This is not a class on Abhidharma. So the question naturally arises, why are we studying these 37 wings of Abhidharma? 37 principles conducive to enlightenment. And you could even ask Since it's a Mahayana text, why are we studying things that are conducive to enlightenment? So on one level you might ask, I don't know which one to ask first, First question is, why study about things that are conducive to enlightenment?

[01:18]

Why would one ask that question? Anybody? Of course, on Mahayana Buddhism, why would someone ask it? Why are you studying these things, these practices that are conducive to enlightenment? Why are you doing that? I'd like to ask that question. Yes? It seems a little what? It looks like... What's the problem with being goal-oriented? In terms of enlightenment.

[02:35]

What's wrong with that goal? Let's say you look at it non-dualistically for the moment. say you don't think in terms of foodstuff and what's the problem. So the first problem is if it's goal-oriented, that's a bit of a problem because that's ridiculous. And if there's any dualism between some goal and you, then by acting By enacting the pursuit of it, you also enact the separation from it. Okay? So that wouldn't be very smart. But let's say you're not talking about dualistic pursuits, but just realization. The non-dualistic attainment of non-dualistic relationship to the goal.

[03:36]

Then what's the problem with this? Yes? Then what's the problem with that? There's no problem for Bodhisattva to study something that can't be attained. What's the name of the thing? That's the same answer. That's good, but that's the same thing I just said. Yes? Yes, but why would someone say, why are you studying this stuff?

[04:41]

What's the problem with studying things that are leading to enlightenment? What's the problem with studying the path that's leading to enlightenment? What's the problem with studying? Okay. With that attitude, there's no problem. What are you going to study? Yeah. Bodhisattvas do not study means to attain. They don't want to attain enlightenment. That's not what they're trying to do. Bodhisattva practices are not in order to gain enlightenment. Even non-dualistically.

[05:42]

In fact, when you gain enlightenment, the only way to do it is non-dualistically. If you approach enlightenment with a dualistic attitude, well, you're defeated in the first place. You're defeated at what? At attaining enlightenment. But let's say you don't approach it dualistically. Let's say you're a clever person and you know that that won't work. So you approach it non-dualistically. What is the non-dualistic approach to enlightenment? What do you call it? Hmm? What's it called? Don't look for a special word. The practice in your enlightenment. And the practice is called the practice or the path. Here it's called 37 principles. So these things are the non-dualistic approach to enlightenment. These aren't dualistic practices done properly. They, if you look at them, they don't have, they're not, none of them are grasping for enlightenment.

[06:47]

Yes. We talked about that last week, that why do you say 37? If you say one, okay, but when do you get, why get the 37? Why not the infinite number? Basically, they say, well, this is enough. But even they say, first of all, one practice is enough. Then they say those four, the first four are enough. The last eight are enough. Why do you have 37? So these 37 are the favored group, indisputable, sufficient means realization. And it's non-dualistic. If you do these practices, when they're complete, you won't have your eliminated dualistic understanding of attainment. You realize that the practice is the way.

[07:50]

However, they do lead to the attainment of nirvana, which is not the bodhisattva's practice. That's right. Yes? There probably Yes, that's one of the practices is to remember which practice you're doing. What is in front of you? Taylor? Why can't there be five?

[08:52]

There's no number five on you. Oh, why couldn't there be? If I was, I'd have to bring it in, bring it in the situation. If you bring me in the situation, why not bring five? Well, when you bring practices to a situation where they have numbers or names or whatever, it's no different than other things you bring in the situation. philosophical positions and so on. So we're just not used to having spiritual practices in our back pocket all the time, some of which we have right in front of us, some of which we pull out later, and some of which we put away and pull out, you know. These practices, you can know you're on, you know, such and such a number of practices in a certain phase of it, you know. You can know that. It's quite all right. There's no problem. You can also not be aware of it. But, um, As I say, going back to one practice, when you're doing one practice, you can certainly remember you're doing one practice. And you could also quite easily remember quite a while to do. And you know which subcategories of those you were doing. You have to. Otherwise you get lost.

[09:55]

But it's very much like taking somebody on a tour of a museum. If that's your job, if you're Bodhisattva and you're a tour guide in a museum, you in fact know which room you're in. And you say, well, this is this statue, and that's that statue, and that's that painting. In other words, you bring that to the room. And it's just a thing you do. These practices are no different than that kind of information that you have as you conduct yourself through time and space. You can have them or not. I don't understand what I was just talking to him about, did you?

[10:57]

These practices which we're beginning to study now, and which we'll go through in various layers and come in and out of, he sort of raised the question, well, if you're doing a practice, you don't necessarily know you're doing one of the large number of sub-varieties of, for example, the first of the first four of the 37, which is mindfulness of the body. You wouldn't necessarily know you're doing the four Smriti Upastanas, and you're doing the first of the four, and you're doing one of the many possible practices which goes under the first of the four. You wouldn't necessarily have those numbers in mind. You wouldn't necessarily have them. For example, if you're saying, practice just to say that and be aware that you're sitting and say that you're sitting either verbally out loud or to yourself that's a practice called mindfulness of the body but you could have you could you could also say I'm doing the first of the four which is the first of the first four of 37 you could say that and if you do that practice

[12:21]

that particular practice that you've been doing would be, in a sense, it would be another one of the mindfulness practices that you decided you were doing the first one of. You would have then switched to, for example, you could say you switched to number three, mindfulness of citta. Or you could say you switched to number four, which is mindfulness of things. Under mindfulness of things, there's eightfold path. is, and that's the answer which I'm going to be leading to, is the first question is, so why do things which are leading somewhere to this thing called enlightenment, okay?

[13:48]

Take away the leading part, you ought to handle that part, okay? This thing that is lightened, because bodhisattvas do not do that. The reason is because these beings who you're going to save, who you're going to lead to nirvana, do you know how you lead these beings to nirvana? How do they get there? How do they get to nirvana? Right, they have to practice themselves. And what practices will they do if they want to go to nirvana? What? Any particular practices that they might do? Yeah, they might do these 37 in other words. Okay. So the beings that you're going to lead to nirvana, you'd lead them to nirvana by means of these 37. That's, in other words, like taking them on a tour of your museum.

[14:51]

You take them around the museum by means of saying, let's go right, let's go left, let's go in this room, and here's what's in this room. That's how you give them a tour and lead them to nirvana. Now, the one, not one, but one of the subtleties here is that lead them to nirvana, but you actually take them to nirvana, and what you do to take them to nirvana is to teach them bodhi, is to teach them enlightenment, which these 37 things teach. But to really do them a favor, of course, as you lead them to nirvana, you should lead them to nirvana and finally, before they take nirvana, then also teach them bodhisattva vehicle. But first you start teaching them how to go to nirvana. how to be enlightened but the first thing you teach them some people you will teach this way so that's why the Bodhisattva brings these numbers in this is for people who want to practice who want to who will be willing to try to attain nirvana who will be willing to try to attain Bodhi but the Bodhisattvas

[16:15]

For people who are willing to be bodhisattvas, and not everybody at Zen Center is willing to be a bodhisattva, some people, very good people, are willing to admit that they do not wish to try to get the bodhisattva path right now. In other words, they've looked carefully enough at the situation to see that there's an option. That you can do these kind of practices, which are very salutary, and lead to nirvana. Or you can do other practices which do not lead to nirvana. But leave others to your father. And they feel like right now they don't want to do those practices. enlightenment and concern for all beings?

[17:20]

Well, if you understand enlightenment as something you could attain before the other people, then there's a difference. It is possible to conceive of a liberation of yourself ahead of the other people. It is possible to see yourself progressing. You can look around and see, hey, some of the other people around here are kind of messed up. They're quite distracted. And they're doing various unwholesome things. However, I'm proceeding along quite well. I'm quite mindful of their situation. I'm quite calm. I don't commit any unwholesome acts. I see how I function very well and I also understand how they function. They do not wish to practice and I'm not going to postpone them or even encourage them because they don't want to. In other words, it's possible to see yourself go out ahead of beings and to see an enlightenment at the end of that path.

[18:33]

Deluded view, but it's an it's a form of enlightenment It's a it's enlightenment, but it's not the bodhisattva. It's not the Buddhism like it's a certain kind of enlightenment The shravakas the disciples the listeners and the project of Buddhas are enlightened they understand how to liberate themselves They attain nirvana they think they attain nirvana They are lofty spiritual beings. They do these practices which a lot of bodhisattvas can't even begin to do. They do them completely. They attain them and they attain nirvana. However, their enlightenment is not that of the Buddhas. It is inferior. There are levels of omniscience. There are lower levels because they understand how to enlighten this being, but not to how to enlighten all beings.

[19:46]

So in a sense, their attainment is illusory. It's not real. But we have to admit that the way reality and appearance interact is such that this magical city called Nirvana, which can be attained by one person ahead of everyone else, does occur. There is this event. And notable saints have not come up to that level. The ones who have attained it are extraordinary. However, they are in some sense still misguided. Their omniscience is limited. It's not omniscience of all beings. That's the teaching of this text, is these different levels. So bodhisattvas take this, in a sense, it's inconceivable that anyone would try this.

[20:57]

That's why the practice is called inconceivable liberation. Whereas the shravaka practice is not inconceivable. Bodhisattva attains nirvana when everybody else does. That is the attainment of a Bodhisattva's nirvana. Bodhisattva, albeit everything attains it simultaneously. So actually what the Bodhisattva does is first he pushes everybody along and gets everybody, all the people to wait for all the other people. So everybody gets it at once. That's the Bodhisattva's awakening. He doesn't push you over, then [...] you over. He pushes you up close, pushes her up close, pushes him up close, gets everybody alone. And then everybody's ready. Everybody falls at once over the edge. when everybody celebrates the Sabbath at the same time.

[22:31]

So we also say, the Buddha comes into the world to save beings. The Buddha manifests a body in order to save beings. But the saving of beings is a manifestation of the Buddha body. It's not like there's this Buddha body that saves beings. It's separate from beings being saved. When beings are saved, when you've got a bunch of beings that are all saved, then you have a Buddha body. That's what a Buddha body is like. It's just like beings that are saved. Just like what you're saying. That's not right.

[23:49]

It's not a conceivable thing like that. But you can talk about that with you. You can have that image, that's fine, but that's not what it's like. Because it's already happening right now. It's good that you articulate. That's what a lot of people think. That's the kind of... It's one of the images that could arise from this kind of chatter. Then throw it out, please. That's the way you think. You think in terms of temporal progression. Without temporal progression, you can't create any karma. It's not so much that you have this long path to do, it'll take you a long time.

[25:12]

That kind of thinking is what makes you not believe that you could be enlightened and everybody's enlightened right now. Because we're caught in past, present, and future, you think not everybody's enlightened. If you weren't thinking in terms of past, present, and future, your mind would not be having trouble seeing that everybody's enlightened right now. So it's not so much that you have to do this big project, but rather you sort of have to admit to yourself right now. You sort of have to do that. If somebody has to do that, you have to sort of say, well, there's quite a bit I have to do before I'm going to believe this story. You sort of have to kind of see all these areas where you can't quite say yes to this story. The description of the universe in a Mahayana Sutra, Every time that they talk about this stuff, and you can't sort of say, okay, that's an aspect of your mind which, in a sense, you have to let go of.

[26:22]

So in a sense, if you could let go of all this stuff right now, it could happen at this moment. What I mean is, If you see other people still having problems, if you haven't seen that that's your mind too, resisting on that point, say, that person is still messed up. You know, it's your mind, this person that you're thinking of, that's still messed up. You still can't see through, they still fool you. You still think that they're not completely what they are and nothing else is possible and they're perfect. Still hung up on that one person, therefore, you're still Don't believe it. But you can do that right now. Okay? It's your own understanding. And when you change at this moment, then all the other people simultaneously change. And it doesn't do anything.

[27:23]

That's why the glow doesn't turn everything off or turn everything on because it just turns out reality and appearance happen to work together. So they'll always work together. They'll never stop working together. It won't be like the sun goes out. There's no such thing, you know, because even if all the lights go out, that's just another appearance. Even if the suns die out and the planets waste away and all the people are gone, that's just another phenomenon that rafts and reigns and interacts and comes out of and goes into and meets exactly the same time and place and is one with to wait things out. So there's no way that's got to end. Reality loves appearance. Reality loves phenomenon. It's one of the ways it tests itself out and expresses itself. It's one of the ways it sort of gets its, you know, gets its totality.

[28:25]

It's neater that way. It likes itself better that way. It has more fun being phenomenon too rather than just being cognitive principles without any stuff. It likes to have stuff too and things happening. It likes to play with that possibility coming up and going away. So we have this show. It's a better show this way. Think of the one without this stuff. It's ridiculous. It's bondage, actually. But it's one of the other ideas people get about what it would be like if everything got worked out. But in fact, it wouldn't be like that. If you look at the five ranks of Zen, there's not one that says, Just reality. Just reality sitting there, clunk. Just, you know, what's emptiness? Emptiness is form. Nobody says emptiness is emptiness. Just emptiness, no form.

[29:32]

If you say just emptiness and you get rid of the form, then getting rid of the form is another form, which is emptiness. How can you possibly get rid of form? Okay, okay, you say, well, it's not gotten rid of and it's not here. And it's not neither here nor not here nor both here and not here and so on. That's emptiness. The way form really is, is emptiness. That's the way emptiness is, is reality. So this light's not going to grow out. The way emptiness actually is, is reality. So there's no problem with the world dying away. Don't worry about it. Don't think that way. Unless you like to. If you like to, go ahead. That's a form. It's emptiness. You can do that. But if you don't like it, nobody's asking you to hold that one. It's just an artifact of the events of your life. You grew up in America, didn't you? And you learned English and something else. And you hear us kind of talk and you think, oh, look at that.

[30:33]

Way out there. And then some sun master comes on and says, Buddhism is a long iron road. See, there you go. This is called skill and means, these kind of statements. These 37 Wings of Enlightenment are skill and means that Bodhisattvas learned. These 37 Wings of Enlightenment are skill and means. They're stuff you use in your practice of saving beings. You don't practice them in order to attain enlightenment. That's what I said last week. Shravakas and Pratyekha Buddhas practice these learn these 37 wings of enlightenment, and then they manifest them, they realize them. Bodhisattvas learn them, but do not realize them. You learn them in order to help beings play this game called getting enlightenment.

[31:35]

They'll notice, just before they start to jump over the edge into nirvana, they'll notice that you're still staying there saying, you're saying, well, goodbye, want one more drink? They say to you, well, what's going to happen to you when I leave? Well, I'm going to stay here. You are, huh? Just a minute. What was that quote you said again? Creatures or what? are looting each other Maybe enough on that to start off this week to give you some context.

[32:48]

Oh, a little bit more, maybe. So I thought about three sets of three levels. One level is called the Shravaka Yana, which is learning and realizing. Next level is the Bodhisattva Yana called entering the learning of the Shravakayana. You enter the learning of the Shravakayana and the Bodhisattva and the Pratyekabuddha-yana, but you do not realize it. Okay? And that's the style that you see in the sutra quite a bit. Okay? They do da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And that through non-apprehension. and that through non apprehension so you do these practices but you do them through non apprehension you learn them they become skillful techniques that you can share with people but you don't apprehend them you don't manifest them then the next level the way you don't apprehend them by the way you you do with the aid of emptiness itself but then the next level

[34:07]

these might be called the Bodhisattva Yana as such. In other words, not the Bodhisattva practice of entering the Shravaka Yana and then not apprehending it, but Bodhisattva practices as such. Bodhisattva practices that have nothing to do with the Shravaka Yana. So I've drawn this picture before of an hourglass that the Bodhisattva... This is the Shravakayana Hourglass. Okay? Bodhisattva goes in this end here. Comes off this end here. Okay? And these are all the practices of the Shravakas, the limited practices. Bodhisattva does these. And in here is all these skills, skill and means, all these ways to maintain enlightenment that they learn. But Bodhisattva can also practice out here. There's no shravakayana practices of it.

[35:09]

There's no practices out here for people to save themselves or to attain enlightenment. They're just ways of being, other forms of existence that bodhisattvas do. So these are bodhisattva practices as such. They have nothing to do with attaining enlightenment in a sense. For example, the first way is So you say, so look in the book here. So under mindfulness of the body, the posture, the monk is aware he is going. Okay? I am going. He is aware I am standing. I am standing. He is aware when he is sitting. I am sitting. He is aware. when he's lying down, I'm lying down.

[36:10]

However, his body may be disposed, he's aware of it. And these, those four postures are called the four noble postures. Okay, there's four walking, standing, sitting, and lying down. They're all done in these very noble ways, but the real nobleness about them is that you say, I'm walking, That's the noble thing about them. Therefore, every posture that you're aware of called, I'm lifting my knee, I'm setting my knee down. These are noble postures. My hand is raised. This is a noble posture. Raising his hand, he says, my hand is raised in a fist. This is a noble posture. So all postures are noble if you're mindful of them. The next level is, I'm sitting, but then you think about that.

[37:23]

You're aware of the causes and conditions that give rise to that sitting. And you realize that that sitting has no meaning aside from a whole bunch of other stuff. Where's the I? How do you come up with the I? How do you come up with sitting? Think about that, you realize that You can't apprehend that thing while I'm sitting. The next level has nothing to do with enlightenment, of mindfulness, or of seeing through mindfulness as an illusion. But you say, as I sit, may all beings sit on the throne of enlightenment. That doesn't relate to the practice of mindfulness at all. You're not mindful of it in a way. just hoping that beings will be enlightened. You take note that you're doing it, but you're not emphasizing the fact that you're doing it so much. You are mindful, in fact. But you're not attaining, you're not grasping mindfulness at all.

[38:27]

You're vowing that other people will do this. And you'll not only do this, but obtain enlightenment through it. Or another way to put it is through in terms of the path of harmlessness and the path of helpfulness, or actual liberation, the first level of Shravaka is a harmless path, but it doesn't help anybody. The next level is the way of non-apprehension of helpfulness, of harmlessness. you practice these harmless practices but you don't apprehend that they're harmless you just do them but without getting into the concept that they're harmless in other words you don't affirm the reality of their homelessness in other words you do affirm their unreality but you do them

[39:43]

you do them very well. And the next stage would be, not only don't you do these practices as harmless, but you enter into a way of actual helping, which has nothing to do with harmlessness at all. Your practices do not look like harmlessness practices. In other words, out here. And in the next level, Next three, let's talk about three levels, is they say here, again and again, it says, He is aware of an ordinary thought as an ordinary thought. aware of the supreme thought as a supreme thought.

[40:45]

He is aware of a concentrated thought as a concentrated thought. He is aware of a confused thought as a confused thought. He is aware of a liberated thought as a liberated thought, and so on. And he accomplishes accomplishes the mindfulness that this is a thought just sufficiently and for a bare awareness of it and he dwells in the freedom and does not cling to anything in the world. He's aware of a less for thought as a less for thought. He's aware of this as this, and that sounds quite good, doesn't it?

[41:48]

He's aware of this as this. That is pretty good. It's much better than almost anything anybody ever does. Very few people do that. Can you imagine doing that all day long? If you do that, you wait 10, you run. Do it with your body, do it with your feelings, do it with your thoughts, and do it with things. You will do it with four foundations of mindfulness. And that's enough with the ten nirvana right there. But, bodhisattva should learn how to do that stuff too. You should be able to do that if you're a bodhisattva. But, when you say, this is a thought, I'm aware of a thought as a thought. So good. Because how are you aware of this thought? And what is this thought aside from a bunch of other stuff?

[42:53]

Confusion. I'm aware of this confusion as confusion. Where did the word confusion come from? There's no confusion aside from clarity. So if you look at this confusion, you must see clarity right there too. Just look, put confusion out there all by itself. Just confusion. Don't have anything in relationship to it. You see the word confusion. You look at it from here. You look at it from there. You take it and turn around. You hold on to it. But in fact, it's not real confusion. It's just a word. It's got no power. But not take that word confusion and think of clarity. comes alive think of a good thought and all by itself then think of a bad thought and the good thought roars up or the bad thought flows up if you think of anything that has any event quality that actually happens to you like that it always depends on another discrimination which is you're disguising it you're not aware of it

[44:15]

So the arising of these events always disguises the other side of the dualism, namely, that they don't arise. And if you look at something arising without that other thing there, the fact that it didn't arise, although you say it arose, really it didn't arise, not the thing you're talking about. Do you understand what I mean? Do you believe that? Can you do that? Dirty South Book does that with these things. It says, this is the such and such, as it is, but they don't apprehend it. Why don't they apprehend it? Because they realize that you can't get a hold of that thing because that thing totally depends on other things, at least one other thing. Every thing depends on at least one other thing. There's at least two. And actually if there's two, there must be more than two because Something's aware of this. Nothing arises by one cause.

[45:18]

Anyway. But there's at least two in any situation that you can verify the other one right away. And see, the whole life of the thing comes from dualism. Don't you see that? You can't get a hold of that thing anymore. Because you always get its opposite or its other side of the distinction. Or it could be a multiple distinction. So that's the next level. The first level is... That's good. The second level is... And you don't grasp it. The next level is... This level is a certainty. The first one is very certain, right? But the second one is actually more certain. Do you see how... Can you feel more... Can you have a sense of greater certainty about the second one? It's more certain, even though it sounds, in a sense, from the point of view of the certainty of the first one, looking from the point of view of the certainty of the first one. See, most people don't even know the certainty of the first one.

[46:22]

They think that's quite an improvement to be able to say it. But when you're looking from the point of view of the first one to the second one, it looks maybe shaky or wobbly in some way, but actually it's stronger than one more level. Emptiness itself. No longer saying that things happen like that. but just that it's emptiness all the time. That's the strongest position. That's the most certain place to be. The only way you can be certain, really certain, is when you have really emptiness that you're perceiving all the time. And how can that be certain? That's a funny thing. But that's the only time you're really certain. You think you were certain before, but that's nothing like the certainty you have when you're looking at emptiness. Because you know, nothing will ever disturb that. Because not only are you seeing things as they actually happened, but the actual happening of them totally includes the not happening of them. Nothing will disturb that.

[47:23]

Nothing's more real than that. Because that even includes the fact that that's just talk, like it's said. But who wants to hang out there? Not very many people. Only bodhisattvas want to live in such a place. That's why we say, When a person hears about, don't teach this thing about patient acceptance of the dharmas that fail to exist. If somebody hears about that, if they really catch on to what that's about, they'll get scared. It's really nowhere's will. And it's not even that. Because nowhere's will really gets its power from not including the fact that it is something. But that turns out to be the way bodhisattvas live.

[48:24]

Okay, now, that's why we study these practices. Okay? And I wrote down this thing about creatures are looting each other and nothing is gained or lost because I was talking to her about the fact that first of all you take your usual conceptions and first you learn these practices and then those practices are taken away from you and then the next practices are taken away from you so you learn all the time practices that can more easily be taken away from you you keep transmitting your energy into more unattainable quantities. You keep investing in shakier, shakier enterprises. And the shakier they get, the more certain you become. So she said, creatures are looting each other and nothing you gain or lost.

[49:29]

This is not a, you don't get any better by doing this or any worse, and yet one layer seems to loot, kill the former one. And you acquiesce to this process of in our evolution. Okay. So, we talked last time, we wrote down, I wrote down four Shemitahipastanas, four Samyapradanas, four Riddhipada, four Indriya, four Bala, five Bala, five Indriya, seven Bodhiangas, and the Eightfold Path, Arya Asti Anga Marga. Now this week, I'd like to go into the next layer of detail and then start the third layer of detail. So the next layer of detail is just simply to... Oh, one more thing I want to say.

[50:35]

And that is, as I mentioned, Dorgan Zengi has written a chapter on these 37. Why did Dogen Zenji, a Zen master who says, just always talks about Shikantaza, why did he write a chapter on these 37? Well, because bodhisattvas learned these 37s. Bodhisattvas who do Shikantaza, named his students, learned about these 37. And he tells you how to do them. But before he tells you, he tells you, there's this famous... Well, this is a Buddhist, Mahayana Buddhist principle. It goes like this. down, going up and going down.

[51:53]

You're always going up and coming down at the same time in Mahayana Buddhism. In other words, you're always going up towards enlightenment and coming back down to being simultaneously in Mahayana Buddhism. And that's what Dogen Zanji means by traceless enlightenment. Traceless enlightenment is liberation or awakening that's always coming back down. It never leaves any trace. never get caught in this phase you're always doing this phase at the same time coming up and going down so here zen is the expression of doing something called shikantaza just sitting just sitting which is saving all beings but also you studied this thing about 37 wings of enlightenment Okay, so the next level is to list the 37.

[52:56]

And the next level will be to go through and do them. Can't do them all, but do a little, maybe a little of each. First from, so you can understand how they're done. In other words, learn them first a little bit. And then try to do them as a bodhisattva would do them by learning them without realizing them. And then try to do them and bodhisattva would do them without any sense of learning or anything, but just totally as though they were just ordinary life. So as I said, bodhisattva says, you know, pick up your toothbrush and put your toothbrush between your hands like this. He said, holding the tooth clean, I vow with all sentient beings, will obtain the right Dharma and purity spontaneously. When you finish, you say, in the morning, I brush my teeth. I vow that ascension beings will obtain teeth strong enough to know where you leave.

[54:02]

You sit down, there's one to do, and when you lie down, you say, you lie down like this, you know, on your right side, like Buddha, and you say, now as I lie down, I vow that ascension beings attain perfect party nirvana and so on daily life practices okay are done that way but these board these 37 can also be done the same way right in the middle of these sort of special sounding practices they aren't like fresh routine you can do them with that same spirit which is not [...] apprehending them but turning them right away before there's any sense of attaining them right away dedicate them give them away before By giving them away, by giving away all karmic accumulations, then you get much more karmic, which then you can give away. Okay, so, in the first four, I wrote, did I already write the first four? Kaya, Vedana, Chitta, and Dharma.

[55:08]

In the next four, the next four, the Did I write? I wrote this, yeah. So you know this too, the Samyak Pradhana, right? You have that already? Okay, so the first one is what? What's the first one? This is kind of hard, isn't it? Sorry. No, this is kind of hard to write out in Sanskrit, so... These are kind of hard, so I'll just tell you that these guys are a little bit tough to write out. Basically, how do you do this?

[56:16]

These have to be long. The names of these are sentences. So that's the way to do it. So this is a Samyak Tuhan and they have to do with the first kind is to The first two relate to akushala dharmas.

[57:34]

Unwholesome dharmas. And the first one protects. The second one purifies. protects against what are called you protect against that in other words you protect against the arising of bad dharmas that have not yet arisen one uh purifies what purifies uh upana akushala dharmas second one purifies or destroys

[58:44]

Akushala dharmas that have already arisen. And the next two, three and four are the same, basically. But now in relationship to good dharmas, they both will cultivate or grow. The Anupana, again, and the Uttana, but now Akushala dharmas. One is to protect against bad that haven't risen. Two is to destroy bad that it's already with. The next one is to grow or cultivate good that is not a risen. And the next one is to grow and cultivate good that has risen. So those are the four, what are called, Samyak Prahanas, the four right efforts.

[59:47]

Okay, so this is now just the first level through, just to name them. Wait for the next one? Any questions about the basic naming of these? You can go over them again in more detail. These are the four Samyaj Bahamas. You can say Anupana. Anupana means Bhutpana. This root here. to arise, or also sometimes means to arise, to come up. And means not. So means not arisen.

[60:53]

So it's very simple. The basic definition is very simple. Ready? Next one is what? So first one is called what? So this Chanda is called interest or desire. And this definition is called joining strong desire to molding forces, to the molding forces of concentration.

[61:58]

A chanda can also be involved in distraction, but here we're talking about basically that you somehow become interested, kind of ramp yourself up with regard to the meditation object. It's the creation, the apparent creation, from the Bodhisattva's point of view. The Bodhisattva won't quite fall for this one after a while, but at first, anyway, the Shravaka, the disciple says, I want to be interested in my meditation object. So you develop a strong interest And put that with your meditation, the formative, molding factors of meditation, concentration, and of intention. That's Chang. Okay? What's the next one? Chitta. Chitta is... you unite the whole consciousness with the citta unite the citta the thought with the molding forces of consciousness which one are you talking about this is the next one is energy

[63:39]

Don't worry about it. And then fourth is This is also united with the concentration.

[64:42]

Fear is energy or diligent application. comes five what five India and the first one's called Shraddha which is translated often as faith Abhidharma class, that all faith has a whole bunch of connotations which are not very good, and trust has a whole bunch of other ones that are not very good. And there's another word which has even a whole bunch of even worse connotations, but catches the flavor that the other ones don't, and that's religiosity.

[65:52]

So religiosity, if you keep that in strong parentheses, double parentheses or something, little arrows vibrating off of it that that catches a big a big chunk of what of what faith is faith is is uh you know when the zen master says hey you say that's faith an instant response not like hey red It could be that. It might give a go, but... But it's more, it's just instant response. Right away, that's it. So, we talked about this a lot before, but anyways.

[66:54]

Faith is elam. The first word of the sutra, right? Elam. Thus. That's the first one And next one is Feeds bigger, bigger feeds big, big feeds bigger. Energy, dogent application.

[67:55]

Yes, let's go, come on. Okay, next one is, then vigor feeds concentration. You have to have, and you have to sort of do that stuff, you know, to crush your legs instead of straight, go to the zendo, volleyball, angelic, telephone. And go to the zendo, and then you have to build up your energy, and then you can sit, stay awake, all the things you're supposed to do maybe meditation should be neck is it no swiftly neck of course because you have to be mindful in order to have samadhi now when you say samadhi you mean not samadhi which is in every moment but samadhi which you remember is samadhi in other words you remember i'm doing samadhi i'm practicing good does not mean well. I mean I'm practicing good. I'm doing the good thing.

[68:57]

That's what samadhi is. Then samadhi. Then prajna. Samadhi is mental one-pointedness. And prajna is discernment. You must have mental one-pointedness in order to see things as they are. Can't be waffling around the edge of stuff. So these are the five faculties. And sometimes gloss to the five partner virtues, which is non-deliberal translation. And then we have five bala, five powers. have the same name as these. Okay. These are called Schrader. So you put NGA out of each one of these things, like this.

[70:02]

When you have an A followed by an I in Sanskrit, you can change the A and put the A and the I together. So then you have, if you saw it written out in Sanskrit, Strahdendrya, like that. Strahdendrya, Viryendrya, Smritiendrya, Samadhiendrya, and Prajnyendrya. And then Strahdbala, Viryabala, Smritiabala, Samadhiabala, and Strahdnyabala. We'll go back over them again and talk about all the differences between Shraddha, Andrea and Shraddha Bala. They have the same names. Next is the seven Bodhi Angas.

[71:08]

So once again, Bodhi with A. Bo-di-anga is Bo-di-anga. That's right? Bo-di-anga? Is that right? Yes. Bo-di-anga, there's seven of them? Smriti? Same Smriti? Smriti? Dharma something Smriti is mindfulness here. Dharma vichaya which means investigation. The way of investigation or investigation of things.

[72:14]

One S and two B's or two S's and one B? One S. And then Samadhi and Peksha. Prashravda. Priti means enthusiasm, a rapture. It has to do with kind of a really confident feeling about your meditation. Like, this is really good. This feels good. I'd love to. Your body just feels like it's really there and it's all round and firm and fully packed.

[73:55]

not hard to hold up and just kind of like a cactus without the spot without the prickles but the prickles are kind of like maybe in the sense of a little kind of what do you call it? a nice solid feeling of rapture in the body while you're sitting one good way to talk about them, samadhi is samadhi, and prashravdi is, prashravdi literally means to stop or to cease, but prashravdi has to do with, it's a very important word I think in a little while, has to do with, also is called, it's not literal, but it's called sometimes dexterity. And it has to do with the ability to oscillate between the two basic types of meditation in Buddhism, the calming and the analytic, the ability to switch back and forth between the two.

[75:26]

Anga means branch or link, remember. Prashrabhi means cease or stop in the sense of relax, relax in the sense of flexibility and flexibility in the sense of being able to change the emphasis in your meditation between saying, this is my meditation, right here like this, just as I'm doing it. I'm doing it right. I'm going to do it right. And then saying, am I doing this meditation right? Or am I doing this meditation right? And then saying, yes, that's right. You are doing it right. Because you said that. You're doing it right. Yes, but. Back and forth, back and forth. The ability to flex back and forth like that. Just be relaxed. Not to be sort of heavily in either side. be ready to be ready to catch yourself and then be ready to sort of not worry about it and then catch yourself for being lazy because you didn't worry and then say, that's good, take it easy and back and forth.

[76:46]

And then the last one is Rupaksha, which means equanimity. And Rupaksha is classed as a feeling, even in terms of feeling. And then, up last is the famous Eightfold, Eightfold Noble Path. And so the first one is, all these are Samyaks. Samyak Drishti. Kaminakhi means right, or correct, and Drishti means view.

[77:55]

So, an example of a right view is, this is a confused, he sees a confused thought, he says, this is a confused thought. This is a concentrated thought. This is a concentrated thought. This is right view. This is anger. This is attachment, this is attachment. This is a pleasant feeling, this is a pleasant feeling. That's an example of right view. Then we have Samyak Sampalpa. kristi is right view, samyak, samkleshe, samkalpa is right, samkalpa means kind of conception, you have the right conception of the path, that sort of conception of what you're doing, right intention, right aspiration, you've got the right idea.

[79:58]

It's like vow to a right intention. It's vā in the sense that it's a right concept. Right concept is vā. Then vāg is vāk. It's like vocal speech, right speech. Then karma is karma. Karmanita is right karma. Right action. Karma is action. So right action. Right conduct. then ajiva, jiva means life. In this case, samyaka jiva is right life, right livelihood. And vyayama is related to virya, so vyayama is effort, again, or energy, right effort, right

[81:07]

diligent application, the right energy. And then Smriti is mindfulness again, so right mindfulness and right meditation. So those are the 37 in the definition of the 37. Okay. Now, let's see, what's next? I think the next thing is I said that we'll go back in detail and talk about the same name. You'd think that there must be some difference. They're writing twice. So what's the difference? We'll talk about that.

[82:10]

OK, now, could you pass this out, please? In between this brief outline and the detailed discussion of each one of these, I thought I might talk a little bit about some other things. Part of which we've already talked about, but I think this makes sense as the next layer. In another sense, the first four of these is enough.

[83:33]

In another sense, the last eight is enough. And someone says, since they're both enough, and also since the first four, in a sense, are part of the last eight, why do you start with the first four? Why don't you start with the last eight since you just dropped the first one? And that's because these 37 are actually in some sequence for some reason. These 37 appear actually in old sutras. They're not just... 37 aren't made up by the Abhidharmas. What the Abhidharmas did make up, however, is some kind of combinations of these.

[84:37]

Because they looked at the list and they noticed that there's a lot of repeats here. And they found that either there's 37 here, basically there's only 10 types of stuff, 10 types of things going on here. But we don't necessarily say that even though you can reduce it to ten types of things, still there's a meaning in the fact that these practices are laid out this way. So for example, on the list we just wrote, if you look at these you'll see that the list has Samyak Prahana, Virya Indriya, Virya Bala, Virya Sambodhya, Sambodhya-anga, and Samyak-vyayama. All those are talking about the same thing, energy.

[85:38]

However, this energy that they're talking about, which is basically the same thing, is different in these different practices and different in the different layers of, different in the different contexts. That's different in different stages of the path, which these are laid out in. Okay? So although these can be combined into seven, I mean, into 10 things, the duplication is not a mistake. So what are these 10? things here. The first one, the first ten of the ten is faith, shraddha. The next one is morality, shila, s with a slash on it, so it's like she, I-L-A, shila.

[86:56]

The next one is conception or intention. Sankalpa. Four is energy. Virya. Five is mindfulness or attention. Smriti. Six, concentration. Seven is wisdom, prajna. Eight is relaxation, prasrabdi. joy or rapture, priti.

[88:06]

Ten is indifference or picture. Three is conception or intention or aspiration. Samkalpa. Okay, so under faith, I don't know if you can remember, I don't know if you can remember what we just did, but under faith, how many go under faith? Can you think of what goes under faith? There's two Shraddhas, right. There's Shradd India, and there's Shradd Bala. So there's two there. Then under morality, which one would you put under morality, which is moral behavior?

[89:10]

that's right except for the first one not right not right uh intention or right aspiration but right speech right action and right livelihood that's morality that's sheila But the next category is conception, okay? And that's where the Samyak Samkapa goes. And then energy, what goes under energy? Susan? The four Samyak Pradhana go under energy. The four right efforts go under energy.

[90:36]

The four right efforts are basically energy practices. The ability of the faculty of energy, the virya-endrya goes under energy, the power of energy, virya-bhala goes under energy, the aspect of enlightenment called energy, virya-sam-vodhi-anga goes under energy, and the aspect of the way called samyat-dhyana. Yama goes under energy. So energy has seven. No, energy has eight, excuse me. No? Good guess, maybe, sort of. It's related. And under attention comes what? smithi andrea smithi bala um samyapa now we already put that under conception number three samyapa is aspiration is not attention or mindfulness so the

[92:07]

Enlightenment, the aspect of enlightenment called of attention and the part of the way called attention or mindfulness. So smirti samvurdi anga and samyak smirti, they go into there. I think they would, wouldn't you? But they don't. Where do they go? Right. They are prajna. The smithyupasthanas are not smithyupasthanas. They are the foundations, they're called the foundations of mindfulness, but actually they're prajna practices. Smirti is just to pay attention.

[93:10]

But if you look at these practices, if you read these sutras, An, Smirti, Upasthanas, they're not talking about paying attention. They're talking about paying attention to particular things. And these things teach you Abhidharma mindfulness practices, which are Abhidharma wisdom, which is prajna. Okay? So that's why they go under the prajna section. attention so we're just doing attention so all the attentions go under there all the smirties go under there and there's four of those then comes the concentrations what goes under there susan right four really powder going to the concentrations they're called the bases of psychic power or magical power but actually they're concentration practices.

[94:15]

But this is also true that the basis of psychic power is concentration. Magical powers are based on concentration. Well, one would think so, wouldn't one? Samadhi is different from mindfulness. Samadhi is to remember or to pay attention. Mindfulness or Samurti is to remember, to pay attention. Samadhi is mental one-pointedness. It's the collection of the mind in one point. So the thing that goes there is the four bases of the Psyche Pada, Psyche Power, the Rudi Pada, and then all the Samadhis. The Samadhi Endriya, Samadhi Bala, and Samyak Samadhi. So that's four plus three, there's seven.

[95:15]

I've been going to concentration. There it is. Well, great. That makes eight. I prefer that way. I can't pull a short one out of my mouth. Okay, so watch carefully. Maybe you'll find another one that I don't mention because I came up too short. Ah, let's see. Next is, uh, Wisdom, the Wisdom group. And they have four, the four Smityu Kostanas. the faculty of wisdom, the prajnaendriya, the power of wisdom, prajnabara, the aspect of enlightenment called right seeing, samyak drishti.

[96:29]

See? So in Abhidharma, samyak drishti is prajna, for a good share on the way of the path. In other words, This is confusion. This is concentration. This is anger. This is lust. This is application of the mind to the object. This is perception. This is feeling. This is Abhidharma Prajna. Okay? Samyakristi. So Samyakristi goes under Prajna. And that means that there are seven of these. Right? Okay, now. Relaxation constitutes, relaxation that constitutes part of the path, goes under relaxation. Any other ones you can put under there? Joy, which constitutes a part of the enlightenment, path of enlightenment, that goes, that's just one of those.

[97:36]

And indifference, which constitutes part of the path of enlightenment, or the enlightenment limbs, goes under indifference. So there's one more I missed. Yeah, where should that go? Should it go? Where? Under... I don't know, let's think about that one. Dharmavichaya. The investigation of the Dharma. thought of that because this is an example of several different words for the same thing. Anyway, why don't somebody think about that and find out where this goes? So those are the 10 kinds of things, okay? So there's 37, but there's only 10 varieties, and that will help you understand what this list is, okay?

[98:41]

Now, another group of these 10 is a 10 classes. I mean, another group of these 37 These are seven classes within the 37. Ten things? These 37 things may be reduced to ten things. What? The Abhidharmists looked at these 37, which are from the sutras, and saw that there were repeats. So they show that there's really no 10 basic varieties within the 37. But these repeats, they also saw, which you'll see a little later, actually organized themselves in terms of the path. And there's a reason why they're in that order. And they correspond to the Buddhist path in a certain way.

[99:45]

Each one of them is a path in itself. And the fact that they're in that order is another, so the path goes this way on each line, not each line, but some of the lines are the whole path. The four Smriti Upastanas are the whole path, and the Eightfold Noble Path is the whole path. So some of them describe the whole path, and then going down from the first one to the last one are the seven categories. There's seven categories now. Seven types, basic types, that also describes the path. But now we're talking about seven classes. And by doing this, you understand this is one of the ways that Buddhists try to understand this stuff, is by having group thirty-seven, and then fours, and threes, and so on and so forth, and then groups of ten, and then groups of seven, and then mapping onto the path, and so on. In this way, you absorb it into your blood. Okay, next one is seven groups, okay?

[100:47]

First group is, number one, dharmas where attention fixes the object of knowledge. Dime is where attention fixes the object of knowledge. Fixations are called fixations of attention. know if I can't. Number two, those which destroy bad dharmas and move them to the right way are called right efforts. When concentrated thought is at ease with the object, there are bases of magic power.

[102:13]

When concentrated thought is at ease with the objects, there are bases of psychic or magic power. thought of mild for when the thought of mild knowledge is acquired there are the faculties that warm but this is something you're going to find out something now when the thought of acute knowledge is acquired they're called the powers what no five was no five is is acute knowledge and the thought of acute knowledge is acquired there are the powers Allah

[103:36]

gives you a hint about the difference between the endriya and the bala. The endriya are the mild knowledges and the bala are the acute or intense. And six, through the practice of the way of meditation, there are the limbs or the parts of enlightenment, the bodhi, the sam-bodhi-anga. And seven, through the practice of the way of meditation, there are the parts of enlightenment. And seven, through the practice of the way of wisdom, there are the parts of the way.

[104:43]

I'd like to, before the end of the class, read a little bit of what we read yesterday morning, this morning, in service, and just tell you that next week, what I'd like to do then is one more thing in preparation for the detailed study of these is to show how these 37, how these classes of 37 are mapped onto the overall Buddhist path of five phases. The Buddhist path is... the, you know, path of preparation, path of equipment, path of concerted effort, path of vision, path of meditation, and path of without outflows, the pure path, those five paths. Now, those five paths are the way that the sutra commentary is set up on this big sutra. So I'll show you those five paths, how these 37 map onto those.

[106:09]

Then we'll do a detailed study, a fairly detailed study of Smriti Upasthana, a fairly detailed study of Samyak Prahana, a fairly detailed study of Riddhipada, and the Indriya and the Bala. And maybe that'll be it. Because I think to do then also the next two would take too long. And then I'd like to show you how these things, detailed study of how they're done in the Abhidharma. Then I'd like to go into the sutra and see these things all over the place. Look all over the sutra and see these things all over the place and see how they're dealt with in the sutra. And then talk about them, how they're done by bodhisattvas outside the sutra. So that's my plan. I think it'll take a few weeks. You'll know some good stuff by that time.

[107:11]

And one thing to think about as you study this material is, can you do these practices on the first level, second level, and third level? And easiest way to do it is to start with the first one, mindfulness of the body. When you're walking around, when you're standing, when you're sitting and lying down, can you do it on the three levels? So the first thing you should study, the first thing on the list is the four applications of mindfulness. So study those first. As I said, you can find them in this book here. You can find them in another book called The Heart of Buddhist Meditation. Those two books have the sutra which teaches you about these four. You can find them in the Avodharmakosha. Read about them there. Learn what they are. And you should be able to appreciate. To read them just straight out as an Abhidarmist would or as a Shravaka, the disciple would. They're very powerful.

[108:13]

They're beautiful. They take you deep into a calm, cool land. They're wonderful. And then try some of them. Try mindfulness of... Try mindfulness of thought. Try mindfulness of various body postures. Try mindfulness of breathing. Try mindfulness of repulsiveness of food. Try all these things, you know. Visuddhimagga is another place you can find out about mindfulness of the body. Buddhist meditation by Edward Kahneman is another place. The sutra itself is another place. And in Bodhisattva doctrine of Buddhist Sanskrit literature, he also has a section on the four applications of mindfulness. So all these places you have. Study them. And try them, try some of them. And then, after you can do them, after you've got them in your system so you can memorize them, and then try them and try to do them on the three levels I talked about. Three levels of participation with it, of learning and not manifesting, and then of doing something else with them entirely.

[109:18]

The level of certainties, and the levels of harmlessness and helping. See if you can do them on those levels. If you can do it with this simple example of the body, then try it with the feelings, and try it with the thought, and then try it with the dharmas. And then try it with his other practices. Try it with his Samyak Prahaunas. Try it with him. So, during however long we're studying this, try to practice with him. And then you can use, then you can see that how you learn, how you acquire skills. Skills and means. Things to give to people. Things to talk to people about. Bodhisattvas want this stuff. Presence to give. People love to give and receive such nice presents, but you have to know how to do them first. to know more than the words you have to sort of have a taste from it so you can convey a little bit of enthusiasm hey here's a nice thing you can do you have to kind of to be able to do them yourself before you can give them to somebody else okay so that's my plan for the next few weeks if you have any comments that is you don't want to go in that direction let me know and then i'll try to convince you that it's a good idea for example

[110:28]

part of my sales pitch for this particular form. If you look on page 421, I believe, is that what we just read today? 24. 24. 424. Shall we read together? Training in skill and means, okay? That's what we're doing here. Demonstration of the development of skill and means. Training in skill and means. Sabuti, how, O Lord, should Bodhisattva, the great being who courses in the perfection of wisdom, make a complete complex of emptiness? How should he achieve the emptiness concentration? How should the four applications of mindfulness be developed? How should he gain and fail with the high effortness? How should he high effort be developed? and so on and so on excuse me you see when you study this stuff now you know what and so on means okay this is what these and so on means they mean a lot of stuff but if you learn these formulas when they say and so on you know exactly what's in the formula and you can do what's in the formula and you can do it on three levels

[111:52]

That's why we're studying this, because he's got all these so-ons here, so you have to figure out what the and so-ons are. You know what the and so-ons are now, a little bit. Okay, shall we go on? The great being, the forces of the perfection of wisdom, should contemplate form as long as empty. And you should contemplate in such a way that, when you contemplate, this thought does not get disturbed. With his own thought undisturbed, he does not review his own darkness. Not reviewing his own darkness, he does not realize. And why? Because of that great being, he should train all darkness as empty of own hearts. And so he does not forget about the separation of any dharma, either of one who will realize, or of one who will realize, or of one who will achieve and realize. okay now this see the order they read them off is um uh make a complete conquest of emptiness how should he achieve the emptiness concentration okay the conquest of emptiness is to achieve the emptiness concentration if you if you go back keep your place there i'll just tell you that if you went back to where we just were reading from the point of departure in the sutra is earlier we said uh

[113:22]

Thus, the bodhisattva, having stood in the perfection of wisdom, a great being should fulfill the four stations of mindfulness, the four right efforts, and so on, up to the Eightfold Path. He should develop the emptiness concentration, the signless concentration, and the wishless concentration. In this part of the century, they did him in the other order. So, after we do these 37, then I'd like to study the emptiness concentration, the signless concentration, and the wishless concentration. And once again, the emptiness concentration, the signless concentration, and the wishless concentration can be studied on shravaka level, and two bodhisattva levels, and vajrayana level, and zen level. So, here they're teaching you, first they teach you the emptiness, meditation on emptiness. And then they come down here a little ways, and then on the other page, After they finish teaching the concentration of emptiness, then they start teaching you to go back into the 37 again.

[114:23]

But backwards, okay? So this is another example of another place where the 37 come up. And... They're all over the place in this pursuit. So I know that's enough for this week. Is there any sort of problem of getting books, of getting this book, or getting Heart of Buddhist Meditation, or Buddhist Sanskrit literature, or anything? No problem? I just took this off the reading list just now. It was down in the reading room just before class. I don't know if it's usually there, but it was just there when I went down. I'll put it back right now. The Smriti Upastanas? They start on Karaka 26.

[115:25]

And by the way, in the Kosha, Chapter 6, in Abhidharma Kosha, all the stuff that I taught you today is from the Abhidharma Kosha. I mean, there's special things like, on Karaka 67, it groups the 37 into 10, into 10 groups, on Karaka 667, and on Karaka 67, 68 and 69, it tells you how the things go in the different categories and why. And then in Karaka 70, it tells you how the seven groups of the 37 are grouped into the different stages of the path and so on. So all that categorization is done in the Abhidharma before the Abu Dhanakosha, but Abu Dhanakosha has it too.

[116:25]

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