There's a conditioning program that's well established by our brain and by our society. And this conditioning program is to get the mind to grasp and seek seek for some ground, and also in this process of grasping and seeking to conceptually elaborate on the process of conception. is, first of all, the first phase that we've been discussing is a phase called shamatha, where we try to train the mind to not grasp and seek, anything in the mind, to not conceptually elaborate on the categories of conception, to not apprehend the objects of mind as anything.

[01:12]

So this is the deprogramming or deconditioning process of mental stabilization. And so in the process of mental stabilization, the mind is trained to be free of moving among objects. So this is training the mind to be free of involvement with objects. Both sensory objects, so-called sensory objects, the sensory categories, which we usually call objects, and the internal dialogue.

[02:24]

So there's no internal commentary, gasping and sighing, and outside there's no involvement or moving around or being active or excited about the sense field. Training in Samatha, training the mind like a wall. Now I'd just like to make a big step here and say that As calming frees us from moving and running around and being involved in shopping among objects, among different objects, insight frees us from the experience of difference. Okay?

[03:35]

So, calm is that we're free from the differences. The different objects. We're not involved with the fact that this is a cute person and this is a cuter person. We're not involved with the difference between tofu smoothies and yogurt. We're not involved in that. We're not involved with the difference between anxiety and freedom from anxiety. We're not involved with our judgments. We're free of this involvement. We don't move around in this, between these different objects. We're free of these concepts that are arising. But insight is that we're free of the difference between among them, differentiation among them.

[04:42]

So the mind and insight capable of staying with just one thing, like the fourth ancestor calls it, of being absorbed in the oneness of life, or the oneness of all phenomena. So even though there's these many, many kinds of objects, we're free of the fact that they seem to be different. We're always looking at the same thing. So we're free of the difference. And in other words, we're always looking at the same thing. We're focusing on something that just has one taste. Emptiness. Wang Bo says, this mind is no mind of conceptual thought.

[06:13]

It's completely detached from characteristics. So sentient beings and Buddhas do not differ at all. So the first part is it's completely free or detached from the characteristics that make things different. The other thing is that even the difference which is constituted by these characteristics, there's no difference. If you can free yourself of conceptual thought, you will understand everything. So first of all, is not to become involved in the differences, and second of all, not to experience the difference. First is samatha, the next is vipassana. Now, I just would like to also just say that

[07:32]

This deprogramming is hard. A lot of people coming to Doksan know how hard the deprogramming is. These are powerful habits, powerful habits internally and externally, psychologically and culturally to meddle with and be involved with and move among internal and external, these different kinds of objects. And here's a nice poem. Here's a poem I like, which I'm always looking for an opportunity to read. Can I read it? This is called The Road to Shamatha is Hard. is written by a man of darkness.

[08:41]

His name was Li Bo. He called Shamatha Shu. Alas! Behold! How steep! The road to Shu is hard. Harder than climbing to the heavens. The two kings, Cang Cung and Yu Fu, opened up this land in the dim past. 48,000 years since that time, sealed off from the frontier regions of Qin. The great white peaks blocked the western approach. A bird track just wide to be laid across the top of Mount Ome.

[09:43]

Earth tottered, mountains crumbled, brave people perished. And then came the stone hanging bridges, the sky ascending, interlocked. Above at the highest point, the sixth dragon peep curls around the sun. Below The gushing, churning torrents turn rivers around. Wild geese cannot fly across. And gibbons spare give up climbing. My wife likes that line particularly. Can you imagine gibbons giving up climbing? And this is relevant to Tassajara. We live in fear of the coming of the mud mountain. Nine bends within each hundred steps, zigzagging up the cliffside to where one can touch the stars breathless.

[10:58]

Beating my breast, I heave a long sigh and sit down. May I ask if you expect to return, traveling so far west? Inaccessible mountains' peaks lie ahead, where one sees only dismal birds howling in the ancient woods, where the female and male fly around each other. One also hears cuckoos crying beneath the moon at night, over fills the empty mountains the road to shoe is hard harder than climbing to the heavens just hearing these words turns one's cheeks pale on peak less than a foot from the sky where withered pines hang inverted from sheer cliffs

[12:09]

where cataracts and roaring torrents make noisy clamor, dashing upon rocks, a thunderclap from a thousand feet, an impregnable place like this, I sigh and ask why anyone would come here from so far away. There the dragon there the dagger peak stands erect and sharp with one man guarding the pass ten thousand people can't pass should those on guard prove untrustworthy they could have turned into leopards and wolves morning this is like you know what do you say uh Morning, my thoughts are on Kanzayon. Evening, my thoughts are on Kanzayon.

[13:12]

Morning, one runs away from fierce dragons, fierce tigers. Evening, one runs away from long snakes. They gnash their teeth and suck human blood and maul people down like hemp. The brocade city might be a place of pleasure But it's hurry home. The road to Shu is hard, harder than climbing to the heavens. Sideways, I look westward and see and heave a sigh of relief. So anyway, it's hard. In practice, it's hard to deprogram So in the process of trying to train the mind onto non-conceptuality, trying to train the mind into not elaborating on concepts, a lot of people are realizing, even more vividly than before, how heavily they're into high-speed conceptual elaboration.

[14:37]

The first discovery in mindfulness practice is the poignant, piercing realization of how unmindful we normally are. Generally speaking, about all of our experience, we're making an abstract commentary about what's going on. Even when following the breath, we're really thinking about following the breath, rather than just being mindful of it. We're thinking about being a meditator on the breath. And we have this abstract commentary which creates a buffer between us and our... our experience. Distances us Distracts and abstracts us from our experience.

[15:45]

This is our habit, this is our program, and it's hard to deconstruct, decondition this powerful program. But that's why we get together in a group and help each other. I want to mention also, but not get into it, just to mention that, you know, in Tibetan Buddhism, there's a Galukpa school, and that school is officially, you know, Prasangika Madhyamaka, a particular type of middle way school, and that school, uh, There is the proposal to cultivate Samatha separately from Vipassana.

[16:57]

And in the Samadhi, it looks like the Samatha is presented first, and then the Vipassana, and then of course they're united. But there's other kinds of Tibetan Buddhism, for example the Dzogchen, which a lot of people compare to Zen, they necessarily cultivate Samatha separately from what they call primordial wisdom. And how that relates to Zen practice and, you know, which one is closer to Zen practice, we can look at in more detail. I feel like actually in the Zen school, you find both approaches. You find a a place where there is the development of this Bodhidharma teaching, like a wall which is disentangling from involvement with objects outside and not coughing and sighing inside, as a Samatha practice.

[18:16]

practice can be seen as inseparable from the mind which makes no discrimination among the objects, which is wisdom. But other aspects of Zen, there's a teaching of shamatha, and then it's followed by a teaching of active probing and examination of, for example, the self and realization of the no-self. In the Zen school, there aren't these major different schools exactly, but there's kind of different schools, like there's the five houses and so forth, and they have different kinds of emphasis. But even within those houses, I think, it's not so clearly aligned that this house is this style and that house is that style. But there are really dramatic contrasts and different approaches to how meditation and wisdom work

[19:21]

separately and together, or inseparably. There's different presentations among Buddhist ancestors. So that's a little introduction. And I would like I feel that the Dhammacakya Paravatana Sutta that when in that sutra the Buddha talks about avoiding the extremes of devotion to addiction, or devotion to indulgence in sense pleasure, and devotion to self-mortification, that those are, I think I can read those as talking about those two extremes as we usually understand them, but this kind of programming by which we are involved with objects.

[20:26]

But those are two extreme versions of the way we abstract ourselves and distract ourselves from being present. There are ways we abstract and distract in relationship to objects. And in some sense, that middle way he's talking about in the first sutra is related to Samatha more, but it's more of a settling instruction. And then, following that, he gets into insight work of looking at the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths. The other sutra, is more about, I think, talking about the proper understanding of existence or the proper understanding of emptiness.

[21:38]

But then he gives instructions about how to meditate on the arising and ceasing of phenomena. So in both of these sutras, I think you can start to look to see Samatha and Vipassana working in . But before we do that, do you have any more questions about Samatha? Yes. . Okay, so your example is this material comes to you and the word yogurt comes.

[22:59]

So you're wondering... In the practice of Samatha, does the word yogurt not come? Now, the word yogurt, first in Samatha practice, the word yogurt arises, okay? It could be external yogurt or internal yogurt. In the practice of Samatha, there's no involvement with that concept, yogurt. There could also be just working with the color, this white color. When mind knows it, mind knows that concept. We've got the concept white. The shamatha practice is not to become involved with that concept white. to sort of try to move over to, you know, something more beige, or say, I wish it was beige, which would mean that it was soy milk.

[24:10]

So you're just not involved with it. And again, people are programmed to say, but what will happen to me if I don't get involved with the fluid that's being offered to me? I might, you know, eat something that I'm allergic to. So I can't, like, not be involved with these objects. I have to get involved. I have to move among different concepts in order to protect myself. So that's how Samatha is not about protecting yourself. It's actually facing your vulnerability to concepts and not doing anything about it. facing your programming about them and not doing anything about the programming. That's a deprogramming. Now, your question is, has it ever happened that the concept yogurt doesn't arise? No, if you're naming it, that's the concept you're dealing with.

[25:21]

Now, in Vipassana... there's no difference between yogurt and tofu sentient beings and buddhas are there's no difference between them you you become free of the difference between the different concepts because you're huh pardon you become free of discrimination but it doesn't mean that uh It just means that this that you just it's not happening for you the difference between sentient beings and buddhas for example is just not happening Because basically the same thing when you look at sentient beings and buddhas You're looking at the thing that's the same about them Namely that there's not really something there that's a sentient being, and there's not really something there that's a booyah, and there's not really something there that's yogurt, and there's not really something there that's soy. You're looking at the absence of inherent existence of both of the things, so you're always looking at the same thing.

[26:26]

So you're free of the differences between these objects. Seeing the dependently coerced nature of phenomena is one of the main ways that you get to see that there's not a thing there all by itself out there. So the conceptual nature of phenomena and the dependently correlated nature of phenomena usually are confused. Usually the conceptual is so confused with the dependently co-arisen that we can't see the dependently co-arisen. We can hear about it, but we can't actually witness it. We're confused with this concept. The concept's also dependently co-arisen, but the concept says, you know, I'm not dependently co-arisen, I'm this.

[27:29]

When you can see the dependently co-arisen nature, you're beginning to be able to see that there's not something out there independent of the observer, independent of the concept, independent of other things. So that's one of the main ways to realize emptiness, is to study dependent co-arising. But dependent co-arising is not exactly the same as emptiness. co-arising is conventionality but it's the dependently co-arisen nature of conventionality so it's [...] a way of becoming familiar with that way of conventionality is a gate emptiness to realization of emptiness yes The karmic consciousness is trying to come in and get the shamatha.

[28:52]

Get the, you know, grasp the shamatha. Yeah? Uh-huh. Yeah, that's another... The karmic consciousness itself is not just a concept. It is a process of a way of working with concepts. And to whatever extent the karmic consciousness can be experienced, then the karmic consciousness itself, whatever, is an object. I mean, is an object, is a concept. Any way that you can experience karmic consciousness, like you heard about it in a book or whatever, any way we know about karmic consciousness is a concept of karmic consciousness. Karmic consciousness is a process that is going on mysteriously and magically and wonderfully, even if we're not thinking about it.

[29:58]

But if we are thinking about it, are hearing about it, are noticing it's working, if we do see this grasping for ground, grasping for something substantial on its own, if we see this functioning, then there is some contact with the process, but through a concept of the process. So when you notice the karmic consciousness, when you notice a concept for the karmic consciousness, you... You practice Samatha with that concept of karmic consciousness, the way you practice Samatha with concepts of any other process or any other phenomenon. Don't get involved with the, you know, don't cough and sigh. Usually you don't see karmic consciousness, you know, out there in the trees. Usually it's like something you notice in your own self. You know, I want to get that, where is this, is this shamatha?

[31:04]

This is more of an internal, this is more of mental phenomena. It's all concept, so it's all mental. But this is more like internal conceptual workings. Here I am trying to grasp... this practice of Samatha. You notice that. So you don't get involved with that concept. You just let it be that concept. Most people don't even notice it. Meditators start to notice the process. As they start to notice the process, the way they notice it is they start to notice concepts. It offers itself, and then it offers a mental representation of itself, which consciousness can know, But then its own tendency would be to try to do something with that, augment it or get rid of it. That would be more karmic consciousness. That would be more mind not like a wall. That would be more agitated. That would be more getting excited about. That would be more gasping and sighing.

[32:07]

So we don't gasp or sigh. I mean, the shamatha is not to gasp and sigh at the horrible concept of is powerful karmic discovered in your own heart it's like the worst little demon you find you kind of go you don't know what to do you just like you don't have to even say we're quite close here aren't we But you are, you're very close, very close. And you don't try to get closer. Or farther away. Right or to the left, you just like, we've already been stationed here. Just where we are, this is what we have to work with at this moment.

[33:09]

Someone wrote me a letter who has a disease, and she says, you know, do I have to embrace this terror, this disease taking over my life? Do I have to embrace this terror in order to taste beauty? And I wrote back and saying, I think embrace is going a bit far. How about face? How about face the terror? Just barely be able to face the terror. That's enough. Like, okay. And then you get another one. Bigger terror. Okay? There were some people over there, I think, before these people over here. Were there some people over there? Yes? A person? Oh, could I say something to you before? Samatha is not really non-duality. Okay? Okay? It's not really non-duality.

[34:15]

It's not completely the same as non-duality or different from non-duality. But Samatha is non-dualistic and non-conceptual. But it's not non-conception and non-duality. So Samatha is, you have these different things, but you don't get involved with that. Right? That's the Samatha practice. You train yourself not to get involved in duality. So in that sense, Samatha practice is non-dualistic. Yeah, Vipassana is non-duality. Right. Was that your question by any chance? Fantastic. Anybody else's mind they would like to read? Yes? Yes.

[35:22]

Yes. Yeah. Well, um, Strictly speaking, you know, staying in the present with the, and, you know, not thinking what's going to happen to me in a car accident situation is, well, that's great. Some people say, no, no, you have to think of the future when, you know, something like that happens. But to actually stay present with the experience and not get involved with the opposite, is shamatha, training, or realized, and it's also a good way to drive the car. And in fact, it's really much better than sort of bringing fear into the equation.

[36:35]

Well, we use, you know, conventionally speaking, we consider sensory events external, like we consider light external, even, you know, But when we're aware of light, when we know light, it's actually we're knowing a concept. The brain knows its version of electromagnetic radiation. So electromagnetic radiation goes right through our body. But in the process, it stimulates tissue, okay? But the electromagnetic radiation The electromagnetic radiation, to some extent, stimulates the brain. This electromagnetic radiation of this certain range of wavelengths, it stimulates the brain in some sense as it goes through. But it also goes through, but it also bounces off. And the process of tissue... There's certain tissue that when it touches, that tissue chemically changes and creates electrical impulse, and that electrical impulse then goes to the brain and stimulates the brain.

[37:53]

So what the brain's responding to is a chemical reaction in the body that was caused by the body's relationship with electromagnetic radiation. So the brain is dealing with the body. And so the mind's arising from an interbody event that was set off by electromagnetic radiation. So what you're dealing with is actually a mental event that's really the result of a physical event, internal bodily event. It's not actually about the light out there. But we call those events sensory. even though what we're dealing with is mental representations of an event between the body and something separate from the body, namely electromagnetic radiation.

[38:54]

But we don't know about those things, even though the body, the eye, and the brain are the same thing. We don't know about that until it's converted into a mental representation in the brain. And it's also converted, it's also said to be external. The brain also says this is outside. There's actually, yeah, no things that are actually like really separate from each other. But we conceive of it in that way. But it doesn't mean there's no electromagnetic radiation. It just means there's no electromagnetic radiation all by itself out there, independent of us. And there's no us independent of electromagnetic radiation. This is what we get to realize eventually. But that's sensory.

[39:58]

And then internally, there are things which we don't usually think of as sensory. And that is our own feelings about our own body. So our own feelings, we don't say that those are external usually. We sort of recognize these are kind of like our brains going on with our body and we feel comfortable or uncomfortable. So those are the, and then also the little conversations we're having with ourselves, we usually don't call those sensory. We usually don't call them external. But when we know about the conversation, when we know about colors, those are both. What we're dealing with is mental representations of processes. But it doesn't mean that there really are some actual processes out there going on without mental representation. Those processes are not happening independent of our mental representations.

[41:03]

But our mental representation is not the full extent of the process. The process is more than our idea of it. But there's no processes happening out there independent of our ideas about them. There's no thing separate from the mind, and there's no mind separate from the things. They're always dependently co-arising. So the practice of Samatha is to not get involved with these mental representations of what's going on. Getting involved with the mental representations of what's going on block us from penetrating insight into the nature of what's going on. Because we're always running around between stories about what's going on as what's going on. The stories about things, so we never find out what's going on beyond the stories. There is something more than the stories.

[42:09]

There is something more than the concepts. And if we keep moving among the different concepts, we're so excited that we have no chance to see what more there is to life than just our ideas about it. But there is more to life than what we think it is. Pardon? Yeah, what did you want to say? Well, it's called dependent core rising. So, for example, I have the concept of Barrett standing up, but I don't have Barrett standing up. See the difference between those two? My concept of you standing up, it's just an idea, but you're sitting down.

[43:16]

So I have the concept of you sitting down, and I have the experience. What's the difference between my concept of you standing up and my concept of you sitting down? What's the difference between those two concepts? In one case I have the dependent core rising also, in the other case I don't. Yeah, it's the same thing. It's the same thing. Yes. You're seeing here me sitting. But backed up by dependent core rising. Huh? Backed up by dependent core rising. Yes. And now you have other ideas of me standing up, but that's not backed up by causes and conditions, so you can't have that experience.

[44:19]

You don't see that? Well, that's the difference between just your idea of things and phenomena. And there's more to it than that, too, but we didn't mention it yet, but that's... Because the other part is, it's more to it, but not really something in addition. It's a fact that those two don't need to be confused. The concept doesn't need to be confused with the dependent core arising. And in fact, the concept always . But usually, often people see the concept and dependent core arising confused. They can't see the dependent core arising. And because they can't see the dependent core arising, They can imagine that the concept is really out there, existing on its own. Only when you see dependent core arising of a phenomenon, then you're relieved of seeing it as independent of yourself, or yourself as independent of it.

[45:29]

Do you have some more questions about that? You look like you do. Okay. You done for now? Okay. There was, I think Brian maybe was next, I'm not sure. Checked as you said, the terror, the terror of the disease. Some concepts?

[46:32]

Objects. Some objects. And the other is, what's the other description? It's not involved. It's not involved. Okay, so the way consciousness is, is that it's not separate from concepts. In other words, consciousness under normal circumstances dependently co-arises with concepts. So not separate. Okay? But also, the way consciousness works with or knows objects is that it does not elaborate on them. so those are one speaking of the concepts and consciousness arise together and the other is telling you how consciousness relates to the concepts namely it doesn't elaborate on them it just wasn't does what does what

[47:44]

It gets concepts. It knows them. It's aware of them. It doesn't add on to them. Yeah. Kind of like that. Like I was saying last night, the ball catches it. That's it. That's the way consciousness works with a given concept. I mean, that's the way consciousness works with a given concept that's arising. That's right. The great difficulty is that the habit is There's other aspects too. One of the aspects of experience is that there's attention. And attention can look out in the direction of the concept and can see it, elaborate it as outside. And as soon as it elaborates as outside, looks at concept and outside, this orientation of attention creates hubbub and disturbance in the mind.

[48:53]

No, it's easy. It's just painful. The habit is for mental attention to be turned outward towards the concepts. That's the habit. And that's easy. That's the normal mode called the light shining outward. But that's painful and disturbing. This is all kinds of pain, this orientation. Is that clear so far? Okay, called difficult. But it's automatically difficult. It's automatic. It just comes with the territory of having a human brain. So having a human brain the way it ordinarily operates... psychologically and the way it's conditioned societally, strong conditioning to operate that way. Okay? What's difficult is to turn the light around and to deprogram that tendency. Say it again.

[50:09]

Well, I think maybe there's a confusion between you say deprogramming to do, and you say, it's okay, you're saying deprogram to do, and you say that's not difficult. I think what you mean by that is is that what this thing you think you say you're deprogramming to do is already happening, is already going on. It's the nature of mind not to elaborate on these concepts. So that's effortless. That's just the nature of mind to do that. The hard part is to reorient the attention to the nature of mind. That's the hard part. Because the orientation is usually not to look at the nature of mind. It's to look at the differences among objects and to be negotiating all and moving back and forth between all these objects to make the best deal. In other words, to be involved. That's the usual orientation of the attention. Always watching, you know, do they like me? Who likes me best?

[51:26]

You know, oops. You know, always checking everything out and seeing how you're doing with the other people in the troupe, you know. This is the ordinary orientation of anxiety. And there's also an innate misunderstanding or misconception going with this, namely that I'm here and those objects are out there and we're really different. That's there too. So you've got that misconception, that vulnerability, subject to that sense of difference between buddhas and sentient beings between me and others plus the mental attitude of looking out and seeing you know where's the buddhas and where's the sentient beings and so on to reverse that process and turn the light back to look at the nature of mind it doesn't do that hard part and you know people have lots even zen students have lots of arguments about

[52:27]

how difficult that is and how that really is not possible and so on. And can you really do it in that situation? Like people say, yeah, yeah, yeah, but you can't do this at work. I hear that when I teach classes outside Zen Center. You can't do that when you're driving a car. So everybody has cases where they think they can't do it. Well, if you can't do it there, okay, fine. Find some place you can do it. And the place you think you can do it, even then it will be difficult. No matter any situation you're doing, still the habit is to distract and abstract ourselves from the way the mind is basically working. So the way it's working is already set. We need to discover that. And to look at this way that it's working calms us and energizes us. So then we can see that actually the differences which we're no longer negotiating among aren't really there. That's based on a misconception.

[53:30]

So, first of all, we discontinue our running around among the objects and calm down. There's no difference among them. And then, you know, there's no motivation for running around anymore. But as long as you think there's a difference between them, you kind of have to train yourself in Samatha. to not try to make the best deal you can with all these different faces out there. So first of all, you have to disengage from the different faces. And that's pretty difficult. It's not impossible, though. Some success has happened here, right, in this little valley recently. But also there's lots of comments about in various ways, and some people just need more confidence that it's possible in order to continue the work.

[54:35]

Once you have Samatha, that itself is a big encouragement, because this nice way of being with things, this non-conceptual way of being with things, you're in touch with the wonder of awareness. and joy. To be aware is a joy. It actually is a joy to get to be aware. It's kind of one of the, you know, in this neighborhood of the universe, one of the most rare and wonderful things that the universe has created is that something can be aware. It's fantastic. And when you actually, I mean, not only are things happening, but you can be aware. And then you can calm down with that awareness, and then you can see But there's no difference in the ways that the universe works. And then, you know, then you're fully equipped to help all these people who are suffering because they're, you know, working, working hard to make the best deal among themselves.

[55:40]

They think there are differences, so they're basically kind of uncomfortable because of the way the brain works. And the brain works this way because it's very powerful to work this way. Because in that realm that's created, that people are living in, the people who are doing this the most, making, and this being involved with objects, you know, some of them are the most powerful and successful reproductive units. I think maybe you were next. No, maybe you were next. Maybe you were next. I think either Jane or Sarah, I think, maybe. Yeah. Three words. Consciousness. Awareness. And mental attention. Yeah. So consciousness... Was what we you know, and that's one thing and some oftentimes I would use the word Chitta see I TTA the Sanskrit word Chitta or the Pali word Chitta Awareness is

[56:57]

just like is consciousness. But sometimes people say consciousness dash awareness. So you'll run into some situations in some books, some teachings, where they'll use awareness for consciousness, which is okay. But also you can say that a quality of consciousness is that it's aware. And awareness could also be the Sanskrit word vidya, just to know something. So consciousness has a quality that it can be aware, it can know things, or cognition. And the other was mental attention. And so the way the mind works is there is arising with the mind many, many mind processes that coexist with the normal state of consciousness. One of them is feeling. Another one is mental attention, or the fact that the mind bends towards some kind of phenomenon.

[58:11]

So the mind can bend towards the object. The mind field can be bent towards the object, or it can be bent... of the consciousness. And there's different ways that the mind can be oriented or the attention can be directed, some of which are called, what do you call it, yoniso manashikara, a well-directed mental attention, or manashikara, a mental attention directed in an unhelpful way. So directing the the directing mental attention, manasikara, towards the objects, is getting involved with them. Is like, to this one, to that one. And again, it's motivated, it's operating, when it's applied that way, it's usually operated out of some self-concern. We think these objects are out there on their own, and we want to make the best deal with them.

[59:15]

So that's inappropriate application of mental attention. Another way to use mental attention is to shine it back and look at something which will calm the whole situation down. And when situations calm down, then we have a possibility of looking at the nature of the phenomenon. And finding out that there's a way to see them all basically the same thing. Namely, everything's empty. We're always looking at emptiness. Okay? Five skandhas? Is consciousness is the fifth? Yes? Yeah, right, the fifth skandha. Any experience, you can account for all the elements of an experience with these five skandhas.

[60:19]

Anything kind of data that you have or any evidence you have of experience, as soon as you would tell somebody that's familiar with that way of categorizing, they could tell you what skanda to put that in. And there's nothing we have evidence for that is outside of those categories. Feeling, Samadhi, all those go in the fourth skandha. Mental formations, yeah. But mental formations is not the full definition. It just means formations. Mental formations go under formations. It's called the samskaras skandha. Mental formations go in there, but there's other phenomena that they put in there that aren't mental. Like the nature of phenomena. That it arises... lasts for a while, deteriorates and ceases. That quality of how things arise and cease is actually part of, is one of the formations. Mental formations is too narrow for that skanda.

[61:24]

Awareness I don't know exactly where to put awareness because I would say that awareness is a quality of the Piscanda, but when you become aware of, when you would know awareness, then awareness would be a concept or a perception. I think Sarah's next. When something arises in your mind, like a month or two ago, Oh, so I have the thought of now a bear flying.

[63:00]

That's a concept I have. But I don't think there's a phenomenon called flying. I don't think that. I mean, does anybody think he's flying right now? No, right? But you can have the concept of him flying. That concept dependently co-arises. The fact that I have that idea, that dependently co-arose and my idea I have an idea that I have that idea, plus I also have some experience of it. But I can have now an idea of a concept that has not arisen. So I don't know what that concept is. The concept which I don't know about, that's not a phenomena to me. The idea of that is, I'm experiencing that right now, I'm talking to you about it, but what it is neither one of us know about, right?

[64:08]

But we have the idea of it. In terms of examination of the concept, Well, in one case, I don't think there's any referent to my idea. I do. . Hmm? I couldn't hear that.

[65:09]

If you were practicing Samatha... Well, in a way, I guess I could say, if I have the idea of somebody in this room flying now, that the referent of that, I guess I think that that cannot be experienced. There's no evidence for that. That's the difference. Whereas my experience of you sitting there, I have evidence for it. And things that I have evidence for are dependent co-arisings.

[66:13]

And things that I have no evidence for are not. Or co-arisings, like the referent of some idea I have, I have no evidence for. I have no evidence for you flying. But I do have evidence So, the phenomena of you sitting, the evidence, the evidential part of it, is the dependent core risen part. Well, that I see you there, and you agree that you are, and everybody else does, and I can go over and touch you there, all that, that's evidence. And all that depends on various things. So there's evidence for that, and dependent core right, and things that things that are not dependently co-arisen, there's no, there's no, nobody can come up with anything like that.

[67:16]

Nobody can show me the co-arisen. So things that are, that can be evidence for, and things that there's evidence for are. But, and also for something to happen, there has to be a concept, which there is. I have the concept for you sitting there too. I need more than the concept, I need evidence. So I can have concepts of things I have no evidence for, and those are not, then that's not, the concepts are dependent co-arising, but the event is not dependent co-arising, it's just a concept, just an idea. The concepts are dependent co-arising, and I have evidence for that, and I can tell you what it is. I can put it in English, and we've got the language, and you can hear. We do have that concept. Whether he admits it or not, I can see we've got that concept. But he does agree, we've got that concept. And so we have the concept, the phenomenon called the concept, Plus we have the dependent co-arising of it, because we have evidence for it. But we can also have a concept of something we have evidence for.

[68:21]

So that's a non-evident, non-event. So dependent co-arising isn't an issue, and it isn't happening. And so that's what's missing in a situation where it's pure mental fabrication. But for ordinary phenomenon, there's evidence. So there's not just pure mental fabrication. There's also evidence. In other words, there's also the pinnacle arising. But usually people just deal with things superficially and just look at the concept of the thing. They don't notice the fact of the evidence. Then therefore, they don't notice the pinnacle arising. Like if I have a concept that you're a jerk, or there's a jerk named, you know, Sarah the jerk, right? I don't just have this idea, Sarah, that I'm a jerk. I look over there and I think there actually is somebody there. And I think you're actually the idea jerk. Now, if I look for evidence that you're a jerk, then I'm going to have to look for your dependent co-arising of this jerkiness.

[69:26]

Because you say, well, you say she's a jerk, but what's your proof that she's a jerk? It's not just, you mean you just think she's a jerk? Well, what's the proof? So I have to give evidence. evidence for why you're a jerk, I have to give you a dependent co-arising of your jerkiness. And if I can come up with a dependent co-arising, people say, oh yeah, there really is this phenomena of Sarah the jerk. Because we've got not just Reb's idea that she's a jerk, we also have evidence, which we can observe. We can empirically at the qualities of jerkiness. Then we have a phenomena of jerkiness rather than just Reb's idea of jerkiness. However, the very fact that we need dependent core arising in order to establish your jerkiness is exactly why there is no such thing as jerkiness. Because your jerkiness can't be what you are. We have to prove it. But since I have to prove it, it's not something that stands by itself. It needs proof. Without its proof, there's no jerkiness. So if you look at the dependent core arising, beyond just my idea, if I look at the dependent core arising of my experience of you as a jerk, beyond my...

[70:39]

I get into realizing that there isn't really a jerky thing there. And that actually jerks are not really different from non-jerks because in both cases there's not really something substantial over there. So that's the way that I would realize the difference between or buddhist sentient beings there's no difference i become free of the difference by looking at the dependent core arising which is always associated with any phenomenon that there's any evidence for everything else is really just pure delusion pure mental fabrication now do you understand pretty well oh You can work, yeah, you can work with it, but then you understand that it's pure mental fabrication, and there's evidence for it. Now, for example, right now, I could have the, I could have the, what do you call it, the pure mental, no mental fabrication.

[71:42]

Okay? But that's just a, that's, that's, there's no such thing. I don't have any evidence for that. So, where do you go with that? Not too far. It's with phenomena that we have to work. Like certain things that aren't happening. You know, if I, if I have bad opinions about things that aren't even happening and I think they're jerky, but there's nothing I'm referring to, this is not the problem. It's the messing. It's a misunderstanding of phenomenon as our concepts. That's the problem. It's taking phenomena as something out there and separate and substantial. It's our life that's the problem, not our not-life. But it's, you know, it's the kitchen left. And it's a sign that it's time to stop.

[72:43]

Because the kitchen is the heart of the practice, right? Please you know listen to the sutras and think about how they relate to your daily life as a meditator. And And then study those sutras in samatha. Relate to those sutras in the spirit of working with the concepts and the sounds and the sights of those sutras, working with them without getting involved with them.

[73:47]

Calm down with the sutras. as a way to enter into the mode of insight, into the insightful mode, enter the sutras as a way to start to get ready to understand them in the meditative mode. So understand them in the hearing mode, understand them in a way of thinking how do they relate to your life at Tassajara, and then try to start to understand them in the meditative mode. Is that clear? If you have any questions about that, you can ask them. Okay?

[74:27]

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