we've been studying the four foundations of mindfulness and we've been first looking at them from the point of view of the example the Pali Abhidharma point of view or the Pali Karavada point of view of how these four foundations are practiced then we look at them from maybe the Vaibhashaka, the northern Abhidharma way of doing these practices, and then we look at them as bodhisattva practices. And we've already done, or at least started to do, a little bit of the first two foundations, the body and healing. we pointed out last week the body the meditation on the body can be the Shravakayana is practices like mindfulness of breath mindfulness of postures mindfulness of various parts of body contemplations of corpses and these kinds of things

[02:07]

contemplation of the basic elements of form. Now, an interesting thing about the Svrtti Upasthanas, the foundations of mindfulness, fixations of attention, is that they, in one sense, they have a mundane aspect or mundane form, and they have also a super-mundane form. All four of these do. So if you look in the Abhidharma Kosha, you will notice that at the beginning of Chapter 6, where it talks about Buddhist practice, the first thing that one does is practice morality, giving up various distractions in behavior. The next thing you do is practice calming practices. But these calming practices, which are in a sense a prerequisite to practice the Smriti Yudhisthanas, are practices like following the breathing and studying repulsiveness of various things and so on.

[03:32]

So in order to practice the Smriti Upasthanas, you must do calming practices. And some of these calming practices are included in Smriti Upasthanas. So they're preparation for themselves, too. But strictly speaking, they're not themselves when they're preparation for themselves, but they're emphasizing the trance or the calming, stabilizing aspect. So these practices can be stabilizing, and then they can also be analytical. First, they're practiced as, particularly the first one, is first practiced as shamatha, or stabilization. And second, it's practiced as Smriti Upasthana's proper, and that is as vipassana. As we saw before, when they're considered as part of 37 wings of enlightenment,

[04:37]

These Smirtu Bastana are considered to be they're considered to be prajna, wisdom. But as we also saw, if you want to map out the 37 wings of enlightenment, they can be considered as what's called sambara marga, or the path of equipment. So they can be viewed as preparatory practices, but also they can be considered as a wisdom practice.

[05:48]

And last time when we looked at the mindfulness of the body, we also saw that there's a Mahayana way of practicing mindfulness of the body, and that is basically to observe that the body does not exist, that the body actually has no characteristics, and that which has no characteristics is not born. And that which is not born, of course, does not have characteristics. Although people think they know what the body is, actually when they come down to look at it, they'll find out that they can't find anything that's characteristic of the body. And it doesn't require so much work to do that. So we also saw that by doing these so-called Sravakayana meditations, by doing the Smriti Upasthanas, the Kaya Smriti Upasthana, the mindfulness of the body, under the guise of the disciple or the Arhat, one attains a composure and a clarity which then makes it possible to see

[07:07]

that the body doesn't exist, that it has no particular characteristic, that it doesn't really come from anywhere and doesn't go anywhere. Then we started to talk about feelings too and the example we used was the example of the while Genshaw stubbing his toe, which includes both the first and second. Smritiukastana includes both mindfulness and the body. What he said was the Bodhisattva's reaction in terms of mindfulness of the body and also in terms of mindfulness of feelings. And Binda Hess gave me some poems by Kabir, So I'll read a couple of these in line with Mindfulness of the Body.

[08:17]

Where are you going alone, my friend? You don't get up or fuss about your house. The body fed on sweets, milk and butter. The form you adorned has been tossed out. The head where you carefully tied the turban That jewel, the crown, the crows are tearing open. Your stiff bones burn like a pile of wood. Your hair is like a bunch of grass. No friend comes along. Where are the elephants you had died? You can't taste my juice. A cat called Death has pounced inside. Even now you lounge in bed as Yama's club falls on your head. You go around bent, bent, bent.

[09:30]

Your ten doors are full uphill. You smell like a reed of scents. Your cracked eyes don't see the heart. You haven't an ounce of sense. Drunk with anger, hunger, and sex. You drown without water. If you're burnt, the ashes mixed with dust. If you're buried, the maggots peep. Otherwise, your food for pigs, dogs, crow. Thus I praise the flesh, the enchanted madman. If you don't see or think, death isn't far from you. Try a thousand ways, but still the body ends up in dust. Fool doesn't have thought as he sits in his house of sand. But without one, the Ram says, could be flagrous to our swamp. Puff, puff, puff.

[10:35]

Why do you strut? Have you forgotten how you lay ten months with your face down? As the bee circles honey, you buzz around your money. When you dial, they'll cart you away. Nobody likes to keep ghosts around. A man's wife stays with them to the door. His friends go a few steps more. At the corpse ground, there's only the stretcher. After that, it's gone. You're on your own. Burned, you'll turn to ashes. Buried with the clay. A raw pot. filled with water, your great body caves in. Not reveling in wrong, drunk with delusion, you think in the times well. Kabir says, man, you've trapped yourself with a parrot on a pole. So those are poems, and instead of

[11:43]

instead of doing Abhidharma meditation, maybe you'd like to just say some poems to yourself. You could just say those poems to yourself. Memorize those poems. And while you memorize them, maybe you will find yourself doing Khyasnirti Ustana in the, perhaps in the Theravada version. But once again, I want to emphasize that this Theravada or this insightful way of looking at the body naturally flows over into the bodhisattva way of looking at it. As your eyes get sharpened by this first vehicle, they naturally see the implications of it by the non-existence of the body, the non-birth of the body. The body has no characteristics of its own. If you find any characteristics, they aren't characteristics of the body. Then feelings.

[12:47]

The feelings as are described here in this Maha Satipatthana Sutra, how does the monk dwell observing feelings? He is aware when he experiences pleasant feelings. He is aware when he experiences painful feelings. He is aware when he experiences neutral feelings. And it says here, actually, he is aware when he experiences pleasant feeling, quote, I am experiencing pleasant feeling. And we mentioned also that first you say, I am experiencing pleasant feelings, either out loud or in your mind. Little by little, it should think. And you should be able to feel a pleasant feeling without having to note it either verbally or as an intellectual idea. So then you can do this meditation without being distracted from it by discussing things with people or thinking other kinds of thought.

[13:55]

You can feel positive feelings even while you're doing calculus problems or driving a car or talking to someone. And the same with the other feelings. He's aware when he experiences a pleasant worldly feeling. I'm aware I experienced a pleasant worldly thing. He was aware when he experiences a pleasant spiritual feeling, and so on. Okay, then we come to, let's see if there's anything more on this. Oh, and then I passed out the article to you about the Vaibhoshika treatment of feelings. The first Smriti Upasthana is intended to correct the false conception, the erroneous upside-down view of beauty or loveliness or purity.

[14:56]

And these meditations will correct that view as we discussed. The second Smriti Upasthana is in order to correct the idea that there's pleasure that there's a pleasant feeling and in the article there Dr. Jaini outlines how Vasubandhu shows that even positive feelings are actually not so are not really pleasant are not really good because of their condition and when you lose them and you always lose them you experience suffering Neutral feelings also, if your feeling's neutral, if it's really neutral, then of course you don't think it's pleasant. And of course, you might not think it's bad or suffering. But neutral feelings are even nauseating. Because even, not only are they not good, but they're conditioned.

[16:02]

They aren't even what they are, you know. Conditioned means that not only are they not even good, but actually you're sort of distracted by it or you're annoyed by it in the sense that it seems to be there but really you can't even have it. It's one of these, you know, you ever want to, when you're a little kid, you ever want to break your teeth? It's kind of like a twitch in your muscles. Neutral feelings are kind of like a twitch in your muscles. But before it twitches, before it's painful or before it's pleasurable, it's just annoying because it seems to be there and yet it's really not. It doesn't hold up distinctly. it's annoying it's very much like human life it's nauseating about being painful and then of course painful feelings are suffering because not only are they painful but you want to get rid of them so you crave and you're uneasy with them so the positive feelings are the site of disaster the negative feelings are the site of disaster and the neutral feelings are in some sense best

[17:10]

But there you are sort of just nervous and confused and uneasy about them. Now, you may hear, you know, also that feelings of pleasure, the main candidate, I think, for most people, the possibility of a pleasant feeling or a pleasant feeling of pleasure would be a positive or a pleasant feeling. That would be the main candidate. Maybe not, but anyway, let's take that candidate. But that candidate is said not only to be suffering because it's impermanent, but suffering because it is very conducive to, or people often take the opportunity when they have these feelings to give rise to various forms of craving. Or, whether the positive feeling is there or not, the fact that you think there is such a thing, the fact that you think that positive feelings are possible.

[18:11]

So not coming at the positive feeling so much with, I have a positive feeling now, what's it like? But rather, what's the nature of the notion that there is such a thing as a positive feeling? So, the Smriti Kupastana on feeling, the application of mindfulness to feelings, is not only to, first of all, in the Theravada, you learn how to note what feelings you have. And as you get good at noting it, you'll notice a couple things. One, you'll notice that these feelings don't come from anywhere. Naturally, you'll notice that. You'll notice that they don't have any characteristics. You'll notice that they don't exist in the past, they don't exist in the present, and they don't exist in the future. But then, also, you can come into meditation from another point of view, and that is that the problem of positive feelings is not the positive feeling, but the idea that there can be a pleasant experience. And because people think there can be a pleasant experience, they do all kinds of things.

[19:15]

So I read this verse last time. I said, what is it? Even a respected elder or wealthy person degrade themselves for the purpose of sex when they associate with persons of lowest state. And persons of low estate mean people of lower estate than you, right? People who won't tell your friends. That's what it means, doesn't it? People who won't tell your friends. That's what low estate means. Okay? If you're a middle class person, you go and have sex with the lower class person because the lower class person won't tell your friends. First of all, they don't know your friends. They're in a different state. They're in a lower state. So you go to a different part of the society, usually down. Because up, when they're above you, they can tell your friends very easily. There's no problem. How does it apply?

[20:29]

Well, it applies in the sense that it says even... someone rather, someone of a respected person, okay? Even a respected person or a wealthy person, even she goes to a lower state. They don't all go to their own state. A lot of them don't do it there. But the idea of a pleasant feeling, the idea that there can be a pleasant feeling is so powerful that even draws rather respectable people, people who have committed lots of good karma who go someplace. The first place they'll go is to a lower estate. Now you can say, what about us who may stay at the same estate? Well, it can happen there too. But not to say, I'm saying that's the first place people will go. It's the place that they think they can avoid their karma most easily. They think they won't get feedback. In this way, by doing this, all manner of suffering

[21:37]

due to greedy thoughts, bent on pleasure, arise. So I, I read this verse, which is in a commentary on the sutra, okay? And I thought it sounds a little bit wimpy. It tells me, to me, I didn't have much bite at first, but then I thought about it some. I thought about this, uh, respected elder going out for pleasure. And I thought if some things came to mind, you know, the way it actually can go, like... It says, by the way, oh, and another part of this verse says, let's see... The verse said something about... Oh, here. In this way, all manner of great sufferings due to greedy thoughts arise.

[22:43]

I notice the word great. Great suffering. And great suffering comes from desire for pleasure. But the great horrors of the world are based on simple human desire present in our dear children. And also the worst criminals. desire for pleasant feelings. In other words, I'm suggesting that children also believe that somehow even a child can construe the idea of a pleasant feeling and search after it. But I'm also suggesting that the worst criminals are just simply looking for this pleasant feeling. Oftentimes, that's what they're looking for. They're just looking for that pleasant feeling that a child's looking for under when they do all these cute little things. So like, you know, I remember this scene in The Godfather, where this senator or something, congressman, Utah, Nevada congressman,

[24:09]

trying to make a deal with one of the mafia guys, with Michael Corleone. And he makes a deal, too hard a deal on the mafia boss. So he just says, forget the deal. He had to make some tremendous kind of bribe or something. He said, forget it. We'll just wait. And although he didn't articulate at the time, what he was waiting for is In another movie, I saw this too, an interesting way to put it. The movie was called... This thing? I think? Paul Newman said, find out what he does when he's alone or something like that. For that term, find out what he does when he's alone or find out what else he does. In other words, the implication was that this is a very powerful person, you know, who in many ways, people like that are impeccable.

[25:19]

But there's always some assumption that they still look for some pleasant feeling. Basically, he was saying, find out where he goes when he looks for that pleasant feeling. It's a simple pleasant feeling. And they found out what he'd like to do. He'd like to gamble. So they made up a gambling scene. They dreamed one up where he went to bed. He bet on horses. That was his weak point. And in the back of what Michael Corleone was saying was the same thing. We'll find something in you. We'll find out where your thing is. So then later in the movie, he gets a call. And they found out where the senator's weak point. He went to whorehouses. And so he went to the horror house and he got drunk, and then these guys staged for him, just like in The Sting, except there they staged a loss in gambling.

[26:22]

There they staged, I think they killed a woman. The guy got drunk, he didn't really do it probably, but anyway, they killed the woman. They brought him in and said, now look what you've done. But anyway, he went there. He got himself in that condition where he could imagine that he could do such a thing. Or maybe he did, anyway. There they had him. And this is a great horror, I would say, for him. I mean, there's nothing much more horrible than that scene. And it's just simply based on the desire for simple human pleasure. But also based more fundamentally than the desire for it, is the belief that it's possible. Once you believe it's possible, just a matter of time until you give rise to craving for it. You can do this, you know, you can keep yourself busy over here, you can keep yourself busy over there, but as long as you think it's possible, as long as you fall through these nets here that are trying to catch you, either the net that Vasubandu lays, namely, if you look at it, there's even positive feelings of it.

[27:37]

are unpleasant. Or if you look at the net here that frightens you away from this stuff, which, see, this stuff is trying to frighten you away from it. This stuff is saying, if you think there's such a thing as positive feelings, then look what happens to the people who believe that there's positive feelings. Eventually, even though they keep it away for a while, you can keep it away with samadhi. You know, if you concentrate your mind, you can keep it away for a while. You can keep it away by doing various things, but as long as you believe in it, you're vulnerable. And when you give in to it, give in to your belief. It's not giving in to anything real. When you enact your belief, then you can get into situations which are as bad as they come. And these horrible people, they're just simply people that are doing stuff like that. They're just willing to use whatever means to get this simple little thing. Or the other catch is to see, and this is trying to frighten you away from it, but then the Mahayana approach would be to completely see through the whole thing, to see how they really don't come from anywhere.

[28:51]

Now, we said last time that Genshat hit his toe. and he said, where does this pain come from? And I'm suggesting to you that if you're willing just to say, where does this pain come from, if you just keep saying that to yourself, you won't find it comes from anywhere. Hakuin Zenji in his Song of Zazen says, make the formless form, or make form the formless form, formless form not being your form, coming and going, not elsewhere. So if you remember coming and going, not elsewhere, in regard to your feelings, you'll see that positive feelings, the coming of positive feelings is not elsewhere.

[30:03]

The going of positive feelings is not elsewhere. If you just remember that, you'll see that positive things could never come and never go. There couldn't be anything other than what you have here right now. Because coming, the coming of them, can't be anything but here. And you can't lose them. Now you could argue with that. But, the point is, not that you shouldn't argue, but rather that you should, not should even, but you can, if you think this way, free yourself from this misconception. And not only because of reasoning or fear, but just because you'll start thinking in a way that thinks that it isn't possible. However, there's one drawback of thinking this way, which is, you may have guessed, what is the drawback of thinking this way? Anybody? Yeah?

[31:03]

The world was kind of flat. That's right. In other words, if you think this way, then you actually think that it is. or rather it isn't that you think that they don't exist but even if they do exist you can't grasp them so that's the one drawback of all this sorry yes as a matter of fact that question is asked by some monk he says if worldly pleasure is actually suffering because it is a result of perverted views. Should not it be the case that the Aryans produce from dhyana, pleasure, positive vedana, positive feelings, without outflows, and thus it is certainly pleasurable? Or if feeling is not born of delusion, from, you know, the viparyasa, the false view of pleasure, how can it be suffering?

[32:05]

And the Buddha answer is, such pleasure is not suffering. Although the Buddha taught that anitya is dukkha, anitya is impermanence, is dukkha, okay? In the case of pleasure, impermanence is suffering. It was with reference to the dharmas that have outflow, the sasrava dharmas, the mental dharmas with leaks that he was speaking of. It is so because ordinary persons attach these states, and because such states are impermanent, their attachment is ripped asunder and they experience suffering. On the other hand, mental states without leads do not bring about attachment. Therefore, anitia does not cause sadness, regret, lamentation, depression, agony, and suffering. But if you're attached to positive feelings,

[33:08]

then it causes all these things, it seems to. But attaching to positive feelings is identical with having the idea that a positive feeling is possible. In other words, an experience of a positive feeling can occur without the idea that a positive feeling can happen. The idea that there can be a positive feeling is a perverted view. The experience of positive feeling is not a perverted view, it's a simple experience, a simple feeling, positive feeling. Enlightened people have positive feelings, but they do not believe those positive feelings exist. They also do not believe these positive feelings do not exist, because to believe they don't exist is simply opposite and age right back into that.

[34:13]

It won't help you to believe it doesn't exist. You just don't have to believe it does exist. In other words, they don't have perverted views. They don't have outflows in their thinking anymore. Dualistic thinking. You can experience a positive feeling without having the feeling like this is a positive feeling which excludes negative feelings. Or this is a positive feeling which is not based are inseparable from negative feelings all that other stuff is not necessary so in fact it says Genshaw hit his toe and he had intense pain but in that intense pain he said where does this pain come from? and that's where it comes from it comes from where? what does this intense pain come from? it comes from what? So Dogen says, where does the spring come from? The spring comes from spring flowers.

[35:23]

That's where the spring comes from. Where does the spring go? Spring doesn't go any place. Spring comes from spring. Pain comes from pain. When you have flowers blossoming, that's spring. Before there's flowers blossoming, there's no spring. Then you have winter. But winter doesn't cause spring. Spring doesn't come from winter. You can't see the spring in the winter. Winter doesn't send spring forward. It doesn't have a spring hidden in it. If it has a spring hidden in it, that's called spring. When winter... shows spring that's called spring that's the truth of pain

[36:36]

Our glass zeroes down, the meditation zeroes in on the truth of pain, the truth of dukkha. The truth of dukkha applies to positive, negative, and neutral feelings. So the meditation zeroes down on one, the first noble truth, the truth of pain, which will hold for painful feelings. So I'm glad that you brought that up because it's not just painful feeling at that moment. It's the truth of pain. So if you are meditating on your feeling, if you're being mindful of your feelings, and as you're being mindful of your feelings, you say, this feeling does not come from anywhere. It does not go anywhere. The coming and the going are not elsewhere. This feeling has no true birth. And therefore it has no characteristics. This feeling has no characteristics and has no birth.

[37:42]

you will find that you are saying the words of the Zen master's song. This is, I've just told you, the song of Zazan. And thereby, you can see that Vedana Smriti Uttastana practiced by the Bodhisattva is Zazan. And it practiced because this is what the Zen master says about his Zazan. And this is what the Bodhisattva could say about his experience of feelings, his feelings. So the big sutra commentary said, these feelings do not come from anywhere and do not go anywhere.

[38:50]

Once exhausted, they do not go anywhere other than here. They only arise from error and misjudgment and imagination. They are fruits of retribution, dependent on the errors and so forth, brought about by further imagined acts. lest the Bodhisattva considers these feelings as either past, present, or future, and so on. And this sounds just like the song of Zaza. Any questions now before we go on to the mindfulness application of mindfulness to thought? Yes. If you what? How yet?

[39:51]

How yet? If we look at what we look at, we look at what we look at. We look at what we look at. We look at what we look at. What I just read here was, they only arise from errors and imaginations, these feelings. They are fruits of retribution, dependent on those errors. They're dependent on causes brought together by karmic acts of previous existence okay so one of the ways you see that they don't exist is by seeing that they are due to causes now if you look at these causes the causes will suffer the same thing but they come together by causes and the causes are errors it doesn't this doesn't negate it doesn't negate causation causation shows you how they are

[41:15]

Their existence depends on causation. It doesn't negate causation. However, as you watch how causation works, first of all, as you watch the Dharma, the Dharma falls apart because you see the Dharma is nothing other than the sum total of its causes. And if you look at the causes, you'll see the causes are nothing other than the sum total of its causes. So everything suffers the same fate, mainly, as we said here before, the Bodhisattva, how should she gain mastery over the four applications of mindfulness? And the Buddha says, the Bodhisattva, the great being, the courses in the perfection of wisdom, should contemplate form, kaya, vedana, samnya, all the five standards and all the dharmas as empties. If you contemplate them as empty, one of the ways you contemplate them as empty is to see how they're just truths of retribution and how they just arise from causes.

[42:25]

What causes? Duparyasas, imagination, errors, misjudgments. These other causes, these other dharmas, what do those dharmas come from? Also causes. So the whole thing falls apart, but it falls apart in stages. And the first stage is to see how this dharma It's due to a whole bunch of causes and nothing but those causes and therefore you can't get a hold of this Dharma because you reach for this and you get a whole bunch of causes. You never get the Dharma. So at that stage you still have the causation. Now if you try to turn around and get the causation, you have the same problem. Because there's causation, you can't find the causation aside from the Dharma which you couldn't find that it gave rise to. Plus there's all kinds of causes, witches and so on. So these things don't, we say, these things don't stand up to scrutiny. If you don't look at them, they stand.

[43:26]

As soon as you look to see what it is you said is there, it's not there anymore. But it isn't that it goes into the trap called non-existence, because non-existence is something that you also know about. You can grasp non-existence. Okay, so next to go through the same process first we read this book now this observation or mindfulness of thought is to correct the view of permanence is to correct the upside counter view of permanence oh and one more thing a bodhisattva can do while meditating on feeling is when you see that feelings don't come from anywhere and don't go anywhere. If you keep thinking that, keep remembering that fact, or don't even call it fact, just keep thinking that way, you will actually taste the non-birth of these feelings.

[44:39]

Once you taste the non-birth, you see that there's no way for characteristics to be born. And once you see that there's no way for characteristics to be born, There's no way to what we say take into consideration. You lose the ability even to take the feeling into consideration. When you first started, you thought you were using some, or knew some characteristics by which to find the feelings, and somehow you did find them. Then when you applied, for example, just one of these things, is to apply the, that it doesn't come from anywhere and doesn't go anywhere, or where does it come from and where does it go, it's the same thing. tell yourself that it doesn't come from anywhere and to tell yourself it doesn't go anywhere is very similar to asking yourself where it comes from because if you ask yourself you won't find any place if you do this meditation you will actually see how it is that you can't you will experience the non-birth of these things and when there's non-birth then there's no space there's no time there's no way for the characteristics to be born you'll find out that you were able to identify and experience and yet there really were no characteristics by which you knew that you were experiencing them

[45:46]

You didn't have to have them. You don't have to have experiences of these things in order to live your life. Then you'll see that they don't have any characteristic. Therefore, since they have no characteristic, the thing which you originally could do, that is be mindful of them by telling yourself that you had some means to be mindful of them, you'll see that you don't have any means to be mindful of them. Therefore, there's no characteristics which you can ground your consideration of them out. Therefore, you can't take them into consideration. And not taking them into consideration is called wishlessness. And wishlessness means that you don't desire anything in the future. You don't take these things into consideration. You fashion no future. So in other words, what don't you fashion a future for? What don't you take into consideration? Feeling. What kind of feelings? Any kind, but positive is one of the kind. So you develop wishlessness with respect to positive feelings by this. And wishlessness is one of the three gates, the three tamadis.

[46:53]

Also equals sādva. So it's another way to come back and show when the body of Bodhisattva does this practice, it comes back again to be sādva. Okay? And once again, this is just something which I say to you now, if you don't understand it, that's fine. Just memorize it. Just do it over and over. That's what Leibniz says. When he's teaching math, the students didn't understand, he'd say, memorize it. If you just keep doing the proof over and over and over and over, pretty soon you'll think like Leibniz. I got a gear, she said. He copied his teacher's polygraphy. He copied and he [...] said, finally, I started to see beautiful colors coming from my hands. It's no great thing, but pretty soon you start thinking like a bodhisattva, if you think like a bodhisattva all the time. It's strange, isn't it? But just hearing about how somebody thought and not enacting it yourself, when you're not hearing about it, then in fact you think you're not thinking like a bodhisattva.

[48:09]

But if everything you If you only hear about bodhisattvas, and you only talk about bodhisattvas, and you only think about bodhisattvas, if you only hear about the thinking of bodhisattvas, and you only think the thinking of bodhisattvas, and you only say the thinking of bodhisattvas, where isn't there a bodhisattva? Well, if you find one, let me know. But first you have to do all those things, and then see if you can find anything else. As far as I can tell, I don't think there would be anything bodhisattvas around at that time. Okay, so now we come to the mindfulness of thought to correct impermanent view. As you may know, Buddha taught that things are impermanent, right? That's one of his early teachings. And Dogen Zanji mentioned that the Buddha nature, the enlightened nature of everything, is impermanent. So by meditating on your thoughts, which you might think permanent, as a matter of fact, you can either say meditating on thought or thoughts, either individual thoughts, but also the idea that thought continues either way.

[49:28]

But it is the idea of permanence that we hold, like we hold the idea that there can be something pleasurable. Meditating on thoughts in the way we're talking about here will correct that view. How does a monk dwell observing his thoughts? This is the Theravada text. He is aware of a lustful thought as a lustful thought. He is aware of a lustless thought as a lustless thought. He is aware of a hate-filled thought as a hate-filled thought. He is aware of a hateless thought as a hateless thought. He is aware of a deluded thought as a deluded thought. He is aware of an undiluted thought as an undiluted thought. I could go on, but I think it's clear. So this level of practice, if you do this level of practice, just sit there and watch yourself. This is a deluded thought. This is a deluded thought. This is an undeluded thought.

[50:30]

This is a concentrated thought. This is a lustful thought. This is an angry thought. This is a lofty thought. This is a lonely thought. This is a gross thought. This is a subtle thought. Anyway, whatever you can do, you simply do this. And you will notice impermanence. Right away, you start to notice it. And once again, you have to be concentrated in order to do this practice in the first place, but as you're able to do this, you will notice in permanence. Now, the Sarvastavadhan, the representation of the Abhidhamma Kosha and so on, does it a little bit differently. They say, the yogi asks herself, When one attaches to the body because of desire for pleasure, what is it that, what is the receiver of the pleasure?

[51:31]

The yogi asks herself a question. When one attaches to the body because of desire for pleasure, what is it that receives the pleasure? Having meditated thus, that clear of the question? when one attaches to body because of desire for pleasure. So you see these first two are tied together. You see the linkage between body and pleasure. Now you're meditating on thought, okay? And meditating on thought, you look back and see, when one attaches to body because of desire for pleasure. So if you believe in a body and pleasure, then if you even let go of the body, but you still had pleasure you still think pleasure is possible you can still hold on to the body even though you don't think it exists you have to correct both of them now you're thinking about the fact that when you believe in pleasure you attach you desire pleasure and then you attach to the body so she notices this and she says what is the receiver the receiver might be thought what's the receiver of this pleasure maybe there's a and then he receives it

[52:50]

Having meditated thus, she understands that feelings come from thought. Where else could they come from? If you ask that question again and again, supposedly you'll find out that the feelings come from thought. As mentioned above, from the same things... What? What are the things feelings come from? What does the pleasure come from? What does it come from? The idea of pleasure. It comes from the viparyasa. It comes from the misjudgment from the air and from the imagining. Those are thoughts, see? He asked about where does it come from. It comes, a positive feeling, the idea of pleasure is, the positive feeling itself is a, is a, a fruit of retribution.

[53:54]

From what kind of things? From false views. What are those false views? Or false views of thought. So if you see what the receiver of it, you're trying to find out what's the receiver of this. Well, you can see the positive feeling is from these imaginations. They come from thought. Because it is just when thoughts are wild and diluted that people feel this is pleasure. Since women and men are diluted, they think they can attain a feeling of pleasure. Why is it that pleasure is not really experienced? At the very beginning, one is about to experience a feeling of pleasure. A distinct feeling is produced. But when pleasure actually comes into being, a different feeling exists. Now, I can explain this to you. But I would explain it to you, not to prove that this is true, but just so that you can explain it to yourself.

[54:59]

See the difference? But you can go over the explanation in your own head and keep convincing yourself. Or we could say, how is one to know, or how is one to understand that all mental All states are impermanent. How can you know that all mental states are impermanent? How can you understand that all mental states are impermanent? How can you do that? Basically how are you going to do that? Anybody have any idea? By watching mental states? That's the first step. And what's the next step? That's the first step, and that naturally will lead to a practice by which you'll know. First of all, you just study them, okay?

[56:03]

The study needs concentration, and the study will naturally produce a clearer mind, and then what will it be like when you know that they're impermanent? Yes? Uh-huh. That's what he said. That's the stage he's talking about. They're talking about the same stage. You watch them come up, watch this thought, and if you say this thought this way, you'll see another one. You'll see them come and go. So you'll see infirmity, but how do you know infirmity? How do you know all mental states are infirmity? How do you know it? How do you understand it? Yes? Bet you won't know it.

[57:30]

I don't know what to say about that. I said I don't know what to say. It sounds like you fuzz out by what you're saying. See, the thing, the way I was talking before, about, for example, watching feelings and seeing how they are due to causes. It's not like things get kind of fuzzy or you can't tell anymore. It's actually you learn more and more and more. You learn this and then you learn more about it and more about it. Things get clearer and clearer and clearer and the clearer they get, that's what brings about the ungraspability of the situation. That's what brings about the lack of characteristics. That's what brings about the lack of true qualities. It's not that you can't tell anymore. By carrying the first step, the Theravada step, or the Shravaka step, further and further, at its ultimate point, when things get very clear, you see then for sure that actually you can't get it.

[58:45]

And here too, if you watch thoughts very, very clearly, and you know more and more about them in terms of watching them come and go, then what's it like when you know they're not? They're impermanent. Well, I would suggest that you say, you think they're impermanent. You think all thoughts are impermanent. That's what it's like to know that they're impermanent. You think all thoughts, you understand that all thoughts are impermanent. That's what it's like to understand that they're impermanent. That's the way you understand. You think that way. Rather than you watch something and then what? And then you think that they're impermanent. That's what it's like when you think they're impermanent. In other words, you're no longer observing data which will then culminate in this thing, this feeling.

[59:48]

You are now culminating it. In other words, you think all mental states are impermanent. But at least do it for a while. This is called... called Ken Shin. That's my name. Think they're just the way they are. That's all. Impermanence is just the nature of all dharmas. And when you think that that's what's happening, that's it.

[60:49]

You're right. However, you think that if right now you just start thinking to yourself that all thoughts, all dharmas are impermanent, You think that you can't believe that. See? But that's what I said before. If all you hear is that all diamonds are in front of me, and all you think is that all diamonds are in front of me, and all you say is that all diamonds are in front of me, in fact, that's the way it is for you. In fact, you understand it. But who will do this? Almost no one will do this unless they've been first of all, concentrate their mind when they watch these dharmas. Once you do that for a while, you'd be willing to say this to yourself. It's funny, isn't it? It isn't necessary for some reason. I don't know if the reason why you're willing to say it is so you're so bored that you're even willing to say this to yourself now.

[61:53]

Or various ways to explain it, but anyway, you probably would be willing to do it. And also, you could say, well, then you really know. So you're willing to say it because you do know that things are this way. That's why you're willing to say that they're that way. You have no doubt because you've seen it that way. But still, until you say, they are all in for meaning. Until then, you've just been watching. And if you look at the meaning of your data and you say, hey, what is all this? I've been watching this stuff for quite a while. What does it mean that all these things are this way? You ask yourself that. What does it mean that these dharams come up and go away and that these states are changing all the time? What could that possibly mean? And you might say, maybe it means that these states are all impermanent and maybe all the states that are in them are impermanent. And you look some more.

[62:56]

Yeah, it looks that way. But you see, until you finally say, yes, it is that way, all these dhammas are impermanent. Until then, in fact, you're still not a Buddha. You still think you're somebody's student. Buddha said, all dhammas are impermanent. He didn't say, I think maybe they are. or looks like maybe they are, or if I keep this up much longer, I might come to that conclusion. He said, flat out, unequivocally, all time is everything is impermanent. He didn't qualify at all. It's a radical and devastating teaching and difficult to uphold because nothing makes sense after that until you do a lot of fast footwork. But anyway, he said it. Later people said, yeah, but Buddha, if that's the case, then blah-de-blah.

[64:00]

And he said, well, that's okay, because then this happens, and that's how it looks that way. But anyway, he just said that right out. Didn't hold back at all. So if you want to think like a Buddha, then think like a Buddha. Yeah? Is enlightenment a mental state? Enlightenment is not a mental state. But by not being a mental state, okay? This is over and over. It's okay. It's a mental state, okay? Do you put it in like another mental state? Don't put it in a mental state. Then there's a place out here called, then is this everything else not mental state? You can say yes or no, whatever you like. Is there anything that's not mental state? It is a mental state and it's not mental state. You put it over there. You don't put it in mental state. You don't put it in not mental state.

[65:01]

If you don't put it in mental state or not mental state, you put it in neither one of them? No, you don't put it in neither one. You put it in both? No, you don't put it in both. Where do you put it? Put it anywhere. You don't not put it here and you don't just put it there. You don't not put it there and you just put it here. It can be anywhere. So it's free. You don't have to keep it over here off the black hole. It can be up in the blackboard, it can be here, it can be here, it can be here, or not in the blackboard at all. That's what it means by it's not a mental thought. Okay, it's not found. It's far beyond. Yes. Yes. In other words, because, um, the guy likes to be on CTA, I'm going to stay with him, and, um, it's good to do, to watch, [...] to watch.

[66:23]

I mean, it's a natural connection. Yeah, it's a natural connection rather than a mental thought. So I dialectically respond to it because you put up that, is it that? No, it's not. No, it's not. It's not me. Now, what I just said is like a theory, okay? It's a theory until you practice it. If you start thinking this way and think about what's enlightenment, and you say, enlightenment's not my thoughts, and it's not outside my thoughts. And it's not both, it's not both, not my thoughts and outside my thoughts, neither. Okay? If you keep thinking that about enlightening, you'll soon find out what it is. If you just tell your body, it's a theory, which you maybe think is nice, or maybe you don't think it's nice, somebody might start arguing with me. Okay, and they say, well, most of you aren't professional philosophers, so you don't say much. But, in fact, whether they argue with the theory or not, Maybe they will.

[67:27]

It turns out that they don't too much. Their life is in place. They're very popular. Nagarjuna is very popular. Nagarjuna is stuck. But do they practice it in their daily life? Whether you agree with it or not, the question is, do you think this way about enlightenment? If enlightenment is not your mental thoughts, okay, And what we mean by not your mental thoughts is that it can be your mental thoughts. Okay? In other words, it's not bound in your mental thoughts. It's not outside your mental thoughts. It's free of your mental thoughts. Free of your mental thoughts means your mental thoughts are it. Okay? This isn't playing Bondi. This is realizing it. But I'm saying, you said it's a theory, but it's not a theory if you do it. Now, there are various kinds of theories.

[68:33]

Like one theory is that two hydrogen molecules, when joined with one oxygen molecule in a certain way, produce a compound called water. You could say that to yourself over and over. It's a theory. The question is, will it correct your false views about I don't know what? anything that you would have a false view about. Will it correct certain views that are causing you trouble? I don't know. Buddhism is just like that. It's saying very similar things like take a little bit of lust and a little bit of confusion and a little bit of samadhi. You mix them together and you get an upset individual. You take a little bit of this stuff and a little bit of that stuff and add a little of this and do that and you get a different kind of upset individual. Take away this and take away that, and put in that, you got somebody who's calm. Take away this, take away that, and you have somebody who's calm, but calmer than any other. You can make these various worldly combinations.

[69:34]

So you take a person like this, take a person like that, and that means they'll think they're doing this, and they think they do that, and next Tuesday that will happen to them. There's various kinds of chemistry and physics and time and space and all that. Just like talking about H2. But if you think about this particular mechanical formula you're learning, and you watch those, turns out they start to untie themselves. They've been built not in order to, I don't know what, get rich by chemistry or something, or reduce anxiety in a certain sphere, but totally liberate beings from this situation. But until you practice it, it's just theory. It's Buddhist theory until you practice it. And as soon as you start practicing it, it's not a theory anymore. You are taking your mind and putting it in that shape. It's not just this thing on a blackboard. Well, here's a theory, I'm going to use that one. Here's a theory, see? Here's a theory. Now you take yourself and you shape yourself into that. You become it. And you're told that this particular theory happens to be a theory of an enlightened person.

[70:39]

So you're shaping your mind to the enlightened person. Now, it might be mistranslated. It might say, this is the way an enlightened person's mind works. It can actually... Unenlightened, because that's the un. So then you start memorizing the way an unenlightened person thinks. And then you know what happened to you? You get upset. So, you go to your teacher and you say, I'm sick. And I read the book and I did what it said. You say, what did it say? Say, well, it says an enlightened person does this, this, and this. And your teacher says, oh, no, that's unenlightened person that does that. That's why you're upset. Even if the teacher didn't read the book. Because if you're thinking like an enlightened person, you won't have those problems. So it must have meant an enlightened person. So it's translated wrong, or whatever. And in fact, that's all the way it is. If it doesn't work, it's translated wrong.

[71:43]

Actually translated wrong. Because these books are the words of enlighten people that give good words, you know, good instructions. So if it doesn't say that good instructions is not what they said. But you may not know that because you might not be sure because you might think, well, gee, I was upset before I started doing this practice, so I'm just a little bit more upset now. Maybe it's not really because there's something wrong with the practice. Maybe you should just leave. But be sure to ask somebody before you go because probably you just nearly read something. Like Susie, right? Used to. He used to ask some of us to give Zazen instruction for him, because when he gave Zazen instruction, he'd always mix up, inhale, and exhale. He'd go out there, give Zazen instruction, and these people would come out with Zazen instruction. Breathing, you know, on the... So he stopped doing it, because his English was excellent, but some little things like that, he'd sometimes turn them around.

[72:49]

It was just a mistranslation. He knew what the Dharma was, but he said it, turned it around. So then we had Americans give it, because they never, almost never turned it around. But if they turn it around, they may notice it later at some point. Did I assume that? In the Abhidharma class, I always tell people that if I ever say anything that's not right, they should assume the opposite. It's just an mistake. But I mean, I sometimes can't make my speech correspond to reality. I think the same should apply here. Do you ever hear me say anything wrong? Just don't, think I don't mean. Okay, so now we're doing the meditation, the application of mindfulness to thought. Let me read a little bit of this to you from the commentary.

[74:04]

is the bodhisattva's application of thoughts to mindfulness. Bodhisattva considers internal thought. This internal thought has three characteristics, birth, duration, and destruction. This thought comes from nowhere and, once destroyed, goes nowhere. Same thing. It only arises from a complex of internal and external causes and conditions. This thought has no fixed and true nature, nor does it have a true birth, duration, or destruction. Nor is it to be found in past, present, or future. The thought has three characteristics according to the Abhidhamic Moshe, or four. Some schools say three. It has an arising, a duration, and a destruction. Sometimes they say arising, duration, deterioration, and destruction. If you watch this, you see that it doesn't even have those. This thought is not to be found inside, outside, or in between.

[75:51]

This thought is also without own nature and without characteristics. And there is nothing which arises, nor anything to cause the arising. What we call... This is not an actual thing, this is a rendering, okay? What we call... in that there is diverse and mixed causal conditions. That is the realms of experience, the fields of experience, colors, sounds, and so on. What we call internal is the organs. Because of a succession of births, one forces all this experience into the idea of thought. In this thought, the true characteristics of thought does not exist. The thought in its own nature is not born and does not destroy it.

[76:53]

This thought is always bright. Now, always bright. Always bright. What's always bright? A thought. What's brightness? Brightness is no own being, no own characteristics, and no birth. That's what... bright is. And I think, to me, when I first heard those words, they don't sound very bright to me. No own be. You know, Patrice, The bright thing about them is that this thought is actually bright.

[78:00]

This thought which doesn't have a birth, doesn't have a death, doesn't have a real birth, a real death, any real characteristics, any real own being, that's bright. Why is it bright? It's pure. Why is it pure? Something sounds so bright. Well, this is the word pure in the Prajna Paramita. Pure means what? Pure means opposite of what most people think means pure.

[79:02]

Most people think pure means like, pure silver means there's no gold mixed in with it. That's pure silver. Pure gold means no silver mixed in or no anything else. That's the usual idea of pure. Just one kind, you know, none of the defiling qualities. In the Prajnaparamita, pure means it can be anything. So relative gold is relatively pure. But the actual events are absolutely pure. Absolutely pure means that they aren't bound by some characteristics. If they're bound by a characteristic, actually they're stained. They're stained by that characteristic. They're limited. They've been poisoned by a characteristic. They're impure. Pure means, absolutely pure means you can't add anything to it, can't take anything away. Why can't you add anything to it?

[80:03]

It already includes everything. Already including everything means it doesn't have any characteristics. You can't say it has only these characteristics. It doesn't have any own being. It has being, but not its own. It has all beings. As soon as you try to say what its own being is, you find out that its own being has no meaning aside from another own being, which also has no meaning aside from another own being. And if it doesn't have, if this own being does not depend on another own being, does it depend on a different being? Not an own being, but an other being. Doesn't it depend on anything? If it doesn't depend on anything, then it doesn't have any characteristics. If it doesn't depend on anything, then it doesn't need the characteristic either. So, where is the characteristic? Well, you can't find it. Actually, the thought is pure. It's free of characteristics. And free of characteristics, since it has no characteristics, how would you know it came up? Well, you can't find it, so it has no birth.

[81:06]

And because it has no birth, it has no characteristics. If it has no characteristics, how can it have an own being? How do you say what its own being is? You can't find its own being. Therefore, it has no own being. It has no own being. If you start learning these things, you can keep yourself from falling in a hole. If you start thinking this way, pretty soon you start thinking this way. The next question is, do you think this way? So as you read the sutra, and you think about the sutra, and you keep thinking about the sutra, and you make your thinking this sutra, pretty soon your thinking is this sutra, and then you can write another one yourself. Strange. Would you write the Prajnaparamita Sutra? Well, if you think the Project Prime Media Sutra, you can write the Project Prime Media Sutra. Project D Sutra is written by people who think this way. This is the way they thought. And they thought this way because someone else thought this way. And they thought this way because someone else thought this way. And they thought that way because somebody told them to think this way.

[82:08]

And they did think this way. Because they did think this way, they can write this way. And because they wrote this way, you can read this way. And because you read this way, you can think this way. And because you think this way, you can talk this way and write this way and act this way. Believe it or not. If you do it, you don't have to believe it. That is belief. And believe it or not, if you don't do it, that isn't belief. Faith is to say yes to this, and yes to what? Well, you have to say what you're saying yes to. You have to hear what you're saying yes to, you have to think what you're saying yes to. So, what I just read, okay? you still may have some doubts about this. And also, I didn't read, you know, but it's also set up in a question and answer situation. So that they tell about this stuff and then somebody asks a question which seems to have some doubt or some other opinion.

[83:10]

And they answer the question and there's some feeling in that like they're trying to convince somebody of something. And that's maybe true because in a way you have to convince a person of the truth of something. before they'll, as I said, before you take a chance at putting it in your head. You sort of want to make sure it's true. Maybe you have some questions about it. You want to go back and forth before you, and be pretty sure before you're going to start thinking that way. So let's say you're convinced. Now you think, okay, that's true. Like you said, well, that sounds good. But still, you say, oh, that sounds okay. I'm great. But still, you may say, even though you sort of say, well, I think it's true now, I agree with you, you still may say, yeah, but so what? So what? What good is that truth that you just told me about?

[84:11]

What good does it do for me or anybody else in this world? So I wrote, it's also true that my eyes are blue. But so what? That is to say, what good does it do in the world that my eyes are blue? What good does it do you to know that my eyes are blue? Or do for me to know that my eyes are blue? What good does it do? Well, it does some good. For some people to just know that your eyes are blue would be a good step in the right direction. The usefulness comes when we say or when we make this enlightened way of thinking our thinking. That's it.

[85:19]

We've always been talking about this. But the thing is to enact it, to make it your way of thinking. And even if you don't follow this argument that I've been putting out, if you still make this thinking your thinking, then you make your thinking the thinking of Buddha's. And the fact that you don't understand doesn't matter. So this brings up the point that obedience is much more important than intellectual power. Some people in this class or some people in this world understand these teachings very quickly. They understand the theories very quickly. They follow the argument very quickly. Others don't, or do, but anyway. Some of the most powerful intellectuals understand it, but they are not obedient.

[86:22]

They do not obey And by not obeying, no good comes. Other people are obedient, and they memorize the sutra. When they memorize the sutra, they are obedient. And they become like the sutra. They think he becomes like the sutra. Banke says that a lot of the old ladies that came to study Zen with him, were better than a lot of priests because they were obedient. He'd say, go home and think of not thinking. They'd go home and they'd think. Priests would say, oh, how do you think not thinking? He'd say, not thinking. I'd say, right on. And at the end of that, they'd still go chomping around and maybe not actually doing it.

[87:24]

So I would say, when you read some of these things, some of these bodhisattva practices, oftentimes you might say, so what? What's the use of it? Sometimes you don't even see the truth of it, just because it's like hogwash. But even when you see the truth of it, you still might say, so what? What's the good of it? The good of it only comes when you get it inside your body and mind and you become it. you read this sutra this magnificent sutra or these teachings or explanations of it and to not practice it that's what so what is that's when you say so what you see you read it but you have no intention of practicing it and then when you finish you say so what but if you were reading it and you were thinking as you're reading it this is going to be my practice you wouldn't say so what at the end you'd say I didn't get it and you'd go back and do it again you'd do it again and again until you got it and you wouldn't say so what you'd just be doing it

[88:31]

Nobody would, you wouldn't say, so what? If someone came up to you and said, so what? You'd tell them what to do. You'd say, why didn't I ever say, so what? Say, well, I didn't say, so what? So just can you do what I did? See if you still say, so what? Now, that's one of the advantages of saying, so what? Is that you won't take you so long to figure out why someone's saying, so what? In other words, if you have a theoretical mind and you read this stuff and you say, so what? then you go back and you learn it and you find out that it's not so what but actually whatever it is then when somebody says so what you know why they say so what they say so what because they read this as not their own mind when you read this you are reading the nature of your own life every one of these pages is talking about you and if you see if you feel like you're reading about yourself when you're reading this it's not so what The only question is, should you just go back over what you just read about yourself, or should you keep turning the pages?

[89:35]

Because you can stay on one of these pages that's good enough. If you go over this page again and again and again and get it inside your system, you can open up any page in this picture, any time, and you understand what it's talking about. It'd be the same mind, page after page. Even when you look at 201 and A, Roman numeral 2, 44, it's all this thing. So that's what happens to you, you know? Once you start thinking this way, you start thinking this way, and that's it. Okay? So then you start seeing cartoons, you know? Like this, you see Snoopy. And what does Snoopy Snoopy say? I hate life. No matter what I do, I always wind up with a vet. I've heard a million times, take him to the vet, give him a shot, give him a pill, Hold him down.

[90:37]

Put the muzzle on. Lock him in the kennel. Chain him to the post. No wonder a dog hollered the moon. So this is Khyasmyrthu Khyasdanga, isn't it? On the Theravada level. At this particular day, he's not practicing Bodhisattva practice overtly. You know, and I, I, uh, It's not me. I don't get that out. And, uh, uh, Risa takes, uh, you know, reads a New Yorker, and she turns to the New Yorker, and every cartoon, look at this one. But the first cartoon is with the devil tuning in various stations, you know, you know, like, he has his TV panels around, you know? One panel's called lust, and the other one's called hate, and the other one's called greed, and the other one's called got these various scenes, you know, and these various scenes are tuning in all over the world, all over the universe, with various, you know, Abhidharma terms underneath.

[91:42]

And he'd open another one, he's got a picture of a, of a guy in a room, and these various paintings of light bulbs. The guy's praying by the bed, the adult man's praying by the bed, he says, perhaps due to some technical error, I seem to have received someone else's comeuppance. You know, You can't avoid it after a while. You can't avoid either its enlightenment or its delusion. And it's all in the same book. It's all in the same New York book. Every cartoon tells you the same story, but in infinite varieties. You never can be outside of it. And I remember before I came to Zen Center, I really got in a rut because I was in college and I had sort of changed I started to change my attitude, you know, come around to the attitude that would see Buddhism as the only possibility. I'd pick up books, you know, whatever book it was I was supposed to be studying, you know, and I kept picking up the book and kept studying the same thing.

[92:44]

Couldn't turn a page, you know. Everything said the same thing. And it really did. There's no way to get away from it. Change the type of book, you couldn't avoid it. And I just couldn't read. Couldn't read what? Couldn't read as an object anymore. You know? Couldn't read about something other than me. So I couldn't study. Because you can't study that way. Because you won't retain anything. Because you're not studying something outside yourself. So you can't get any knowledge. So you've got to quit school. And now I that, but I showed it to my friend, I'd show them, I'd say, look at this, isn't this the same thing? And they all say, yeah. No one would disagree with me. They'd say, I don't see it. I'd say, well, look. It'd pop out a pin too. No one would disagree. You can't get it out of your system once it gets in.

[93:45]

But it's kind of boring. So I wrote this. The Bodhisattva applies their attention, their mindfulness, the thought which like all conditioned things has three characteristics arising maintenance and ending and which are in turn themselves also conditioned thing she reflects thus she thinks that this is the way she thinks this thought comes from nowhere and goes nowhere it only arises from a complex of internal and external causes which are in themselves similarly conditioned. This thought has no fixed and true nature, nor does it have a true birth, duration, destruction, nor is it found in past, present, or future existence.

[94:47]

This thought is not to be found inside, outside, nor in between, nor both inside and outside, nor neither. This thought is also without own being and without own characteristic. There is nothing... that arises and nothing arises from, nothing causing arises, what we call external and so on. It is only that the succession of illusory births and deaths that there is imputation of the name of thought to all this. In this thought, the two characteristics of thought did not exist. This thought is always bright and without only being, without only characteristics. This is the way she thinks she thinks like this she projects this mind this thought is devoid of any true characteristics of its own since it does not unite with nor does it separate from the associated dharma this thought is empty of self of permanence it is without self it is impermanent it is unreal

[95:59]

Here we have a way of considering a thought which is consistent with the true nature of thought. Practicing in such a way, we realize such a way. Practicing such, we realize such. Practicing suchness, we realize such. Thought is neither united with the dharma associated with it, nor is it separate. arises with diamonds, and it's not the same as the diamonds, and it's not separate from the diamonds. If it's not the same from the diamonds and separate from the diamonds, where is it? What is it? Do you understand how it's not the same as the diamonds? If it was the same as the diamonds, it would be the diamonds. It would just be the diamonds. If it were separate from the diamonds, it wouldn't be with the diamonds. Then it wouldn't be with the diamonds that it was with. us neither.

[97:00]

But what is it? Where is it? It is impermanent. It doesn't have itself. It's unreal. If you practice in such a way, you will manifest and realize in such a way. If you practice such, you realize such. If you practice suchness, you realize suchness. If you practice truth, you realize true. Anyway, I hope it's clear how these practices hold back to our Zazen itself.

[98:11]

Dogen Zenji, as I mentioned before, and I'll mention now, wrote a chapter called The 37 Wings of Enlightenment. And when he wrote about him, first he explained, he did sort of what we're doing here. He first talked about them a little bit from the point of view of the Theravada, and then he wigs out and goes all over the place, just gets out of control, out of hand. He starts with the Sravakāyāna and goes to the Bodhisattva-yāna and then goes beyond that. But he does study these. He takes them, he comes to them with Sādhāda in mind, he applies the Sādhāda in mind to them, he defines them, And he takes that definition and says, this goes here, here, here, and then the reason it's gone and it's back to Zaza. He comes to the next one, does the same thing, the definition's here, that means this, that means this, that goes here, that goes here, and then it's back to Zaza.

[99:15]

Again and again. Each one, round and round. Same thing. So you come with the Zen student, comes with the Zaza in mind, looks at these, learns them, sees that they don't have any characteristics, sees that they don't have any birth, sees that way, thinks that way, acts that way, and acts that way, and then you're baptized in again. And with no distance. And then do the next one. This is extending the practice. And extending the practice is the development of skill and means, which is what a sacrifice. So we had to do this with everything in our life. You learn the characteristic of cooking, you learn the characteristic of baking, you learn the characteristic of business, of finance, of driving, of everything. Learn, be mindful of the ply that is in his body, as feeling, as thought, and as dharmu.

[100:20]

And play them better and better and better until you can see that they don't have any characteristics. Consider them as empty. See their causes. And in fact, you will be doing this practice called Blasin in Daylight. Copy these texts out with your hand, with your mind. With your hand, use a pencil or pen and paper. With your mind, use your memory and your voice. and then use your body. And then, do them again and again until finally you can write commentaries on it. And if you're not sure the commentary they write, put the commentary back inside what you memorize and see if you can be part of it. See if there's anything wrong with it. Again and again. So there's one more, but there's one more

[101:32]

but basically I think you understand the process of how you do these four practices. If you want to, you can read about Dharma Smriti Upasthana here, then think about it. If you can do the Bodhisattva practice on it yourself. I will not present Damsma to Kistam next time, but just if you want to talk about it from your own experience with it, if you want to ask questions about it or express how you work with it yourself, I'll be very happy to do that. Otherwise, you could do something else. Now, we can go in different directions. There are several things we can do. As I mentioned before, you must be concentrated.

[102:37]

There's a preliminary concentration practice and a preliminary morality practice before that, before you can do these Priti Upasthanas. But these Priti Upasthanas, although in order to actually do them, you must keep invigorating yourself and encouraging yourself to do them. But also you could talk about that aspect of practice separately which I haven't been emphasizing so much except I haven't been emphasizing that aspect in isolated fashion so the next four of the 37 emphasize that so one possibility is to study those for a while but then one is drawn down the path of the 37 because then after one studying those one notices how Although they encourage one and invigorate one's insight practices, they also have disturbed the mind some. And now one would be very interested to see how you take this encouraged, this invigorated insight practice and calm it down again with the four basics of psychic power.

[103:51]

And now finding one on a threshold, the actual Buddhist path, Aryan path, of the bodhisattva or the harhat, one might say, well, gee, it'd be nice to see how we go back now and do insight practice on a new level. Now, we could resist all that. So that's one possible route to go further. Another possible route is to go back now. All this is very clear in the text. You see, everything I've talked about here, I've been able to draw right out of the text. Stuff in the text. talks directly about using the same name, four applications in mindfulness, four applications in mindfulness. It actually says exactly the same thing as it does here. It says exactly the same thing as the Theravada version, except at the end it says, but through non-apprehension. But here on page, as we saw here on page 424, which you read last time, the Buddha asked how to practice

[104:58]

four applications of mindfulness, and Buddha doesn't say, he doesn't say, in this case, he doesn't give the Theravada first, and then say, but to non-apprehension. Okay, so this, did you have the, Suji often does this. Two basics, one way that, they ask, how does the Bodhisattva do such and such a, such a Hinayana practice? And they say, that, that, that, that. All this, first part, is exactly what the Hinayana practice is described at by the Hinayana. And then they put a kicker at the end. The Bodhisattva kicker. Through non-apprehension or whatever. Or he learns all this but doesn't realize it. Or he studies all this but doesn't apprehend it. Or he studies all this but without a dualistic view. Or he studies all this but continues it in. The other way is the way that we studied it before. They said, how did the Bodhisattva do... And he said, will you do it by considering the same thing?

[106:04]

Let's talk about how you consider it as empty right off. Okay. But what I'm saying is that what we've been doing for the last few weeks is basically we've been dealing with, specifically, so detects for the 37th. We've been going to these, we've been studying these. and then we've been studying the actual text and then seeing how you don't realize it or how you don't apprehend it or we've been asking how you do the practice and you're talking about how the photoshop practice is right away but still we've been dealing very much in terms of the what things you have to find in your sutra they've been sticking close to the sutra but as I mentioned before there's another way to come at this sutra which is the sort of hidden, like, esoteric way to come, the Yogacara way. So we could start turning around and coming into sutra from that direction.

[107:06]

Another possibility is we could start reading the sutra. Go back again to the beginning and start going through. And not use either method particularly, but just we could just have discussion and discussion and discussion all over the place. So these are some, and there's other ways too, these are some ways. Another thing which you might be interested in, but maybe not, is you might want to study the schools, different schools in the sutra. There's the Madyamaka, and there's two kinds of Madyamaka. There's Yogacara, and there's two kinds of Yogacara. And study these schools and what the subtle differences are. In a few pages, we're going to get to the 18 kinds of emptiness. We could study the 18 kinds of emptiness, learn how they are and what different kinds of emptiness are. So these are some things I haven't decided myself. And so the people who respond either now or later by work will help me decide which way to go.

[108:14]

And so My recommendation for you as an assignment is to read the sutra. Read the sutra and read the sutra and read the sutra and read the sutra. Or an alternative assignment or an additional assignment is continue doing these practices. We've just been talking about see if you can learn how to consider things as the bodhisattva considers these practices. see if you can see how they go back to Zazen. An alternative assignment is to think about where you want to go next in this study of the sutra. And if you do the second assignment, which I was talking about, namely the continued study of the four applications of mindfulness, try to carry it on with the application of mindfulness to Dharma.

[109:17]

See if you can understand how to do it in the Theravada, the Shravakayana way, and the Bodhisattva-yana way. Even though we haven't yet talked about the Bodhisattva-yana way, and it's right here anyway, on Gage 424, among other places. It's also in the Heart Scripture. The Heart Scripture teaches the Bodhisattva's way of doing the Dharma-Smithyapastanas. And so then maybe by next week we'll sort of have some further discussion at this point and start off in some new direction. Because this is, as I say, sort of a explicit direction to go in. Any comments at this point that you'd like to make about anything?

[110:17]

@Transcribed_UNK
@Text_v005
@Score_83.68