observing your involvement, observing how involvement happens. And this is, you know, what we call insight work, or investigation and analysis. for some reason other people are taking notes, I think I just thought I'd stop and wait until the note-taking is over before I introduce something else. Is it sort of calmed down now? Okay, now could you wait a little bit, let me go on a little bit and I'll come back to you.

[14:54]

So Bodhidharma says, well let's take Bodhidharma's teacher. He says, So he goes to lunch with a king and the king says, how come you don't recite scriptures? And Bodhidharma's teacher says, this poor wayfarer, when breathing in, doesn't dwell well, actually, in the five skandhas. It doesn't dwell in form, feeling, conception, or all those dharmas that are in the fourth skandha, or consciousness. I don't dwell in any of these realms of existence. When breathing out, I don't get involved in, actually, it's the 18 dhatus, I don't get involved in what is translated as myriad circumstances to be more accessible. But I don't get involved in, you know, sight objects, sound objects, mind objects, or eye, ear, nose, or mind consciousness, ear consciousness, eye consciousness.

[16:10]

I don't get involved in the myriad circumstances. I don't get involved. Breathing out, I don't get involved. Breathing in, I don't abide. this scripture I'm always reciting. So he's always reciting this simple scripture, don't get involved breathing out, don't dwell breathing in, don't dwell breathing out, don't dwell breathing in, don't get involved breathing out. So Bodhidharma goes to China and he teaches his disciple, basically, give up all involvements. So outwardly have no involvements. Inwardly, no coughing and sighing. So coughing and sighing means, you know, coughing and sighing at your mind, at your mental phenomena, like, uh-huh, or, you know. In other words, don't get involved with mental objects and don't get involved with so-called external objects. But of course, external objects are also concepts because they wouldn't be external except conceptually.

[17:13]

But anyway, don't get involved in anything. So he's teaching, don't get involved also. So, don't get involved also could be translated as, don't get involved in anything could be translated as, meet anything with complete relaxation. So, initially Bodhidharma's instruction sounds like calming instruction, but if we actually didn't get involved, really, then we wouldn't get involved in, for example, grasping the conception of the inherently existing person or inherently existing things. So if we actually followed that practice, not just to its calming phase, but also when calm, we would continue not to grasp anything that came, plus we wouldn't even grasp our deep subconscious ignorance.

[18:14]

And that surfaces now and then. then actually we would be practicing insight too, without any further instruction. So we wouldn't have to have any further contemplations other than just contemplate whether when something comes we don't get involved. That's all we'd have to watch. And in that case, an instruction would not just be a tranquility instruction, but it would also be insight instruction, and if we practiced these practices sufficiently, we would then enter into these super-mundane samadhis. And in these samadhis, life is different, you know, new things are happening, and we wouldn't start grasping things necessarily, but we wouldn't necessarily have to train ourselves at that anymore, because we'd be

[19:23]

We have all this other work to do available to us, like it says in the Jhulmira Samadhi and in the Self-Fulfillment Samadhi, the Self-Receiving and Self-Employing Samadhi. So another way to put this is to say, become intimate with whatever you meet, every object that arises. Everything that comes to you, be intimate with it. Another way to put it. Now, one of the things that sometimes happens is, as Jesse pointed out, is that sometimes as you start to not be so involved with things, you start getting sleepy. Because a lot of what keeps us awake is not so much things, but our involvement with them.

[20:29]

Like some people might be able to be kind of relaxed and almost fall asleep when they're with other people's kids, but when they're with their own, they might be more irritated or scared, and therefore they won't go to sleep. but their involvement keeps them awake. So involvement kind of like agitates things and keeps you from getting, well not necessarily, because some people can go to sleep as a way to escape from the irritation of their involvement. But sometimes you're not really involved, you really are calm, but you kind of like have a hard time staying awake. So then in your dreams you get involved. So to actually be awake and not get involved is the point. But sometimes when you stop being involved and you feel better in certain ways, you also start getting sleepy, and in your sleepiness you might be getting involved. So you might be missing the real entry into the samadhi, even though you're doing part of the work, but then you stop doing the work because you all accomplished the work.

[21:41]

This contemplation which I'm talking about is not itself, it's called a Samadhi, but it's really a way to enter these Bodhisattva Samadhis. It is a kind of Samadhi, but it's really more, it's still being done perhaps within the realm of Samadhi number two, but it's a way to enter Samadhi number three. So I'm just about ready to do that, and I will say now that the koans play a similar role in that the meditator might be often following her breath, or they might be just meeting whatever comes with complete relaxation, or they might be just whatever comes not getting involved, these are very Zen school instructions. But then they get sleepy, you know? I mean, they go to sleep, so they don't notice the body that entered samadhi.

[22:52]

So then they give them a koan, and the koan gives them a chance to see if really they're not involved. Like, can you have this koan and not get involved with the koan? And a koan is something you're supposed to be able to see and report on how you are or are not involved with it. So you'd like to actually be able to talk about it. You've got something here to talk about and demonstrate that you can talk about it with no involvement. You can talk about it with complete relaxation. You can talk about it without grasping or seeking anything. You can come and talk about the koan without seeking the teacher's approval or seeking the right answer. You can try to give the right answer without seeking the right answer. Can you? If you can, then you're awake, working with the object, and not getting involved, and you're demonstrating it with an object. and you're actually trying to talk and stuff, you're actually getting involved and actually talking at the same time, so you're extending this relaxation into dynamic action and seeing if you can extend it without getting tense again, without grasping, without seeking.

[24:13]

So koans serve that function. And then with that koan, you enter into the samadhi. Now, Dogen would say, And Dogen says, drop off body and mind and you enter the Samadhi. So koan, for some people, working with a koan is the way that they drop off body and mind. In other words, your mind's working with the koan, your words are working with the koan, your body's, you know, working with the koan, you're working with the koan, And are you working with the koan with a dropped off body and mind? In other words, are you working with the koan, dropping off the working with the koan? Relax here. Relax in here. So Dogon just says, drop off body and mind, but some people don't want to just sit there and drop off body and mind, they just can't drop off body and mind, they just find it too boring just to sit there and drop off body and mind.

[25:27]

So here's a koan, now take care of this and drop off body and mind, this is more exciting. It's really the stillness and silence of dropping off body and mind that's the point, it's the non-attachment that's really the point. But some people you have to give them something to hold on to so they can find out whether they let go or not. So Koan is nice that way. The teacher can say, you know, no, no, no. And then, see, do you like defend yourself? Or like, yes, yes, yes, you know what? How do you have something and release it? That's the kind of example of how do you have a body and release it? How do you have mental phenomena? How do you have five skandhas and release? So Koan, get your five skandhas up there, up there, and then you bring your five skandhas in the form of the Koan, and then drop it off, drop it off. And teacher says, not dropped off.

[26:29]

And then you hear that, that's another thing to work with, and you work with teacher's response, and all that. So it's, some people find that helpful, and it's a way to enter the Samadhi, a way to become, again, the initial structure of relaxing with what's happening is to help you be intimate with what's happening, but sometimes people relax with what's happening, but they get closer and they're not heavily messing around, but they kind of like a little bit sleep away or sleep off the object rather than drop off the object. Does that make sense? So we want to say, can you state, can you prove that you're really awake with this thing that you're not grasping, rather than you're just dreaming of not grasping or you're not grasping because you're sleeping, grasping something in another realm. Does that make sense? Okay, so then, now I'll take some questions before I introduce this contemplation. Elena? One of which is the second to several of the first.

[27:42]

So please don't stop me when I say the second one. Getting involved could be both a strong feeling about what you were saying, but up to a certain moment there was no outflow. There was just the feeling. But after a little while, there was grasping and there was outflow.

[28:45]

Is that... Does that sound... Does grasping and then having outflows, is that what happens when you get involved? Is that your question? Yeah, that's right. When you get involved, there's outflows. Correct. And again, not getting involved means you're right there with the feeling. You're not just sleeping with the feeling. You're alert, you're present, and you're not grasping. Then there's no outflow. Did the two parts happen? Okay.

[29:48]

Vivi? When you drop the drama, then why do you become sleepy? Well, one reason is that you become calmer. Another reason is that, particularly if you intended to drop the drama so that you would become calm, there's a strong tendency to think you just accomplished something, which you did. Okay? Okay? Maybe. What do you mean, maybe? You said when we are really awake, when we are really not clasped, then we are awake. Before I said that.

[30:49]

But just now you were talking about what about going to sleep, so I said something different. We're talking about the sleep pattern. You're not so awake, okay? You have been awake enough to remember the instruction and to practice not grasping and not seeking, to relax with your experience. Like you're breathing, for example, and you're relaxing with your breath. You're not seeking to get concentrated. you're just relaxing with your breathing, you're relaxing with your posture, you're relaxing with your pain, and then as you become actually more relaxed, you actually start to feel calm. And then when you start to feel calmer, and actually be more effective at relaxing with what's happening, you actually have accomplished something there, okay? And then there's this tendency, almost always, to think you accomplished something, which you did.

[31:53]

And then when you think you've accomplished something, there's a tendency to say, ah, and relax about making the effort. And then pretty soon you stop making the effort. So then you're relaxed, but you're not making the effort anymore, and you start getting kind of drowsy, or almost start slipping into laziness and sleepiness. So that's how it can happen. That's how you can get sleepy in relationship to calming practices. Just to be calm isn't necessarily sleepy. But if you think, if you have developed some complacency around the calm, then you get sleepy. When we're really anxious, we're not so sleepy, usually. Except, as I said, as a drug to the anxiety. Some people go to sleep when they're anxious. But the anxiety itself is kind of stimulating. So when you relax, you're less irritated, and you've accomplished something, so there's a tendency to get sleepy.

[32:57]

So then we have to bring some, you know, vigor to the situation, but not too much, to arouse ourself. Now, what you sometimes can do is, again, immediately start, not immediately, yeah, immediately start practicing insight work, which is quite stimulating and interesting, and sometimes frustrating and irritating. too, because actually you find out subtle levels of grasping that are coming up again now in relationship to this new assignment. So then you don't have sleepiness as a problem anymore. Or some people then, when they start doing insight work, they get frustrated and they say, I'm just going to go back, I'd rather go back and just be asleep than do this. So they go back, they know how to be calm now, so they go back and go to sleep. Anyway, that's one story about how we wind up being asleep. Another reason for being asleep is not getting enough rest. So it's a tricky business. And another is that the drama is so exciting. Yeah, the drama is exciting, right.

[33:59]

Drama is exciting. So giving it up is calming, and you don't have the drama to excite you. That's why some people... Anyway, we know about that. Okay, so that's another story. It's a wonderful story. It's a story of how you get into insight work without even trying to. So you relax with what's happening. You start to calm down. and then you start to notice something true about these things that you've calmed down with.

[35:03]

And when you start to notice about them, could be that they're very, very deep, like no bottom. So actually, nobody told you, but you spontaneously started to do insight work So you got relaxed with the object, intimate with the object, and then you started to notice what it was. You dared to notice its emptiness, its ungraspability. So this is like spontaneous insight into selflessness. Or you could even have a little image of yourself fly by and see the emptiness of that. without even doing any exercises to find the emptiness of the self, you just spontaneously get an image of yourself, or the image of something of yours, and see its ungraspability.

[36:08]

And this is not sleepiness. This is like you're awake, you see it, you're there, you're not asleep, and you are relaxed enough to let this be shown to you. And then, many people shrink back because they're frightened. The calm then may or may not support them to not shrink back very far. If the calm is really well developed, they have a fairly good chance of just temporary shrinking back. But if the calm isn't well enough developed, then they shrink back and then fall into sleep, to avoid this vision of emptiness, this insight into the nature of the objects that they've been relaxing with. So actually, seeing this emptiness, which is now a new kind of object, if you grasp that, you haven't been grasping the other objects, but if you grasp that,

[37:16]

then that upsets you a lot. So then you just want to like, just get out of there. If you can look at the emptiness without grasping it, then you won't get afraid, and you'll continue the practice of not grasping, and now you'll be not grasping with the ultimate truth of the things that you've been not grasping. So you've been not grasping superficial phenomena previously, you've been not grasping the way things appear, and calming down with the way things appear. And in your story, and in many stories I've heard, and it's quite true in Zen, where people don't get much instruction about how to make the transition from calm to insight, they often have spontaneous insights with no instruction about how to have that insight. It comes anyway. So is that clear? You're calming down with the object, and there's a revelation about the object.

[38:19]

The object takes off its superficial veil and says, I'm empty. And if you continue this non-involvement with this revelation, you can live with it. And then you enter the samadhi of emptiness, where you don't grasp that, you just live with that insight. You live with that vision. gradually become integrated with it. But when it first appears, the training in non-grasping may not be strong enough not to grasp that. And one way to grasp it is, I got emptiness. The other way to grasp it is, I got to get out of here. And one way to get out of here is to go to sleep. and you have sleep quite available because you're calm. So you can easily dive into the calm and go to sleep. I shouldn't say easily, but some people can. Other people can't get away and they get really upset because they're grasping this vision.

[39:23]

This vision is not to be grasped. It's better to grasp superficial things than deep things. It's better to grasp form than emptiness. Emptiness, because when you grab emptiness, As Nagarjuna says, you're almost unteachable, incorrigible. It's harder to get people to let go of holding on to emptiness. Okay, so thank you for that example. Alisha? Alisa? Relax after you get sleepy?

[40:29]

Did you say? Yes, it is possible. Sleep is not all bad. Sleepiness is sometimes quite helpful. Sometimes a little bit of sleepiness will help you slip into real relaxation. That sometimes happens. So there's all kinds of different patterns that can happen. It can happen that way. That's why you shouldn't... you should bring compassion to sleepiness. Bring compassion to sleepiness. Don't beat up on sleepiness. And part of bringing compassion to sleepiness is bringing energy to sleepiness. Yes? Well, I would say that that surprises people, but that does happen sometimes.

[41:51]

Sometimes the calm helps you sit up straight. It's funny, you're uplifted by calm, rather than you're calm and you're practicing. Sometimes what might happen is you might have a posture that's being held up not by calm, but by some kind of personal effort, and then if you're relaxed you lose that kind of posture. And then if you open up to calm, there's energy in calm. This shamatha, tranquility has energy. It makes your body buoyant, it makes it lighter. So then you get this new light body, and that just sort of like, gets puffed up, you know. It's like you have a pneumatic body. The breath holds you up, which was being blocked before because of the tension. So the relaxation, when it becomes fully realized, gives you the buoyancy and lightness of body. And so the body just wants to sit up straight.

[42:51]

And another thing that happens is your body wants to have more breath space. Like the breath says, give me more room. And it wants you to have the maximum volume of your torso. So if you bend forward and crush your breathing space, your vitality says, come on, we need more space, you know, like if you imagine if you had pain here, you know, and you felt like if you straightened up, the pain would go away, you know, it wouldn't be hard to straighten up. It's kind of like that. And also other parts too, your energy starts flowing and you need to be in the yogic posture to accommodate the energy that's flowing in this calm. So the calm is a vital, buoyant, joyful, calm. So that's funny that the concentration sets you up rather than you setting yourself up.

[43:54]

That can happen. So now a little bit about this contemplation. So in some sense this is like a koan for everybody and this again is called a Samadhi Well, it's a way to enter a samadhi, and when you enter this samadhi, you enter another samadhi. So this samadhi was taught by the Chinese meditation masters Hui Se and Jiri. And Hui Se called it the samadhi of following one's thoughts, or the samadhi of following your own thoughts. How do you spell those names?

[44:59]

You romanize Huesa. One way to romanize it is W-U-I-S-S-U. H-U-I-S-S-U. Vaisa, and then jiri is one way is like this, C-H-I-H-I, or G-Z-H-I-I, jiri. So these are meditation masters in China in the 6th century. And later, if you keep studying Samadhi this year, you'll later hear about some various observations I have to say about how these people influenced the Zen school, and a lot of our practices, you can see, were influenced by or started with these people.

[46:07]

So Wesa taught a Samadhi called Following One's Own Thought, and Jerry kind of renamed it And one way he renamed it was neither walking nor sitting samadhi. Another way he renamed it was wakefulness in the midst of thought. Samadhi. just sitting samadhis, walking samadhis, and part walking and part sitting samadhis. But I'm not talking about those now yet. The one I'm talking about is the fourth category, which he named that partly because of the previous ones, but neither walking nor sitting means

[47:10]

that it includes walking and sitting, but it means it's a samadhi that pervades all different types of activities, and that's why this samadhi in some sense is closest to Zen school. I didn't hear Suzuki Rinpoche say it very often, like maybe only once, but it really struck me when he said, what's really important is to extend the calm of our zazen practice and the zendo into the rest of our life. So this samadhi is really about that. It's about extending the calm that sometimes comes in sitting into all activities. But not just the calm, but extend the calm wakefulness into all activities. So no matter where your mind goes, there's wakefulness there.

[48:14]

No matter where it goes, there's wakefulness. No matter where it goes, there's wakefulness. And to be in that samadhi. Of course, we can just try to do that. We can just now be wakeful to this, be wakeful to this, be wakeful to this, be awake now, be awake now, be awake now, so it's just mindfulness really. But is it? So, you know, it's kind of, compared to a lot of other practices that these meditation teachers teach, this is very open-ended and kind of, well, relaxed. Just be awake wherever you are. Like you go, at least in California, you go, wherever you go, like even doing, you go into a gas station or a grocery store and you hear people say, wherever you are, you're here.

[49:19]

People say stuff like that, but are they really there, you know? That's the question, or just dreaming that. This is a way to check up on your intimacy. It's close. Yeah. Something like that, is that it? Yeah, I just changed it to here. Now to do this practice, you have to be, you know, of course you have to have a great compassion, so. check into great compassion.

[50:30]

This is a practice based on the aspiration to realize complete enlightenment for the welfare of all beings. That's the foundation of this practice. Simple little practice, you know, follow one's thoughts, and then you get to enter heroic stride of the Bodhisattva Samadhi, just follow your own thoughts, and be in that Samadhi of following your own thoughts, and you'll enter the greatest Samadhi that there is. But how do you actually follow them? I just thought of Jackie's sock. So I was with that, and now I just thought of Jackie moving her foot after I mentioned her sock, kind of like protecting her socks. Now I'm thinking of Jeannie smiling and moving her feet, and Judy's rubbing her nose, and Kathy's wiping her face.

[51:42]

At least I'm following my thoughts, see? So I follow my thoughts. Now I should be in a Samadhi now, right? Well, I sort of am, but anyway, just to check up to see if you can actually follow your thoughts, just follow them. He didn't say the samadhi of following your thoughts and getting involved with them. It's understood that you're just following them, and you really are following them, and that's it. You're not following and clinging to them, you're not following them and managing them, you're not hurting them, you're not dominating them, you're not improving them, you're not calming them, you're just following them. no attachment, just clearly observing. Okay, so here's the kind of method. And also, I'm going to say the method now and just say that the fact that there's a method is a little bit of a problem. They're trying, and sometimes in Zen school they don't give you any method, so Zen teachers just say, follow your thoughts, period.

[52:46]

They don't give you any method of how to do that. except that maybe they keep telling you that you're not doing it. And then you say, well, you're not either, and so on. So what they recommend is to enter this samadhi by a contemplation. So usually Well, we think of maybe samadhis as calming, being calm and concentrated, so we think, well, I'd probably enter a samadhi by practicing concentration. Well, yes, that's right, but this is a concentration that's also a contemplation, by which you're going to enter into another concentration where contemplation and tranquility are united and where the free activity of all beings is being revealed. So, contemplation to look at, to meditate, to observe.

[53:49]

to think about, to watch, to meditate. Yes? What's the difference between that and involvement? The difference between what and involvement? The look at, to meditate on, to concentrate. The difference between that and involvement would be that there would be grasping in one case and there wouldn't be in the other. There can be contemplation or awareness of grasping, but the awareness doesn't need to be grasping the object called grasping, just be aware of it. Or it could be grasping, trying to get rid of the awareness or saying, great, getting rid of the grasping or saying, great, I'm glad I am grasping. The grasping should be, it's good to be aware of the grasping as something which isn't identical with knowing, but this is a big issue now, so we're going to watch this.

[54:54]

So the method is called the contemplation of the four, sometimes the four phases of the activation of thought. contemplation of the four phases of the activation of thought. It would, I think, be also okay to say contemplation of the four phases of thinking. Is this Juri's method? It's Hueso's method and Hueso is Juri's teacher. I think it's also okay to say four phases of intention, and intention is, you know, one of those dharmas that also accompanies every moment of consciousness.

[56:04]

Yes? Is it possible to open some windows? Is that okay? Yes, well not defines whether, no, it's not defines whether it's karmic, it defines what type of karma. So it's the volition, yeah, volition, intention. The basic definition of karma, the definition of karma is volition. What determines whether it's karmic or not, however, is understanding, and most people, because they cling to a sense of an actor that's separate from the action, then this volition will determine the type of karma that is, but volition doesn't determine whether there's karma or not, it is the definition of the karma at the time.

[57:15]

So if the shape of the consciousness is hinted in as a wholesome pattern, then that's the volition of the moment, then that's the type of karma that there would be at that moment. Can you remind us what the Sanskrit word is for that volition? Chaitanya. So all states of mind have a pattern, and that pattern, sort of like the pattern of where the mind seems to be going or where it seems to be intended, that pattern is the definition of karma. The translation of karma is action, but the definition of the action of a given moment of experience is the shape of the mind, the watershed of the mind. And some minds are like slightly uneven plateaus, that's the landscape, so the watershed is if you pour water onto that mind, the water would just sit there, so the karma there is kind of indeterminate.

[58:18]

Some minds, however, have very clear valleys and shapes, and the direction of the valleys is due south. This mind is headed south. And this mind is clearly headed west. This mind is headed towards the Pure Land, this mind is headed towards hell, this mind is headed towards heaven. You can see the shape, you can see this person is headed in the wrong direction. or this mind is headed in the wrong direction. So that shape, so every mind has samadhi and every mind has this shape. So that shape can also be called thinking. The way that your mind seems to be tending, thinking and volition are almost the same thing. The apparent activity of the consciousness, where it seems to be going, how it seems to be working, that's the thinking, that's chaitanya. Yes? Will, you know the word will. Inclination is kind of okay, yeah.

[59:26]

Or overall disposition. Bias. Yes? Jill? No, I said four phases in the activation. Four phases in the activation of thought. Four phases of intention. Intention, will, thinking, even karma almost. Chaitanya doesn't mean karma. It's the definition of karma. It doesn't mean karma. So the basic kind of karma is your intention, then the secondary kind of karma is speech and physical action based on that intention. So another way to translate this contemplation or speak of this contemplation would be the four phases of activation of intention or activity, mental activity but also then verbal and physical activity.

[60:44]

are activated and has four phases in this process. So again, the point of this Samadhi is that so we can be wakeful, we can be wakeful in whatever we're thinking, whatever we're saying, and whatever we're physically enacting. We're thankful, we're wakeful in all these modes of thinking and unfolding of thinking in body and voice. Okay? No, not yet. You didn't miss anything in that regard. So the first phase is not yet thinking. Not yet thinking, that's the first phase. In other words, the will, the intention of the moment has not yet arisen.

[61:52]

I'm not yet awake, can I get a request for any attention? Yeah, you could also ask if people mind behind you, if it's okay if you stand up. standing up might help you, and then they can pinch you too, from a better position. The next phase is about to think, or on the verge of thinking. Next phase is, you might say, actual thinking. Next phase is, well, it's called completed thinking or it's actually called the thought, the thinking has completed, it's done, it's over.

[63:02]

If you actually can do this meditation, every phase of the way will be the same as dropping thought. This meditation is to check to see if you're actually dropping your mind, whether you're actually attuning in to the mind dropping off. So dropping off body and mind is actually to be intimate with your body and mind. But are we really intimate with our body and mind, or are we just dreaming of it? It's kind of hard to say sometimes. So this is, I'm sorry to say, a very advanced practice, but I can't help but introduce it. Because, you know, I don't know, anyway, I guess I'd rather have us all fail at the highest practice than have partial success at less difficult practices. At least if this is really hard, we can all fail together. Okay, so now how do you contemplate something like the mind which isn't even on the verge of thinking?

[64:25]

How are you going to contemplate that? Now, usually when I look to see, it's hard to actually, usually already I've got something there. So it's hard to catch the mind before, actually it's hard to, you have to be pretty calm and calmly watch for a while before you might even be able to find anything in the area that is actually thinking not yet arisen. and Giri used the example of like, if somebody, you know, was gonna, he didn't actually use the example, but if somebody was gonna throw a ball, before they threw the ball, you wouldn't say that there was nobody there. Would you?

[65:27]

But you can't see anybody that's throwing a ball now. So where's the ball-throwing person? It's hard to find, but where's the ball-throwing person that hasn't yet thrown the ball? Where's the mind that hasn't even gotten ready, or where's the mind which isn't even about to think? Where is it? Now, even in the ordinary thinking process, where the mind is already thinking, and even in the case where the mind is about or intending about to think, even in those cases, it's very difficult to see the mind, to see the thinking, to see the mind that's thinking, it's very difficult. And so this temporal sequencing is actually to give you a mark So it's sometimes called four phases, which is easy to understand, but it's also called the four marks of thinking.

[66:34]

And these marks, these temporal sequences are marks to help you see something that's very difficult to see without marks. And marks can also be called signs. And I talked to you earlier about the problem of having signs. but we do need signs usually in order to know things. So most people are not able to watch their mind because it actually is formless. However, with the aid of marks, you can take the mark and conceive of, now, a process which is not actually a conceptual process. It's actually a formless process. So what we're gonna do is we're gonna be following our thoughts, but thoughts are actually formless. But in order to follow them, really, we need some marks.

[67:40]

And so here's four marks to use to follow your thoughts, and then to see if you can actually follow this process. So now you're gonna have to get a mark. You're gonna have to find a mark I mean, I say you're going to have to, if you want to do this contemplation, to enter this Samadhi, you need to find a mark of mind not yet arisen, or thinking not yet arisen. And then you need to find a mark of thinking on the verge of thinking, and then a mark of actual thinking. Now, of course, that's the one that's easiest for you, right? I think thinking is, the actual thinking is easiest for people. Thinking, actually to see the thinking that's no longer going on is hard for people too. So the hardest are thinking of or contemplating a thought or thinking that hasn't yet arisen and thought that's already over.

[68:51]

Those seem to be like really ungraspable. They seem to be the same? Yeah, they are kind of the same. The ones in between are, too. But anyway, those seem the same right away, don't they? But you need different marks for them. Because after the one's over, you gotta have another one that's not the same as that that's gonna be the beginning of the next one. So, this is a way to check into whether you actually are watching your thoughts. Not just watching the big chunky middle part, but the whole process. Because if you're looking at the big chunky middle part, who knows what's in between that and the next chunky middle part. You might be doing all kinds of thoughts that you're not attending to. A lot of things might be going on that you're not wakeful to. But if you tune into this, you are really intimate with your thoughts. And also, so that's the first part.

[69:52]

There you go, now let's find some marks. And by the way, again, marks are the way we apprehend something that's flying by. All of our experiences are flying by. In order to get some meaning or to apprehend something, to apprehend things and to distinguish them, we need to put marks or signs on them. So even a concept that's flying by, in order to apprehend it, and distinguish it from other concepts, we need to put a mark on it. And then later we're going to have to get rid of that mark, but for starters we're going to have to get marks to tune into this process. So these are four marks that they offer to help us follow our thoughts and be wakeful, be awake to the thought. I mean, to me it seems perfectly clear that any of you who can actually, find these marks and use them, you will be quite awake, not fully right away, because there's another stage which I'll tell you about, perhaps in a minute, but perhaps in several days, another stage where you're gonna even bring more wakefulness to the process, which maybe I'll tell you about that if there's not too many questions between now and when I start to try, before when I, you know, I'm on the verge of telling you.

[71:18]

But there's questions, so what do you want to do? Do you want to do questions? Okay, so Marx is not the next thing I was going to say though. I'll say a little bit about the Marx and I'll tell you about the next level of wakefulness. The thing about Marx is, as I said before, I didn't say this actually before, but One of the other dharmas that's present with every mind is called Samya, which is also the name of the third skanda, Samya, which means, which we say in our sutra, perception, but actually it's conception. So I told you before, there's two types of cognitions, there's conceptual cognition and perceptual cognition. conception that's mediated by cognition, which is mediated by conception, and cognition which is unmediated by conception.

[72:28]

Those are two types. One is direct perception, the other is conceptual perception. One is direct cognition, the other is conceptual cognition. Okay? mostly we're into cognitions which are mediated conceptually. In that case, Samya is mediating the cognition. Yeah, so most of our experiences are conceptual cognitions and in that case the third skanda is mediating the perception. Most means most that we're aware of. Direct perceptions are less vivid and we're barely aware of direct perceptions usually, and they're not mediated by the third skanda, but the third skanda is still there, it's just not mediating the cognition. All right?

[73:31]

Got it? What's the matter Tim? Which of the skandhas is that thing? Well, there's a perception that's unmediated. Oh, well, a sense cognition. So it would be what we call sense. No. The fifth skandha is cognition, or consciousness, okay? And two basic types I'm mentioning now. One is conceptual, the other is direct, unmediated. or conceptual and non-conceptual, and usually what we call non-conceptual cognitions, we call that actually perception, direct perception. There are two types of the fifth skanda. So when the fifth skanda is mediated by the third skanda, when the knowing of the fifth skanda, when the knowing, the consciousness of an object is mediated by the third skanda, we call it conceptual consciousness.

[74:36]

Right, of the third, but the third is still there, it's just not mediating the cognition, it's more like part of the environment rather than like the glasses that the cognition is looking through. And now, the definition of samnya in the Abhidharmakosha is samnya is the grasping of the sign. Samnya is grasping of the mark. And that's how the consciousness pulls this goody into conceptual cognition. Well, it's the thing you use. Samya is actually the using of the mark or the sign to apprehend and distinguish the phenomena. And even a concept still needs a sign put on it by conception in order to be pulled into cognition, otherwise even concepts would fly by, barely known.

[75:49]

But then Samya wouldn't be, you know, they could be barely known like in direct cognition, but then Samya wouldn't be the mediation of the cognition. Samya would still be happy in there. The sign of the object would still be available, it just wouldn't be used for cognition in the same way. And so that's the sign. And so we have this thing called mind process going by us all the time. but we're not following it most of the time. But sometimes people do, in meditation I've heard, they come and tell me they actually are watching their mind, they're actually like seeing stuff and finding out stuff, they actually are following their mind for a while and they learn a lot by actually watching this thing, they sometimes do turn into it and are wakeful to it, but in order to help us get even more intimate than we usually are, they offer this thing. And so you are having trouble finding signs by which you're actually going to be able to see this.

[76:58]

So like Grace wants a sign by which she can distinguish between not yet thinking and on the verge of thinking. And then you need a sign by which you might already have, but you need on the verge of thinking mark. or sign to tell the difference between that and thinking proper, you know, thinking actual. And then you need a sign to tell when thinking is over, which is the same as thinking not yet happening, except it's different because it follows on actual thinking. So how are you going to tell which is which there? So you need signs to apprehend these phenomena, okay? And so here, we've got to find some signs now. Rosie? So could you give an example of some signs? Okay, so what does it look like? What does something look like that hasn't happened yet? What does it look like? Does it look like space? Maybe.

[78:01]

That's a good... Stillness? Not moving? Because this is like before the mind moves, right? Would there be a sense of energy gathering or is that the next one? What did you say? Would it have the mark? A sense of energy gathering? It seems like that might be a nice sign on the verge of thinking. Because thinking again is like, it's a pattern of the mind which is like, how the energy is going to flow, right? Once you actually see the energy is flowing that way, See, it would probably be easier to find signs of how to spot chetana. In other words, to actually see the fully established intention to do something, that requires quite a bit of attention and you need one or more signs to find that, but that's easier to find. And the reason why we don't know the other ones is because that's the only one we're usually interested in, and a lot of times we're not even interested in that one, we just are driven by it.

[79:06]

So the first, you know, that's the easiest one to find, and so can you find that one? Maybe start with that one just to sort of like, even following just that one is still a very good practice. Because you're watching, you're studying your karma then. And being aware of the tendencies of your karma is very helpful. Like to notice, oh this mind, my mind is like headed south. So I should be very careful now. And I just noticed that there's another intention. Now there's an intention to be careful. I have a southerly-directed mind, and then once I notice that, then now I have a mind which is directed north. I have a mind which is directed towards being reckless and not caring, so now without even trying, I naturally want to go the other direction, to balance this mind. So now I see this other tendency. So this is an example of seeing the thinking that's already properly established. And watching that's very good, getting into these other details that are not so familiar to us.

[80:13]

Once again? Yes, right. The tendency could be neutral. So if you look, you might see there's a fully established neutral. So like, right, it's not going, here's a fully established mind that's not going in any direction. That often is the case. That's a plateau, like, yeah, that's often the case. So now you're looking at a fully established pattern, it's like for a moment there, there it is, and that's a full information about what this thinking of this moment, this is one moment of thought, this moment of thought is really not going anywhere, so we don't have to do much about it. Actually, there's not much to do about it because it's not going anywhere. Okay? Yes? Undifferentiated. Undifferentiated for what? Yeah, in the sense that there's a complete reality that doesn't point in any direction, doesn't exclude any factors.

[81:26]

Are you referring now to the first phase? The first phase is, what seems to be there is non-differentiation. Okay, so how does that work as a sign for not yet thinking? What's the problem with it? Well, him telling that to you and you thinking about his concept, but can you imagine now, observing the thought process, okay, and you're trying to see, can I see any moments... It is differentiating, right, yes. So using non-differentiating, observing non-differentiation is sort of antithetical to doing this process. Observing non-differentiation is antithetical to this process.

[82:27]

That's fine. It's fine to do something antithetical to this process if this process is differentiating because we're trying to learn how to follow our thought. We're not really trying to differentiate. We're already good at that. We're trying to like watch how our mind works, and so the differentiation is going to be dispensed with. Because again, we're doing signing now, which is differentiating, but the point of the signing is not to differentiate, the point of the signing is to tune in to what's happening. Okay, so one, two, three, four of these four phases. So now we're trying to find some way to actually observe them. And already I thought, not surprisingly, people are having trouble seeing what it would be to actually be able to observe, to contemplate.

[83:38]

a thought which has not yet arisen. How are you going to contemplate something that has not yet arisen? So you need some kind of … it's being proposed to you that there is an actual stage in thought where it has not yet arisen. That's part of the story of a thought, is that it hasn't yet arisen. And so now, how are you going to actually find that phenomena, that aspect of thought process? We need some sign to do that. Well, yeah, what I'm talking about is actually a sign. This is a sign by which you can distinguish the part of the thought that hasn't arisen. So the sign, not yet arisen, that's a sign. But can you see that? You're going to need your own…that's just words. Do you have something that helps you actually get a hold of that? I've said the words, but these words have not yet necessarily

[84:40]

gone by you in such a way that you now have a sign by which you can actually see this happening. And you can see that? So you have a sign for that, that you can see that? Yes, so do you have a sign for that? Yeah, so maybe you're okay then, the sign you use is that you have a sign for the... you can actually see the thought being over, like there was a thought and now you can actually see that thought is over, and now you can use that maybe as a sign for the next thing. So after it's over, then beyond that, if you can see that, then the way you see that is your sign for that. It's personal, yeah, it's your own personal sign.

[85:48]

However, you might use the same word as somebody else, but actually the way you actually get a hold of something, like we can say, you know, all the teachings can be going by, and some people don't, starting in the Samadhi Nirmachana Sutra I talked about like Velcro, it's like the Velcro that you stick to the concept to pull it in. Some people don't have Velcro. Some people, they're sitting there and, you know, two people sitting there and the teaching goes by and one person goes, pulls it in, the other one just, they don't have Velcro. Yeah, whatever, you know, they have some way to hook it and pull it in. Some people don't have it, so it just goes by. They hear it, it has no meaning. It doesn't impact. So you hear these things, for example, thought not yet arisen, but have you actually seen it? Some of you may, some of you may not. So Angelica is saying she actually saw, she thinks she saw, the phase, she's seen thinking and she's also seen the end of thinking.

[86:53]

She's actually seen it. And she thinks maybe that'll be a clue for her about how to actually see the beginning of thinking, which is like the beginning of thinking is before you're on the verge of it. They're proposing that there is such a phase, and if you can find this phase, that's going to help you actually intimately follow your thoughts. Not part of the thought process, not one-fourth of it, or maybe, you know, one-sixth of it, or one-ninth of it, or even 60% of it, but the whole process. That you can be that intimate, that you're actually that intimate with the process. And the next phase, I didn't get to, but I guess I'll be doing sashimi, and I'll tell you about the next phase of intimacy with these thoughts that you were tuning into. But this first part, I can see, you know, it's going to be difficult, so I will tell you beforehand, you know, this is like

[88:00]

practice which you do when you're already, like for Jesse, it's a good practice for Jesse. Is Jesse here? Yeah. It's a good practice for you to start that practice because you're sleepy, right? This is a good practice for you. This will be quite disturbing. Look, just look and see if you can find any signs. You can look for ones you can't find and that'll keep you awake, or you can look for the ones you've already found and then extend to the ones, other ones that you can't find yet. So see if you can actually watch the thought process, so watch the thoughts arise and see if you can watch them. Did you have a question, Rosie? Yeah, you asked your question, didn't you? No, you are definitely velcroing, yes, you are doing that.

[89:10]

And you're tuning into the intimacy of your thought process, and if there's any attachments there, in addition to just signing things, you probably would, you know, that would be part of what might be revealed to you. The next phase of the process, after you tune into this intimately, the next phase of waking up is to ask yourself questions about, particularly, each one of these phases. So after you can actually see these things, then you can actually look and see, does the stage of not yet thinking, does that perish? Does it perish? Does the not-yet-thinking perish? Does it not perish? Does it perish and not perish?

[90:17]

Does it neither perish nor not perish? You apply that to that one. Then you turn and you look at the about-to-think, and you say, does that arise? Does that about-to-think arise? See, you'd have a chance to see that it would arise, right? It's going to be hard for you to see the arising of the not-yet-thinking, right? But you might be able to see, does the not-yet-thinking perish? Once you find it, does it perish? And when it perishes, now, does the about-to-think, does it arise or not arise? Does it neither arise, does it both arise and not arise? Or does it neither arise nor not arise? In this way, Just looking at those two aspects of your thought, you have a feeling for what it's like to be awake to that thought. And you have an understanding of what the mind is.

[91:20]

But it's based on actually finding this stuff and actually having experience of it. So it's kind of difficult, right? but this is their intention to help you verify that you're actually intimate with what's happening. Yes? Everything's always happening in a non-dual state. Okay, yes. number two, the person in Samadhi number two, why would this happen? Either in Samadhi number two or what's happening? Why they're looking for... In order to be able to do the contemplation. I think that, you know, it's going to be pretty hard to do this contemplation if you're not, if you don't have some relaxation with what's happening.

[92:25]

So, I would think that most of you would probably be not start, you know, might not start doing this practice at all for a while until you hear more about it and feel more encouraged how it might be for your health to actually look for something like, even maybe look for chaitana, even look for your will. So far we've been talking about trying to raise, when you see your intentions, when you see your impulses, When your impulses arise, try to relax with them, try not to grasp them or seek anything. All right, so you calm down with that. Now, I say, now it's time for me to start talking about looking at the thing that you've been relaxing with. And one of the things you've been relaxing with is your intentions, your impulses to act, and the arising of these impulses, the arising of these thoughts where you intend to do something.

[93:27]

That's one of the things you can observe. And this details that process of the arising of an intention. But some of you may not actually wish to, well actually I wouldn't recommend any of you willfully, heavy-handedly turn your attention towards insight work. I think it's good to be very gentle so you don't disturb yourself, but try to assess whether you feel like Okay, I'm pretty calm now. I think now I'm gonna open up to inquiry into what it is that's happening. I haven't been doing that so far. I've been experiencing things, but most...

[94:11]

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