There's a work by a great teacher, Vasubandhu, who's in our lineage. One of his most important works is called Avidharma Kosha. At the beginning, he asks the question, what is avidharma? Kosha means a storehouse, a treasury. What is avidharma? He answers the question by saying, avidharma is prajna, and it's sweet. Not prajna and it's sweet, but prajna and, there's not an apostrophe in there, it's, sweet is w, I mean s-u-i-t, but, but the other way I've never heard of it.

[01:18]

So avidharma is prajna and it's sweet, and avidharma is prajna and it's sweet, and avidharma is Prajna and it's sweet. It's sweet means that when Prajna and Prajna means Wisdom and it means when Wisdom arrives it actually has a context, a psychic context, so that's also included in the Wisdom. And then he says, well what's Wisdom? And he says, Wisdom is the discernment of Dharmas. And Dharmas means, in this case, Phenomenon. And then there's a story about Vasubandhu teaching one of his students, his name is

[02:48]

Manohitha. Manohitha asked Vasubandhu, what is the enlightenment of all the Buddhas? And then Manohitha says, what's the original nature of mind? And Vasubandhu says, it's the emptiness of the sense data, the sense organs, and the sense consciousnesses. So, enlightenment of the Buddhas, what is it? It's the nature of mind, equals the nature

[03:57]

of mind, the original nature of mind. And what's the original nature of mind? Well, in this case he chose to say, it's the emptiness of the eighteen elements, which are the sense data of colors, sounds, smells, tastes, and tangibles, and also mental data, all kinds of mental phenomena that we can be aware of. So the sixth category, the sixth type of data is mental phenomena, like feelings, and emotions, perceptions, mental phenomena like feeling

[05:08]

enthusiastic or sleepy, or distracted or concentrated, these kinds of mental phenomena are mental data. And then there's the mental, the sense organs, eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and tongue, and then mind organ, the part of the mind that serves as the organ function for being aware of mental objects. And then there's the six consciousnesses which go with each of those senses. Eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, touch consciousness, body consciousness, mouth consciousness, taste consciousness, and mind consciousness. The emptiness of all those things is the original nature of mind. Emptiness is the original nature of mind, and the original nature of mind is an emptiness,

[06:23]

or it's a bunch of emptinesses. The original nature of mind, according to Vasubandhu, is an emptiness. Emptiness is the nature of mind. The Heart Sutra which he just said, it said in the context of emptiness, there's no eye, ears, nose, tongue, body, and mind. In emptiness, we don't have mind. The Heart Sutra means that in emptiness, there's nothing that you can recognize as mind.

[07:31]

In emptiness, the signs by which you recognize mind, for example, or the signs by which you recognize colors, or the signs by which you recognize the function of the eye organ, or the signs by which you recognize eye consciousness, those signs have been eliminated by the mind which is contemplating emptiness. So in emptiness, in that context, none of these things appear. It's not that they don't exist, because it is, for example, in the emptiness of a color that you do not find the color. When you see a color, you are seeing a color, and there is a color, and you are experiencing a color,

[08:39]

but when you realize the original nature of mind, together with the color, in that context of the emptiness of the color, the eye, and the sense consciousness, there is no color, and there is no eye, and there is no eye consciousness appearing. It's not that they don't exist, it's just that there's no way to grasp them, and there never was. And that's the original nature of mind, is that it's ungraspable, and that's the enlightenment of all Buddhists. Enlightenment of all Buddhists is a mind that can't be grasped. The enlightenment of ordinary, unenlightened people, which is sometimes called illusion, is that things can be grasped. We dream that we can grasp things, and so when there does, then things do appear.

[09:41]

In ordinary experience, the signs by which we grasp things have not been eliminated. So that's not the context of emptiness, that's the context of form, feelings, perceptions, formations, and consciousness. In that context, we can grasp things. But the Heart Sutra just said that when you see the emptiness of things, in the context of realizing the emptiness of the five aggregates, or the 18 elements, no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no coating, no soreness, no impression, taste, no object of mind, no eye consciousness, no ear consciousness, no nose consciousness, no tongue consciousness, no body consciousness, no mind consciousness. In that context of realizing the emptiness of these things, they can appear. The Heart Sutra does not say that this emptiness of these things, and the fact of these things not appearing, is the original nature of mind. It doesn't say that.

[10:56]

So the early Abhidharma teaches us to experience five aggregates, and for example also the 18 elements. It teaches us to feel, to learn, to see how colors and eye organs and eye consciousnesses arise together. It teaches us to see that there is no self of the experiencing person, in addition to those elements. The Heart Sutra then says, when you understand the emptiness of these things, then they aren't there. Because understanding the emptiness of them is seeing them without any way to grasp them. Or, it's seeing that ultimately no one can grasp them. They can't be grasped. You can only grasp them because they come with graspers.

[12:00]

But when you use the grasper, you get the grasp. If you get the grasp, then you don't get the thing. The thing cannot be grasped. Because it's not separate from you. You are in immediate relationship with everything, and in your immediate relationship with everything, in your unmediated rapport with all things, you are in a state of interdependence, where you create everything that you're aware of, and everything you're aware of creates you. This is the original nature of mind, and this is the Buddha's enlightenment. The Buddha's enlightenment is the way you, each of you, and everything else in the universe, are in this reciprocal relationship of mutual support. That's actually the Buddha's enlightenment. Vasubandhu says, his teaching about how to realize Buddha's enlightenment is to say, Buddha's enlightenment is the original nature of mind.

[13:08]

You know what's the original nature of mind? Emptiness of the 18 elements. The Heart Sutra also wants you to realize Buddha's enlightenment, but it just immediately tells you that the 18 elements are empty. It doesn't tell you, which is in some ways obvious, maybe it's not so obvious, which doesn't tell you that the 18 elements being empty is the original nature of mind. It just tells you that everything is empty, all dharmas are empty, and it tells you that in the context of all dharmas being empty, in that context, nothing's appearing. Because nothing's out there separate, because you've realized the emptiness of separation from things by which you're able to grasp. See, that's the Mahayana. The Heart Sutra is the Mahayana.

[14:12]

But it's not really Mahayana Abhidharma, it's Mahayana refuting the Abhidharma, or subverting the Abhidharma, or almost nullifying the Abhidharma. However, it's based on the Abhidharma. It uses the Abhidharma as its platform upon which it tells you how to be immediate with your experience. So it says, got an experience of light? Well, usually we say that that's our consciousness, I, and light coming together to give rise to this experience. Based on that, if that is the platform, now, be in that experience in such a way that you're so immediate that the experience does not appear to you, that you're in the experience in such a way that the experience makes you, and you make the experience,

[15:17]

so close that the experience is now not an object anymore, not an appearance, you can't see it. In that context, there isn't any experience of, for example, color. There's now an experience of the I, and there's now an experience of our consciousness. But of course, this actual experience is an experience of the color, and your mind is operating, but this way of operating is the original nature of your mind, which is clear, not grasping, and completely intimate with everything it knows, with no separation, and no mediation. The Heart Sutra says, just take this away and go for it. But it doesn't tell you that this is mind.

[16:19]

It tells you there is no mind in this situation, which is true, but that there is no mind means there's no appearing mind. Lhasa Bandha now tells you that's the original nature of mind. Lhasa Bandha is very interesting for many reasons, but one is that he gives early Abhidharma teaching, and then he gives the pre-Mahayana Abhidharma teaching, and then he gives the post-Mahayana Abhidharma teaching. So he gives early Buddhist teaching, conceptual teaching on Abhidharma, and then he gives the teaching on Abhidharma which incorporates emptiness, the teaching of emptiness into it. So in Abhidharma Kosha he teaches you, the second chapter of Abhidharma Kosha is called the Dhatus,

[17:25]

and Dhatus means elements. It's 18 Dhatus. The name of the second chapter is Dhatus, and the reason why it's Dhatus is because among the different named classifications, are classifications for categorical analysis of experience, and again categorical analysis means conceptual analysis. Among the main conceptual analysis that the Buddhist meditators used were the Skandhas, the Twelve Sense Doors, and the Twelve Sense Doors, which again is a subset of the 18, the eye, and the color, the ear, and the sound.

[18:27]

So there's 12, another set that we used, and then the next set, so 18 we add in on top of the 12, we add in the six consciousnesses, which go with those two sets of six sense pairs. The Dhatus is the 18, and we spent most of the chapter analyzing the Dhatus, teaching you all about Dhatus. We have this excellent Zen story of Vasubandhu, teaching the original nature of mind, emptiness of the 18 Dhatus, and then the author of the Abhidharmakosha, is a big Dhatu fan, he really likes Dhatu meditations, and like I said, in chapter 2, he gives you many ways, many different ways

[19:28]

to look at these 18 elements, many different ways to conceptually analyze this conceptual analysis program, many different ways to categorize and re-categorize and shuffle them and sit from them, all kinds of different ways, very interesting. It's kind of like, actually a little bit like a Dhatu catechism. He says, how many of the Dhatus are wholesome, how many are unwholesome, how many of the Dhatus can be touched, how many cannot be touched, how many Dhatus are pure, all these kind of quizzes on the Dhatus. Chapter 2, Abhidharmakosha. And in the same person, then, supposedly, after his conversion to the Mahayana, he still is tying the conversion to the teaching of emptiness back into, versus converted to Mahayana,

[20:28]

to Mahayana, which means, converted to, really, the immediate relationship with your life, with no separation. And then, he uses the teachings of the Dhatus and the teachings of the nature of mind to help us realize emptiness. It's the same as saying, he uses emptiness to help us realize the mind. Grounding the process of realizing emptiness in teachings about mind, using emptiness to realize mind. The Heart Sutra really wants to do that too, but it doesn't tell us that what it's doing is helping us realize the original nature of mind. It's just saying, it's relieving us from all of our conceptual ideas about mind.

[21:29]

It's relieving us from any separation from mind. So, it's a little different. So, once again, the early teachings of the Buddha, according to one story, anyway, a Mahayana story, is that when he first started teaching, people asked him to teach and he taught, not so much the Mahayana, he just taught immediate realization. He just taught a way of approaching truth with no undrafting. And some people, non-historical people, you know, celestial bodhisattvas, that was fine for them, but the people, the historical beings that were walking around in India, they said, would you try another approach, please?

[22:33]

So then he tried a conceptual approach, where he taught the middle way of avoiding extremes, extreme views of existence, which is another way of teaching emptiness. The middle way is another way to teach emptiness. But he gave a conceptual approach. The way he taught emptiness was to say, first of all, to say, indulging in addiction to sense pleasure is one extreme. Indulging in addiction to self-mortification is another extreme. These two kinds of addictions distract you from the original nature of mind. He didn't say it that way, he said they're just extremes. Avoiding these extremes, he said, which you can conceive of,

[23:38]

you can notice yourself indulging in the addiction to sense pleasure, or you can notice yourself indulging in the addiction to self-mortification. Those extremes, indulging in them, take you away from your immediate relationship with sense pleasure and self-mortification. He didn't say self-mortification is an extreme, and he didn't say sensual pleasure is an extreme. He said being addicted to indulging in them, just to experience them directly, immediately, is the middle way. But he gave people a way to see, conceptually, veering away from immediacy. He was trying to teach them the immediacy of emptiness, but they weren't ready to just immediately leap into it. So he gave them this teaching. And he gave the middle way again,

[24:41]

in another way. He said there's two extremes, two ways to deviate away from the middle path. One is everything exists, the other is nothing exists, or everything doesn't exist. Those are two other ways to veer away from emptiness. One exaggerates things too much, the other one underestimates things. So in other words, in emptiness, things cannot be grasped, you can't find them in emptiness, because in emptiness there's no eyes, no ears, no nose, no tongue, no body, no mind, no color, no sound, no smell, no taste, right? You can't find anything in emptiness. So, obviously, it's not true that everything really exists. That's too much. But to say they don't exist at all is too little.

[25:45]

Because emptiness doesn't mean that there's no eyes, it just means in emptiness there's no eyes. We wouldn't be saying emptiness of eyes if there weren't eyes. We don't talk about the emptiness of eyes that don't exist. We're talking about the eyes that you have. Those are empty. The ones that you got, you know, behind your sunglasses. Those are, those are, those eyes, those nicely functioning eyes, those are empty. They're empty, they're marked by emptiness. Your nose is marked by emptiness, your ears are marked by emptiness. We wouldn't be talking about your ears if you didn't have ears. You do have ears. And you have skin. We wouldn't be talking about your skin and telling you that it was marked by emptiness if you didn't have it. You do have, you do have skin. It's just that in emptiness you can't find it. Because there's no skin, really, out there separate from you. But we think there is. We think there's me and my skin. Like there's me and my skin, right?

[26:48]

Yeah, well, it's true, I do have skin. But you, it's just that in emptiness you don't have any skin. In other words, in immediacy you don't have any skin. But you do have skin. And you get into, like, I have skin, skin like this, that's too much. And you say you don't have skin, it's nonsense. Of course you have skin. That was his teaching, middle way. He was teaching emptiness, but he taught it conceptually. And then he also taught four foundations of mindfulness, which I talked about last week. So the first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of what? The first foundation is mindfulness of what? Anybody not saying body? Why don't you all say it?

[27:51]

Why don't you all answer the question? I didn't ask for that yes. The first foundation of mindfulness is? Body. Second foundation of mindfulness is? Feeling. Third foundation of mindfulness is? Mind. Fourth foundation of mindfulness is? Mind. Or mind objects, or mind qualities, different translations. This is a conceptual approach to realizing emptiness. The Buddha did not say emptiness in its basic teachings on the four foundations of mindfulness. One of his most important scriptures is called Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Now, when I comment on this, it turns into Abhidharma. This is the Buddhist discourse.

[28:55]

The Buddhist says this on this page. And when I comment on it, when I tell you conceptual things about it, by which you can approach and understand it, then it's kind of like I'm teaching you Abhidharma. This Buddhist teaching isn't strictly speaking Abhidharma. Abhidharma is like philosophical and psychological analysis, conceptual analysis, conceptual working on this material. But this material is also conceptually presented. It's giving conceptual access to a direct, non-conceptual wisdom. The Buddha's wisdom is direct and non-conceptual. But in the early teachings, he gave a conceptual approach to the non-conceptual wisdom, which is enlightenment. The original nature of mind is not conceptual.

[29:59]

Although the mind has concepts, the nature of mind is not conceptual. The nature of mind is that it is totally magnificent and beautiful, and nothing can grasp it. No concept can grasp the mind. The fact that no mind can grasp, that no mind can grasp, that no concept can grasp mind, and the fact that mind is not grasped by any concept is its original nature. Or because of its original nature, no concept can grasp it, and it's being free of any conceptual grasping, if it's emptiness of conceptual grasping. And it's emptiness, period. And that's its original nature. The Buddha gives the conceptual approach to realize the original nature of mind.

[31:02]

In this text and other texts, too. But he didn't say so here, because he wasn't in the mood. People weren't up for that at this particular moment when he gave this wonderful teaching. He says, yogis, monks, ladies and gentlemen, this is the direct path to the purification of beings. In a way, it's not the direct path. It's a little bit roundabout or indirect. He's not just immediately initiating you into the purification, giving you a little bit of a roundabout approach to the purification, but telling you that this is the direct path.

[32:04]

It is a path, though, but it's not direct. It's indirect, it's conceptual. It's a conceptual approach to a situation where you're going to give up conception. He's conceptually warming you up to think it would be okay if you took a break from conception. He's warming you up to let go of the signs by which you grasp the moment. He's warming you up not to be able to find anything. He's giving you something to find so you can use that stuff to warm up. I'm going to teach you now the direct path of purification of beings for surmounting the sorrows and lamentations for the disappearance of pain and grief for the attainment of the true way for the realization of nirvana

[33:08]

namely the four foundations of mindfulness. So again, this is a path to all those wonderful accomplishments. I agree that it's not direct. It's conceptual. And we can analyze this conceptually and then this is our normal autodromic work. Conceptually, minutely analyze these concepts which the Buddha offers people to approach non-conceptual wisdom. And he says, what are the four? Here monks, a monk abides contemplating body as body. Ardent, fully aware and mindful, having put away covetousness and grief for the world.

[34:11]

So this is a conceptual a conceptual instruction so you can conceive of how to enter into the direct path for purification and surmounting all pain and suffering. How do you do it? You contemplate body as body. Can you picture that? Sure you can. You can conceive of that. First of all you conceive of a body then you conceive of contemplating the body as a body. That's a certain type of contemplation. You didn't say contemplate the body as cute or contemplate the body as ugly. You didn't say contemplate the body as losing control of it. You said just contemplate the body as body so he told you about what

[35:12]

gave you an image of something to contemplate which you can imagine a body and contemplate as a body. This is a conceptual approach to what? To the original nature of mind that the Enlightenment brought with us. You didn't say I'm going to teach you the direct path. Give up any mediation. See you later. Or another way they used to do it was you come in and sit down and walk out. That was another non-conceptual approach. But they didn't like that. So Manjushri said, did you see what he did? Look, he did something there. Look at what he did. Imagine he just did something. How did this eraser get on my tea tray?

[36:17]

Sometimes he just came in and sat down and then got up and left. And sometimes Manjushri didn't say anything. And some people got it. They got cool, cool, cool. Wow! Sometimes that's the way it was. He himself was sitting under the tree. Remember that one? Sitting under the tree. And Venus went, good morning, sweetheart. And he got it. She didn't even say good morning, sweetheart. She just went. He got it. Immediately. It was just immediate. He realized the enlightenment of all Buddhas. Nobody told him. Do you see what Venus is doing? Can you see how that's like? No. Just directly he realized that there's no Venus out there except for from Shakyamuni. He really liked that.

[37:27]

And he was very struck and touched and relieved and happy. He finally realized the way that he'd been wanting to realize for so many, many, many wonderful lifetimes. The thought kind of crossed his mind that nobody's going to get this. They want to get something. They wouldn't be able to. How could they enter into this subtlety where there's no conceptual approach? Forget it. I'm just going to enjoy it. And I'm going to enjoy that they all totally are included but they don't get it. I'm going to enjoy that they don't get it. And people said, please make a conceptual version. Give us the conceptual. We don't want to actually have the real thing. Give us the conceptual. He said, okay. All right. And he did. There's a middle way that has been realized.

[38:28]

And what is it? I'll tell you. So he did. That's the middle way. And then he says, yes. The Eightfold Path. Then he did another conceptual thing. It's right view. Right intention. Right life. Concepts. We cannot, sure enough, you can practice those concepts. Imagine what right view is. Well, what's right? What's middle path? That's like, depending on ignorance, karmic formations. Depending on karmic formations, realistic consciousness. Depending on realistic consciousness and so on. More conceptual information about what? About the immediacy of our life in which nothing can be grasped and everything's happening, everything else on. And here he says, body. Mindful of body. As body. And at the end he says,

[39:30]

what did he say? At the end of that whole section? He said, having put away covetousness and grief for the world. That's another way of saying. Walk around, sit around, stand around, lie around, you know. Got a body? Stand, walk, sit, lie down. And if you have to, do something between those. And contemplate the body. In the standing posture, for example, or in the sitting posture. Contemplate it. At Guru's end, contemplate the body. Contemplate the body stepping over the threshold. Walking down the stairs, sitting down. Contemplate that body. Add the body, which means give up covetousness and grief. Contemplate the body

[40:35]

while giving up covetousness about the body, like wishing that you had a better body, wishing that you had a body that, I don't know what, was thinner or fatter or better joints. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't have orthoscopic surgery or go to the orthopedist tomorrow. But, the Buddha is saying, give up grief about those needs in your meditation on the body. Give up grief. And also, if you're, joints get kind of like, get all liquidy and juicy and young again, give up covetousness for more of that. It's okay to be grateful. My knees don't hurt. Wow! That's okay. Being concerned for getting a little bit more pain relief here? This is not contemplation of the body as body. Does that make sense? This is a conceptual approach to enlightenment.

[41:35]

You can conceive of it, right? Do you conceive of being that way with your body? Of going around like, not being covetous about your body, wanting it to be a little bit something else? Can you imagine that? Being that way, at least for a few seconds occasionally? Like, okay, just don't, like, I'm just going to forget about my body being somewhat better for a minute. Just this one. I'm just going to give up being concerned about all the healthy bodies that I lost. Those young, healthy bodies. Like the leg I used to have. This really powerful leg that used to just, like, Hey man, let's do it! I don't have that leg anymore. Now I have a leg that says, Well, I'll just be careful now. I'll just be watching out. I'll just let that leg with no grief. With no grief. That's a conceptual approach of how to be with your body. Got a body? This is how to be with it. Which is

[42:39]

the path to enlightenment. And then what else? Ardent. Alert. And mindful. Remember, mindful means, in this case, has these three dimensions. They're all mindfulness. But particularly mindfulness in this case means remember to contemplate your body when you're doing contemplation of the body. Remember? If you choose this practice of contemplating your body, remember that you chose it, and then remember that you chose it, and remember that you chose it, and remember that you chose it, and everything. But how can you remember that you chose it? I say, well, here's your mindfulness machine. Just strap this to your hip. And as soon as you stop being mindful of your body, it will zap you. And you say, Now what's that zapping for? That's mindfulness. Why did you zap me? Because you stopped being mindful of it. Oh, okay. So we have these things which you can buy in the bookstore. You just wear them all the time. That would help you remember

[43:40]

which mindfulness practice you're practicing. You can tune in also feelings and consciousness. When you're doing the consciousness movement, you move it up to your head, though. And then you put it in your heart. If you lose track of your feelings, you get the shock. Like a little sorrow comes up. What's that for? Oh, yeah, feelings. You remember that you're doing this practice. Conceptual. If it's conceptual, you've got to remember. Next, ardent. Ardent means you want to do it. If you think about it, before you start, you check to see if you want to do it. Don't do it if you don't want to do it. It's not going to work. In order to do this conceptual approach, you have to say, Do you want to do this conceptual?

[44:41]

Do you want to practice this practice? This conceptual approach? Ardent. Warm about it. And then the other one is alert, which means you don't miss opportunities. When you're given a body experience, you would use that one rather than waiting for the next one. Alert means this one, [...] this one. Now, you may say, Well, if I was waiting for the next one, I might catch it earlier. No, no. The more you get this one, the more you'll catch the beginning of the next one. This one, this one, this one. That's alert. With no grief or covetousness about it. Just work with whatever body you're given. Whatever body you're given. Whatever body you're given. So, of course, this works perfectly with that practice. Going to sit together.

[45:41]

Right? Perfectly. This is a perfect conceptual approach to our sitting practice. However, it's a conceptual approach. It's not the actual practice. It's not the original nature of mind. Our actual practice is the original nature of mind. It's the enlightenment of all Buddhas. That's the actual practice. The practice of Buddha is the enlightenment of all Buddhas. The enlightenment of Buddhas is the practice of Buddhas. What's the practice of Buddhas? It's realizing. It's the realization of the original nature of mind. But this is a conceptual approach to that. And then there's the same thing for feelings. So that's a conceptual approach. This is still a conceptual approach. This is not the teaching of the Heart Sutra. The Heart Sutra does not give you a conceptual approach. It gives you these concepts, but the concepts are all about giving up your conceptual approach, of saying

[46:48]

that it's really, it's basically nowhere, this conceptual approach. Grow up and realize the way now. Don't wait. You can find all over the place in orthodontic texts, where they take the conceptual approach and then they work it conceptually. You take the conceptual categories and then you analyze, analyze, analyze the opportunities for analysis. You categorize and recategorize, like Vasubandhu did. All kinds of different ways of conceptually playing with the conceptual approach. The first thing here, anyway, is you just basically settle into the body as a conceptual thing, with no messing around. Does that make sense? And like Bert has me today, he raised this, when he was teaching the Buddha, he gave this

[47:53]

young guy, his name is Bahiya. I think actually, yeah, I think the story, you don't want to hear the whole story. Bert, you don't want to hear the whole story. So Bahiya, he sees the Buddha walking around town, I think, is that right? And he says, excuse me, Master, can I ask you a question? And the Buddha says, it's not a good time. I've got some appointments to go to. Maybe later. He says, no, please. And I think he says, you know, I could be killed in a minute. I can't wait till later to get this teaching from you. Anyway, they finally come down to that, and he says, okay. Okay, Bahiya, train yourself thus. In the scene,

[48:59]

there will be just the scene. In the herd, there'll be just the herd. In the tasted, well actually, he says, in the reflected, there'll be just the reflected, but that's shorthand for. In the tasted, there'll be just the tasting. In the touch, there'll be just the touch. In the smell, there'll be just the smell, shorthand for that. And in the imagined, there'll be just the imagined. Now, in the touch there will be just the touched, or in the seen there will be just the seen, or in the tasted there will be just the tasted. That's basically the body. So it's basically saying, in your body there will be just the body. That's it. Just like this. Same instruction, but specially designed for Baha'u'llah. Now He says, when

[50:01]

for you, in the seen there's just the seen, and in the heard there's just the heard, and in the smell, taste, and touch there's just the smell, taste, and touch. And in the cognized, conceptually cognized, there's just the conceptually cognized, then you will not identify with the seen, and so on. Or dis-identify. In other words, when you get to be that way, you will get to the place where there won't be you in it. You won't be able to identify with it, or dis-identify. It's not like, it is me, or it's not me. You won't do that anymore. You'll just be this big piece of body. That's it. And, when you don't identify with it,

[51:09]

or dis-identify, you won't locate yourself in it, or outside of it. And there will be no here, or there, or in between, about anything, and that will be the end of suffering. And the body woke up. And he said, may I join your group? And Guriya said, OK. Do you have a rolling bowl? He said, no. He said, get one, bring it to me, and you can join our group. So he went off, to get a rolling bowl, and he was run over by a water buffalo. Somebody said, really? That's the conceptual story. That's the story that's in the scriptures, is that he got killed right after. While he was looking for somebody to give him the

[52:12]

equipment that he needed to get ordained, he got killed by a water buffalo. He said, I might get killed any minute, so please give me teaching now. And people heard about that, they were very, of course, they were sorry not to practice with this guy, a wonderful person. And Guriya said, don't worry. And he told them the good news about what was going to happen next for him. So it's OK. If you get run over by a water buffalo after enlightenment, it's not a big problem. If you're not enlightened, you should get the teaching soon, just in case, when you do get it. So, you got it. Now it might not just your cup of tea like it was for him, but there it is. It's basically the same teaching. The first phase is, let things just be that way. The next phase is, actually, these are

[53:26]

called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. Sometimes they're called the Four Establishments of Mindfulness. Like I said, it's Sati, it's Mindfulness. In Sanskrit, it's Smriti. Is In Pali, it's Upatana. In Sanskrit, it's Upa... [...] So, this can be translated as Foundation or Establishment. So the first phase in the

[54:31]

Establishment of Mindfulness is to establish yourself, for example, establish yourself in Mindfulness of the body, as the body, with no covetousness or grief, just completely let the body be the body, let the sound be the sound, let the sight be the sight. That's the Establishment. And you maybe heard me do this thing parallel to this scenario I showed you before, which is, I sometimes say trust, relax, trust, relax. What's the next one? Play. What's the next one? Create. What's the next one? Realize. Realize or understand, understand, dash, realize, and then liberate. Okay, so I now say, instead

[55:51]

of just trust, I would say maybe entrust, entrust, or dash, commit. When you entrust yourself to someone, you don't necessarily trust them, in the sense of, it's more like, you know, you go to the doctor, and you have a broken leg, and they say, I'm sorry, we have to operate on you, and you go, okay, here we go. It isn't that I trust that he's not going to screw up, but I entrust myself to him, and he did a pretty good job. Really did a great job, actually. Great job. I'm not getting into any grief around this. Just he did a great job. I entrusted myself to him, but I did not think this is safe. So a lot

[56:57]

of people say, trusting people, but it isn't that you should trust people, but you maybe do entrust yourself to someone. Okay, here I am. So you commit, in this case you commit, you entrust yourself to mindfulness of the body as the body. You entrust yourself. And then, part of getting into it is to relax with this entrustment. The entrustment is settling to the entrustment. And to what are you committing then? Well, in this case, this is an example of foundation of mindfulness, right? The first phase of foundation of mindfulness is basically, I would say, the first phase is commit to it and relax with it. Commit to mindfulness of the body and relax with it.

[58:03]

And then the Buddha says, this is later, he does this for the body and then he does it for the feelings and then he does it, you know. Establish mindfulness. Establish mindfulness or use the body as a foundation for mindfulness first. In this way we just talked about, ardent, alert, mindful, giving up grief and covetousness with regard to the world, you know, in relationship to this meditation on body. Okay? He does the same thing with feelings, has feelings in the same way, mind is in the same way. But let's just say, by. So you commit to practicing mindfulness with the body. Okay? Just like, as you might do, just go in there in the morning, sit in there, get on your neck, sit in the Zen room, you commit to being mindful of your body on the Krishna. Right?

[59:16]

It's a conceptual approach, but you commit to this conceptual approach. You entrust your life to mindfulness of the body. Second after second, minute after minute, hour after hour, year after year, you do that practice, many people do, and you try to do it, giving up covetousness and grief vis-a-vis the world, vis-a-vis whatever you're practicing mindfulness of. That's the foundation, that's the establishment of the program, is commit to the mindfulness practice and relax with it. Relax with it means again, not having any covetousness, not having any expectations. It isn't like, sit with a little bit of an expectation. Of course, if you do have a little bit of an expectation, fine. Sit with a little expectation

[60:20]

and then drop it. Just relax. Give me your expectations, hand them over. I should do that during session. Give me your expectations. You want to get something out of this period? Just toss them all over here, I'll take care of them for you. If you need any expectations back, let me know. I might confuse you with somebody else, but you wouldn't mind, would you? This wasn't my expectation. This sounds familiar. Somehow my expectations got mixed up with somebody else's. Sometimes it might look out fine, because somebody else might have a better expectation than you have. But I'm talking about this practice is hand over your expectations in a nice way. Don't spit on them, don't throw them at me. Just relax with the commitment.

[61:23]

Just settle into it. That's what entrust means, you really entrust yourself, even though it's not a very safe situation. You might get sciatica. That's the first part of establishment. The next part of this practice is that you start playing with the thing you're practicing mindful of. Start playing with it. And you can play with it, because you're like, cool, you know? You're like, okay, I committed to this. I mean, I actually committed to this. I've given up expectations, I'm just here, and I'm relaxed. Now I can play. If you start playing before you commit, and before you relax,

[62:27]

it may not be so good. Without a foundation, your playfulness might not be fruitful. But if you commit to something, in this particular case you're committing to mindfulness of your body, which is quite wholesome, generally speaking, especially when you give up the covetousness. It isn't like you're committing to mindfulness of your body, hoping that you get better looking than other people, or that other people will like you better. It's not like that kind of commitment to mindfulness of your body. So you're committing to the precepts here, too. But now you can play. And you're relaxed, so you can play. And there's no particular way to do it. There's no rule. Except that it should be based on being relaxed.

[63:34]

So, again, like I often use with my grandson, sometimes when we're playing, he's not relaxed. Like most sports, if we play a sport, we're supposed to be relaxed. He's playing a sport, supposedly, but he's very unrelaxed about who's going to win. He has expectations, to a great extent, as we say. He expects to win, always, no matter what. And if it's necessary to change the rules so that you win, this is possible. If he changes the rules and it doesn't work that he wins, he can change them again. So we so-called play things, but the playfulness is not so obvious, because he's not very relaxed about outcomes and expectations. So as a result, I'm still trying to relax with him being not relaxed,

[64:36]

to see if maybe someday he'll want to relax and play. But it may be quite a few years before that happens, between me and him. What do I do with that? How do I take care of this little guy? Patience. Relax, I try to relax and I also commit. I commit to him, I commit to mindfulness of my body, actually, very appropriate with him, and watch what's going on physically with him. Things are flying all over the room. So I commit to mindfulness of body, a very big opportunity, no expectation, relax, and try to be playful with somebody who doesn't want to be playful. Be playful with a person who doesn't want to be playful, over and over, over and over. And once in a while, he does want to be playful. Those are the breakthroughs, if you know what I mean.

[65:39]

There's some games that we can't figure out how we would be a winner, you can't figure out the winner thing. Like we're climbing a cliff, you know, and I'm helping him, he can't get up without my help. But then again, he said, well, I got up higher than you. And then he helped me up the tree. I'm higher on the tree than you are. But at first, sometimes he doesn't think of it in a game, he thinks of it more of like cooperation, particularly you help me. But really, I'm not there. I'm not exactly helping him. First of all, I'm helping me. First of all, I'm practicing either a conceptual or a non-conceptual approach to enlightenment. If it's a conceptual approach, I'm mindful of my body,

[66:41]

with no expectation, and I'm trying to relax with him. And if I can do that, then I can be... then I can help him. Then I can be patient. But if I've got expectations and I'm not aware of them, and I haven't dropped them, and he starts bossing me around, it's going to be hard for me to be patient and non-violent. Does that make sense? The next phase, the Buddha says, after you establish yourself in mindfulness of the body, the next phase will be contemplated internally, in other words, mindfulness of your body, and externally, in other words, be mindful of other people's body too. So first, mindfulness of your body, and you can be mindful of other bodies. I told you the acrobat story last week, right? So first, mindfulness of your body. And then, OK, let's do that.

[67:42]

No, I can't do that. I have to get in this position to do it. There was a phase in which my daughter, as she was growing up, she got bigger and bigger, and at a certain point she got quite big. I don't know how to say her actual weight, but she's about 5'9", and she's a big girl. And she would do what she did when she was a little girl, which was come running and jump on me. And at a certain phase in my development, I said, wait until I get stronger before you do that. So I started lifting weights. And after a couple of years, I said, OK, now you can jump on me again. When she was little, it was OK, but when she got to be really big, and she came running and jumping on my back, I said, that's right, but now I'm going to... So anyway, I had to be aware of my body in order to be able to be mindful of other people's bodies. So first internally, then externally, then internally and externally, about the body. Body mindfulness is the easiest thing to do on other people.

[68:43]

But start with yourself. You're much more able to... What's his name now? Balanchine, right? He was very aware of other people's bodies, but he was aware of his own body first. He knew from his own mindfulness of his body, so then he could be mindful of other people's bodies, and then he could do it together. So this would be a great dance that you could enter into with people. Mindfulness, mindfulness, mindfulness, and then you can relax, and this is the foundation. Commit to be mindful here, mindful there, mindful together, and then relax, and now you can start playing. So then after you're established, then the Buddha says... After this, establish mindfulness inwardly, outwardly, both inwardly and outwardly, and then he says, or, in other words, the next phase, abide contemplating the body

[69:45]

in its originating factor, or abide contemplating the body in its disappearing or vanishing factors. In other words, start playing with the body. In other words, you start being creative with the body. Or feelings, or consciousness. Just start with the body. It's so nice. So this means that part of the practice here is when you're sitting in meditation, or walking in meditation, you establish yourself in this. You establish yourself. You build a foundation of mindfulness of the body in relationship to other bodies. You're doing that. You're sitting in this end of... You're aware of your body as a basis for being aware of other bodies, and then back and forth. Now, walking meditation, and following, all these things, you're in this sea of mindfulness of bodies, as bodies, giving up covetousness

[70:46]

and grief about your body and other people's bodies. This is the space that you're grounded in now. You relax with that, which makes you more grounded. And then, start pointing. And then, start being creative. That's what it says here. The word it teaches. It teaches this. I sit. This is my analysis. My conceptual analysis. And he says, or, in other words, the next phase, or your mindful quotes there, is a body, unquote, simply to establish yourself enough so that there's bare knowledge and mindfulness. And then you abide independent, not clinging to anything in the world.

[71:48]

So, once you're in this creative situation with your body, for example, but also, awareness, consciousness, once you're in this creative space, then you stop making any contribution at all. And then you realize immediacy. This is foreshortened in when for you there's just a scene, when for you there's just a scene and a scene and a herd and a herd, then you will not locate yourself in things. The final phase is you're aware of things, but there's no construction there's no input. It's not that you're not being creative anymore, it's just that you're understanding. You're just realizing directly with no mediation. So, this phase of this early teaching is where the early teaching, I feel, merges with my own.

[72:50]

But he has this elaborate, fairly elaborate conceptual approach to the point of realizing this non-conceptual intimacy with all the things you're being creative with. And then that's when you don't cling to anything in the world. You don't cling to anything in the world because you realize that nothing in the world is out there separate from you. There's no here or there or in between. There's no cleaning possible. Now you realize your immediate relationship with the turkeys and the gophers and the foxes and the people and the good students and the bad students and everybody. In all your experiences, your body and you

[73:52]

are not two. Your feelings and you are not two. Other people's bodies and your body are not two. They're the same nature. They're the same process of ritual support. Now you enter that by this process. So this is an example of, I feel, where the Buddha gave the teaching, but it's at the end of the teaching that he created where the Heart Sutra starts. And part of the Mahayana of Abhidharma is to be able to go back and look at the early Abhidharma, do the early Abhidharmic analysis of the Buddha's teaching and come up with the Mahayana in the early teaching. And particularly to use Abhidharmic analysis of the early teaching according to the early teaching's way of doing Abhidharmic analysis, which I just did with you somewhat. And then work it to the point of realizing the Heart Sutra

[74:58]

and continue with the Abhidharmic analysis to demonstrate that the nature of the Buddha's enlightenment is the nature of mind, which is the emptiness of, for example, the 15 elements, which means the emptiness of the body, the first five, the first 15 elements are body. Basically, the body means body and mind because there's no body experience without mind, so the first 15 are eye, ear, nose, tongue, and skin. Basically, skin is the basic one. And these other ones are just like dents in the skin. And then the media impacting the skin, dancing with the skin,

[75:58]

and the skin dancing with the media. The skin and the media co-creating each other. I mean, the media and the organs co-creating each other. And the consciousness arising from that, and that's our experience, our bodily experience. And we practice mindfulness of this body and realize the emptiness of the 18 elements. The emptiness of the 18 elements is the original nature of mind, which we realize. So by realizing the emptiness of these physical experiences, by realizing the emptiness of the body, we realize the original nature of mind. Which is the enlightenment of all Buddhas. I'm sorry that I talked so long, but it took all that time just to get that little bit out there. The same could be done with feelings.

[77:05]

The same process could go through, except that we're doing with feelings, we would be mostly emphasizing actually just, basically just two doctrines in a way, or three doctrines. Mental data, mental consciousness, and mental organs, because feeling is a mental phenomenon. And consciousness is the same. Not sensation? Not sensation, but it means positive, negative, and neutral sensation. It's translated as sensation sometimes, but it doesn't mean like a color sensation. I mean like a physical. Like a physical, color's physical. Do you mean something physical like taste? Or do you mean something physical like smell? Or do you mean like touch? I think you're thinking closest to touch.

[78:07]

Yeah, see, you confuse physical with touch. It's not just touch, it's also smell. Or you could say that smell is touch, but you didn't think smell was touch, a little while ago. You didn't think hearing was touch. But actually hearing, smelling, touching, it's hearing, smelling, seeing, and tasting are actually touches, basically touches. The body is, in the Buddha dharma, the body is not arms and legs, those are conceptual things. The body is five sense organs. That's the body. What about something like pressure? Pressure's skin. Yeah, there's a pressure in the skin, in the inside. Yeah, that's what we call this. Corporeal scepter. Touch. Touch. You can feel it in the silence. Who knew that? Anyway, that's the body. In mindfulness, the body includes

[79:10]

15 out of the 18. But the feelings, when we're talking about feelings, it's not talking about feeling purple, or feeling hot. It means feeling positive, negative, neutral, sensational. Now, it could be positive, negative, neutral, sensational, or hot. It could be a positive, negative, neutral, or hot, or cold, or smell of eggs, or blue. You could accompany those, so you could multiply them that way, and have them be the feelings of the five kinds of sense, physical sense, multiplied up to, again, 15 types. And there's mindfulness of consciousness, the same thing there. And that's discussed here, too. So, in the remaining three seconds,

[80:13]

do you have any questions? You gave the four foundations of mindfulness, and the last one, Dharma. The first three, you had that word Dharma in front of it. Does that mean those first three are not considered Dharmas? The first three are, one way to look at the first three are, those are just sort of three categories for what's happening. This is what's given to you in a moment. So, any experience you're having right now? You could have the first category under the first category, under the fourth category, is the hindrances. The hindrances could be happening to you. So, they can be given to you. You might not be aware of them. If you're feeling agitated, you might not be aware of it. Like, I just swallowed, and I experienced something in my throat, and I see you people.

[81:15]

These are things that are given to me, and I'm being able to see you. I'm not making this happen. It's given to me, given to me. But the last category is, generally speaking, it's phenomena which interfere with you being able to be mindful of previous categories. Like, the five hindrances interfere with you being able to practice mindfulness in these various ways with the body, feelings, and consciousness. And then, the other categories like the five skandhas are ways to develop your meditation on the previous three. The five skandhas give you another analysis by which you can apply to body, feeling, and consciousness.

[82:18]

So, body is the first skandha, feeling is the second skandha, and the consciousness includes the third, fourth, and fifth skandha. But also, you can apply the five to each one of them. You can apply the five skandhas even to the physical skandha, because you can still think of the other four with the physical one. And then there's the next category that's under the the fourth foundation is the mindfulness of the six, of the twelve sense doors, which means all the sense data and all the sense consciousness in meditation, and then also develops your understanding and your insight into them. And then the next category is form of the truths, so you can apply those to these things. You see how they work with this. So they aid you in developing your insight. The Four Noble Truths

[83:19]

could be used particularly when you start playing with these phenomena, you can start bringing the Four Noble Truths in to play with them. Just like right now, if you have some experience, you can bring the Four Noble Truths into if you feel settled in your experience, you can bring in, for example, the First Noble Truth. And there's some suffering here with your experience, and what's the reason for that? The Second Noble Truth tells you the reason why you're uncomfortable with the experience that you're settled in. So that's how you use the fourth category to work with the previous three. What? Pardon? They are sense desire, which means covetousness, or sense experience. It could be positive or negative. You can wish for self-mortification, which is not so common,

[84:21]

but it used to be more common in India. But mostly it's desire for sense pleasure. And then there's ill will, and then there's agitation, and worry, and then there's doubt, and then there's torpor and sloth. So basically there's five. Sinking down, jacking up, doubt, and ill will, and covetousness. Sense desire. Those are the hindrances. To establishing, to being playful, to being creative, to understanding, and so on. And I think I promised me to go into those sentiments and I didn't go

[85:23]

very deeply into them, did I? I didn't mention them, fortunately. Thanks for asking that question. I don't know if I want to promise to go more into them next time, but I am open to do a considerably more exhaustive examination than has happened so far. If you want to. Thank you. Meanings are numberless. I vow to save them.

[86:36]

Delusions are impossible. I vow to end them. Our bodies are boundless. I vow to enter them. The breathless way is unsurpassable. I vow to become it.

[87:02]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ