I kind of concentrated on concentration, or Samadhi, and at least one of the things I'd like to concentrate on this year, or focus on this year, is Wisdom. Last year I presented a diagram at the beginning of the year, or end of the year, at four concentric circles, and most of you know about those four concentric circles, but how many people do not know about them? So yes, the minority don't know about them, but there's about twenty of you, I think.

[01:00]

And yes? It's really hard to hear you back there, right? There's a seat up here in front. Right up in the front here. Anybody else having trouble hearing in the back? There's a seat up in the front. It's a challenge. It's a challenge. There's a seat up here, if you want to sit here. A Buddhist meditation is sometimes presented in the form of a picture.

[02:08]

It's presented as two different gestures of mind. One is called, sometimes, calming, and the other one is called vision. Actually, sometimes higher vision. Samatha is the Sanskrit for it, for the calming side, and vipassana for the vision side, or the insight side. Now, when I presented the material on samadhi, samadhi is sometimes seen as the calming side,

[03:22]

but really samadhi doesn't necessarily just mean calming. Samadhi can also be a state of consciousness where calm and insight are united, but sometimes samadhi is used to emphasize the calming side. Okay. A lot of Zen students spend their time in meditation trying to practice some form of

[04:48]

calming practice. And some other Zen students spend their meditation time practicing insight. I don't know the actual demographics for sure, but most Zen students are pretty confused about the relationship between the two, as far as I can see. So I wanted to help clarify our understanding of meditation and go into teachings about wisdom or insight this year. Calming, or being calm, tranquil, being in a state of samatha, one is also flexible,

[06:06]

one's mind is flexible, pliant, buoyant, bright, clear, and very workable. It easily works on any kind of wholesome activity that seems appropriate. It's sort of an excellent condition of mind. What we mean by samatha or calm. Sound familiar? There's not such a possibility for the human mind. And this kind of state of mind is the fruit. It's actually a result of a certain kind of cultivation. It's the fruit of giving up discursive thought.

[07:13]

Discursive thought, the root of the word discursive thought is helpful. It means running about. Discursive means running about etymologically. Or coursing about, discoursing. So discursive thought is a type of thought that's running about. So that's probably familiar to all of you, right? A thought that's running about. Tranquility is the fruit of giving up this running about mind, or running about in the mind. The mind is actually never just running about.

[08:26]

But the mind has running about facilities. And when these facilities are given up, the mind becomes calm and serene. But responsive, flexible, and many other nice things. So basically the cultivation of calm comes from the cultivation of giving up this running about in the mind. Even while the running about is going on. Insight has basically three varieties.

[09:27]

Or one way to look at it is has three varieties. One is insight arisen from hearing. Like the kind of insight that might be accumulating in you right now as you're listening to me. Insight that comes through reflection. And insight that arises in conjunction with tranquility. Or meditation in the sense of being calm. The first two types of wisdom are the fruit of using this cursive book. So wisdom in its first two phases of development comes through not giving up discursive thought but using it.

[10:35]

So in a sense, part of what's going on right now in this room is that people may be using discursive thought. Listening to these words. And maybe the insight is being developed by using discursive thought about this teaching. The third kind of wisdom, which is the most profound, is wisdom which arises when the fruit The wisdom fruit of using discursive thought is united with the fruit of giving up discursive thought. This produces the deepest wisdom. So you can achieve wisdom without doing any tranquility work. Without doing much anyway.

[11:40]

Like people who play the piano, they may not even notice it, but in the process of getting their fingers to be in the keys in certain ways, they actually may be giving up some discursive thought in order to perform certain physical activities. They may not even notice it, but some level of giving up discursive thought is necessary in order to play the piano. But also discursive thought is necessary in order to play the piano. So sometimes people don't really consciously train at giving up discursive thought and developing calm, but they get some anyway in their daily life somehow through various other kinds of disciplines. But anyway, without much tranquility you can develop quite a bit of insight. But the deepest insight, you need quite a bit of training in giving up discursive thought. So the Buddhist meditation program, to cover the whole field, you need to do both these styles.

[12:50]

Although I would say, overall in Buddhism, especially in what we sometimes call Theravada Buddhism, sometimes there is not as much emphasis on the tranquility side. And in Zen Buddhism in Japan, in some cases there is not much emphasis on the tranquility side. So people who study koans, koan work is generally speaking, more emphasis there is on insight. On using discursive thought in dialogue to develop insight. But still, in order to fully realize insight, the insight which arises from, for example, studying koans, in the end needs to be united with tranquility, which is developed not by studying koans, but by giving up discursive thought.

[13:53]

So when you hear teachings, Zen teachings or otherwise, sometimes it's hard to tell whether you're hearing an instruction to do shamatha or an instruction to do vipassana, an instruction to do practice calm, or an instruction to practice insight. Sometimes it's hard to tell. And sometimes the teacher actually is giving an instruction which can really be heard either way, or both. So we need to, again, dare use, and in order to hear these teachings and understand them, using both, giving up discursive thought sometimes helps you understand what they're talking about, even though you're not trying to figure it out. And sometimes using discursive thought helps you figure out what they're talking about, even though you are trying to figure out what they're trying to talk about. Practically speaking, in the meditation hall, people, I guess Zen students don't feel so,

[14:55]

generally speaking, they don't feel like, geez, when they hear teachings about shamatha, they usually say, is it okay to do that in the zendo? They usually feel like, that's probably okay to do in the zendo, to give up discursive thought. But when they hear insight teachings, they sometimes think, is that okay to do in the zendo? And my feeling is, as far as I'm concerned, it's okay if you do tranquility work in the zendo, or insight work in the zendo. And you can do, I would suggest doing the tranquility work while you're walking, and the insight work while you're sitting. Just kidding. Can I just throw out for your consideration that

[16:02]

that when the Zen teacher, the so-called Zen teacher, not really a Zen teacher, but when the Buddha ancestor, Dogen, wrote his, what is it called, the general encouragements for the practice of the ceremony of zazen, which is also in Japanese, bukan zazengi, he says, at one point he says, after giving instructions about how to sit, physically how to sit, he says, after you've settled into a steady, immobile sitting position, think of not thinking. How do you think of not thinking? Non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen. So he gives you this instruction of how to physically sit in a certain yogic posture, and then he tells you to think of not thinking.

[17:10]

And then, how do you do that? Non-thinking. Again, you can interpret these things various ways, of course, maybe not of course, but I suggest you can interpret that instruction various ways. For example, the instruction to sit upright, crossing your legs and so on, you can interpret that in various ways. Most people don't interpret it in various ways, but I'm telling you, this is a free country. You can interpret that in various ways. And he even helps you later in the text when he tells you that the zazen I'm talking about has nothing to do with sitting or lying down. So he told you what kind of outfits to wear, what to eat, how much sleep to get, where to sit, what kind of a room, you know, where to sit in the room, how to adjust your body and so on, he tells you all that, and then later he says that what I'm talking about has nothing to do with what I just told you.

[18:16]

In other words, you can interpret what I'm talking about when I give you this instruction about sitting meditation. When you hear instructions about how to cross your legs and sit up in meditation, when you hear those, after you hear them you could have some insight about what they're talking about. The first level of insight that arises from hearing instructions about how to take care of your body in Buddhist practice, the first level comes at a level of taking it literally. No interpretation, please. Deeper level of understanding what the instruction is, means that you start interpreting. For example, you think, now he says to sit upright, but I wonder what he really means. Maybe he doesn't really mean sit upright. Maybe he means lean to the left. And you can tell that to somebody and they can say, you're crazy, and so on.

[19:23]

All these years no one's ever come to me and said that that's their interpretation, even though they do it. So anyway, I'm just saying that he gives this instruction, you have some understanding, you practice it, but your level of insight about that instruction can vary. Then he gives the instruction, think of not thinking. This is an instruction to a person who's supposedly going to do zazen, and he says, this thinking of not thinking, how do you think of not thinking, non-thinking, that instruction is the essential art of zazen, he says. But that could be interpreted as an instruction in insight, not an instruction in common. Generally speaking, but you could also say, no, it is an instruction in common,

[20:29]

because he says think of not thinking. So you could understand that as he's saying, think of not thinking discursively. That's the way you could hear it. Does that make sense? But then he goes on, and he says, how do you think of not thinking? When he says, how do you think of not thinking, that could be taken as a question that you're supposed to answer, or it could be taken as a rhetorical question, since he answers it himself. But that question, generally speaking, are not encouraging giving up discursive thought. Discursive thought, etymologically, at its root means running about, but the definition, first definition,

[21:31]

is ranging over a wide range of thought, which goes over a wide range of topics. When you say, what is thinking not thinking? Or how do you think not thinking? This is like encouraging discursive thought. It's saying, what is that? What is thinking not thinking? This is like, go to China, find out. That's where that guy who was doing this lived. Go visit Yaoshan in the Tang Dynasty. Visit Dogen in the 13th century. Visit all the ancestors. Talk to them, question them. Be discursive. Find out what is thinking of not thinking. And then, he answers the question, non-thinking.

[22:32]

And what's non-thinking? What is non-thinking? What is non-thinking? Non-thinking is the way to practice thinking of not thinking. This morning, I would interpret think of not thinking as think of emptiness. Or think of ultimate reality. In other words, look at what will purify your life. How do you do that? By living beyond thinking. Which again, sounds like giving up discursive thought, except it's even more profound than giving up discursive thought. It means giving up. Even when the thought's not running around, it means give up what you think is happening,

[23:39]

even if you're not being discursive. Give up what you think is happening, and give up thinking that what you think is happening is what's happening. In other words, find out what's happening in the absence of what you think about. Find out what's happening in the absence of your ideas about what's happening. That is thinking of not thinking. This is wisdom which is looking at the ultimate truth. So, I'm just saying that in this teaching, we can interpret that Dogen is teaching insight work to Zen students, to Buddhist students, to Buddhist disciples. But, you could also take just the first line and say the first line, he's encouraging

[24:42]

stabilization or calming practice. But then he says, the Zazen I'm teaching is not learning meditation. So he says, learning meditation is usually interpreted as calming practice. So he said, this is not learning meditation. But again, I would say, it doesn't belong in that basket, but it uses that facility. So, he does use calming practices, I would say, but not exclusively. And in thinking not thinking, which is the essential art, it could easily be understood as insight work. So, in particular, the topics for the study of insight, of wisdom.

[25:50]

Studying wisdom means studying teachings about how to study the nature of events, the nature of phenomena, the nature of our experience. And some of us have been studying for a few years a text which has not been available in English translation for very long. But now we have three translations. It is called in Sanskrit the Samdhinirmocana Sutra. And that could be translated as unravelling the thought,

[27:03]

the scripture unravelling the thought, or the scripture revealing the thought, or the scripture about the hidden meaning of the thought. So it means, that's from various translations, it means revealing or unravelling the thought of Buddha. Buddha has been represented to us through words and writings and through physical postures by... Who has been representing the Buddha to us through words and writings? Who is presenting that stuff to us?

[28:04]

Ancestors. Ancestors. Clergy. Ancestor clergy. Publishers. You? Hm? You. Yeah, me. Various people have been presenting Buddha to you. Have any of you ever seen Shakyamuni Buddha? I have not seen him actually. But there are people who are representing him to us. Males and females of the Homo sapien variety have been presenting his teachings to us. And if you listen to all the things that they've said, they're kind of all tangled up, those representations. People say Buddha said this, people say Buddha said that, and there's contradictions in the teachings, kind of all twisted contradictions, but not enough similar, so they're not just two different ballparks. They're all tangled together. The various things Buddha said, the various things Buddha said are all tangled.

[29:07]

This sutra is trying to, like, untangle them. And then, even though that happened, the sutra appeared in the world, in India, still in China, they still had, in China and Tibet particularly, they still had spent centuries trying to, like, not just understand this sutra, which is trying to unravel a thought, but unravel a bunch of other things which the sutra didn't deal with. So, again, what the Buddha taught, to a great extent, was when he talked to somebody on some occasion, and then he went, and a few minutes later, he was teaching somebody else something very different, because that person needed something different. And then people kind of remembered what he said to both of them, and they sounded different, and which one is right? Well, it's not so much of which one is right, it's just... How come he taught this to this person? How was this right for this person? And how is something different from this right for that person?

[30:08]

And this sutra kind of explains how he taught these things to these people, because that was good for them at that time, and then later... But there's some problems with that, but they needed that teaching at that time, and it was helpful to them, even though it wasn't really complete. And then later he... Well, now I can teach this, and now he's teaching why he did that, because that actually is not... That can be misunderstood, too. Now he's teaching something else. So, all along, he was trying to teach people the nature of what's happening. And one of his teachings, which, again, it's fairly common, is that people misunderstand what's happening, and because they misunderstand, well, they... they crave, and they grasp, and so on, and then they suffer. So his... His diagnosis of the human condition is that

[31:11]

there is this illness in our population based on which we do various unskillful things, to say the least. And that the illness and the unskillfulness is based on misunderstanding. So, misunderstanding of what's going on. Like, somebody comes up to you, and goes like, you know, frowns at you, you know, and you think that that's like they're being mean to you, right? And you think that, right? Has that ever happened to you? You think they're being mean, and then you believe that what you think is true. And then you get angry at them, or whatever. Or, you think they disagree with you, and that's really what's happening, and you think that's dangerous to you, so then you get angry. And this happens to people. Maybe not to you, but a lot of people it happens to. Or you think somebody's being nice to you,

[32:15]

and then they want to go away a few feet, but you won't let them, because you want them to stay and be nice to you. And you do all kinds of unskillful things so that they won't go away from you. Like, maybe, I don't know what, anything, because you misunderstand what's happening. You think that what's happening is what you think is happening. That sound familiar? We get caught by our version of reality, which is, we think our version of reality is often what we think is happening. Which is, it's not that that's not some reality, because sometimes what we think is happening is what we call conventional truth. For example, here we think it's Thursday. So that's conventional truth.

[33:19]

It's not true in Japan. It's not Wednesday in Japan. But, you know, we can work that out. So in a sense, it's true that it's Wednesday, not Thursday. Excuse me, it's Friday in Japan. I'm sorry. See? We worked it out. We had a convention. Got a bunch of people together. I said what day I thought it was in Japan. We interacted, and now we get, as a result of this convention, we've changed it to Friday. Is it OK to open the window here? Is this OK? No? Who's near a window that's OK with opening a window? How about back there? Back by the door there. Anybody can open a window? Well, that didn't open much, did it?

[34:32]

Nobody wants to open? That might be a good idea. Who wants the windows open? Do you want to open the convention? Could you change places? If you want wind, you have to... We have a break this moment here. So, this scripture we're studying is a scripture which is presenting teachings about the way things are. And it's a really difficult scripture, but...

[35:35]

And so in three weeks... you can have a really good, a really deep sense of not understanding something. And your thoughts about understanding, those discursive thoughts about how you don't understand, you could use those thoughts of how you don't understand in a way to develop some wisdom. While you still don't understand, while you think you don't understand anything, you could learn, for example, to let go of that thought and become. Learn that that thought has nothing to do with your understanding. That's part of what the two sutras are about. And not even understand that would be possible. So that's what I'd like to do, is bring up what's in this sutra for your... for your study, to help you learn

[36:35]

some of the teachings that these scriptures are offering about the nature of events. Once again, the calming type of practice is not... initially, it's not about understanding the nature of events. It's more about giving up, running about from event to event. Could you say that again, please? The calming practice isn't so much about understanding the nature of events, it's more about giving up movement between or among the events. So there's events occurring in our life, right? Phenomena are appearing to us, objects are appearing to our awareness, we know things, and discursive thought is to run from object to object, or event to event. Run back and forth, or run about among the various objects.

[37:36]

That's where the mind runs, about in the field of objects which we know. Run from experience to experience, you know. Or you're having experience and you want to run to a different experience. Or you run to a past experience. You don't want to work with just what's happening. You want to... not you want to, but the mind has a tendency to run about. So what's calming is not to look at the... so much look at the event, but give up running around in response to the event. That's what calming is. Insight work is to look at the event and use discursive thought to understand teachings which draw your attention to the event and illuminate and unpack the event so you can see its actual nature. Its superficial nature and its profound nature. And then we have insight. So I'm just saying that in the beginning

[38:37]

I'm introducing the calming practice which I suggest you do that you give yourself to some calming practice during these three weeks. But if you don't want to do any calming practice if you feel already calm enough like some of you, like I've already pretty much given up discursive thought and I'm just walking around in tranquility all the time those people may not want to do any more tranquility work this practice period and just do insight work. But for a lot of other people insight work would probably... tranquility work would probably be a good idea because that would help you relax around this potentially exciting material which draws your attention to the nature, the dynamic nature of events. So when you initially look at events and hear teachings about how they are happening and how they really are

[39:40]

how they really are that doesn't necessarily calm you to do that kind of work. It can even make you more upset than you already are. So it's good to be fairly calm in the first place so that you can afford a little upset. And if you're... if you feel like you're not calm enough to afford any upset then while you hear these teachings just practice calm while you're listening to them and you won't be able to understand them very well in that state but eventually you will but initially you'll just be calming down in the midst of in the midst of the presentation about how to look at the nature of events. So once again insight penetrates to reality and calm promotes that but it's not trying to penetrate it's more like trying to relax with phenomena. Give up running around.

[40:41]

So you can spend if you want to practically speaking you might spend some period some of you or an individual person like me I might spend some of my periods of meditation in the Zen Do practicing calm like I just mentioned. This period is a calming period. So I just sit and give up discursive thought or I sit and devote myself to giving up discursive thought. I might not be able to or it might not happen much but I just say this period is dedicated to practicing tranquility. And so I sit there and that's clear and tranquility may arise if there can be the renunciation giving up discursive thought. When there is giving up discursive thought there is tranquility. I'm telling you, that's so. In this period I'm going to actually look at

[41:46]

what is happening and I'm going to use the teachings I read in the Samya Nirmachana Sutra to help me actually see reality and become liberated. Because Samatha does not liberate you by itself. It has to be coupled with a vision of reality that overthrows my misconceptions of reality. It overthrows my belief that what I'm thinking is what's happening or that what's happening is what I'm thinking. So I spend that period maybe working on insight. In the next period I might practice tranquility again. Or I might practice tranquility when I'm walking around Green Gulch and doing things like that. And when I'm in Zen Do I might concentrate on wisdom. Or I might just concentrate on tranquility in Zen Do and when I'm walking around I might work on wisdom. You see these different possibilities? And discursive thought is used

[42:48]

to give yourself your meditation assignments. Tranquility doesn't really give you meditation assignments. You need to use discursive thought to clarify your intention as to what kind of meditation you're intending to do. Now So it's OK with me if you come to these classes and you decide before you get here or in the middle of the class you decide I'm going to do tranquility practice now. I'm going to give up discursive thought which is like running around among the various things he's doing. I'm going to give it up and just be calm here. Is this OK with me? I myself, when I'm doing these talks, of course I'm trying to do them both at the same time. I'm trying to give up discursive thought while I'm like playing with it. They can be united. The discursive thought and the giving up discursive thought can be united with using discursive thought.

[43:50]

It's possible. But you may want to do one or the other for a while to get a feeling for it. So any questions about what I've introduced so far? Yes? So the two types So the first two types of wisdom that come from discursive thought I'm wondering about investigating and inquiry Are investigation and inquiry part of that process? Yes. Again, a lot of Zen students think we don't do analysis in Zen. Right, I'm like that. Some people look at Buddhism and they listen to the teachings of Buddhism and they say, oh, Buddhism. And then they name Buddhism the religion of analysis. Before Buddhism before the Buddha appeared in the world there was already this tranquility practice. Yogis were already practicing giving up discursive thought and entering into states of great tranquility

[44:51]

and blissful flexibility and light. That was already going on at the time of the Buddha. But the Buddha brought an analysis of phenomena and his analysis was new and has been very influential in the world. Really what's typically Buddhist is the analysis of phenomena and seeing how they actually are and analyzing them into conventional phenomena and ultimate phenomena and explaining what an ultimate phenomena are like and then how to see them. This is typically Buddhist. It's analytical, it's investigative, it's examining, it's inquiring, it's penetrating. Buddhism also connects to this common sense which I just said, but what's really uniquely Buddhist is the analysis. It's what was found by the Buddha and succeeding generations.

[45:52]

What was found when inquiring into phenomena, experience and so on. So that's the wisdom work. And that's what's unique about Buddhism, is Buddhist wisdom. Buddhist concentration practices are not really unique. You find them in a lot of other yoga traditions. Yes? Are you using insight and wisdom interchangeably? Pretty much, yeah. There's subtle differences in usage. Basically, yeah. Three kinds of wisdom, three kinds of insight. Now in this text it says in this text the sutra I'm referring to it says in the text it says three types of vipassana. But in other texts, other Buddhist texts, it says three types of wisdom, three types of prajna. So prajna and vipassana

[46:53]

are a little different. But actually they're quite similar because the etymology of vipassana is higher vision and the etymology of prajna is knowledge or understanding and pra means penetrating. So prajna is like a penetrative understanding or penetrative knowing. So penetrative knowing and higher vision are similar, but they're used a little bit differently in the Buddhist texts. But as I say... ...investigating, achieving tranquility, moving towards it, but there's various practices. Yes. And I just wondered if you could comment on... On the various practices? Well, what would you find is worthwhile to study? Okay, now I'd like to talk about something else which, before I underline this, okay, I'm not telling you to stop doing the practice that you like to do. Because it might sound like that

[47:54]

as I proceed. I'd recommend it as a calming practice. Then sometimes they suggest practicing following the breath as a calming practice. Sometimes they suggest counting and then following. Sometimes it's suggested to focus on an image of the Buddha. Either sometimes externally, but usually if you look carefully, they're really looking at an internal image of the Buddha. Sometimes they suggest meditating on death as a calming practice. Sometimes meditating on

[48:54]

the triple treasure. Sometimes meditating on a color or a sound. These are various things that people suggest to people to meditate on in order to achieve calm. Does that sound familiar? But I kind of would like to tell you that the teaching, for example, in the Sutra, which has a big section after introducing the teachings on the doctrines of wisdom, then it talks about the practices to meditate on the doctrines. Once again, it presents teachings on the nature of phenomena. Then it gives you how to practice with those teachings. And it starts and it sort of presents the calming practices and the insight practices. And when it presents the calming practices, what it says basically to do is... What do you think it says? Nothing. What's the instruction

[49:54]

for achieving calm? It says basically give up discursive thought. What it actually says is attend to the mind which is always there. Attend to the mind like quality of mind. Right. The mind like quality of mind. It says actually to attend to a non-conceptual image. But what that means is attend to an image without getting conceptual about the image. So like you look at Max you know, M-A-X and you stop there. You don't like run around the word Max. You know, you don't run to

[50:56]

good Max, bad Max, another Max. Who's next to Max? You just go Max and Siobhan and Laurie. Your mind works like that. Which it always does anyway. But what you're actually attending to is the way the mind is capable, always, of not running from one thing to the other. Of not conceptually elaborating on what it knows. So you're not actually focusing on the breath or the body or a color. You're focusing on the way the mind does treat each one of them the same way. And when you give up discursive thought you are actually by giving up discursive thought you're actually then becoming intimate with the mind

[51:57]

and just knowing each thing. One by one, case by case, not running from one to the other, where discursive thought leads you to feel like things up. So, I'm not telling you to stop following your breath or counting your breath. And actually, one presentation of a Buddhist meditation which is called the Six Subtle Dharma Gates the first subtle dharma gate is counting the breath. The second subtle dharma gate is following the breath. And the third subtle dharma gate is stopping or resting. Actually, they sort of said yes, the breath stops. The breath is there and it's stopped. In other words, you're not running among the breaths. But in that particular presentation

[52:59]

it's like a gradual weaning from the moving breath. You start saying, OK, people, they can't understand what giving up discursive thought is, so let's let them look at the breath which they see as a process of discursive, of the breath running around. So first, help them tune into this running around mind by counting the breath which they think is running around, then follow it, and then finally just stop it. Breath. Rest with it. Which means, don't be discursive with the breath. So people think maybe that what you're doing is focusing on the breath, but actually what you're doing is you're learning to focus on the way your mind is not running around. Your mind actually is not running around all the time. And, for most people, it's also running around most of the time. So there's a not running around mind, which is always there,

[54:00]

and there's a commonly accompanying quality of running around. But it is possible that the running around is either attenuated or just virtually not there. It's just the mind knowing something. But I'd like you to understand, actually, that it's not the following some object that calms your mind, but giving up running around the object that calms your mind. It's not being focused on an object that calms your mind. It's not running from object to object that calms your mind. It's giving up the running around that calms the mind. So, if you want to follow your breath, it's okay. But, if you think that getting yourself focused onto the breath is going to calm you, that's sort of a misunderstanding of the relationship

[55:02]

with the breath. So if you can be with your breath and give up running around with it, then the focus is really like, okay, I'm with my breath, but really what I'm focusing is not my breath, but the way I am with my breath. And the way I am with my breath is I don't move around it. I don't get involved with it. I give up being conceptual about it. Plus, I also give up being conceptual about how well I'm following my breath. I give up running back and forth to see how I'm doing. And if those thoughts arise, like, hey, you're doing pretty well, that thought can arise, but I don't move from the thought I'm doing very well, I don't move from that thought, or the mind doesn't move from the thought I'm doing very well to the thought I'm not doing very well, to the thought of the breath. You don't move from inhale to exhale. There are inhales and exhales appearing to you. Because that's still

[56:02]

the way the world looks, but you're focusing on the way your mind doesn't move from inhale to exhale. You're focusing on the mind, and you're focusing on the way the mind doesn't move. You're focusing on a concept, actually, of the mind, but you're focusing on the way the mind doesn't elaborate on the concept. That is what you focus on. That's what calms. And sometimes following the breath helps you slip into that way of being with things. I like to use the example of a children's story about the duck that was separated from his mother when he was very young, but somehow he was old enough to survive after the separation, and he was waddling along one day

[57:03]

and came by a pond, and the pond had quite a few ducks in it, and they were like swimming around, and the duck said to the... this duck had been separated from his mother, come on in, and the duck said, I can't swim. And they said, what are you talking about? You can swim, you're a duck. He said, no I'm not. He said, yes you are. He said, no I'm not. They said, okay. And then one of the... one of the... one of the kind ducks said, he said, oh here, here's a skyhook. Just hook this onto the sky and hold on to it and you won't sink. So the little duck took the skyhook, hooked it on the sky, went into the water and swam around with the ducks. And then one day,

[58:05]

the little duck, who didn't think she was a duck, was running around with the other ducks on the ground, and some people came by and all the other ducks jumped in the pond, and the little duck jumped in the pond but forgot her skyhook. And she was paddling around with them, you know, and then one of the ducks said, where's your skyhook? And she said, oh I forgot it. And they said, what are you doing? And she said, oh my God, I'm swimming. I'm a duck. So actually you don't need any kind of like thing like that. All you got to do is you are basically, you know, you're a duck. You actually already have this mind. You just need to attend to it. But if you can't find it, then you can use a skyhook by following the breath. Remember, that's just to help you. The following the breath isn't really...

[59:08]

It isn't the following the breath that's the calming. By following the breath, you might discover the way you don't mess around with the breath. So gradually you start to follow the breath, but after a while you're not following the breath. You're just with the breath. With the breath. With the breath. You're not moving with the breath. You're just breath, breath, breath. Or breath, not breath. Breath, not breath. Breath, bird sounds. Breath, pain in the butt. Breath, whatever. Various things are free to you, but gradually you learn how to give up moving among different objects. When you give up moving among the objects, you start to realize how tranquility... So, if you want to use these other methods, it's okay, but really I'm trying to encourage you just to sort of like what I sometimes also say is just whatever comes, completely relax with it. If you relax with it, that's another instruction about don't move from it to the next thing, or to the last thing.

[60:09]

Just let go of being discursive with it. That's my basic instruction. I like it better than following objects because following objects really isn't what calms you. But still, if you find it helpful to use them, go ahead, use them. It's okay. But I'd like you to understand at the same time that you're a duck. That you really don't need these things. Because they're not actually what calms you. What calms you is your mind being appreciated for what it is. If you just appreciate the way your mind actually is, you will realize you have this tremendous resource that is sitting right underneath your cushion all the time. Under your cushion, all around you, above you, it's completely surrounding every experience. It's your unmoving cognition. Every moment there is unmoving cognition. And focusing on that means you give up that delightful moving cognition, which we like so much. So you have to give up

[61:11]

figuring out what's going to happen this afternoon and just deal with the way, the fact that you're knowing this, knowing this, knowing this, knowing this. You're not moving from this to that. You're knowing this, you're knowing this, you're knowing this. Focusing your attention on that calms the body and mind. Body and mind calm by that means. So, I'm not going to recommend people that are counting or following their breath. I'm recommending the third stage of just stop resting with the breath. Resting with your body. Which means resting with every event. Just rest. Give up running around. That's what I would emphasize. And these other ones are approximations getting you ready for that. They're OK. Alright? Yes. No. No. Shikantaza is not separate from...

[62:13]

You can give up discursive thought in shikantaza but shikantaza is also included now I'm thinking. Shikantaza is not just that you're giving up discursive thought but that you actually see that the sitting let's say you're giving up discursive let's say you have a person who is sitting here and giving up discursive thought. OK? You have a person sitting here who has given up discursive thought. In other words, you have a tranquil person. OK? Now, shikantaza is not just that. Because again, pre-Buddhist meditators achieved that state. Shikantaza, in addition to a person who is sitting here relinquishing discursive thought, this person also is seeing

[63:14]

the nature of reality. This person is also not fooled by the objects which appear. So, calming is that when objects appear you don't run around them. Insight is that when objects appear you see what they really are. So, the sitting and giving up discursive thought is calm sitting. And the sitting and seeing the nature of sitting is just sitting. In other words, when you see when you see that sitting is just sitting OK? You're not just... you're just sitting but that means that you see that you're just sitting. Everybody who's sitting is just sitting, really, right? But just sitting means not only you're just sitting, but you know it! Not everybody who's just sitting

[64:16]

knows they're just sitting. Have you noticed? Some people are just sitting. You go into Zen Do and they're just sitting there. You can see they're just sitting, right? But if you pry open the top of their head and look inside, they think something different is going on. You know what I mean? They think they're in Hawaii. Or they think they're in a torture chamber. They think primarily they're planning their revenge in Buddhist tradition. That's the big thing that's going on. You think they're just sitting. But they are just sitting. So when you're just sitting, you're just sitting and you know you're just sitting. You know you're just sitting. However, when you know you're just sitting,

[65:18]

when you know that you're just sitting, that means you know you're just sitting. It means you're just sitting. You're not doing what you think you're doing. Just sitting is not you thinking that you're just sitting. Because again, you can be walking around thinking you're just sitting, but you're not sitting. And you can also be sitting and thinking you're sitting, but the sitting you're doing is not the sitting you think you're doing. you're not only just sitting and now you know you're just sitting you're not just you understand not your ideas

[66:21]

and you understand it just sitting One. Four. Five. Six. Seven. 12. 14. 15. 23. 24. 25.

[67:41]

26. 27. 29. 50. 51. 52. 53. 54. 56. 57.

[68:42]

59. 61. 78. 80. 81. 83. 70. 71. 72.

[69:42]

73. there was awareness, and in shamatha practice you're focusing on the awareness, rather than the mind. In the mind, the shamatha practice is looking at the body, and the mind to look at the body. Sitting, achy breath. That's sequencing. You're actually just sitting, achy breath. There's three different things. In each case you were looking at the mind, which is looking at the body. Now that sequence might not occur if you're just looking at the nature. Some scenarios would be deflated. So in fact, the vividness and hysteria of the mind might calm down in that process. In fact, it probably will. Certain scenarios won't happen, but even if they did,

[70:44]

if you keep looking at the mind, which is looking at that scenario, in each case, you'll calm down while you're being hysterical. And then, as you calm down, the hysteria won't be there so much. But it's not like we're so much trying to modify the story. Focus on that which watches the story. So you're focusing on the mind, which is knowing every phase of the story, and you're focusing on even the image that there is a story. All that, you're focusing on the mind, which thinks of this, rather than on the stuff, which we, generally speaking, feel like we're running about. So, as you said, just don't elaborate on each point. No conceptual elaboration on each one of these things you mentioned. And the mind's already doing it. The mind can elaborate, but basically, the mind just knows. Elaboration is often there, and for most people, it seems like it's continuously there,

[71:46]

but I don't think anyone has ever had elaboration. Once in a while, everybody has just a slap on the face. You know what I mean? Like this woman, remember that story of that woman who had all these horrendous things happen to her? Her husband got killed, and her kids got killed, and her mother got killed, and she just totally went nuts. And she's wandering around, totally crazy, and she walked up to the Buddha, and the Buddha said, basically, We're getting your presence of mind, sister. And she snapped out of it. So sometimes, even somebody who's really extremely heavy into her inner comment, to such a point of being insane, sometimes they can hear something, and just hear it. And just that, just presence of mind, sometimes it can stop. So I think everybody has some breaks in this discourse. But there's not a break in the awareness.

[72:51]

The awareness is constant. And whenever there's an experience, there's awareness. So focus on that mind which is always there, in each case. And that's the non-elaborative mind. Give up the elaboration, which is where you make your money, and go back to the mind which is your life, which is always with you. And focusing on that quality of mind, we calm down. And then, that's fine, we think we're developing that skill. But that's not enough for insight. We have to go and use our discursive thought to hear the teachings and the guidance about how to look at phenomena, and then we use our discursive thought. It's good to do both. I think... Yes? Didn't you say that there are six subtle dharmakas? Yes. You've mentioned three. The next three are going to the insight phase. So, first, in this text, where it talks about comping the breath, honoring the breath, and stopping,

[73:54]

then the next one is contemplating, the next one is returning, and the next one is purifying. You could still be aware of your breath through this whole process, but the last three, you're starting to turn around and examine the nature of phenomena, or the nature of breath. Breath is a phenomena. But again, breath is, we sometimes say, not breath. Ultimately, breath is not breath. In other words, what you think breath is, is not what breath is, ultimately. And when you can see, when you can see the phenomena of breath in the absence of what you think breath is, you are seeing breath in such a way that you're seeing the way the breath ultimately is, that it's free of your ideas of breath. When you can see that freedom,

[74:55]

or that absence of your ideas in the breath, while you're looking at the breath, then you suddenly don't see, or you do see that there's no breath there. When you see that, that's called purity. In other words, your mind and body are purified of all affliction, of all suffering. You're liberated from suffering when you see that things are actually, everything, breath, pain, pleasure, you, me, all phenomena, are free, are empty of our ideas. When you can see that emptiness of your ideas about things, your body and mind are purified. So that's the sixth subtle Dharma gate. And so this sutra is to help us see the nature of phenomena. Okay? Yes? So, when I'm sitting and I see, sitting, aching, but, this is stupid, I want to leave, and I follow that,

[75:57]

and I think that's Allison. But if the mind just says, sitting, aching, but, stupid, I want to leave, and just doesn't go, doesn't follow the thought, just walking, who is that? Who is it? Well, it's you. It's you all the time. But you is not something that's independent of what we just talked about. And that's what you'll understand. You are not something that's in addition to, or less than, all those thoughts. You're not something in addition to that. So you said, who is that? Well, it's you. But you are not another thing on top of that stuff. But you think you are. But you're not something in addition. And when you give up the running from one thing to another, you get more relaxed, and when you get more relaxed, you're more ready to hear the teaching which shows you that there's not a person

[76:59]

in addition to the person. Self is something in addition to the person. It's a metaphysical thing on top of your person. You are a person. You are what you are. But what you are is not your idea is what you are. You're just all these conditions coming together, creating your life. There's not another person on top of your life. Who's you? You are your life. Period. And so calming practice makes us more ready to hear teachings which kind of like suggest that, and get us to actually look at that, how that's self. Because otherwise it's very irritating to hear that kind of stuff. It goes against our deep misconceptions. You didn't ask a question yet, did you? Go ahead. So when you see that there's no additional self on top of yourself, are you then...

[78:02]

in the current situation where there's an additional self, that self is suffering, that self is not happy with what the circumstances are. Well, you say the self is not happy, but you can also just say there's unhappiness. There's affliction. But it's not so much that the self is the one that has the affliction in addition to the experience of affliction. There's just affliction. And affliction comes from thinking that there's a self on top of your life. So whatever the conditions are, same conditions that you now find afflicted, those same conditions, if there's no extra self, you're no longer afflicted. That's right. That purifies the body and mind of affliction when you see that the idea, for example, of what's going on doesn't reach what's going on. It's absent. It's not there.

[79:04]

When you look at the absence of your ideas in what's happening, you're purified of affliction. Or rather, your body and mind, which compose a person, are purified of affliction. So then, whatever the circumstances, whatever the circumstances, you're okay with. So it's not the circumstances that are the problem. Whatever the circumstances, you're okay with it. However, there is a certain type of circumstance which is no longer happening. What's no longer happening, the big change, is that there's no superimposition of the thoughts of what's happening onto what's happening. There's just what's happening. And you're aware of the absence of any superimposition on what's happening. That awareness is the new thing. But whatever's happening could be anything

[80:04]

except, I think, the continued seeing the superimposition. You break from that for a little while. So at that moment, nothing changes, but you don't see anything anymore. All the stuff you used to see, you don't see, because everything you used to see was superimposition. So as the Sutra says, and I think now you're ready to start studying the Sutra, right? So we have one of the chapters in the Sutra, Chapter 5. It's a short one. It's on one piece of paper. And one of the examples in that is that what's actually happening is like a very clear crystal. But our thoughts are like a color. You know, for example, red.

[81:05]

And we mix the red with what's happening, with the pure crystal, and then because we think that what's happening is that mixing, or taking the pure crystal as the red, we see a ruby. And we think a ruby's happening. We think we're a ruby, but actually we're a very clear crystal. When you can see the crystal, the very clear crystal, which of course you can't see in the absence of what you think about it, the red, then you see, the way things actually are, is that you see the absence of the color, and then you're purified. So that's the example in the scripture which I'll be chanting soon. Could you write the name of the scripture on the board? Sure. In Sanskrit maybe? In English would be nice too.

[82:11]

In English I'll just say The Unraveling of Thought. The Unraveling of Thought is a translation. S-A-N-D-H-I-N-I-R-O-R-M S-A-N-D-H-I-N-I-R-M-O-C-A-N-A S-A-N-D-H-I-N-I-R-M-O-C-A-N-A sutra. So, we'll introduce this sutra to you, but you don't have to, you know, you can keep it and practice shamatha

[83:13]

if you want to. Yes, please. When you talk about running about in the mind, I can focus on the running about as a problem, but actually there is something, you're also saying in the nature of experience there is a movement. So, it's not that the movement being a new experience, a new experience, a new experience, a new moment. So actually there's a lot of change, but somehow it's the linkages that are a problem. There's change. There's change, but not movement. Movement is a phenomenon. This doesn't move, it isn't that the experience moves from this experience to the next experience.

[84:16]

This experience arises, experiences that arise, cease. So they change, they go into arising and ceasing. And then there's another arising and ceasing. So there's change. And if we make a linkage between this and that, then somehow we've lost the awareness of we haven't done just this and just that. The mind, we have the ability to make, the mind has the ability to create a phenomenon which arises called making a link between two phenomena. That's another phenomena, the linkage. That phenomena between sitting and pain, that phenomena connecting the two is discursive thought. The mind runs from sitting to pain, that linkage is discursive thought. So you can have the arising of this thought,

[85:18]

but not necessarily discursive. Discursive happens when the next thought arises and is connected to the previous thought, or to a future thought. It's the connecting, the running back and forth that's discursive thought. And discursive thought is also something that arises and ceases. Does that make sense? It's a phenomenon. So the connecting is happening, at least just steady the connecting. Yeah, so in fact, part of the practice of giving up discursive thought is to confess that you haven't given up discursive thought. By confessing, just confessing that discursive thought is going on, I think helps give up discursive thought. So noticing and confessing discursive thought doesn't need to be discursive thought. So your attention is on the awareness of discursive thoughts here rather than going from discursive thought to some other kind of thought you should be having.

[86:20]

Yes? That discursive thought in the example you just said, is that the adding in, that's the color, the red? Yeah, that would be adding in a color to the situation and thinking that there really is a movement. Like when we look at the waves going up and down in the ocean, that up and down we use to create an image of a wave and then we actually think there's a wave there, and that the wave is moving from far out up close. It's an illusion created by the up and down motion of the water. Yes? In the example of the woman who lost her mind because her children were killed, her husband was killed, and so on, and the Buddha said, come back to your presence and mind.

[87:29]

And she was jogged out of her madness. Now... Come back to your presence and mind. Thank you.

[88:08]

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