I wanted to review just the beginning of Chapter 8 again, where Maitreya asked the Buddha how many objects, of these four objects, that are contemplated in the practice of Samatha and Vipassana, how many are objects of observation of Samatha, and he says one, the non-conceptual objects, how many of Vipassana, and the Buddha says one, the conceptual objects, how many objects are observation of both, and the Buddha says two, first the limits of all phenomena, so that means all phenomena, everything that exists is the object of both, tranquility and insight. Both of them observe all phenomena, but one observes all phenomena as non-conceptual

[01:15]

images, and the other observes all phenomena as conceptual images. So they observe all phenomena, they both observe the whole range, but they observe them differently. And then the other thing that they both observe is the accomplishment of the purpose of the path. They both observe the expounding of the teaching, and they both observe the supreme enlightenment. And then again, the mental attention to the mind which is contemplated by any mind, looking at the mind which is contemplated by any mind, is the same type of meditation as giving

[02:25]

up discursive thought. When we observe the world and give up discursive thought, we are looking at the mind which is contemplated by any mind. If you look at the floor or listen to a sound, and all discursive thought is abandoned, you are actually looking at

[03:26]

the mind which is observed by all minds. And you have given up any discursive activity which will tell you how it is that the floor is the mind. You're just looking at what ordinarily is called the floor, and you're not calling it a floor, and you're not telling yourself how that floor is the mind that is observed by all minds. But by giving up discursive thought, you actually have turned your light around and shined it back on the mind which is observed by all minds. I thought this morning, it's like, Samatha is like looking

[04:30]

directly at being sober. But that may be hard, to just directly look at being sober. It's easier maybe to see giving up drinking. But if you give up drinking a long enough time, you may actually find soberness. When you first give up drinking, when you're first not drinking, you're not necessarily sober. You still may be in your mind, rumbling around, thinking, geez, something could be...maybe I could...couldn't...maybe I should...it would be better if I...you're not actually drinking but you're kind of thinking about it or feeling this thing like, couldn't we fix this situation up a little bit? But to look at actually being sober, where there would be no interest in doing anything to meddle with what's going on, not bringing

[05:35]

anything in to adjust the situation, to look at that way of being, it's kind of hard to see. It's not really graspable. So, just giving up discursive thought is training in tranquility, but it's not exactly the same. So it's hard, just like it's hard to look at soberness, but what's soberness? Where's soberness? Well, soberness is, in a sense, it's absence of addiction. It's the absence of addiction, and we're addicted to discursive thought, and we're addicted to discursive thought. It's our main addiction in a way. Another way to put it is, so we're giving up discursive thought, we're giving up trains of thought, chains of thought, lines of thought, lines of reasoning, chains of reasoning, chains

[06:42]

of ... it's all these kinds of things. We're giving up logic. We're giving up our logical approach to our experience moment by moment. We're training ourselves to give up logic, and that relates, I think, to something that Reverend Owl brought up at the end of yesterday. When you're actually settled into looking at this mind which is contemplated by any mind, where there's no conceptual interruption in the mind, it's just the mind sitting there, which is always there, when you're actually looking at that, you're kind of looking at the way things really are, untampered with by conceptual interruption or manipulation. So it's kind of like you're seeing what you will see as a result of wisdom training. And that point made me think of the three wheels. In some sense, the first wheel, teaching

[07:50]

of the analysis of dharmas, is like the logical approach to understanding, to wisdom. The second wheel, in a sense, of giving up any conceptual approach to experience, and giving up logic, the second turning is, in some sense, closer to tranquility practice. The third wheel is to pick up the logic again, based on having given up the logic in the second turning. So there's a kind of analogy between the three wheels and insight, tranquility, insight.

[08:51]

Another similarity is the difference between looking at emptiness, which is seeing the absence of the concept of self in phenomena, seeing the innocence of phenomena of a self, of the concept of self, and that's quite similar to Samatha practice in the sense of being innocent of conceptual involvement with what you're looking at. So, this is just to say that all these different gestures of mine are not separate. Once again, in some ways it's easier to notice a chain of thought, just like a chain of thought

[10:00]

gets maybe easier, at least at the beginning, to notice you're drinking something, notice that you're drinking alcohol, might be easier than to see, well, what is soberness? And then notice that you're addicted to alcohol, that you're caught by it, may be easier than just to, again, what does it mean to look at the place where there's no impulse to drink, where there's just awareness. So, a normal person is aware all the time, and then there's impulses to drink. A normal person is aware all the time and there's impulses to discursive thought, there's impulses, there's predispositions to discursive thought so that we can make conventional designations. But no matter whether there's conventional designations going on, no matter whether there's discursive thought going on, there's always this mind in each

[11:04]

moment of life. So again, it's easier maybe to notice, okay, I'm not drinking, or I'm drinking but I'm not caught by drinking, I'm having one drink, that's it, and one drink a day, and if I miss drinks for several weeks, it's okay, but anyway, I am drinking, or now I'm not drinking, I'm not drinking, I'm not drinking, and I'm not caught by drinking because I'm not drinking, and now I don't even think of drinking. That may be easier to notice than just a way of being which isn't drinking. But directly diving into the mind, the way of being, which is uninterrupted by conceptual involvement, that's more direct than spending our time cutting off, confessing, confessing

[12:08]

the involvement in discursive thought and repenting it, confessing and repenting it, confessing it and letting go of it, confessing it and letting go of it, rather than snipping all these trains of thought or stopping them before they get started, may be easier at the beginning and that's part of it. The actual directly jumping into is maybe, what do you call it, cold turkey, maybe a bit much. So once again, I think a number of you are trying to train in tranquility, and again, here's another point I want to make. There are two particular factors of concentration that are pointed out in the early teachings and also in this sutra, two mental factors, one is called in Sanskrit vichara and the other is called vittarka,

[13:14]

and these mental factors are necessary in order to be involved in language. In the attainment of the first level of deep concentration, so first is attaining some tranquility and then based on that tranquility one can enter into what's called the first jhana, and in realizing the first jhana, these two mental factors drop away, and they are often translated as, one is mental application, another one is for vittarka, and for vichara discursive thought. Another translation in the sutra for vichara are examination or discrimination, or differentiation. In some of the Ayurvedic texts they talk about vittarka as like a bee

[14:26]

landing on the flower, and vichara is like the bee hovering around the flower. And one of the techniques for developing concentration is to use a disc. I can make a mound on the ground, make it nice and smooth, and then you apply the mind to that shape, to that circular mound, you apply your mind to it very strongly. That's the vittarka, application of mind. And then you hover, or you examine that shape, that's the vichara. You first apply to it very strongly and then you sort of like go over the territory and become very familiar with it. So you take these two dimensions of mind which are used in discursive thought, and you dump them all into this one image. And the image could also be the breath, or

[15:35]

you take these two elements which are involved in discursive thought and you strongly apply them to the breath, or to the image of the disc. You can also apply them to the image of the Buddha. And you put them so strongly on this one object, that they're dropped, that you're not using them anymore for ordinary discursive thought. They're totally engaged, they're kind of like cancelled. You keep them busy on this thing, so they don't do their usual thing. And when you get them totally involved in it, they drop. And after the attainment of that state, you can no longer, you can't actually speak in that state, and you wouldn't be able to understand. If people were talking about you, you wouldn't understand, because

[16:35]

the mental functions which make it possible to follow a sentence and see the meaning of it, would be totally engaged and have dropped. So you can also apply this mental application in discursive thought to the discursive thought that's going on, if you want to apply it to the simple image of give up, stop, no, to the discursive thought. So you use the discursive thought on the one idea of giving up discursive thought. Because it's still going on, but you channel it into stopping itself, by pointing it towards anything that looks like the beginning of a chain of thought. Now, part of the reason why I brought this

[17:37]

up was to talk about tranquility practice, but I also wanted to point out that after the sutra first explains how to do the tranquility practice and the appliancy that's attained, which is called Samatha, then it says, abiding in that Samatha, abiding in that ease and pliancy and buoyancy and joy and readiness to do good state of mind, the pliancy, which is the Samatha, abiding in that Samatha, then you give up, for the now, you give up the training in Samatha. In other words, you give up training yourself to give up discursive thought. You've been giving up discursive thought, you've been attending to, letting go, letting go, letting go of whatever is happening, and particularly letting go and watching out for any chains of thought. You've been letting go consistently and now you've

[18:38]

attained this very excellent state of mind called Samatha. Now, just sit in that Samatha and give up that type of training and shift to a new kind of training. What kind of training? Having attained the physical and mental pliancy, they abide only in that. In other words, just abide in the state. Having abandoned certain aspects of the mind, and that means having abandoned the practice of training in Samatha. You only abide in the state of Samatha, you abandon the cultivation of Samatha. Does that make sense? So having given up now the practice of Samatha, they analyze inwardly and consider the very doctrines, the conceptual images of the doctrines, that they have been contemplating as images that are the focus

[19:41]

of the Samadhi that they're in now. And then they say, the differentiation, thorough differentiation, thorough investigation, thorough analysis, and so on. What that's saying is the vichara, the pravichara, the vittarka. Now, the very things that were dropped, actually that were engaged so completely that they got dropped in the training of tranquility, now that you're tranquil, you pick up these same factors and use them to analyze and investigate and differentiate the teachings. Pick up the very things you dropped to go to begin the insight practice. Same mental factors that were initially used to give up discursive thought, that are discursive thought, to use discursive thought, to give up discursive thought, are now picked up again

[20:43]

and used in insight. So that's at the beginning of the chapter 8. And they could have used different terms, you know, but because they used the technical terms in the description of the insight, I could see that they're referring to the same functions for the initial insight practice that were abandoned in the tranquility practice. Once again, when I'm practicing, or when we're practicing tranquility, the more we

[21:46]

are able to, like, abandon discursive thought, the more we're looking...excuse me, first of all, when we're involved in discursive thought, what we're really looking at, what we're experiencing is the mind in discursive thought. When we're involved in discursive thought, we're experiencing a mind that's involved in discursive thought. When we give up discursive thought, we're experiencing a mind free of discursive thought. The mind which is free of discursive thought is the same mind that's there when discursive thought is operating. Same mind. Discursive thought, non-discursive thought, this kind of thought, that kind of thought, it's the same mind in every moment. So when there's discursive thought going on, it's totally arising with the same mind that's there when it's not. You can't see it when discursive thought's operating because you're looking at discursive thought, that's taking over. When you drop

[22:48]

it, you're open to this mind, the mind, the uninterrupted, unafflicted, untouched mind. This mind is not, I suggest to you at this point anyway, in my understanding, it's not Alaya, and it's not Manas, and it's not Mana-Vijnana datu, it's not Mind-Consciousness, and it's not Cakshara Vijnana datu, it's not the eye consciousness, it's not the ear consciousness, it's not the nose consciousness, but all of those consciousnesses are not separate from this mind, all those consciousnesses are transformations of this mind, of mind. I should say this mind. So, mind can be Manas, Alaya, it can be Krishna Manas, regular Manas, Alaya, mind consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, it can be all those, it can be discursive thought,

[23:51]

it can be concentration, it can be prashrabdhi, it can be a lot of things, it can be the whole world, anything can be mind, mind can be anything. The whole world, according to this sutra and according to other sutras, Lotus Sutra, Upatamsaka Sutra, the whole world is just mind. Another way to put it is, the whole world is just the world, and the whole mind is just the mind. That world and mind are two faces of the same thing. The universe and the mind are two faces of the same thing. So again, practicing tranquility, you're like actually opening the door to this, you're opening the door to the big thing. You're

[24:55]

opening the door to the world, you're opening the door to the mind, without any interruptions, without any times out to get a hold of something. You're facing the world in its primordial innocence of all conceptual manipulation, free of any conceptual grasping. So, again, giving up discursive thoughts, one approach which in some ways is easier and fine, following your breathing, when you really get close to it, you actually, it's not the following the breathing that's the issue, it's that you're giving up discursive thought about your breathing. You're looking at your breathing and giving up discursive thought. Look at your posture and give up discursive thought. Look at the floor and give up discursive thought. Listen to the birds and give up discursive thought. That's one approach. The other approach

[26:00]

is, which is the same thing, different language, is turn the light around and shine it back on the mind, which is the ability to think. Look at the mind which can do discursive thought and then you're looking at, you're giving up discursive thought. Usually, we're involved in the discursive thought, which the mind can do. Now, we're talking about, look at the mind which is doing the discursive thought and that's a more radical way just to give it up on the spot. But, the other way is, keep whacking it away or dropping it away or telling it goodbye, and the more you tell it goodbye, [...] discursive thought, the more you realize, what's left? Oh, hi! It's his mind that's been there all the time while this stuff's been happening. So, you see the different approaches? They're the same state of looking directly, contemplating the mind directly, without even telling yourself

[27:01]

how well you're doing, or that this is the mind that you're contemplating. Finally, you're just like... Surrender to the mind that observes the image. Usually, we're looking at the image and playing with it, that discursive thought. Now, we surrender to the mind which observes the image. We're looking at the thinking mind. We're looking at the image-making faculty. Not the images, those are the conceptual images. Now, we're looking at the faculty which makes the images. But again, giving up the images, the images are given up, what's left? Inch me and pinch me went down to the lake, inch me fell in, who is left? Image-maker and image

[28:10]

went down to the lake, image jumped in, who is left? Image-maker. Image-maker, wow! Well, what's that? I can't get a hold of the image-maker. And since I can't, and I'm not, I guess I'm okay. Nothing wrong with me that I can't get a hold of the image-maker, because nobody can, so I'm not defective here when I'm sitting here not being able to get a hold of anything. It's okay, it's unusual. And if I can tolerate that, this comes to fruit as this wonderful state. And based on that state, then you go from looking at the image-maker to looking at the images that are made by the image-maker. Now, you shift back to Vipassana. You shift from looking directly at the mind to now looking at the objects of mind. You shift

[29:12]

from looking at the object-maker to the objects. And then, the very things you gave up, the things you weaned yourself from to become intimate and aware of the object-maker, you reactivate those mental faculties and apply them to the objects. And you analyze the objects and analyze the objects until you find out the objects are mind. So that's in the sense of Samadhi is opening to the mind, surrendering to the mind with no conceptual access. Vipassana is using the conceptual accessors to examine the things which mind knows, to find out that the things that mind knows are mind. To examine them, examine them to find out, actually, they're not actually there. What's there? Mind. Is that the same as emptiness? Yes. And

[30:13]

also, the objects are the same as emptiness. But this goes a little bit different than saying when you examine the objects you find their emptiness, it's saying you also find that their mind, which is the fact that their mind is their emptiness. The fact that everything you're looking at is mind means the emptiness of the separation between mind and object. The things are not separate from mind is the emptiness of this school, and it's the emptiness of all schools. But this school uses mind to understand what emptiness really is. And that's just right there at the beginning, a couple of pages to discuss that with you. Now yesterday I just did this little introduction that was already one hour, and here I did

[31:16]

another introduction and it hasn't been an hour, but I said quite a bit, so maybe that's enough. Do you have anything you want to say before? Yes, John? I was going to ask you about a couple of experiences here. I was in a strange community, I fell on the floor, I faced the town, there were people sitting back to me in the darkness under the town. Yes. I was afraid of the yellow threat that was coming at night. I didn't know how it was built, the shape of the thing. But as I got to some point of those yellow paintings, I

[32:19]

everything was different. I mean, I couldn't any longer distinguish between the dark masses and what light came forward and got flat, and the shapes that I was used to seeing underneath rearranged themselves into masses. It's really weird. Weird and good. Weird and good. I got a little flush, and then I tried to rearrange them back to where I knew they were, but I couldn't see them. But for a little while you couldn't. Yeah, for a few minutes maybe, I don't know why. Last night, it was, it seemed, the darkness under the town became a kind of, I couldn't give it a name at first, it was a kind of black, round, long thing that bowed forward.

[33:23]

But it bowed forward, and I didn't give it a name. That's what I mean, I don't have to explain it. But I couldn't right away. It didn't have a name. And that was sort of, it felt to me, completely, kind of familiar, a little bit, things without names, things with names being destroyed by them. Things with names being destroyed by... Or, not necessarily that we're destroying the thing, but that we, either we distort it or we separate ourselves from the immediacy of it. That the immediacy of your visual experience on your cushion is disturbed by the process

[34:32]

of getting meaning out of those experiences. So you lose, the immediacy isn't killed, it's there, but for you anyway, it's lost because you, if you're able to make meaning out of the experience. And then maybe there's a few moments there where you tolerated not signifying what was happening, you tolerated not extracting meaning from the visual experience. And in that space, that space is kind of the training for Samatha. But also that space will be useful when you start practicing Vipassana, to play with looking at a sign and then noticing that it's not meaningful, if you don't interpret it. Tolerating, in some sense, an insignificant experience, tolerating unmeaningful experience

[35:40]

for a little while. But with your discursive thought, looking at how that's happening, the tranquility is like tolerating it more. Focusing on, consistently, in some sense, not making meaning out of the breath, not making meaning out of the posture, not making meaning out of the practice, not making meaning. In other words, give up the trains of thought by which you make meaning. Tolerate this light, or this darkness. Get used to that unusual way of being with things, where you're not extracting meaning by interpretation, by discursive interpretation. So that your body would let you go a little while without re-capturing meaning, means

[36:41]

probably you had some, your body was letting you really practice tranquility for a while. Maybe actually you were tranquil for a while. And that also makes it possible for you to tolerate not slipping back into discursive meaning, discursive thought to get meaning. Yes? Pondering is more like Vipassana, pondering, differentiating, analyzing, examining, that's more the insight dimension. Giving up pondering, giving up pondering is more like training in tranquility.

[37:43]

And yet, it's like, there's like a certain way that it goes. There's like what? It's an applying of the teaching, too. The applying of the teaching is a little bit discursive. So, as you get more... Again, like if you're looking at your breath and you're trying to look at the breath without being discursive about it, at first you're going to be discursive just to bring your mind to the breath. Like meditation, okay, now bring the mind to the breath, that's a little bit discursive. But when you're actually looking at the breath in the moment of experiencing the breath, you can get to a point where you're not being discursive about it. And my experience is, if I'm looking directly at the mind, which I can't see, I'm looking directly at what I can't see, this mind, but which I'm experiencing, or if I look at the

[38:47]

image-making faculty, my breath becomes very vivid. If I try to look from my breath, it's hard, but when I give up my discursive thought, my breath is very much clearer. It's like, in some sense, it's the most intense, unless I'm in a lot of pain, it's the most intense physical experience is the breath. When I'm focusing on mind, when I give up being concerned with discursive thought, the breath becomes much more vivid and salient. And even not only my breath, but my concern with being able to, my issue of surviving with this breath, the vitality around it, becomes much more salient when I give up thinking

[39:50]

about any old thing. Another way to put it, like Suzuki does, Sugoroshi puts it is, when you forget about yourself, you're aware of your breath. When you're really aware of your breath, you forget about yourself. But most people who try to be aware of their breath, it's like they're self-concernedly trying to become aware of the breath, and then the breath is really wimpy. It's like you've got this big noise of, oh God, I've got to be a good meditator and get calm here, and this little tiny breath, not only tiny breath, but boring. Whereas if you just forget about yourself, that's like really hard, really different, really strange, but in that space, it's like, in a sense, it's a little bit like, oh breath, how wonderful, there's something going on here, besides just giving up myself, which

[40:51]

means giving up the discursive thought which maintains the sense of it and just looking at mind. So looking at mind or looking at the light, looking at the mind which is contemplated by any mind, the mind, the mind, the mind, then the breath goes, and then there's no need at all to follow it. It's just right in your face all the time. So you're not really, you're totally aware of it without trying to pay attention to it. What you're trying to pay attention to is giving up discursive thought, which when we're involved in it, makes everything else is in the shadow of that. How does the what? How does the becoming happen? That's what we want to see, right? That's what we get to see by practicing insight. To see how it happens.

[41:55]

To see dependent co-arising. Yes? Yes, or turning the light around and shining it back. It actually doesn't say look back, it says turn the light around and shine it back. You could say look back, but shining it back might be better than looking back, because in my experience looking back makes me feel more dizzy than just that the inner realm is being illuminated. How do you do that? Well, one way is you give up being discursive about all the objects of awareness. When you do that, the light starts turning around. That effort to give up involvement in all the objects, like people and your own physical

[43:01]

states and your own mental states, all these objects, giving up being involved in them is reversing the usual tendency of mind. Usually the mind is involved in the objects. It knows the objects and it's being discursive, trying to get them all organized, right? Get them lined up over in the good area and get rid of the bad area objects. That's what the mind is usually doing and being discursive to make that happen. That's our usual turmoil, right? So in giving up that involvement, like I said, that involvement and the mind go down to the lake. That involvement, you say, okay, you kids can go in the water now. What's left? The mind. It's like, again, sometimes you go in a room, you heard there's a party for 17 people and you count the people and you only get 16 and you realize, hmm, oh, I'm here! It's like that.

[44:04]

Usually we go down to the lake and we think there's all these kids, but we don't think there's all these kids plus the mind that knows them. Of course we know that, but we don't think, oh, there's 17 kids and a mind that knows them, or 16 kids and a mind that knows them. The kids go in the water and what's left? So when you realize, oh, this awareness is there, the light has just turned around. So anyway, each of us has to be creative about how to find a way that's comfortable to turn the light around, which is an unusual gesture for us, and it's the calming gesture, the basic calming gesture, and it involves giving up this discursive thought. So giving up discursive thought, it turns around, but you can also just say, inward, inner mind, inner stream of consciousness, uninterrupted mind. And these words may trigger, may, what do you call it, induce you into experiencing

[45:08]

the light being turned around. Yes? Awareness of breath drop away? She said, would awareness of breath drop away under what circumstances were you in? In Samatha, is awareness of breath drop away? In a world where you're like laughing and breathing, that's where you live. Your arms are moving, your heart's beating, your breath's going in and out of you, you're seeing people saying, hi, you know, you're happy, you're a happy Reverend Nina. Hi, I'm a happy girl. I'm relaxed, I'm calm, I'm energetic. You need any help?

[46:10]

Can I help you in any way? Can I do anything beneficial? That's Samatha. See everything, meet everything with enthusiasm and joy and free of all hindrance to do good. That's Samatha. Training in Samatha, you're looking at whatever and you're giving up discursive thought. You're looking at the floor and you're giving up discursive thought about the floor. And the more you give up discursive thought about the floor, the more vivid the floor becomes. And if you look at the floor and give up discursive thought, the breath will, my experience is the breath becomes much more of an issue in my life than otherwise. When I'm looking at the floor, giving up discursive thought, the breath becomes stronger. I don't have the other experience so much, but the floor gets stronger.

[47:12]

I find actually the breath is the thing that stands out more. Usually the floor and the breath are on a par. When you're self-concerned, when you're involved in discursive thought, the kind of unimportant things in your breath are kind of on a par because they're all just objects of discursive thought. When you give up discursive thought, I think the breath asserts itself as a very vital, much more vital issue than it does when you're busy thinking about stuff. Thinking about stuff. But when you look at the capacity to think about stuff, the breath gets more, then you realize the breath is a more immediate friend than your hammers and nails. In a way, don't want to put down hammers and nails, but they're kind of optional. Whereas breath is kind of like, hello, did you realize what a big pal I am of yours?

[48:13]

And kind of like, oh my God, I really need you, don't I? Yeah, oh yeah. So that's my experience, is the breath becomes more salient the more I give up discursive thought, the more I train in Samatha. Now, if I try to focus on the breath, it may become even less interesting than usual because I may be actually holding onto discursive thought to try to focus on the breath. So I might even be more rigid and aggressive about my discursive thinking than usual when I'm trying to follow my breath. So that's why it says in here, when you continuously practice correctly, you will come to the state of ease. You can practice giving up discursive thought incorrectly. And I've met many occasions of incorrectly trying to follow the breath.

[49:19]

Harshly, a discursive attempt to follow the breath. So again, training in Samatha means giving up the discursive thought, but objects are still arising all over the place. It's just that you're not getting involved with them, which means you're involved with the mental state of not getting involved with them. In other words, you're involved with the mind, the basic mind, which doesn't get involved with things. The basic mind that's always there supports and is connected to any kind of discursive thought, but it's not really the discursive thought. That's the mind I'm looking at. I'm looking at the capacity for discursive thought, not the discursive thought.

[50:22]

I'm looking for the capacity, the faculty of image-making, not the image-making. I'm not getting involved in the image-making, I'm getting involved in giving up. I'm getting involved in giving up being involved. The image-maker actually makes the image and says goodbye. No, not necessarily. There is a direct experience of breath, but I'm not saying that when you get in Samatha, you will automatically get direct experience of the breath. You might. So again, there is this immediacy of experiencing the breath, there is the immediacy of experiencing sound and sights.

[51:31]

I would say that the more concentrated you get, the closer you get to having direct experience of the breath. But you can be quite concentrated and give up discursive thought, but still have a little bit of conceptual interpretation of the... In other words, the breath could still be meaningful to you as breath, even though you've given up being discursive about it. But underneath one level, or this meaningful experience of the breath, where you interpret the breath, you interpret the signs of the breath which are immediate, in connection to the words, underneath that is sort of an unmeaningful direct experience of the breath. So you might be able to access that or you might not.

[52:33]

I mean, it's there, you are accessing it actually, I take it back. You are accessing it, but you are kind of overlaying it usually. But even while overlaying it, if you give up being discursive about the overlay, consistently you will achieve Samatha. And giving up discursive involvement, even with the overlay on direct experience, on immediacy, still produces tranquility. And one more thing, is that both at that level of where you are seeing objects and not being discursive about them, which is the training in tranquility, at that level the object still looks like it's up there on its own, separate from the image maker. So the basic delusion is there at that level. And take one step, level down to the level of direct experience, even in the level of direct experience, that direct experience is appearing to that consciousness which isn't being discursive,

[53:36]

it's appearing there also, as existing separate from that consciousness. So in direct experience and in conceptual experience, in direct cognition and conceptual cognition, in direct perception and conceptual cognition, in both those cases, the object looks like it's out there, separate from the subject. So the delusion is there, even at the level of direct perception. But you can calm down, even while you're deluded. You can get very concentrated, even while you still don't quite understand the emptiness of this apparent separation. So people can be great yogis without settling this matter. Still, it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to be great yogis. It's just that based on this tranquility,

[54:38]

then we abide in that tranquility and then we pick up our discursive tools again and apply them to studying the things which we just recently gave up involvement with. And then in the end, after we understand these things really well, then we join the Samatha training with the insight, with the understanding that's arisen from this discursive analysis. We join that back again to the tranquility practice. And then we have a non-conceptual approach, a non-discursive approach. We give up all discursive approaches to our understanding. So then they're reconnected in the end. So in the beginning, give up discursive thought. In the middle, use discursive thought to understand emptiness, to understand that mind is the world. The world is mind,

[55:39]

that the world and mind are the two sides of our life. And then take that understanding into an arena where you're giving up all conceptual interference, access. And that's the deepest insight. And let's see, it's getting on pretty well. So I just wanted to say that I ask for feedback, and I receive and I get some feedback, not as much as I could, because I know you're busy people. And also during Seshin, you can't talk in the Zendo and stuff. But anyway, I have received feedback, and so someone says to me,

[56:40]

Would you like some feedback? I have some positive and some negative feedback. Would you like it? And I said, The negative. And then he said, Well, I'm going to give you some positive too. So he gave me some positive feedback, which I didn't stop him from doing. And then he gave me negative feedback, and the negative feedback was, the first part was, that this type of teaching that I've been doing tends to get people into thinking that there's something to get. Like I was just talking about this understanding that you get, this tranquility you can get, and how you need this tranquility to be able to really do this. So that's a problem in that, that creates maybe some seeking or something, and I understand that. So I apologize for bringing up a teaching

[57:42]

which has that difficult side to it, that it can look like some kind of gaining is going on, is possible. I don't want to do anything to aggravate or encourage my own seeking or yours, but I realize this type of teaching puts that to the test, and it's hard. So that was a criticism he made. And he also said that it appears as though I'm arrogant and proud, and he said that he's talked to quite a few other people here who seem to see that too. And so, I don't mean to, you know... I will hesitate to make something funny of this, but then I yield to the impulse to make something funny of it,

[58:42]

which is that there were these little conventions during the practice period where people got together and they figured out and discussed various ways that I was arrogant and proud. And they pretty much got it straight that I was, and they didn't like it too much, generally speaking. But they didn't know about the other meetings where people got together and really enjoyed that I was arrogant. But anyway, I still, even though I think it's a little funny that people are spending their time thinking about how arrogant I am, at the same time, I apologize for my responsibility in appearing as arrogant and proud. I actually apologize for it. At the same time, I also, now that I start apologizing, I think it's kind of like that, not totally unfunny

[59:43]

that people think I'm arrogant and proud. And I think that some people who think I'm arrogant and proud love me anyway. But also some people who think I'm arrogant and proud, it's painful for them, it's difficult for them, and I'm sorry about that. If everybody really enjoyed it, it still might be a problem for me. So now I think the feedback I might get would be, that wasn't a very sincere apology you made about your responsibility for appearing as arrogant and proud. But I do accept responsibility

[60:50]

for appearing arrogant and proud. Nobody told me that I appeared humble, but if they did, I would accept responsibility for appearing humble. I accept responsibility for everything. And I say that, but another way to say it is that I'm trying to accept responsibility for everything, but I don't know if I really have realized that acceptance yet. And then I have a statement

[62:00]

which I thought I was going to make, but I thought maybe this should be like a concluding statement, but actually I think I might say it now. It's just that last January practice period we had lots of illness. It was more than I think I've ever seen. Almost everybody got the same illness sometime during it. Almost everybody came down with it, at least for a little while. And I was thinking that this practice period that we haven't been as much illness, but now towards the end of it, the illness of, again, the general environment is starting to sink in and we're a little bit falling apart here, but at the same time, I appreciate the great effort that some of you are making in the midst of your illnesses to join the practice and keep the practice going to the end. And I just wanted to say that I think we're all noticing

[63:01]

a little bit of getting difficult to go on. And yet we are, pretty well. So, congratulations and thank you. May our intention equally extend to every being. I vow to save them. And if it is my impossible, I vow to defend them. And I vow to be helpless.

[64:02]

I vow to defend them. And if the world is made impossible, which it has to go, I vow to defend. I vow to defend.

[64:14]

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