This is the drawing of a profile. Let's start again from the beginning. Right view, and this is a mundane right view. In other words, we're now meditating on the workings of the world, how karma works. We're in the world now. still believing in a self that can do things, and we watch this very carefully. And as our meditation on what we're doing gets somewhat developed, you see how things work. You see the different kinds of karma there are, and what they lead to. our thinking starts to change and our thinking starts to be inclined towards our intention that we'd like to find a way through this way of peace and happiness through this field of our karma.

[01:10]

And so gradually our thinking starts to tend towards process of renunciation, of letting go of our attachments in this world currently. I think he starts to go towards loving-kindness and lots of harmlessness. We'll keep it this way. How can we behave in this world harmlessly, lovingly, and with detachment? Start thinking this way. Then we start to concentrate on many types of speech and many types of karma. So here, the first type of karma is thinking or intention, the root of karma, and speech. And a speech that would be in accord with the intention, which develops some understanding, so speech that also expresses detachment, speech that's true, that comes out true, that is stuck on gain, protecting ourselves from the loss, but when you go for the truth, you try to say the truth.

[02:16]

Speech that's gentle and kind and trying to address the truth, not spending time saying things that don't bear on the truth. Speech that's in accord with right intention. Then action, which is also in accord Action is harmless. Action is gentle and beneficial. And then we start looking at the karma in the realm of livelihood. So again, our livelihood is a livelihood that's in accord with honesty. So we speak the truth in ways that aren't harmful. We earn our peace. We earn our livelihood in a peaceful way, in a harmless way, in a legal way. Now we're coming to right effort.

[03:18]

First aspects here, you can practice all these. You can practice right view, right intention, right speech, right action, and right livelihood in formal meditation practice, but also in daily life. Right speech is usually not talking. But of course, people can sometimes think in the meditation hall. So I think the event should be according to that intention, the right intention. The right action is in the formal situation, is in formal ritual postures. And in such a way as to express detachment, kindness, and heartlessness in our livelihood, when we're doing formal meditation, is in front of those principles too. But you can also practice these things, of course, in daily interchanges. When we come in the right effort, to some extent, what we're doing is we're moving a little bit more emphasis on what it's like when you're actually, strictly speaking, really concentrating on meditation.

[04:32]

All these previous practices are setting up And traditionally, right effort, traditionally, I mean, in the earliest expressions by the Buddha, right effort was taught in four aspects. And four aspects are to make effort, to endeavor, to prevent unwholesome states, unskillful states of mind from arising. That's the first aspect. The second aspect is to renounce any unwholesome states that have arisen. The third one is to endeavor to give rise to wholesome states that haven't yet arisen. And the fourth aspect is to maintain and mature any wholesome states that have arisen.

[05:44]

four aspects of right effort on the path. Now someone like me actually might say, you know, that's realistic. But I would say right off that all four of these aspects of right effort are completely contained in sitting still and upright. So our Zazen practice completely includes these four aspects. Even though it sounds different, it really embraces his voice. I'll do it back to you quite soon. I would also say that our sitting meditation practice, which is not really just sitting meditation practice, but Zen practice, but is, you know, ritually, ritually expressed through the sitting meditation hall. our sitting practice, our zazen practice, is all eight of these.

[06:53]

The whole eight-fold path comes out of zazen practice and goes back to zazen practice. So they look like eight. This is just to help us understand some of the complexities that are involved in one practice. They're not really separate. They're not really eight to eight. When they're fully developed, they're simultaneous. and a fully developed K-PoL path in the instructor exam and in the practice. And then maybe you can see how that applies in this particular case at the right effort. OK, ready? The first one, preventing unwholesome in the first place. preventing unwholesome states that haven't arisen from the horizon. What you do is, basically, you're alive and something's happening to you all the time.

[07:57]

Things are happening. You're living in an active, changing world and you can sense that. You're impacted and responsive to all things that are going on. And moment by moment, You're sensing colors, or smells, or tastes, smells, hearing things, and thinking things. Now, the way of being, the kind of effort that prevents unwholesome states from arising in the first place is that when some object When some energy or something impinges upon you and you sense some object, you make that interaction into some awareness of an object. Like we usually do. Some electromagnetic radiation touches you and you see color. Or a mechanical wave hits your body, particularly around your ear, and you feel like you're hearing sound and so on.

[09:09]

So you feel like there's some sound up there, some color up there. normal sensory experience. The way of experience that protects you from the arising of unwholesome states is that you just allow that sense experience to be a sense experience. You let what you hear just be what you hear. You let what you see be what you see. You develop a presence with your experience that is very close. It doesn't get more elaborated than the sense experience itself. It's not just a sense experience. It's actually your meditation. It's your effort. But it's not any more complicated than a sense experience.

[10:12]

You don't make life any more complicated than it has to be. That's it. That's it. No more than that. Now, when I go like this, maybe some of you made something more of that. Like, that was... That was loud. That was sharp. That was good. What's he talking about? Or just... Living that synth thing, letting the sound just be the sound. Letting your mind keeping your mind at the level of sense data, keeping your mind at the level of what's given to you, and not making any more of it than that. This is what we call, in Zen, having a mind like a wall. And if you have a mind like that, you enter this Buddha way, just with that mind.

[11:17]

So when you have a mind like this, when an object appears, either outside or inside, sense object or internal thought or internal concept, when it arises, when the object arises, there's no response to it. There's no agitation. There's no activity of the mind. There's just a hand, just a sound. There's no elaboration. There's no, as Bodhidharma said, there's no coughing or sighing in response to the data. No kind of like, ugh. Very, very radically simple. And in order not to react at all to what's happening to you, you have to give yourself completely what's happening to you. wholehearted intimacy with what's arising.

[12:24]

If you give yourself completely to the simple way of being of whatever is happening, that way of being needs no energy. No energy can go in the arising of unwholesome states. There's just nothing left over to promote the unwholesome state from arising. This way of presence prevents the arising of unwholesome states. Particularly unwholesome mental states we're talking about now. Because we've just come through right speech, we've come through wholesome speech, wholesome physical action, wholesome livelihood. But now we're in some wholesome posture And we're probably quiet, but we might be talking, but we're speaking closely. So we're talking about now getting into subtle details of the workings of our mind and trying to now have our mind work in such a way that no kinds of defiling, obstructing, negative things interfere with our presence.

[13:42]

Now, if we started this Eightfold Path, most of us do, with still some belief that we exist independently, that there is a self that exists independent of others, we're still falling for this dualistic world, which most of us are, as we practice. And because of that dualistic thinking, there still is, because of that dualistic thinking, the possibility of greed, hate, and delusion. So greed, hate, and delusion are present possibilities for us until we completely become free of all dualistic thoughts. And if we are not present, we still have that potential.

[14:47]

We're still somewhat ignorant. In other words, when we're still somewhat ignoring the radiant interdependence of ourselves with all beings, when we still look away from that light a little bit, we are susceptible, because of that division, we are susceptible to trying to avoid something, trying to grasp something, or being confused about what we should do. Re-hating and delusion are still possibilities for us as long as we have this basic However, if we practice right effort in this way, this greed, hate, and delusion do not give rise, do not flower, do not proliferate, and give rise to these other kinds of obstructions, which I'll now tell you about. Maybe I won't tell you about them yet. Maybe I'll stop for a second if you have any questions about the first aspect of right effort. No?

[15:52]

Yes. She says, when you're first experiencing sense experience, what is happening with thought? The thought is of the sense experience. The kind of thing when you have a sense experience and you're practicing this kind of right after it. The first type, the type of right effort is the way of using your thinking, which accords with right thinking. So what is right thinking? Right thinking is when some object of awareness comes, how do you think about it? You think about it lovingly, harmlessly, and with renunciation. What does that mean? What's the way to do that? It's to let the thing be itself. Just like me looking at you, I'm looking at you, I'm thinking of you.

[17:00]

If I think of you in this way, which I have a wall like mine, what would a wall do if it looked at you? It would just see you. It wouldn't judge you. It wouldn't try to make you into something other than what you are. A harmless way of thinking of you, and a loving way of thinking of you, And also, it would be a renounced way of thinking of you, because I would be giving up all other agendas other than just simply seeing you, which is all that's happening anyway. So that's the kind of thinking that's going on. And the thinking is of the object. The thinking is always different kinds of thinking. Some kinds of thinking are scattered all over the place and twisted into judgment and disapproval and and attachment. rather than simply inclined towards with no more complexity than that.

[18:02]

So the thinking, which thinking can be extremely elaborate, the thinking is simplified into just being aware of the object. It's radical. It's like the thinking, which can be so complicated, is no more complicated than sense experience. Being no more complicated than sense experience means that thinking drops off lots of complexity. You got it. You got it. Exactly. So when thinking, when a sound comes up, sound, in the face of thinking, that means the thinking is renouncing lots of other things it could make out of that sound. So Buddha said, train yourself like this. In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the there will be just the heard. In the imagined, subject being imagined, there will be just the imagined.

[19:10]

In the cognized, there will be just the cognized. When, for you, practitioner, there, in the seen, there's just the seen, in the heard, there's just the heard, in the imagined, there's just the imagined, and in the cognized, there's just the cognized, then there will be no you that identifies with it, with what's being seen. You won't put yourself in it or part of it. And there will be no here or there or in between. And this is the end of suffering. So at the beginning of this, when you first started meditating on karma, Maybe there was a little bit of like, I'm over here meditating on karma. I'm watching myself do this stuff. Now at this stage, you're starting to look, you're still looking at your karma. You're still maybe seeing, you know, things happen.

[20:16]

But you're just letting the mind be nothing more than what's happening. So it's a radical simplicity and just letting people out. This prevents the arising of unwholesome thoughts. This prevents, even though deep down you still haven't uprooted the belief, and you're still not really looking at this very bright world of light where you're interrelated with everyone. You're still not quite facing that. Still, this dark world of ignorance where you think you suffer from people is not upchucking all this green-haven delusion into your face. You're acting like you would act if you didn't believe that you were separate, if you didn't have duality. Well, this right effort is like a warm-up to this non-dual thought. Even though you still are non-dual thought, and if you veer away from it and make things more complicated than that,

[21:27]

The results of your deep belief in individual existence will throw up, you know, delusions which are based on that will still throw up a lot of stuff on your face. But maybe I should go on to the next one. What do you think? Can you think of one more person's message? I think the people who want to ask questions think they should. Yes. The only way to do this, though, is in your story. The only way to do what is... The only way to do what is... Okay, so you're saying... So Liz is suggesting that the only way to leave things alone is to notice that you don't leave things alone. No, that's not the only way. That's one way, though. Okay, so if you should happen to be meditating, we're not talking about seeing or heard, but now we're talking about that you're imagining that you can mess with a senior.

[22:28]

You notice yourself not just meeting it that way. So now you see that. You're imagining now that Liz can do something with what's happening. That's an imagined thing. Then you let that be. You catch yourself at messing around with what's happening. And you catch it right at that time when you're doing that. And you just let that be, and you're doing it too. But you could also... has something happened where you didn't yet interject yourself into the process. That's also possible. If you do interject yourself in the process by imagining a self separate from what's happening, you can still recover at this point. So what you're saying is one of the ways it can go. It can also go a more simple way, a more direct sense way. And if you let it be that, then the result of your head and the living will not come up.

[23:29]

Yes? What is it? Sunshine. What is the sense perception of emotion? You mean, what is it when you see an emotion? You perceive that you have an emotion? Yes. An emotion would be, for example, perhaps something you cognize, a mental state. You might be aware that there's some pain or you see some other positive emotion that might arise, some faith, some compassion. You could observe these emotions. These emotions could come up in the context of still practicing the right effort at the If you're practicing the first level of it, you would not see greed, hate, and delusion. Those emotions wouldn't come up. Yeah.

[24:33]

Well, that'd be more like an imagination, that you have some concept. The mind sees, the mind, something happens to the body, the mind converts it into a concept, and then the mind receives a concept. That's what I would call an imagination. But when you are imagining something, if you let what you're imagining just be what you're imagining, and that's all the more that's happening with it, your mind's like a wall. Your mind is a simplicity. And non-elaboration of the sense data or the experience data that totally engages your presence doesn't disperse your energy into elaboration and doesn't allow any space for that dispersed energy to either make it arise in these unwholesome states or give them energy.

[25:48]

These unwholesome states are still potential until we go all the way around the chart a few times. Now, if you keep asking questions, the next thing you want to do is one minute. I think the next thing is pretty important, because most people missed this first one, unfortunately. Anyway, what happens if you don't practice what I just suggested as a way to prevent the arising of these unwholesome states, what happens is . And these unwholesome states, we don't usually see, actually, this plain old greed, generic greed. We don't just usually see generic ill will. I mean, generic hatred and generic delusion. It usually manifests, when we're trying to meditate anyway, it usually manifests. But still, a simple way of talking about how complicated it is is always called the five hindrances. And these five hindrances are based on

[26:51]

greed, hate, and delusion. And there are really not five or seven, but anyway. Based on greed, of sensual craving or sensual desire, sensual desire arises. And that can be sexual lust, but it can also be just desire for a certain kind of senses, attachment to a certain kind of senses. Like it could be like, you know, how far can we get the place, mostly John. But anyway, and you see colors, and you sort of like how it looks, and you wish it would stay like that a little while, or a little brighter, a little duller. It's kind of craving and attachment to the way things look. Or you hear the stream, and you think, a little louder would be nice, or a little quieter. In the stream, you see these fish, those trout, and you say, I wish they were one that was a little longer, or I wish the lighting was a little better. Or I hope they stay there for a little while. Anyway, as you notice, this happens based on greed.

[27:55]

Greed is based on dualistic thinking. Something that arises is ill will. And ill will arises usually in relation to something painful. You want to get rid of it. You want to get away from it. You want to eliminate it. You want to avoid it. Both of these create disturbance in your mind and pain, which you which you've already seen when you were practicing Right View, which you've been practicing all the way around, and you're still practicing it, you're still noticing how certain kinds of karmic maneuvers cause pain. But now, rather than sort of notice that, you're not so much noticing the pain, you've already been convinced that messing with things is not a good deal. But you just missed, and you fell on your face and forgot that messing through those things wasn't a good deal. So now you've got this stuff in your face again. If you really were convinced, you wouldn't have this stuff happen. But since you for a second and lost your faith in meditation for a second, now you've got these problems.

[29:05]

Maybe ill will, maybe sensual desire. And again, parenthetically, We're not saying here that when something pleasant happens, you shouldn't enjoy that it's pleasant. You're practicing renunciation, right, from right view, from right intention. It's that when something pleasant happens, you've already seen that it would be good if you'd renounce it on the spot. You've already seen how when you grasp the pleasant things, it causes you pain. So your intention is, when a pleasant thing happens, hi, that's it. But maybe you didn't do that when the pleasant thing happened. You judged it. You attached to it a little bit. And now you've got essential desire in your face. Now, in relationship to delusion, when you're confused and the sensation is not really positive, it's kind of neutral. And you're kind of bored with a neutral sensation. So what do you do?

[30:07]

Make life more interesting, right? So let's take a nap. That would be nice to do if everything's boring. In fact, this is a beautiful place, but sometimes we get bored and say, take a nap, right? Or just be dull. Be dull and drowsy. That's when we respond to some neutral sensation. In other words, not just like, okay, here I am, neutral sensation, neutral sensation. Here we are, neutral sensation, neutral sensation. All bored. Neutral sensation, neutral sensation. Neutral sensation is neutral sensation. Neutral sensation is neutral sensation. This is not that interesting. It's something else. It isn't really that interesting. The reason for letting neutral sensation be neutral sensation is because it sets you free from suffering. It's not that it's fun, necessarily, to let neutral sensation be neutral sensation. You could have a little joy because if you heard the Buddhist teaching that letting neutral sensation be neutral sensation will be the end of suffering, you might say, this isn't that interesting, but I feel some joy because I get the feeling like I might be on the path to freedom.

[31:15]

So, you know, it's kind of like there's some joy there, even though this is really boring. And my mental powers are not really doing much here. Jazz it up. But if you don't find it joyful to just leave things alone and walk the path of Buddha, then you jazz it up with a little nap. Or, you can jazz up neutral situations by getting excited. Now, You could even have ill will about a neutral sensation, even though we usually have ill will about a negative sensation. You could even transfer it over to getting angry that things are neutral instead of just getting angry about them being negative. So you could even get angry here. But usually people don't. They have other ways. There are other ways you get excited. Do something to excite yourself. Like get restless. Squirm on your seat when you're meditating. Squirm a little. Have a little Kundalini. That's a good thing to do, right?

[32:19]

Nothing more interesting than just sitting there. Or, another thing you can do is worry. Worry, that's a good one. A lot of people are good at that. Worry about what you did and what's going to happen, or worry about what you're going to do next. Or when you're going to do it. Or what's going to happen to you. Worry. That's a good one. Another thing you can do is doubt that actually this whole practice is going to work. Because actually, you just did doubt. That's why you got this doubt. You doubted that it would be a good idea just to leave things alone. So now, and now rather than notice that you just left things alone, and you didn't leave things alone, and now you're worrying, rather than noticing, now you're doubting, rather than noticing that the time is unfolding right before you, and actually being happy that, you know, it's going according to plan, you doubt the darn thing. Even though he's saying to you, I told you this is going to happen. You say, I don't know if I like this sound.

[33:22]

I don't know if I like this Buddha. So all this stuff can happen. So all this phenomena can happen. Now, this is, then you come to the second kind of write-up. This stuff has arisen. We've got to abandon it. Still this right view as you start to notice this stuff's happening. You have a sense of how it happened. It happened because you lost track of your meditation for a little bit there, or for a lot. Now you're going to basically apply this right intention again. But it's going to take on some kind of variegated manifestations because it has to address these particular problems. But again, it's going to be basically the same thing. is how are you going to apply renunciation, loving kindness, and harmlessness to these negative phenomena? So we don't come in here and start bashing them down and kicking them out, because that's more negative phenomena.

[34:26]

We really, at some level, aren't that excited about being successful at abandoning them. We're going to not be so concerned when we succeed not so worried about that we are going to be able to pull this off. We're kind of detached as we proceed now to try to abandon these things. Detachment will make us more flexible in our process of dropping these and becoming free of these unhosted states. So there's infinite techniques about how to respond, about what you can develop to aid you to drop these. abandon these states, but sometimes five types are taught. One type is to apply a direct joke. Another type is to apply self-respect and decorum. Another one is to ignore it.

[35:34]

Don't be it. Another one is to look right at it and meditate on it. This is going to last. It's direct suppression. What? Direct suppression, which you should only use as a last resort. It's the clumsiest. It's the hardest one to do lovingly. The first one is to apply a specific antidote to each type. And each one of these We can discuss for quite a while, but I'll just briefly mention that for ill will, you apply loving kindness. Loving kindness is in general being a target, but you can't apply kindness for ill will. For sensual lust or sensual desire, you apply, you know, get serious. You know, come on. That is quite near.

[36:37]

You're really spending time worrying about the leaves being a little bit meaner. Is that really the way you want to spend your time? You meditate on impermanence. You remember impermanence. It makes you a little bit more serious, and you stop dabbling in messing with what's coming in. It isn't that we shouldn't be artists. It's okay to be an artist, a painter. But first of all, Let what's happening be what's happening before you start your artwork. Don't wish that the world were different from what it is and a little bit brighter before it even happened, before that happened. Now that you've lost happening there, the antidote to that is to do what you should have done in the first place. But be more concentrated and serious on it and try to come back to what's happening. techniques about how to meditate, how to intensify the meditation on impermanence. And sometimes I mention these and people get kind of excited when I mention it, but I would mention these.

[37:48]

Try to think of yourself as kind of being caught in sensual desire when you apply this. So I used to meditate when I would get caught in sensual desire on myself. Kind of like run over by a truck. That would usually get me so serious. So I meditate on, you know, stop fooling around with sense data. Stop kind of poking around and wallowing in it and sticking my head in it. I would just sort of meditate on myself. I visualize my teacher just after he died. Just to get me kind of like, you know, grounded. And then, you know, you can meditate on other things which kind of snap you out of this kind of indulgence and sense your temple rarely cooked on. That would be meditation on death impermanence. Then for dullness, drowsiness, if you're in meditation, if you're going to keep sitting in meditation, sometimes just imagining some light.

[38:54]

Or, you know, looking at a spot in your forehead. Or get up and take a walk. or jumping in cold water. Just have something to rouse yourself. Just rouse yourself all that sleepiness and get yourself balanced. For restlessness and worry, it's good to meditate on something very simple and plain, like the breath and posture. That would usually calm the restlessness. For most people. It's mindfulness and concentration on prayer. And for doubt, if you have some doubts, bring your doubts out for discussion. See if they really hold up. Ask questions, discuss, debate, to see if you really think that this teaching is not good or interesting or whatever.

[40:01]

Read scriptures. Inquire. It's actually, you know, whether there's teaching that is any good. And that usually will. For most people, they make the effort. It starts to calm, it's kind of dull. So that's the direct antidote method. Okay? There's four more methods. For self-doubt, what do you mean by self-doubt? Getting down on yourself. Well, that sounds like ill will. It's So in that case, you apply loving kindness to yourself. Getting down on yourself is a form of laziness. You use negative thoughts about yourself as an excuse for not making effort. And that's just kind of laziness. And you realize it isn't really that. You're down on yourself. You're just trying to use your ordinary givenness as an excuse for not making effort. It's a real tricky form. but I think that he was doing more negative.

[41:03]

Feel a little toward yourself, and that would be loving kindness. The other form, you should just tell something about that and see if you can fool somebody with a meditator. It's a very tricky method. A lot of people use it. It's called self-meditation. I can't do math. I can't do science. I can't do art. I can't walk. I can't wash dishes. I got a headache. But then, you know, when certain other opportunities arise to help one another, there's a tremendous amount of energy and courage. It's like, where did it come from? Now, it might be, and I haven't told you the rest of them yet, and the other four, but before I tell you them, I just want to mention that it might be that without applying these five different antidotes or going into the other, promoting abandonment and negative states, it might be that instead of applying these antidotes, you might be able to immediately turn around

[42:30]

and go back to the first form of right after. And maybe the negative state will just drop away without even doing anything. Just by what you didn't do before. Namely, just go back to this wall-like mind in the face of the appearance of this negative state. And you wouldn't have to do anything. Just be present and clear with the negativity, and it might drop itself away. So if you have what we call presence of mind, equilibrium and just be present with it, it might just drop away after a few moments. And you say, oh, okay, back. Boom, it's gone. That sometimes happens. But sometimes when you look away, you stop a chain reaction. And you try to reassert your balance. And you've got a tidal wave coming, which is hitting you, so you have to do something a little coarser to go with this You set certain things in motion so that you have to do a little bit more than trying to recover a simple situation from before.

[43:37]

So you're messing with a situation that's more like you're meeting it. It's like it requires something a little bit more complex than the previous practice, which you didn't want to do. So now since you didn't want to do that simple practice, now you have to do a complicated one. But it's not exactly that you're looking for a complicated practice. The situation's requiring it. I'm trying to follow what you're saying. Right. So if you're trying to follow what I'm saying, I'd like you to say it a little differently. Rather than seeing things as they are, you see, the practice of just being like a wall, a wall doesn't see things as they are. A wall is just a wall with how things are. It's not separate from you. So a wall like mine doesn't even separate itself. It doesn't even say, I'm separate from you. If you could say it this way, instead of saying, see me as they are, you might say, in being, what's happening. Or just being with what's happening, rather than suppressing meditation.

[44:42]

If you could do that, you might say it's a problem. But go ahead. I was thinking, trying to practice with other people, and sometimes seeing the There's no reaction. So sometimes we need reactions to come up. And I'm just here to respond to the will in a slight negative way. Like the will. It's like the will. The will. How much do you try to apply the action to it? Yeah, that's what I'm just saying. If you're meeting some person, other phenomenon, and some slight negative energy comes up, some slight negative will comes up, you might be able to just say, okay, you got your will.

[45:53]

That's it. And just say, your will is what your will is. That's it. You don't even look at it. It's just ill will is ill will. You don't even say it. It's ill will arises. It's ill will arises. Tiny ill will arises. And ill will, it's just ill will, and that's it. Then you don't identify with it. You don't put yourself into it. There's no here or there in between. So you might be able to do that. But if you try it and you can't, then you might have to do something a little bit more coarse called generating some love and kindness towards whatever it is that you're looking for. If you can get by with recovering on the spot, great. If you've activated gross in you, you might have to, like, if you're leaning way back, you know, like, you might have to come forward with, I hope you wish the best, you know, I really hope this thing gets happier, you know, finds its own true nature and becomes very

[46:59]

you finally can operate. But don't go too far and start saying, oh, I love this thing, it's so weird and great. If you can just recover it by going back into basically our fundamental practice and it drops away, that's the best. But if it's gotten a little too rough for that, you know, this loving-kindness thing can be used. Or if you've gotten attached to something and you say, oh, there's a little attachment, you're walking along and you see something lovely and you go, There's a hook on there. You say, can you come in? Can you stand up straight now? Okay, we're back now. And then it goes and drops. The lovely thing. The pattern just drops away, and it's just lovely. That's it. You know, kind of like, don't go away. Now that I'm not holding onto you anymore, the infinity table is there. You know, it's just, you know, lovely thing there. It's that hook.

[48:01]

So you catch the belt, you say, look, there's the hook. Look, you just look. So there's my knee and the hook. The knee, here, there. But you look more than that. You say, okay, there's the hook. Here's the knee. Look, knee, hook, [...] hook. I'm stuck. Okay, wait. Let's see. We're going to die soon. We're going to die. Not just we. I'm going to die. Maybe I didn't look at it. Of course, I didn't look at that for a second. Hang on. There we go. Okay. I'll hide this and let go. Decorate. I'd like to go on to the other one. I just mentioned at any point you could recover, you go to more simple problems. But sometimes you need something a little rough, a little more heavy duty, because you've got more heavy duty stuff.

[49:04]

So we're meditating. We're meditating on our karmic world all the way around here. But now with right effort, we're trying to really settle into it and really become intimate with this world and understand it and become free of it. really get clear and concentrated in this messy world, which is still going on. The first one, if not necessarily the most subtle or the most gross, it's just one way. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If that doesn't work, you might try that first, you might try it second. Find out for yourself. Another one, if it isn't necessarily second, for you the second one might be best, is to Look at the dharmas which are always present in the whole state of consciousness, which is the dharma of self-respect and the dharma of decorum. Look at those dharmas of self-respect and apply them to whatever kind of mess. So if you're on ill will, you just say, well, this isn't really up to par.

[50:11]

This isn't really my kind of thing, actually. This isn't my style. Or actually, this is going to bother people, and they're going to bother me. That's another way to do it. The third method is look away. Just look away. It's not the same as denying. It's not the same as denying. It's not sticking your head exactly into the sand. It's just looking the other way for us. What? The karma. So what do we have here? This can apply to ill will. This looking away can apply to ill will. It can apply to attachment. It can apply to worry. It can apply to any of them. You just look the other way.

[51:16]

Particularly, it works with, I think, It could work with all of them. And Peter asked, does that get rid of the karma? What happens to the karma? What we're looking at here is not exactly karma in this case. We're looking at a deep situation. We're looking at a negative state that arises in the world of karma. This is not specifically speaking karma. Karma will be going on Throughout this whole path, karma will continue until we completely become free of the idea of self. It doesn't mean we throw the idea of self. It's that we're not falling for it. When you don't fall for the idea of karma, your life leaves the idea of individual self. You live a life that is free of karma. As long as you still haven't gotten free of that, there's karma going on all the way around you.

[52:17]

Now we're at a phase here where you're still probably somewhat thinking of self-doing things, like self-practicing right effort even. You might be thinking that a little bit. Or even if you aren't thinking it, you have the latent capacity to do that, which can be activated in karma. What I'm talking about here is an effort at which you can settle into the karmic world to whatever extent it's offered. And really settle with it in detail and intimately. Settle with actually what's happening. You become absorbed in the actual process of cause and effect. And start to absorb in your body and mind inner dependence. And you're eliminating these negative factors. And they're negative primarily not because they're bad. In the sense that they disturb your meditation. They distract you from the presence of what's happening. So again, the first practice was What's happening is what's happening. What's happening is what's happening. In the herd, it's just the herd. In the scene, it's the scene. In what's happening, it's just what's happening.

[53:18]

If you do that, you're settled. You're ready to go into deeper meditation. If you don't do that, when these negative states arise, they start shaking you around, and you experience a dislocation from what's happening. And these aren't exactly unwholesomeness, but they're unwholesome in the sense that they distract you from perfect presence with what's happening. So it's not really karma that we're trying to get away from. Actually, we're trying to perfectly settle with the nature of cause and effect so we can understand it, which will take us up to the second right view, which is right view which will liberate us from the world of karma and liberate us from the belief in self. But we're trying now to really get into the meditation, really get into it, and not have any distractions.

[54:19]

For the next antidote, for the next response, well, I said it. I was already talking about it. I want to say a little bit more about this point of looking the other way and how it's not denial. It's not denial. It's just looking the other way. It's not that I'm denying Deborah, I mean, Rebecca. It's not that I'm denying her name either when I don't remember it. I just look at another name. So if I look over, you know, Bill, it's not that I'm in denial about Debra. As a matter of fact, I can still see her out of the corner of my eyes, and maybe I can look all the way over at Leslie. It's not that I'm in denial about Debra. I still can remember Rebecca's really name, Debra. I'm just looking away from her. I'm looking at Leslie now. But it may be that when I look back at Rebecca, you know,

[55:27]

It might be that I get kind of like, you know, I freak. It's possible. And if I just look over here, I don't freak anymore. I still know she's there, but I can calm down a little bit. I kind of look at her, I go, jeez. I have a funny story, which I told before, but I'm going to tell it one more time. We still had an old zendo, you know, it's an old student eating area. That used to be our zendo over there before it burned down. And it was when we first started learning, you know, elaborate Soto Zen forms out of certain meals and food service and stuff like that. We used to have forms and we used to do it intensifying what people And I was on the crew, which we called ,, which are the people who take care of the rituals, specialize. Their job is to get the rituals going in the meditation hall.

[56:33]

And the leader of the was called Eno, the director of the meditation hall. And this was the person that I went to junior high school with, and high school, and college. One of my best friends. So somehow, he got to be. head of the Doan group, and he was in charge of the discipline in the meditation room. But still, I guess he was bored with it, so he liked to entertain the Doan group and get us to laugh. So one time, when we were serving this formal serving in the zendo, we served the pot, you know, and the servant had the ladles, and then they put the ladles in the cereal. It poured the oatmeal into your bowl in a ritual way, right? Well, when the server came to him and to serve him, he reached into the oatmeal with his hand and scooped the oatmeal out with his bare hand and put it in his bowl.

[57:35]

Well, some of us sitting here might have. This is the director of meditation. And we had a raised seat for the visiting teacher. We had a visiting Japanese teacher who was coming especially to teach us the poems. And he was sitting there watching us. And he closed his eyes. He has come to America. And Zen Center has given him... And his dog, Unreal, is clapping. So he closes his eyes. But not for the last time. We'll open him again. So... Then we have to get through the rest of the meditation.

[58:38]

This funny thing. To see if we can get this fellow dog to clap and giggle. This is serious, in fact. So what I did was I had to close my eyes. Because every time I looked at him, he would do some kind of thing like this. I wasn't in denial about him. I knew he was there. And I knew if I looked at him, he would do something. So I didn't look at him. So sometimes when you look at him, you don't look at him. Because you know when you look at him, you're going to get a little disturbed. You're not going to be able to look. and stay present with the concentration. Sometimes it's OK. But sometimes it's more serious. And sometimes you're just actually getting somewhere in your practice. And you can spend quite a bit of time distracting yourself if you don't look away from something that's going on. It's not to not. You shouldn't lose track that you have something that isn't going on.

[59:41]

And you don't have to look away from it. The other way is to look directly at it. And that's similar to. what we started. Just resume your clear meditation and look at it. And once you look at it clearly. So what's the difference between the first one and this one? It's actually kind of the same, isn't it? Kind of like the same. So that's another way to get back. And then you need to recover. I didn't say that in the first place. Except in the first place, you didn't have this kind of thing to deal with. It's a little different. Originally, you just had a sense of it. You didn't have a negative state. Now, because you didn't face what's happening, you've got some negativity. You're looking at the negative state rather than the initial. Right, right, right. You've got something a little bit more difficult to look at than that. It's more difficult in one way, and it's easier in another way. And the way that it's more difficult is that it's coarser and more tricky.

[60:43]

But it's easier in the sense that it's obviously trouble, so you better pay attention. The other one, he didn't realize how serious it was to pay attention to, like, a color or a sound. We think, oh, you know, you don't have to meditate on a sunrise. You can kind of just sit back and go, oh, man. You've got to be careful of simple sense objects. Otherwise, you can get into suffering. And not even maybe the thing itself won't bother you, but you set up an app of indulging in things like that, and you can't stop. So since you don't realize, since we sometimes don't realize, That just simple indulgence and sense pleasures can set up habits that we get into bigger trouble, which teaches us to see. You don't have this space to meditate. So then you see, okay, I get it. Okay, I've got to meditate. Now I meditate. The same way of facing could be able to be applied then to lesser people, lesser distractions, lesser... A lot of times we won't do these things unless we get rid of that.

[61:44]

They're different kind of horses, right? Some horses go at the shadow. Some horses go at the sound of it. Some horses go at the hit of it. And some horses, you have to draw blood. So, just a slight thing. Just a knock for you to do it. Great. Just look at it. You're free. If you don't do that, then zap. If you don't do that, just try it. The knock on the door gets louder and louder until you say, okay, I got it. Okay, here we go. I'm here. The next one, this is really the last one. The other ones don't work. This should be the last one. Direct suppression. And it does work, but it's a little rough. It doesn't have that loving-kindness quality. It's hard for it to do that. Stop it. Okay, stop it. Give it up. All of it's not going away.

[62:48]

Really give it a try. They may have to get kind of driven. And you can stop these. Once it stops, then you want to go back to a lighter method and maybe not get any problems in the first place. So those are some techniques. There's some ways of responding to when you haven't done your job, you haven't been present at what's happening, And as a result of that stuff flying up in your face and disturbing your meditation, this is a way of negligence. Once you've recovered, then you go back to the first one again, which is prevent further impulses from happening by just being present with what's happening. Now, to be simple, the first one, the first right effort, how being present looks a way to be fulsome, unwholesome states with negative states don't even rise. That first one is actually basically the same as the third and the fourth, because the third is to give rise to wholesome things, wholesome states, skillful states.

[63:59]

And the fourth one is to mature the skillful states. But really, the first one is the basic way then of giving rise to the skillful states, because the skillful states are stabilization and insights, or sometimes it's called four foundations, or sometimes it's called the eight factors and the enlightenment. But if you're looking at what's outside of the eight factors, they're basically different elaborations of the persuading presence. All this kind of stuff comes right out of that basic presence, leaving things alone. And leaving things alone not in general, in terms of how they're happening. You're there with what's happening. You're not someplace else. You are there with the experience. I say you are there with the experience, but there's presence with the experience, not even you. There's presence with the experience, intimate presence, clarity about what it is, being tranquil with it, being concentrated on, endeavoring to be present.

[65:05]

All these things are coming together just simply being what's happening. So all of the Pulsing practices come from this process. So the first, the clearing the fork, are basically the same practice. And the second is for what happens to the practice. So the first one's how you protect against even needing to do the second one. And the first one's also how you give rise to further witnesses of the first one and how you mature with it. So that's the story right after. I wanted to go on. but that's the most indefinite way. Okay? You understand, sort of? Sort of. Now the thing is, bring the practice. And if you start right now, if you want. It's very simple. Just let... See the verge.

[66:05]

Got some verge there, right? Blue Jays, paper, somebody's talking. Let the heard be the heard. Let the seen be the seen. Let the imagined be the imagined. Let the primers be the guardians. That's it. Just keep working it, Bill. That's the way it is. You can basically keep doing it. You can make it right after. And also, that will be This is one of Buddha's simplest teachings. But apparently, he actually did say this. He did sometimes do it very simply, but not meaning it necessarily. It was so simple because you really got to renounce all your fancy trips to do it. Okay. Thank you very much. How many people were not your receptionist?

[67:09]

I wouldn't let go until 12. Do you know that? Yeah, because I could. How many people were here besides Bobby? Well, one people were here. Who? What? You were? You don't need to ask me. Well, somebody got liberated this afternoon, but too bad he missed. We got, now we've been going this week, about April past, you know, we We got this far in the sense, right after we covered, and now we have two big topics tonight.

[68:17]

Plus, we'll go back to Right View again, and we'll see what happens after incorporating all these practices, and then try to see Right View again, the support of the evidence. Again, the basic starting point of this process is that right view is to suggest that we begin by paying attention, by meditating on our life, our duty, our karmic activities. Study that. Be aware of how we how we're involved in dualistic thinking of ourself, separate from others, and how we think we can do things on our own, and watch how that world of cosmic cosmic effect works.

[69:19]

Our fearful action leads to open results, good results, and our fearful action leads to trouble. And as we meditate on these, our thinking gradually starts to shift somewhat, and it becomes more and more directed, with intuition, loving kindness, and kindness. Practicing right view, you start to see how things work in the world of illusion. By seeing how the world of illusion is, you start to overcome the illusion. You start to also transform life in the direction of instant ending. go the other direction from attachment and aversion. So in this first two, we start to view it in such a new way, leading into a deeper study of religion, hatred, and greed, and try to develop an alternative approach.

[70:38]

still meditating on dualistic cognitive activity. We direct our attention towards that speech. And again, try to enter into the speech with the right intention, born of right view. So we can speak again about harmlessness, renunciation, and what we find. Then, moving into our bodily activity, we try and acting that way, according to the enunciation of the body's anger. You need to avoid conduct while stealing, stealing, and such a misconduct. Then find speech and bodily postures to actually work. Again, try to practice right livelihood with the same intention. developed out of meditation on the law of karma and actually how we see karma working, we move into speaking and acting rightly and practicing and realizing why we live here.

[71:55]

Legal, peaceful, harmless, and legal. Legal and harmless. And now that he applied our study of karma, applied our right intention to all the different realms of karma, thinking karma, speaking karma, acting karma, now I'm ready now to go look deeper into our mind to get this afternoon and notice that there's a way to have our mind, although it's still involved, still involved in karma. It is definitely still involved in karma. It is possible that we can observe karma without any negative states disturbing our vision.

[72:56]

We've been watching and learning something about it and hopefully trying to do better and better karma. The better our karma is, the more wholesome our karma, the easier it is for us to study it. But still, even a more calm and standard vision of calm can be yellow. Once again, we're still in the dualistic world of personal action, but it's still bondage, it's still misery, but it's possible to study this field with no negative state of mind impinging on the Of course, it's also possible to try to meditate on dualistic karmic activity with lots of negative states. With this type of negative state, it's not as easy to see how it works. Matter of fact, it's really hard to see the law.

[74:01]

So right effort is about developing an attitude which he's saying then is a mind like a wall, which does not react to the phenomena that is presented. And that non-reactive presence, the phenomena as they arise, prevent the arising and disturbing mental function. And we can develop a clearer and clearer vision of actually how the global bondage works. And if they slip from that kind of presence that doesn't meddle with what's happening, then there's a negative disturbing effect. In this case, the negative, particularly in the sense that they're disturbing our vision, because we're starting to get close to being able to actually see how can we do it. Our mind's getting pretty well organized, pretty clear.

[75:08]

mess around at all with what happens, a lot of negativity becomes a spirit of it. If you have this kind of presence, this kind of mind, add anything to what's coming up, these states don't arise. If they do arise, we talked about antidotes, we get back to the simple situation. So, now we're at this point, but if we turn our work up to this point, we have now a fairly clear picture of the world's boundaries on psychosocial death. There's more work to be done, because there still is, behind this story of personal action, a belief in personal existence and or we don't yet understand the self. Because we don't understand the self, we're still in pain, still anxious.

[76:15]

And in response to that pain, we try to cope on some deep level. We have these coping mechanisms of greed, hatred, and confusion. So there's a basic ignorance of us looking away from the true nature of our self, how it actually is not an independent thing, but an interdependent thing. If you look away from it, you see this narrow, narrow vision of yourself and your anxiety and fear. And in response to that, in addition to the basic thinking, you need heavy illusion to arise a strategy, a basic strategy to deal with the pain. But that's still going on in this state. I'll write it. We haven't yet gone down to the bottom and reworked our basic . You can see pretty clearly what's going on.

[77:22]

The next step is to practice mindfulness in this fairly clear field. Now, mindfulness is not particularly different from this kind of presence. It doesn't mess with anything. Mindfulness doesn't mess with anything either. Mindfulness is emphasizing, I would say, maybe brings in the dynamic, starts to open up to the dynamic quality of the process. We're seeing how things work. Now, we develop an awareness within, which proves the dharmic working of the dharma in this karma. The dharma starts coming forth out of the karmic. And mindfulness is the kind of presence that allows interactive, dependent quality, which is hidden inside of the karma, to gradually start to surface.

[78:35]

Things are going to get a little bit more dynamic. So we're seeing karma. But now we start and we're getting quite stable watching the process. You start to now see some relationships that we didn't see before. You start to see some dynamism. In addition to the ordinary chain, you start to see the other relationships and causes that are determining this band. with this dream of karmic accumulation, this cycle. And we continue to be present with that and try not to get excited. But you leave it alone. You continue to practice right effort. You continue to meditate on karma. We're now getting more and more clearly present So we can be more and more sensitive to the dynamism of this group.

[79:38]

Until basically this kind of like, you know, the cause of Buddhism is that you finally will see in the midst of the world of bondage, in the midst of the world of delusion, duality, there comes, there shines forth the truth. the Dharma, which has always been there. And now we have, through this discipline, made ourselves able to receive it. And we see that in the dark, mechanical world of lawful cause and effect, there is actually great might. And might is completely free. And the whole situation is completely free. And without disturbing the pattern at all, we see that at the same time, there is complete freedom and liberation right in that situation.

[80:47]

In other words, we have an awakening. Dharma in the middle of the karma. Or, in the middle of the suffering, we see the delusions. And then you see in delusion, you see the negative delusion end up with that delusion. So it would be like a sexation. And the concentration would then be absorbed in this vision of dharma. But now that we have this clear vision of the truth, of the world of karma, meaning that karma is an illusion based on, is an illusion. We believe in, it's meant to be an illusion, based on the basic misunderstanding of ourself as something that could do something by itself.

[81:49]

We see the emptiness of that story. We see the interdependence of that story, which is the story of independence. We see the story of independence. and we're free from this belief in an independent self. And then in concentration, we absorb, we become absorbed, our life becomes absorbed into this new vision, which is still the vision of karma, but now karma, which is the law of liberation of infinity time. You tell with the Gurdjian math. And then we're steady in this light, this light of Shana. We're stable in that. And then we come around to right view again. This time right view, as you can see, this is suffering.

[82:52]

This is how suffering arises. This is the end of suffering. Now is right view. You can understand the whole thing. It's not just different stages, but like one process, the other is. Be the visible. Be like me. You can see that. You can realize it. And then you come around again, practicing it, not practicing writing, [...] writing. It's no longer a personal intention, a karmic intention to be renunciate, to be lovingly kind. You are karmic, you are loving, you are renunciate.

[83:53]

You don't have attachment, you are kind, but you no longer are that way. You're kind of like an iceberg. You're dependent. You're no longer I do this with alteration. Then I'll interact with the program. So again, this is a spontaneous emergence from your practice. I'll say again, all of this is what we mean by satsang. This is just like, what do you call it, a home movie about satsang. We'll put it to that. And I told people the story about this wonderful story. There's a story about, not a story, there's a person named, some people know him. He's an old, now old French man. I think he's still alive.

[84:54]

He was blinded by In the 30s in Paris, after they got blind, after they got blind for a while, they realized that you could see. You couldn't see like, you know, apples, wine bottles, but you could see a light, a great light. And by that light, when you look at that light, all of you exactly look at it. He didn't say he was angry, confused, or attached, but I think that would do it to him.

[85:55]

So all of us have this light all the time. It's just that we can't see it, but we're angry, confused, has the strength that walks the light. Only this light, when you see this light, you don't have to figure out what's love and kindness and what's gentleness and what's attachment. Everything you do and you say comes from the light. If it doesn't come from the light, everything will be part of this path. This path is actually the truth. It's back in the light with all the other forms. which we have lost because of karma. It blocks our vision in any place. All negative space that karma spreads out. So we have to, like, if you didn't draw in negative space, you're no longer structuring your vision of this world. So that's why they put us in a difficult moment now.

[87:03]

Thank you very much. Thank you. Mindfulness, once the field is clear enough so you can, like, you got a clear vision of how... Okay? You can see now how karma works without all these negative states kind of like shaping up the picture and so on. You have a basically kind of problematical situation, and you have dualistic karmic bondage, right? You have karma, which did right the pain, to cope with my delusion. And then we try to do something about it, but it causes more pain. This is a scene where you see what you saw up here, which is why you want to start .

[88:11]

But now you can see it really clearly. Then mindfulness is still upright present. You start entering into dynamics in the situation. You start to see how you cause me and I cause you. You start to see how the mu calls the karma, and the karma calls the ju. You start to see how there's no mu without the karma. So really, there isn't some ju that does the karma. It's the karma done by the ju. And how there's no ju aside from the ju, who you do the karma to. These interactive things that this mindfulness starts to bring you, that dynamism, the interdependence of this dualistic picture. So we have enough in that. We have one scripture called the self-fulfilling samadhi, the concentration on self-fulfillment. And in that samadhi it says that upright sitting is the way you enter into the samadhi, the self-fulfilling samadhi, the mindfulness of how the self is fulfilled, the mindfulness of how

[89:28]

All the grasses and trees and mountains and rivers, the tile, the pebbles teach us how we keep all them. It's resonant, that's important to all beings to start to enter into by this right. So in the mindfulness stage, you start to see how all things are interdependent. And this is the gate. This mindfulness of interdependence, this mindfulness of the tentacle of rising, is the gate that all put at you. So once you see that, Then you enter into, at one point, in that vision of interdependency. So it becomes stable continuous. The concentration of this vision of interdependence. You also are somewhat concentrated here, but here you're concentrated . the field of your life, which has not been cleared up. But you don't yet see it this way. We've been independent. Independent called rising up the elements. But you have a clear vision of them because you might be like a wall.

[90:32]

The disturbing negative states are not delivering your vision of what's going on. Up until this day, you couldn't see it really clear. Now you can see it really clear. Well, at this stage, you enter into dynamic inner workings, do you realize that all these elements, none of them exist by themselves. Now basically you can see them. But your seeing is not continuous. As we say in the Yom Kippur Samadhi, it's basically telling you the story, the vision. You're in the Yom Kippur Samadhi now. What's being told you there mindfulness. It's mindfulness. You are not it. It actually is you. You can't stand up by yourself. You can't go or come or rise or fall. This is about it. Mindfulness is interdependent. It's interdependent. If you can achieve continuity in this dual personality, you can be adored and continue it with mindfulness and independence, which you can now see because it's clear.

[91:55]

When you're clear and you just continue to be mindful of the theme, none of the elements exist by themselves, and then you develop continuity. And then you have the practice right here, the practice right here, who is rich. I'll pretty briefly do it. It's really complicated. All right. there's five ways to respond to the situation. If you don't have this wall-like mind, or if you have this wall-like mind and you break the presence there, you come up.

[93:01]

In the case of negative stuff, negative stuff is not that's in your meditation. If you write, you read, you lose. If you read, or sexual desire. It's sexual or just any kind of temptation. Hate comes to your will. Delusion comes to your wellness. Rousiness, restlessness, idleness, worry, And as you drop these states, once they arise, the commons deal with them. Like what I said, you might be able to go back to the practice you should have been doing to stop the devising of the workplace. You may just have a small, wide mind that doesn't mess with them. And maybe that's what you're trying to do when they arise. That would be enough as a reason to stop the work. If you don't, it's because sometimes you set off a chain reaction.

[94:05]

So the one-to-one end job is, see if people learned that. The one-to-one end job, the one-on-one end job is, or three is what? Yeah. Meditation on impermanence or renunciation on impermanence. So if you're reading Renunciation, but you're helping them with anything right now, so you get back to Renunciation, you can get an impermanence. Some version of an impermanence. Okay. Let me find it. And show me this. Hold water. Right.

[95:07]

Right posture. Good posture. Sit up straight. A little more effort into your posture. What else? Your forehead. Huh? Your forehead. Exercise. Go running. Take a brisk walk. What else? Golf. I'm talking to me, so they put this, inserted this picture somewhere. I don't know. Anyway, these are the kind of ways to stimulate yourself. Sometimes you take a nap. Okay, then for restlessness. Yeah, medication on breath and posture.

[96:08]

It's something to do anyway. If you have a problem, nothing to do. It's very different. Okay. It's a non-active. It's something, so do that. Very good. And now we're about to talk. Read the script. Bring it up for discussion. Argue about it. Make a case. Because somebody can... Without just saying yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, didn't yeah, yeah, yeah for a while. And then... That's it. That's the antidote for the one-on-one. What's another... Anyone? What? Look, another one is self-respect in the form. I didn't say that much about it.

[97:11]

I know, I agree. I'm just going to go cover the ground now. If I get into that, I won't be able to have a question. The self-respect and decorum will result to address these. It will attempt to address what? Your will, passion, What's another one? Look right at it, which is similar to, but we'll stop it when we're done. But it's different because stopping it from coming in the first place is not the same as after it's come up.

[98:24]

Stopping the truck from coming in the first place is different than after it's come up. But sometimes if we don't stop once it's coming in, it's just going to go up. That can stop, even though it's coming in. But it's not the same as it was before. It's easy. It's recommended if you do this one first, then you don't have to do it. But once you didn't do the first one, then you've got to do this second. You know, if you really put yourself into these things, it will not mow you over. Just, you know, it's a great study. And when you get closer, instead of getting more and more scared to study, talk about it. I would look away at the truck with punishment. If it's a truck, then you're looking away. If you look away, this is not a punishment. It's looking away at the way the truck is going by. It's not denying.

[99:26]

It doesn't usually hit you when you look away. It's not going to make it worse. But you probably start looking away. I'm just wondering. We can talk about it. himself had to be similar to this similar way of looking to the way of looking at what it prevented the same attitude of a wall like mine that just lets the woman have to be where they are that's phenomena just the kind of sense phenomena that is but i've not been just really cognizant of each other but then being what they are then you don't cut and start cutting through it, do it out. Just by doing it. The last one is, you know, fashion. I'm surprised. You think you try to be short. Probably have to, you know, put it down. And that can be used sometimes, but none of the other ones can work.

[100:28]

It works for a while. And then you may eat it, but you're not going to try something. And you go back, you know, with the taste. So that's the technique to learn it. And hopefully the metrics will be good to you all. We're going to wrap it. Is that the end of it? Yeah, that's the end of it. Okay, now if anyone wants to talk about what you're going to talk about in the recording. What part? If you have any other questions, how do we operate? No, I don't know. The context is, for example, sleepiness. What's the context? You're sleepy? You know how to practice self-respect in the form of coming to sleepiness? Yeah?

[101:29]

Yeah? Then people, then moms would know how self-respect, self-respect in the quorum like the sleepiness. Like one of the big agendas in history is that the Zen monks are sitting in meditation halls all over the world. They're embarrassed to fall asleep. They're not like, generally, they're not proud to fall asleep. They're not going to go... So they do sometimes fall asleep, but they're ashamed. Even the Zen masters are ashamed of all this, you know? Imagine that movie about Tsukuyoshi, where they say, sometimes during meditation, we keep our eyes open. And they make a movie of him sleeping while they're sleeping. So, Zen monks do sometimes not take much sleep. They make it hard, you know? Keep us up really late at night, and make us get up early in the morning, and you're not supposed to stay awake all day.

[102:30]

So we have a hard time thinking about it. Sometimes we get drowsy, you know. We have to put this... We get drowsy. But we're ashamed. We're ashamed. Some people are not ashamed. If you're a Zen monk, you should be ashamed. If you're a Zen master, you should be ashamed. Also, decorum. You're not supposed to sleep in the hall. Don't do that. Canadians sometimes used to get people. People much used to be like, decorum means you're concerned with what's up, do you do something? But over in Japan, most are still very concerned with what we've done to them. That keeps them awake. Decorum. They follow the decorum of don't sleep during meditation. strong and courage.

[103:32]

It's called courage respect. It's here to remind them that it's not capitalist. That's how we use it. But you could also use it for hatred. You could also be like, I hate this person. That's really not my, that's really not a comparison. I'm actually not happy with it. It's not cool. It's a shame. You know, you don't think it's that cool. You don't think it's that cool. This is not like, this is not like, you know, some of them go retching around, looking under those screens at the back. Can you imagine? You're a disciple.

[104:34]

You don't do that. But if you do it, you're ashamed. This is beneath you. This is low class monk's life. Also, you're afraid to touch you. They're doing that. They don't like it. They're offended. Nothing. It's no big deal. But looking the other way isn't quite bad. I don't know why. But it's not that cool for the living side either. But on the list, all those things, think about it. You've got self-respect. You're like, I want to be kind to this child. I have, I possess good nature just like all who is. I'm trying to develop that. I'm trying to realize, and by the sake of all things, these activities are not, they're not like that.

[105:38]

I'm ashamed to do those. But I don't like them. I'm ashamed. I like to quit. And also, I like to quit that. I don't like anything. [...] Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. The problem here is my copy that I just need to continue with it because it's really active. You know, I think it's really important for a number of people to do medication back.

[106:43]

It's really important. Once you say anything about that practice with communists. Yes. I have a pretty frequent experience of making what I would call a right effort, but being distracted from how to let go. then having to bring myself, what kind of feels attraction later?

[107:51]

Well, you know, what do you, and the emotional states to the right. Those are, those are actually, In the left field, one thing that I'd rather are ideas, fantasies, concerns, replaying memories of things that happened, or things that pop up and I find it very difficult to refer you to simply paying attention. So that's an example, further example of magic.

[108:56]

It isn't that those distract from that effort. Those are the things that impact it. So it isn't that fantasy that you imagine. So it's not that you imagine distracting or the scene is distracting or the word is distracting. It's just that when you imagine it comes up, the effect of the effort is there. If you let the fantasy be at home, it's not that you get it from the practice. not graphic mom up you let yourself and me and then you can see that perfectly it one this it on I you're doing great but in with you you match me you did and like I'm your other sorts of things, unlike the scene for the bird.

[110:19]

Emotional states, or even some other kind of fighting, it seems to, it's almost like it captures my, right? You don't let the imagination come to you. I think that's what happens. You get captured by it. You react. In other words, you're all like my, pretty much more like, you know, I don't know what, It gets reactive. You start coughing and sighing at the imagination. So if you're telling me that the imagination is more difficult, I think there are a lot of people in this. They're cognizant of this knowledge. Like that. Other people may not just sense that anymore. Anyway, we all have some difficulties with these. We all have different problems with all the practices in this case. It's to let the imagination. It's not a distraction.

[111:21]

It is a cognitive awareness. Which, it's not a distraction. Distraction is when you react. That's a distraction. You activate the mind around that object. This is not a concentration practice. This is actually disciplining the sensory field. Disciplining your mind, reacting to the senses. And that clears the field of the emotions, reflecting, stirring emotional reactions, blurring your vision. Concentration all the way around it. It's not necessarily speaking to the breathing practice at this point. You could say this is the beginning of concentration practice. But it doesn't do any good if your concentration practice is on the net. First of all, clear the net. Now, since this is his concentration, here is the concentration which is not an ordinary concentration practice.

[112:25]

So here, when these phenomena, imagination, plans, blah, blah, blah, happen, when you let them be what they are, the field gets clear. You can see them very sharply. And you can see them very sharply when they move up into So this kind of effort makes it possible for you to start to see the contents of the dual mirror semantics. Or rather, this kind of effort tries to show you in the dual mirror. The dual mirror is where you have mindfulness of the pentacle arising of the communities in the mirror. Once you have, once the story you drew in your samadhi, or the song, it's not a samadhi yet until you have continuity. So the contents of that test are telling you what the dynamic world of your dependence is like, what the world of freedom looks like.

[113:32]

At that point you can see what it's like. That's a sample from the world of Dharma. Then you can keep concentrating in that field However, the good news is that concentrating practice here, I say, is a lot easier than it is before that because you see the truth. The truth is working for you. All the stuff that used to be distracted is not distracted anymore. All you've got to do is enjoy it. So you don't have the struggles that you had trying to concentrate up in here. It would be nice to fall over. But still, you do have to practice concentration. But you have to have continuity in your mind to follow the dual mirror. Another way, here's a nice quick play. In this stage of concentration, you expose the dual. And you see the dual very clearly. For the dual, the scene, the bird, the magic, colors, smells, touches, clothes, all concepts, all noise, all opinion, all now, obviously now.

[114:43]

Don't be the dual. Mindfulness becomes the dual mirror. In other words, you don't have to say dual. You see it in reflecting effect. You see that in each dual, all the other duals are there. So then mindfulness goes to bring jewels to a mirror. Before this effort, there were not many jewels. They looked dirty. It was still mightiness. Well, here at this level, you've got too many jewels. Here, the interdependence acts off of the mirror habits. So the jewels are great. Easy as pie. I don't know who it is. Who is that? You were left. Yeah, please, Kendra. I don't want it. I don't want to ask for an evaluation.

[115:44]

I want it to be out of the way. And then I'll have to go to the way you said. So that's it. And so. like okay um what you're saying is like if um All of our reality is what? No, it's not insecure, it's right. It's true that when you're imagining something, it's true that you're imagining something.

[117:06]

It's true that imagination happens. That is true. But when I escape, that is reality. Correct. That's the mistake. You see, it's reality that we imagine, but our imagination is not reality. Our imagination is imagination. So my question is, Well, when you start seeing that imagination is imagination. Most people think their imaginations are reality. If you're at this stage of the day,

[118:07]

Here, at this right effort state, you have the ability to say, oh, that's my imagination. When you see your imagination as imagination, you're right. You're correct. And sometimes you can see your imagination once in a while. So then you're right. Most of the time, when you think, oh, that's my imagination, most of the time, I guess, almost all the time, probably you're right. I mean, sometimes you say, that's my imagination. Some other people say, that's mine, too. Therefore, you're right. They think theirs is true. So if yours is the same as theirs, then yours is the reality. But you might be actually saying, well, that's just my imagination. You say, oh, no, it's not, because that's the same as mine. Mine is true, so yours is true, too. But actually, you're somewhat enlightened there by seeing that your imagination is just that. Thank you. And so, I guess, when we talk all of them, where do you hope that it is going to be?

[119:50]

Well, it's going to be taking this into your whole body. I mean, up here, right here, it's beginning, okay? Up at this stage, you're right. You do not see it. Up here, you think you're not in it. That's where you admit you're the fluid. What is it? Yeah. Well, that means you represent it. And in California, where it's, you know, it's common knowledge that we're all interdependent. And in California, everybody's going to say, you know, everybody's going to say, yeah, I'm interdependent. I'm into interconnectedness and ecology. But actually, we don't believe that. We think we are independent. We think we are separate. That's our deep human problem. Right view is not to start to say, it's not saying, okay, it's all independent. I'm not doing any karma. No, that's bull. That's not true. We think we are independent.

[120:52]

We think we do things on our own. And if you watch that, you do good things and you do bad things. You do good things. I do bad things. That's the way we see. That's the world we live in. But then we have all this, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a Buddhist, it's all independent, blah, blah, blah, yes. Yeah, sure. That's not true. Buddhists don't believe that it can restrict me any more than non-Buddhists. In a sense to us, we think it's a good idea. Buddha actually saw it that way. But before Buddha saw it that way, Buddha saw it the other way. Buddha saw, I am separate from other beings, and the way I see it, I'm miserable. You can see that right today for yourself, and most people already see it. That way of seeing it is miserable. That's the way you do see it. And then if you get down here, and you have an imagination, and then you can notice, I believe my imagination. Or I don't. And one of my famous stories, I'm making a famous story, I spent an hour over there one day, and I jumped up and down, and I talked to some woman, and I said, I do not believe my imagination.

[122:00]

don't believe, don't believe. That's what I did. That's telling myself, don't believe, don't believe, don't believe. Because I had this imagination of what she was. I won't tell you what I thought she was, but I better not believe it, because I believe that I would get in big trouble if I believed what I thought she was. You know, when she saw me jumping up and down like that, she stopped. do you support my fantasy? It's rough. Anyway, we have to learn that our fantasies are not reality. We have to see that. We have to learn to see, this is what I think you are. I think you're wonderful. I think you're gorgeous. I think you're not wonderful. I think you're not gorgeous. I think you're a lot of these entities, and I think you're going to say, this is not what you are, this is my fantasy. It's just fantasy, what they do.

[123:02]

From fantasy to fantasy, you're starting to become free. From fantasy to reality, you don't. And if you see, if you take the fantasy for true, then that's just fantasy. The reality, then you know she's suffering. So then, if that's the case, you start doing practice, and then you get around here, then you can start to get a fantasy. Oh, a fantasy. And you're not fooled by your fantasy, but your fantasies are unique. Now, once you learn your fantasies, you can start to see that they don't come from nowhere. And then you start to see how they're interdependent. And then you start to become, not just see the answers, but that we get there. The truth, not the fantasy truth, becomes the deep. A fantasy, the way a fantasy happens is no more or less, or no more or less truth, no more or less truth than a color, a smell, and a mind up.

[124:16]

All things are equally... real, and it's... That's the Donald Altman script, and you can see what something is, you can see how it happens, but if you make something into a reality, you can't see how a reality is made, because realities don't exist. Only fantasies and sense objects exist, but they don't exist either. They depend upon us. And that was even mindful of any freak. Anyway, we say that we're independent, but we don't really think we are. We even know for sure we are, but we don't really believe we know for sure it's true. And we act like we don't know it all the time. Which is fine, because that makes sense. This is an antidote to action.

[125:17]

who reveled in it by admitting, God, why now? Now, you become, you finally start acting as though you're independent because you start actually seeing it in your heart. But the way you see that you're independent is by meditating on separate. Get very clear. There's me. I'm doing this to him. That's what I see. And you see it really clearly. And you start to say, oh, that's not true. I can't do anything to him without him doing something to me. It's all in your perspective. But you start with that you treat yourself independently. And if you look at that carefully, you realize you're independent. You have to start with where you are. And where you are, you have to start here. And where we are, there's mirrors out there. With stuff here being this, you have to admit that. If you admit that, you realize freedom comes here. OK? Time to stop?

[126:24]

Time to stop? Thank you very much.

[126:29]

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