Basically, it's mind can be trained to arrive at a state of consciousness in which you take away the VI, and you have knowledge without the appearance even of separation, or knowledge where the appearance of separation is not believed. The first stage is that it still looks kind of like people are separate from you, but you don't believe. Well, the first stage is it looks like people are separate, and you believe that they are. That's the normal state. The next stage is you don't believe it anymore, you're convinced that they're not really. The third stage is you don't even see them that way anymore. Keith? Can we go back to the calm pool? Calm pool, yeah. Wonderful example, but of course the pool is not a human being. So, let's say we're fortunate enough to be witnessing the Buddha sitting, and we're also

[01:05]

watching somebody approach the Buddha, and that somebody pulls a sword and is about to cut the Buddha's head off. Yes. How does, you know, if the Buddha represents the calm pool, water, as that sword approaches the Buddha's head, and the Buddha sees that, the Buddha is not getting caught in story or scared or anything. Is he just saying, well, I need to duck? Is he saying, I need to duck? I mean, he doesn't get, I mean, is it that simple? In other words, you're threatened. Yeah, he might say, I need to duck, or he might say, I have a question. Is it all right to pet on a first date? Or the Buddha might say, just a second, look at me. You know, who do you think I am? Now, the Buddha could have a lot of responses. The Buddha sees the danger of the sword, the Buddha sees a lot of other dangers too. As you know, some people actually wanted to hurt Shakyamuni Buddha, so he did see people

[02:08]

that wanted to hurt him. But he saw also lots of opportunities in those cases, and he could respond to those. So he might duck, he might say something to the person, or he might get his head cut off. Yeah, yeah, that's a possibility too. But as his head's being cut off, since he's so developed, he's serene, and he feels compassion for this person through the whole process. And the person can tell, perhaps even. I'm sorry that I didn't notice earlier how kind this person was. He wouldn't scream if he felt pain. Pardon? He wouldn't scream if he felt pain. Wouldn't scream if he felt pain? He might. We have to test. The Buddha was sick towards the end of his life, and he was in pain.

[03:15]

I don't hear any stories about him making any big sounds, but he was in pain. And I also tell the story that the Buddha had back problems. Sometimes he couldn't sit up to give talks. And he had senior students, like Mahakasyapa, give talks for him. And he gave Mahakasyapa his robe to wear for the talks. And then he reclined while the student was giving the talk, because he couldn't sit up. This is like, you know, years before his final illness. So the Buddha did have physical problems, but whatever problems he had, the Dharma kept coming through. The special transmission continued through the various ups and downs of his physical condition. So his last teachings, while he was sick, were continuity with the earlier teachings,

[04:23]

when he was in better health, so to speak. So the Buddhadharma comes into the world of living beings and can animate, for example, everything. That's not exactly an example. But it can animate a person or an animal. An animal is teaching different ways to people. And when it enters into the human body, it shares the problems of the human body and shows people how the Dharma works with the problems of the human body. And what attracted me to Zen was not the story of someone who had no problems, who had a body that had no problems. That's not so interesting. What's interesting is how does someone who has problems, how do they deal with them, rather than some special case of having no problems. And in the Christian religion, I hadn't been tipped off to looking at Jesus

[05:34]

as a person who taught when he had problems. I was looking at what did Jesus do when he had problems. I was sort of turned off, in some sense, by Jesus in the stories where he didn't have any problems, because when he didn't have any problems, he didn't have any problems. I thought those seemed, you know, not relevant when he could perform miracles and stuff. I wasn't moved by those stories because I thought, well, what's it got to do with daily life? But there's also stories of Jesus, how he handled daily life problems, and those are actually more like stories of the Buddha, how the Buddha handled daily life problems. Yes. I'd like to go back to your question, too, Grace. In the example that you gave, when we get dented, you know, when you and I talked before about being calm or approaching calm, and then something happens and we react. So I get hung up on therapy, thinking that I need to explore why I had the reaction that I had.

[06:43]

And what I understood you saying to Grace is that if I worked more on the serenity, rather than trying to figure it out, that that would actually be more helpful. And when I did have therapy later, it would make more sense. It would be better, later, with a serene mind. Does that make sense? I think that there's some truth to that. That if people who are doing therapy, psychotherapy, if they went to the psychotherapy session in a state of tranquility, that they probably would be able to do a different type of work than if they go when they're totally caught up in their stories. Some people would say, well, I'm a psychotherapist, and almost nobody comes to me in a state of serenity. And almost none of them are able to give up their stories. My job is to, in some sense, help them give up their stories.

[07:47]

But sometimes they do. Sometimes they do give up their stories, and sometimes they do calm down. And then, in psychotherapy, sometimes they get them to start looking at the stories. Looking at the stories means looking for the transmission beyond the stories. And in psychotherapy, if you're looking at the stories to find where is the freedom beyond the stories we have of our life, it would be helpful to be calm. And I think psychotherapists would be happy if they could somehow help their clients become tranquil with their stories, which means give them up for a while, and then look at them. Looking at them then turns into the insight work. Oh, I see. All right. And the only way that tranquility is produced is through sitting and cultivating the mind? The way that tranquility is produced is by giving up discursive thought.

[08:50]

That's the way it's produced. However, as we see, people are saying that they have various little discursive packages which help them give up discursive thought. So some people play the piano, and in order to play the piano, they need to use discursive thought. But as they use discursive thought to play the piano, they give up other kinds of discursive thought, like the stories about how mean everybody is to them. And they have the discursive thought of the mathematics of the keys. So is it doing those other activities with the intention of giving up discursive thought that's helpful then in producing serenity? No, not necessarily. It's the giving it up, not the intention to give it up. Okay. The intention to give up discursive thought is usually necessary for people to give up discursive thought, but not always. Like I say, if you put somebody in a tightrope, they don't necessarily intend to give up discursive thought, but they do, and they don't fall off the tightrope. Or if they're skiing in some very dangerous spot,

[09:52]

they don't necessarily think, okay, I'm going to give up discursive thought, but what happens is they start to be discursive, like they start to think, what if I fall? And then they almost fall. And then they say, I can't afford to think of that. So they stop thinking of falling. And they stop thinking of when are they going to get through this difficult situation. They think of that, and then they all fall over again. So by trial and error, without even noticing, sometimes people, fortunately, discover the mode of giving up discursive thought, and they survive difficult situations because they start to become calm. Or carpenters sharpening blades, they don't say, okay, give up discursive thought, but in fact, as they do it over and over, they maybe find that place. Or like I say, musicians and dancers, they don't say so. They don't necessarily have the intention, but they do. And if they don't, they're less successful at their discipline. And if I'm in the midst of a spin, in the midst of a story.

[10:54]

Yes. That's the usual situation. Then to move in a different direction. No, don't move in a different direction, because that's another story. Okay. Give up the story you're in the midst of. Just poof? Yes. Yes. Just poof. Now you could have a story about giving up the story. But that would be another story. Actually letting go of the story, actually releasing it. Poof. And then another moment happens. A new story comes. Poof. New story. Poof. Actually giving it up. Is that the leap? The food that you were talking to me about? When you said leap? Okay. So it's just poof. And if it's not poof, then you say, well, I'm still, I'm still, I'm in it. Here's a story, and I'm caught up in it. There's not giving up story here.

[11:56]

I'm in discursive thoughts happening, and I'm like totally into it. And I'm even commenting on how totally into it I am. I can do that. I mean, I can get to that point. Yeah. And then sometimes you may be feeling like there's a discursive thought, and then sometimes you're seeing discursive thought, and you're not saying that there's a discursive thought, but you see discursive thought. Or sometimes, you know, you hear other people's discursive thought, and you're listening to them, and they're being very discursive. They're chatting away, telling you stories, and you're listening to their story, and you don't even notice it, but you're just listening to them. You're not saying anything about what they're saying. You're just listening. And you don't even notice that you're not being discursive. No, they're like being very discursive, and you're listening to them, and you're just listening to them, and like you're just going like... You know? And you're not making any comment. You're not thinking, Geez, they're stupid. Geez, they're smart. When are they going to stop? You're just kind of like...

[12:59]

in awe. And if they could keep that up for a while, you would go into a state of concentration. And so some yogis could put people in a state of concentration that way, of talking to them in such a way that they're unable to get involved in discursive thought. Well, you do that for me. And after a while, they wouldn't even know what the person was saying. You do that to me. And they don't even notice it. But you don't always have somebody to talk to you that way, so you need to be, when you hear your discursive thought, you need to be able to listen to it the way you listen to somebody else when you don't comment on what they say. So you hear yourself going, Yeah, but this person... And you just listen to it, and you just don't get involved. And it kind of like stops in that way, because you're not involved.

[14:01]

But as long as it's happening, you just don't get involved. And the more you do that, the calmer you get. That's what does it. Then when you're calm, as it says here, then abiding in that calm, then you start studying the teachings. And then you're much more effective. But if you start studying the teachings before that calm, it's still necessary sometimes to study the teachings, and all of you have been studying the teachings somewhat for quite a while. But most of the time when you're studying the teaching, it was discursive thought on a wholesome topic, but it wasn't Vipassana, because you weren't tranquil. And even if you're studying meditation on insight meditation, and you're learning the teachings about insight meditation, it's not Vipassana until you're studying these teachings on meditation in the context of this special state, and in that special state of tranquility

[15:03]

you have special thinking, special insight, which is what Vipassana means. It's special in the sense that it arises with tranquility. But I don't care how you get tranquil, I don't care what... You can use discursive thought to give up discursive thought. You can totally get into discursive thought as your way of giving up discursive thought. The important point is you give it up, and however is fine. But the point is it's not just to give it up for one moment. So if you find some fancy way to give up discursive thought, like standing on top of a flagpole or tightrope walking, that's fine except that it's hard to keep it up, to stay on a tightrope for hours and hours. So it's good to find something simple and something you can do sitting or walking in a safe environment so you can do it, because it takes quite a while

[16:03]

to actually transform the state of consciousness so that you're actually in a state. So I thought we would just keep looking. These first two pages of this chapter 8 are kind of about this type of meditation, so I just thought for the time being, in service, we'll just keep going over these first two pages. And in class, we will... basically what we're doing is we're trying to find and realize the special transmission outside this text, and we're just using this text as a situation in which to get together to find something which is not about this text. But the text is partly about how to get ready for the special transmission, which is free of this text and all texts. And this is... in that way, I thought we could proceed for the time being. Does that make sense? The one other thing I want to know is,

[17:10]

I don't know how many classes you want to have during this period of time. A lot. A lot. Some people want a lot, some people want zero. And some people want space between them. So like yesterday, I thought we'd... yesterday we sat, and that would seem to be good. So I think maybe if you remind me, I'll check with you. I'll get your feedback. And then after I get your feedback and you dent me, then I will... I'll have some response to that. So my question is, how many people tomorrow would like to have sitting? How many people want a class?

[18:10]

Kind of not that different. A slight... slightly more for the class, it would look like. So I will... I'll find this. I'll let you know later about this. Thank you. Divisions are inexhaustible. I vow to end them. Dharma gates are boundless. I vow to enter them. The illusory is unsurpassable.

[19:22]

I vow to be kind.

[19:26]

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