No, isn't the end of suffering equal to the path to the end of suffering? The Third Noble Truth is not the end of suffering, it's that the suffering has an end. Right? The end of suffering is the Eightfold Noble Path, that's the path to the end of suffering. So, what do jhanas have to do with Buddhism? What do they have to do with the Eightfold Noble Path? What do they have to do with... Good states are necessary to practice jhanas, right? So, how do you know that? Did someone tell you? Did you get that sometimes? No, I'm just thinking about it. Also, Chitana, isn't that directed in the jhanas for the first time?

[01:06]

Aren't these the first states of consciousness in which, or the break-up, like the first jhana, cittana, for the first time, directed to one or another, instead of just acquiring everything? It's not reversible. Is that so? What do you think, Wendy? Huh? Did you hear what she said? I heard what she said. I felt that what we were talking about, Shakyamuni, if it doesn't work, it's your own day, actually. It's what I'm thinking. which is more affective music. Anyway, the will towards all this is not the worst of all, you know, it's just more, it's more causative.

[02:07]

In jhanas? Yes. What did jhanas have to do with nirvana? The state of mind immediately proceeded. Yes. Their main feature, I guess, is concentration. And it would help you keep in mind that you want to do, that you want to attain nirvana. Okay, we're talking right now about, once again, we're talking about rupa jhanas, okay? Uh-huh. What in rupa jhanas has anything that helps you keep in mind nirvana? Well... If you can't concentrate or you can't, you know, keep your mind from just wandering around or being mad or being confused or something like that, you can't... I don't know much about Nirvana, but you can't attain some good states, anyway. And so these, it seems to me, the jhanas help you concentrate and cut through a lot of things that are necessary to cut through.

[03:18]

It just, it opens your mind to insight. I did what I did more. Just by cutting through the feathers, kind of like what Eric said, cutting through the five feathers and calm you down. balancing, balancing, balancing your emotions. Don't necessarily calm it down, it can often get you going. Can't they? Increasing the But you can't even practice the experience unless you state the principles, right?

[04:49]

So you've already come a long ways before you even do these practices. It's like through the jhanas, the pekkha becomes stronger and stronger. Through the rupa jhanas it becomes stronger and stronger. And the strength of the pekkha Law is some commonness through which all the other associated states become more clear. Minds, yeah. Minds, what? Minds never, they have a contingent mind. What do you think? So what are the genres?

[06:15]

What is the genres and the pulsing states that precede or the pulsing states that merge the practice? What's the genre you're speaking of? Yeah, but with the sphere, that sphere doesn't help. How do you talk about that sphere in terms of dhammas? There's no difference in dhammas? It's dropping off various intellectual and emotional activities. What dhamma is speaking? How do you say that? So the dhamma description of these jhanas changes is different from wholesome states.

[07:21]

But there are wholesome states. I mean, they're not the only dharmas in the rupa-vichara. There are the other, there are wholesome dharmas, but they're stronger. They're much more strong. They're not the only dharmas in the rupa-vichara. Where are they? What? Not the other dharmas. The five, vitadha-vichara, pittisukha, and nekhikatha. There's other dharmas in the... They're not the only ones there? Yeah. That's right. Don't you read the book? Yeah. Didn't it tell you which ones are there? Which ones are there? If you have this list, you know, if you have A through Z in the Kamagacara, then what's in the Rupa Dacara, in the first rupa dharma? What's in there? This is a list of the dharmas in the first state of wholesome consciousness. Actually, it's A through Z and A through A prime plus A prime through Z1.

[08:42]

It's two alphabets plus sum. So this is the diamond list. So what's the diamond list for the first group of diamonds? Given this diamond list. It has all the whole syndromes in it. It's this minus what? This minus Bittaka. Bittaka. Well, that's in the first chakra, you see. Bittaka is in the first chakra. Not in the antennae. Not in the antennae. So the whole darkness, they only think... So you asked, aren't they there? Those are the only ones that aren't. When you finish into the highest state, those are the only ones that aren't. All the rest of the ones are there. So you have a full multiplicity of dynamic events that you drop those particular ones.

[09:50]

And also the intensity changes, but those drop. So, dynamically speaking, there's some difference. Well, some of the other things will change, too, because some of those prop up some other ones. So I think if you look at the list now, it says 1 John... Let's just skip ahead here. We're down the list. It says the 1 John... wherein conception works thought discursive, which is born of solitude and full of joy, ease and ease. Then there's contact, feeling, dot, dot, dot, grasp and balance. What does that mean? What does it mean when it says contact, feeling, dot, dot, dot, grasp, balance?

[10:58]

It's the whole list. And what else does it say? It says, wearing discursive works and thought discursive, full of joy and ease. So this says that in the first jhana, when you abide, In the first jhana, all of them are present. And they, particularly, they, for, in this case, they took four out of the list and then repeated a list. So there's a repeat here. Then the second one, it says, second jhana, which is self-evolved, one of concentration, full of joy and ease. In that, are you on the second jhana now on page 45?

[12:04]

In that, set free from the workings of conception and of thought discursive. So, actually what I said, Peter, was for five jhana system. So in the second jhana, what's dropped here? Conception and thought discursive. What's that again? So it says that, and then it says, the mind grows calm and sure, dwelling on high. Then, the contact, feeling, perception, thinking, the thought, the joy, the ease, the self-collectedness, the faculty of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom, ideation, happiness, vitality, the right fuse, right endeavor, dot, dot, dot, grasp, Balance. Now, is anything missing?

[13:06]

See anything missing? Or any changes? Look back at the first one. It's a faculty of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom, ideation, happiness, and vitality. And up there it says... It's the same, isn't it? Right views and right intention. And the other one it says, right views, right intention, right endeavor, right mindfulness, right concentration. And here it says... Right views, right endeavor. So it skips what? Right intention. Skips right intention. Which is the same as Vittaka, where Vittaka turns into right intention.

[14:07]

Well, that makes sense. That would be the case, doesn't it? Yeah. Let's look at Vittaka back here. Where he says in the footnote. Yeah. The footnot number two or number three? Three. Three and also number two on the next page. So, sama-sankapo or sankapa is here in its usual order omitted because it involves vitaka. So, those things, and then there's some other things which PT, well, then we'll see later. Then the next thing happens. But which ones are taken out then? Is it just that random picture, or is there more? I guess so.

[15:12]

I guess that's all that's left. Because it says dot, dot, dot. And it goes on. So then it looks like it goes back in the whiskey jar. There's 55 of them then. Yeah, just take those three out. So you drop three in the second jhana. You talk in vichara and the ones associated with it, or the ones that are directly associated, and then other ones will change too. But because they're gone, the meaning of other ones will be different. What any one of these khandhamas means in a given dhamma list is different than what they mean in another dhamma list. What A means with A, B, and C is different than what A means with X, Y, and Z. So all of them change in that case. Now, what would you think happens if we drop PT?

[16:13]

So let's go to the next one, number three. And it says, in the third jhana, so there it says, On page 48, which of the states are good? When, that he may attain to the heaven of form, he cultivates the way hereto and further through the waning of all passions for joy. So he holds himself unbiased. The while mindful and self-possessed, he experiences in his sense consciousness, which is kayo, or kaya. I don't exactly know exactly what they do, but they change the final a to o's all the time. The ease thereof, the Noble Ones declare, he that is unbiased and watchful dwelleth at ease, and so, by earth-gazing, enters into and abides in the third jhana.

[17:25]

Then the contact, feeling, perception, thinking, thought The ease, self-collectedness, so there you see joy is dropped. What? Usually it would say, in the ones before it says, thinking, thought, joy, ease. The ease, self-collectedness, faculties of faith, energy, mindfulness, concentration, wisdom, ideation, happiness and vitality, the right views, the right endeavor, etc. Grasp and balance. Okay? In the next one it says, now you drop ease by the passing away of the happiness and of the misery. Putting away ease, putting away sukha. He enters by earth gazing, he enters into and abides in the fourth jhana, the fourth rap meditation.

[18:35]

of the utter purity of mind, which comes from disinterestedness, upeka, where no ease is felt nor any ill. Then the contact, feeling, perception, thinking, thought, disinterestedness, the self-collection, etc. Thank you. Yes. Can you ask me something about what is linked? It doesn't stand by itself, and there is to be a result of it. You get soup, and then you get the big tip. The KGI. The KGI. 43 and the... Fourty-three?

[19:47]

Which one? Number five or four, or what? Well, it's always... number four and five. Well, write three to four. Okay, it says sukha ekagatha. What's your question? Well, right off the top of your chair and eat it down alone. Sukha, and look after it, and link. That's just, you know, they write things like this. You write sukha. When they get words, when they do something like that, they don't write together like that. Oh, because there's not some affinity between those two. No, you just, like you say, they often, they're usually not talking like that when they have it together. Like when you say, you say... You don't say chaku, chaku anyway, you say chaks.

[21:00]

Like that. You actually just run the stuff you're doing. So they go like this, they just cross it out and you put e. That's why I feel actually that it lets you know, but either where you came from, it's knocked off your sound. They do that all the time. Particularly with the college. Okay, now I'm back to the original question. We looked at the downloads, you know. I've come back to question Y. I said, why did they put these in here? And one answer was, because the practices they actually did. That's one answer. And the answer, why did they do it? And then someone said something like, it keeps the fact that nirvana is the goal in mind, or something like that.

[22:06]

But how does it do that? It says here, earth gazing, right? What's earth gazing? What's that mean? Do you know about that? Can you tell us about that? There's eight or ten casinos. that they use, and there's earth, all the four elements, earth, fire, water, and air, and white, yellow, blue, and red. And the earth is something they actually look at. It's made of clay, or adobe, or something, and brown, reddish brown. It just happens to have that feel. So they make it themselves, I think, or they can, or maybe it's essential. And they concentrate on it with some mantra or something in mind.

[23:14]

They say earth, earth, earth. or something like that, until, I think Goethe calls it an eidetic image, or an image that you don't have to see the object, you can just visualize it. It's a visualization, and visualization is a it gets rid of all the flaws in it, so you're just looking at something perfect, or the laconic of it, the own being, or it's not the own being, the mark, it's the mark of the earth. So when they're talking about, you make a little mound, and it evolved like this, up to it, And of course, if we make it, it has park marks or something, a bump in the rock or something, and you stare.

[24:21]

But the identity image will be a little bit smooth, idealized. Otherwise, it would be pretty much the same. You can hold it in your mind, even with your eyes shut. So the first part of practice, We usually re-associate trances with the eyes being shut. But the beginning of the trance practice would be with the eyes open. So you can see if you're not very well. You can close your eyes and you can see if you can see it with the eyes shut. And you need to do this. And you need to do this. Now what happens? Then there's two stages and the stage where you see it in your mind is the upacara, I think it's called, which leads to access.

[25:26]

But that's not what the absorption or samadhi is. you should still meditate on that concentrate on it and you finally reach a state supposedly of absorption where you're totally engrossed in it and your mind goes through a series of a thought process that leads to this uh the jhana which only lasts for a thought moment or two and then you go back to bhavanda. And they have practices to sustain the samadhi that you've attained that I don't know actually now. So that would be containing the samadhi? Yeah, the trance is just for that thought moment, and then you go to bhavanga and you try to build it up, and it keeps going back to bhavanga.

[26:33]

You asked why do you practice this, and the main answer that you're getting was something to do with the ecology so that you can see clearly. So that's directly into insight. But another way to look at it, which reminds me of the... That's what the comments around here were pointing in that direction. But another way to look at this practice was that these people were actually doing this, and they'd accomplish one state, and their teacher would say, that's not right, or maybe you should try this, you should go to this next state. And each state they would get into would be subtler, And they become more of a subtle process and less of a self, less of a complicated self. And they become subtler and subtler and subtler until they would reach, they'd go to the infinitude of space and just consciousness and then after that nothingness and then neither perception nor non-perception.

[27:48]

And at that state, that eighth genre, I would imagine if you're into that, if you're in such a fragile, your concept of yourself is so fragile, or flitting or something, it'd be pretty easy just to go over to some enlightened experience. like how it worked. It seemed to me that the nimitta might be a first stage. What is it, vittaka? It might be like a thought. It's something that brings your mind around just to begin some jhana process where you can begin with that as a thought, a visual thought, maybe, a visualized image. Can you say that again? Well, a piece of clay that you visualize, you're trying to ask, what does it do?

[28:52]

Or what do you do with it? Or where does it lead to? Something like that. And I was thinking that it might be the, a kind of vitaka. Is that the correct word? A kind of, a thought, a discursive, it's a, something that works in your mind. What's the, it, what's the vitaka? The lump of clay, the visualized image, not the actual physical lump of clay, but the... Right, yes. The thing, the act of the mind to place our attention across the surface and outline it very carefully, the ability to do that is, the function is called vittapa. The ability to clearly outline it and fix the attention on it Originally, establish its form and hold it. That fortune. Not to hold it. To hold it is something else. What's to hold it? Just to move around it, yeah.

[29:54]

HR. HR holds it. HR examines it. It holds it. It holds it. It can go up and hold it. Cittasika. The mental one-pointedness brings all the cittasikas together under this situation. What's a cittasika? The pekka would hold it. The pekka would hold it. Why would the pekka hold it? The pekka doesn't turn out like this, does it? 56 states? Talking about this particular thing here. We started talking a while ago about sustaining the jhana.

[31:15]

We're not in the jhana yet. Right now we still have our eyes open. What realm are we in here? We're in a wholesome state. And now we're looking at this mound. So the ability to really clearly see that mound, all its details, really hold that image there carefully and exactly. We say that's Vittaka. And due to Vittaka, we can do this, we can get this nimitta, this authentic image, this idealized form. So first I said, what holds the mind to this? We have various suggestions. And to one point in this, it's function not to hold the mind here, but to get the mind together onto this, concentrated on this issue.

[32:22]

But there's a difference between being concentrated on it and not having these various chaitas sitting about. It's the difference between getting a little bit of room and concentrating on an issue and having all of us outline the issue or clearly outline it again and again. Or actually the initial clear outline. So the vicharas like to outline it again and again and again. Keep outlining it, keep checking it out. But what's the function that holds the mind there? You copy? You just said vittaka doesn't fold, it makes the initial outline. What is the outline? Right intention? Right intention is closely related to vittaka. You know what I mean? We just talked about that? So, that's closely related to this. The two that are most... What?

[33:26]

Iti main jaya is interest. And what's interest? What's the Dharma name for interest? Kali? You've got your master and you say, well, this dhaka can take 100 hours. You're trying to say that, what word did you read? Oh, chanda. Chanda. Chanda, and what's another word? There's several things here. There's one that's called chanda, which is not in the Dhamma Tandana. Another one is called sattva. Another one which is not in the Dhamma Sugandhi is Manas Gyanak. So this is necessary because it talks about bringing attention to it.

[34:36]

And you need to talk it to outline it, to sort of conceptualize it. to get the form down. You need vichara to keep, you know, outlining and make sure you've got it, discursively wandering about it. You need chanda to keep interested in it, and you need sati to remember it. It's a combination of these two. But these two, of course, they need mental oneness, so this actually shows me how you need all these various functions to keep mind up. Without one, It breaks apart. So that's why they had to think of these different terms. So this keeps interest in the object. Interest in the object means interest in this object. But you don't change your mind. You keep your mind on this object, even though it may lose its interesting quality. You stay interested. And here you remember what you're doing. You remember it's this object. You remember that this is the object you're interested in. This one says you have the ability to stay interested in something, even regardless of what seems to come up.

[35:44]

You stay interested in this. This reminds you of what you're interested in. This keeps turning the attention towards it. Mental unpointedness keeps everybody in the room, so to speak, so that they all can work together. And vitaka conceptualizes, sets up the concept, whatever the concept is. Establishes what it is in the first place. is really an elaborate aspect or a degree of itaka. That's how these all work together. And piti and sukha are emotional. So these things I'm talking about now, I think, are my feelings. These chanda, sati, takevichara, and it sounds like this is smṛti. And Manasikara, they're more like mental mechanisms. And the sukhya and piti are more whole of the body of the meditator.

[36:49]

So through these stages of trance, in order to keep the body up, you need these other two. In the next stage, you go from here, from the mound to the image, to the what? What happens here? What? This is the abstract image. OK, abstract image. What's the abstract image like? Boundless. So what happens to it? It gets big. Sina comes from the root Dikinit. So we're going to insert infinitives.

[37:53]

So Sina comes from that root, which means Dikinit is Sanskrit power. So this image gets expanded. bigger and bigger, indefinite, boundless. It fills the whole body that you meditate. It goes beyond the body that you meditate. And that's established. You flip into the attained jhana. We've talked now about these jhanas, OK? Still haven't. David offered a suggestion that what you do is you go through More subtle. You're going transition to transition to more and more subtle states. You're finally getting a state that's so subtle that it's difficult to imagine how self could exist there. So you go, if you're in a four-gallon system, you go in a second gallon and you can't hear or talk anymore.

[39:03]

You see, you must not be able to think in terms of words or anything like that. You need to be talking to your child to talk and to hear the words. Understand? You can't do that anymore. Your eyes are shut. You need to try, too. You can't walk around in these terms. In the Kundalini system, after any trance, you're completely cold and functionless, and you're still not the same. You became cold. As a matter of fact, I don't know the surface temperature of the body, but one of the main points we talk about in these higher trances, these higher meditations, is that warmth is maintained. Without warmth, you lose warmth, you die.

[40:07]

Yeah, I'm going to erase this stuff. I'm going to leave. What was that Manasikara? Your interest coming back to it? Is that what you said? What's Manasikara? Yeah. Manasikara. What is it? What is it? What is it? Attention. Attention. Turning attention to it. Turning attention to it. Okay, now, it's true you can visualize these trances as going that way, more and more subtle levels. Maybe we should follow that through a little more. So in the fourth jhana, what's the main characteristic of the fourth jhana, fourth rupa jhana? Okay. But isn't that the main characteristic of all the other ones too? Isn't that that they're all promoting mental importance?

[41:13]

What's the distinctive? Okay, so the fourth group of jhanas, hallmark is upekka. So it said Buddha died in the fourth group of jhanas. It may not bother you yet, yet by the end of the evening, it may bother you why he did that, he did that. OK, now, after the fourth of the jhanas, you can go into a higher jhana state, right? What's the next jhana state called? Balance, space, adventure space. Adventure space. And how do you do that practice?

[42:15]

How's that practice done? You don't know how to do that? I don't know. I came to concept and found this. How do you do it? I don't know. One of the particular cases that do it, people think they say like that. Can you imagine a little plane? Concentrate on it. Five-wheel. Make it bigger until it's all around. Then you realize you can see it. Okay. And then what's going to be next? I don't know. You look at the space, you look at that which looks at you, you see where it leads you. This is consciousness. So you get the insanity of space and then you fill it with your consciousness.

[43:24]

You fill it with consciousness. Then what? Then you are actually conscious of everything. No, no. Then you are in your life itself. And so, what's the object of the first avupajam? What's the object of the second Arupa Dhamma? What's the object of the third Arupa Dhamma? So what's the object? So the object of the third is the first.

[44:29]

What's the object of the fourth Arupa Dhamma? The object of the fourth was the second. I thought it was the second, the object of the second channel was the first. And what's the object of the third? Nothing. And what's the object of the fourth? The third. Okay. Do you understand me? Somebody explain it? Arbiter number one is called Edward. That's the Arbiter code. Okay. Spacey.

[45:31]

Three is what? Spent? No. And four? Objectively, it's perception or not. That's not going to, to try to attain or induce some state is not going to help. It's not going to help. I'm just sort of curious, when you talk about living in these times, I'm very alive, and you can understand that. But are you talking about people close at once, and the mind is developed, you're not just living in a giant state, because in a giant state, you're living in a world where you can't find anything else to live in. You can be attached to that state. Not you, it's the usual sense of you, but there is attachment in that state. And that attachment creates more of a disturbance than would at a lower level.

[46:34]

The higher you go, the lower you fall through the system of jhana. But it is true, as you go up this ladder, that the karma... They don't just cause trouble, they're quite enjoyable to do the night. The potential for making mistakes is quite severe. If you're going to live in a karmic world, this is the most subtle and lightest way of karma possible. Yeah, that's somewhere the middle sphere that you get in a couple of times, as you get access to most other forms, but they are black and white again, and how you can behave there again.

[47:37]

You are then in that more subtle form, but it doesn't mean that you're necessarily staying enjoyable or good. So it's better to switch over and still be in that sphere, which is subtle, and it's more intense, light, or heavy. These jhanas were ingrained in the Indian culture before Buddha. And I think the legend goes that he attained the rupa jhanas before he became the Buddha under some of his teachers. Is it just a... He practiced these... Buddha practiced these jhanas before he became Buddha. And he found that they were... They weren't the new way or... The ascetic...

[48:47]

that it didn't lead to any place, I guess. Are these jhanas skillful means? I mean, they were ingrained that the Indian was brought up with these ingrained in his culture. Were they a way of attracting the Indian to Buddhism or something in that sense, skillful means? Certainly part of it. Every state of consciousness that we looked at is kind of still for me. But I would tend to put more weight on the idea that we are describing, we are studying all states of consciousness. Yeah. And these happen to be certain states of consciousness. There's no state of consciousness that a Buddhist does not study, that's not in the realm of... Buddhists study all states of consciousness. And there are certain states of consciousness which they recommend. at being better than others.

[49:53]

The ones they like best are these ones called Buddhism, which are at the top of the chart. But these practices are known before Buddhism, and these are not Buddhist practices. However, Buddhists seem to do them. And Buddhists are the ones... It's in the Buddhist texts that we find out all about them. Buddhist texts tell you more about the jhana systems than any yoga texts, any of the yoga texts that exist, because Buddhism, for some reason or other, spread all over the world and so on. So Buddhists were always talking about all forms of life. So they describe all states of consciousness a human being can exist in, and all states of consciousness all other beings can exist in. They tell you about the whole sentient and non-sentient universe and what's happening in all parts of it, because Buddhists All of those are important to them. What do you mean by the top of the chart? I mean the chart right here.

[50:54]

Yeah, you mean the top of the chart. The top of the chart. The top of the chart. By top of the chart, I mean going up. So you go down with the chart, root with the chart, out with the chart, low with the chart. I mean low with the chart. So these states are induced. These states are induced by willful, karmic effort, and they project you into a certain state. But Buddhism is not to project us into states. However, Buddhists do project themselves into states. They have to do things that put them in certain states. And as Vana said, you have to do something. Until you can act in that column, that right-hand column there, all your action is completely just mere action.

[51:56]

Or it's just functional. Until you can do it, you have to do something. So, you have to do something. If you have to create karma, if that's all you can do, then let's create the lightest white karma possible. That's what some Buddhists chose to do. It's also very dangerous. It is. So most Buddhists didn't do it that way. And we don't do it that way. The Mahayana Buddhists have not spent very little time hanging around in these very lightweight situations. However they try, they do. do practices, but keep them in wholesome states. But these practices which keep them in wholesome states are karmic also, still creating more karmic that they have to live through. And karmic, good or bad, is the karmic that you put through. So we say good karmic. Good karmic is a karmic that has a potential for what? Well, for practicing jhanas, but also practicing Buddhism.

[53:02]

Buddhism is particularly states that are listed in the Lok Tara of Buddhist states. It is so that if you can develop your mental culture, just like social culture, you can develop it, it does take you out of what you came to it with, and you grow or you change. And it is probably true that being in a state varies from the susceptible and fragile. I'm confused over this part of the nature system. Where do you, you know, what's the apocalypse and what happens? What's the apocalypse? Yeah, when you land. After a fall, when you get in. It's... Um... So where are those in the coaches that's doing that?

[54:12]

Yeah, I'm also expecting... So these jhanas have... I was thinking of the way the Mahayanas look at it with the... No, I wasn't going to that stage. Usually you fall back into the camp. They're on the... You're in the Diva realm if you're in one of these jhanas. Is that right? If you die in... They're also called meditational states these days. But the meditational states, rather than... You can... If you... Without doing jhanas, if you just practice for the max your whole life and you die, you may be reborn temporarily as a Diva. That bothered me that they said that.

[55:15]

Why would the Buddha enter a karmic state like that? Why would an aha enter a karmic state like that? But now I see what it is. Why doesn't he enter an aha state then? Why do we lighten it up from the bottom? Why does it go into a high state like that? Because maybe it would be difficult to enlighten all sentient beings that are under some spin. Why does it go into the fourth realm? Why doesn't it just stay in arhatship and just illuminate everything from there? Well, maybe... Was he as young then? Yes. Couldn't do it without him.

[56:17]

Well, last week, I don't know when it was, but anyway, we looked at him. If, when our heart is in our heart, You still may have to live some number of years as a vipaka. And in between that vipaka, you can do various things. But for example, if you wanted to teach the thing you found out, if you wanted to teach how to do it, that teaching, if it wasn't enough to talk and so on, that would look like wholesome activity in the tongue of a child. And on our chart, right opposite those eight states, there's eight states for an aha. And also opposite the four rupa jhanas, there's four rupa jhanas for the aha.

[57:17]

And opposite the four rupa jhanas, there's four rupa jhanas for the aha. And opposite is the aha. You're saying it wasn't a kushala state, but it was a kriya? No. He entered that state. Why did he enter that state? Why did he... Yes, I'm telling you. Govinda explains that fourth jhana is also coinciding with the death consciousness. Yes. And that's where we remember the past lives. And the fourth jhana. And the fourth jhana, or the fifth jhana. So it seems that... If he were going to meet or die consciously, he would choose to die, and that would just be the door to the death of the living, rather than waiting for death. I don't know if that's the sort of thing I understand. Rather than waiting for death, he'd choose to die to get to the death consciousness level.

[58:23]

He'd have to go into the death of the dying. While living, that would be the only way to occur. Death, I think, is going to happen. Interesting. So, if he's living that way, then he must have chosen for that reason, to die. But then he's also teaching. I also think the Buddha is always teaching. He spends his time in the state of consciousness, not to be anywhere. And it's all just, it's all the same. It's just pure activity. It's not kind of why we choose a particular state. And it's the teaching that I want to say. Theravada doesn't speak this way. But of course, Mahayana is saying everything the Buddha is, is just teaching. The appearance of the Buddha in the Mahakaya Buddha is an appearance of the eternal Dhammakaya Buddha.

[59:26]

So if the Buddha is doing his teaching, then what's the teaching to be given by being in the fourth jhana when he dies? He'd be a little astounding that the existence of the two art of Buddha What's the dog? Why do you say it's a dog? Well, the next step would be the cow. If another... Somebody would... Why is the next step the cow? The cat comes after the fourth group of gentlemen. You don't go like that in the chart. The chart doesn't go like that. You don't go... It doesn't go like that. It can, though. It doesn't say it can't go that way. You can go from here to here, you can go from here to here, you can go from here to here.

[60:49]

And the highest states of the Drona Rupa Jhana are experientially, they're very similar to Nirvana. In terms of ordinary experience, this is ordinary experience up to here. This is completely ordinary experience, all this. It's not partially ordinary experience, it's just ordinary experience. Nothing to do with Buddhism. But in the realm of ordinary experience, one named consciousness, you talk about the quality of the consciousness, the consciousness of the highest arupa jhana is most likely the way you describe nirvana. So it looks like you sort of come down here and you sort of just jump over the head. And it can happen. But it can also happen from here. The two dharmas near the end in the Dhammasangani are Samatha and Vipassana.

[61:50]

The Samatha is two schools of meditation in Theravada school, and the Samatha is linked to the Samadhis or Vajanas. And the Vipassana is in the penetration of the dharma or the object. Is that They like to go from the Kalavacara into Buddhism as the vipassada. So the thing that happens to Buddhists is this cutting through is what happens. But whether the cutting through is associated with samatha or insight, That's the question. You know, Maitreya Sanghari, he talks about the

[62:59]

of the United States, which talks about looking and insight, and then It talks about, there it talks about the pencasinas and the wine analysis and the pen reflections and so forth. And it says those are all, it lists those all under the aspect of calm. Uh-huh. And it's not clear to me whether they're talking about insight at all as an aspect of the journeys. What do you think? In the first sentence, it says that . Because hereafter I will explain the twofold subjects of metaculture which deal with calm and insight.

[64:41]

And it says, of the two, in the contending of calm to begin with, the objects of metaculture are sevenfold, the ten casinas, the ten empirics, the ten reflections, and so forth. It goes on to talk about all of those, but it never comes back and says anything about insight. Okay, in the Vasudhimagga, Guruji also describes two ways. One way is he starts ordinary world, wholesome world, he practices these practices of calm, samadhis, and you bring your vana. This is not a causal connection. Actually, you just go like this. And this is, somehow, this happens too. Mental culture can be calm or it can be insights. Insights, however, usually come from calm.

[65:49]

Most insights happen in calm. So, in Abhidharma Kosha it talks about this first problem Dispersed prajna is called vikalpa. Dispersed prajna is called false discrimination. Prajna is discrimination, discrimination about dharmas. So you can see, you can see the dharmas doing their thing. And you can see what dharmas are. That's prajna. But if prajna is dispersed, it's false discrimination. It's just your imagination. Pardon me, it has to be concentrated and calm in order to beat true bonding. So anyway, our practice is sit and we practice calm. The whole point of our practice is not calm, just that insight happens in calm. If insight could happen without calm, that's fine, because it's insight that breaks the lineage.

[66:59]

The moment of insight is called kothrabhu. Kothrabhu. Break the lineage. And that breaking the lineage is insight. It's not, well, nothing to do with being calm, except that that happens when you calm. Seems in lots of stories, insights happen in there to realize that you're getting everything that you want from it. Something to say in that dress? Well, they happen in circumstances where I don't think that the person having insight would be so calm. It seems like he's sort of upset. What's the state of ordinary human being? Calm or upset? It's basically calm, but on the surface where most people are paying attention, so you're upset.

[68:10]

Zen stories often have the quality that you could just smash the surface and people see they're calm. There's nothing to say if you cut my finger off that I won't stop being confused at that very moment for the first time in my life. So that's the point of Zen, is that it says, particularly, that it must be all nirvana, it must be all samatha, because the superficial, I mean, it must be all insight, because the superficial aspects of samatha are not necessarily present in Zen stories. But Zen stories also say that even when a person's doing a backflip when they get enlightened and screaming at the same time, that is completely embedded in complete composure at that time. Discrimination in our tradition is also entirely associated with clear, straightforward, calm insight into what's actually happening at the dominant look.

[69:20]

But this is not a person sitting with a telescope or with a microscope looking at the dharma through the eyeball and seeing the way the dharmas are. It's the whole body and mind seeing the whole body and mind. And that, of course, you can't understand in equal terms. And the whole body and mind, what does that mean? Then clearly cutting fingers off has not much to do with it. As a matter of fact, cutting a finger off may be just exactly what's needed to erase that last little bit of tension or confusion. Then the mind goes, for the first time, completely smooth. In other interpretations, you could say the person was completely calm, but they needed something to let them know that they were. I myself, oftentimes the kind of experiences that are most helpful are experiences where something happens which must be a certain way, and it isn't.

[70:38]

Or something's happening and the reasons for it must be such and such. The reasons go away and it continues, or it changes and the reasons why it happened are continuing. So let's say I'm extremely depressed and I know exactly where I am. And because of those properties of present, I must be depressed. Then all of a sudden I'm extremely happy, calm and everything else good. And all the presence, all the things that made it so before, made me depressed before, they're completely the same. Thereby showing me actually that It may not be the case that what I thought was the cause is the cause. So you can also say it in the same way that enlightenment stories are often maybe the case that they're saying, Something happens which the person usually would get through in such and such a way, but now they could see it in a new way and they had to have a very clear example of something that they would always interpret as bad or good in order to see that, oh my gosh, it's just a finger cut off.

[71:59]

It's just pain. So, I think, anyway, Zen also agrees that, doesn't disagree with that, I'll be done with it, But insight happens in samatha. But you don't have to practice samatha, or insight. To practice insight is samatha. To practice mindfulness naturally gives rise to samatha. You can't do it unless you work on it. So these jhana systems which we're studying here are not Buddhist. But, you know, so we studied them, and Dr. Jani was very helpful to me in this way, because he, I kept asking him questions about it, and he'd always get very angry at me and say, why do you want to study this stuff? Are you crazy? It has nothing to do with Buddhism anyway. But then I kept studying his Abhidhamma stuff, and the jhanas keep coming up again and again and again, so what are they in there for?

[73:06]

Well, we just convey a lot of information from the environment down through the years. In some ways, I'm glad that these jhanas are presented in Buddhist texts because they actually show us very clearly what our practice is. If you threw them out because they weren't actually what we're doing, you might fall into them. The fact that they're so clearly described sort of puts, helps us actually keep better track of what our practice is in the midst of all possible states of consciousness. So they're like, they're kind of like in evolution, in survival, you eliminate what's closest to you. So a man in man was completely wiped out. He was very similar to some other forms of human. And black people and white people and yellow people have some difficulty because they're so close, they want to eliminate that little bit of difference.

[74:18]

But they don't necessarily want to kill cows for that reason. So in this way, I think it's very important that for survival of the true dharma, we should keep track of these other states of consciousness, which have qualities surprisingly similar to what actually is Buddhist practice. And these jhanas are like that. As a matter of fact, jhanas are more like our conception of what Buddhism is like than what Buddhism is. So composure, as produced by a karmic effort, is closer than the state of mind we usually carry about with us, which is actually Buddha itself. So we should protect ourselves from thinking that these jhanas are under Buddhism. So we haven't yet gotten into the Buddhist states, so maybe next week we should start studying the Buddhist states, the Loka Tara states.

[75:29]

I still haven't finished with this. So the vipassana system, I think, I don't know if we have time to study that in this class, but it's presented in Visuddhimagga. Visuddhimagga explains what the practices of insight meditation are. Yes. It's like the Vasudha Magga maybe has all of the Abhidharma in it. Just like the Abhidharma of the Sangha has all of the Abhidharma in it. So the Abhidhammata Sangaha is more abbreviated than the Visuddhimagga.

[76:42]

The Visuddhimagga has more actual description of practices and has more… it's basically broken up into three sections. First one's morality, second one's meditation, and the third one is insight. And in doing… in the insight section is where particularly the Abhidhamma is. So the Abhidharma is particularly related to developing insight or wisdom. Part of what the Abhidharma teaches in this book called the Dhammasangani is these jhanas. It tells you about these jhanas. Okay? This is only one part of the Abhidharma. What it's basically teaching you more is a method of analysis. The method of analysis is arrived at in practice through mindfulness. So it's teaching you many kinds of mindfulness practices by which you can establish at any time what's going on. And the establishment of what's going on is more important than the state itself.

[77:44]

There's always an implication in this practice to accumulate the opportunities wherein the collection of dharmas, which is nirvana, are uninhibited. So that's another similarity between the trances and Buddhist practice is that Buddhist practice wants to remove, in a sense, seems to want to remove obstacles to seeing what's happening. So if you ingest certain chemicals... You'd be very distracted by your senses. You look this way and you look that way and you look that way and you look that way. It'd be hard for you to concentrate because so many interesting things will happen and you'd be distracted. So Buddhism wants to take away your interest in all those things so you can just look at one thing at a time.

[78:49]

That's very much like these chances. So the Vasudhimagga deals with those three aspects. So it presents the Samatha teaching, but you don't have to read that section of the book. Now, our practice is, my feeling is now, and I've said this before in other classes, it's sort of my feeling at this time is that the place where Buddhism relates to this, as you'll see later too, is that it seems like what our practice is, is like access to the first jhana. Well, I don't know if I should say that's why we follow our breath. Well, we do follow our breath, and since we follow our breath, you may find that that fits into this system at that point.

[79:59]

That following the breath gives access to the first jhana. It doesn't induce. Fortunately, it does not induce. If you follow your breath, you sit up straight, sit still and follow your breath, you get access to the first jhana. You don't get the first jhana. If you look in Buddhist meditation by Rudkhansa, it lists the different kinds of meditation, which ones give full trance and which ones give access. Following your breath gives access. So that means it gets rid of the defilements, but... Is that what the access means? That you get rid of the defilements? Get rid of the defilements? In Theravada terms. Well, in Nivaradas. Yeah. You get rid of them, but actually it's a little more complicated because there's this thing called anushayas, or latent kleshas, which exist even in the rupa trances.

[81:04]

Because even in the rupa janas, they're still kleshas. So you get rid of the gross ones of the sense sphere, yes. But... You're not attached in the access, you're not attached to the meditation, you're not attached to rupa vichara because you haven't attained rupa vichara. It's just that your mind is working, your mind is very concentrated and at the same time it has... these qualities have not... these meditation qualities, these meditation dharmas have not reached their full power. They're just there. And their function at this point is just altogether to induce a state of high concentration. But you can still, it's very important, you can still talk, and you can still hear, and you can still think. Which goes along with many things in Zen experience that people can speak from samadhi, people can hear in samadhi,

[82:13]

And insight can be verbal. So if you're doing koan practice, you must not be in some high jhana state because you can't be saying those words in those states. So when you start studying the elevated states of consciousness, the transcendental states of consciousness, you'll notice that these people once again practice jhanas. But what jhanas are they practicing and how are they practicing jhanas? We should look at that now. Think about that. You're making the distinction between studying and practicing. You said, when we study, we learn the words of the book. It is not meant to imply in any way that we are practicing. What? It's not meant to imply in any way that that is linked with practicing. You're saying I'm not doing that? Well, it sounds like you are making a clear distinction between studying and re-studying and practicing.

[83:27]

No, I'm not. I'm making a clear distinction between practicing these jhanas and what we're doing, because we don't enter these jhanas. We don't put this casino out there. close our eyes and visualize it. We don't blow it up boundlessly. We don't attain the first, second, third, fourth jhana. And we don't try to do this thing of expanding space and then putting our consciousness in it and then seeing that that's nothing and so on. We don't do that practice. And I don't suggest you do it. However, if you'd like to, you can, but I don't suggest it. But When you get into the next stage, I don't suggest it either, but it's definitely practice. And if you study them, you're definitely practicing them. If you are Buddhist, if you've had the first insight into the path, then dozo, you're entitled to practice these things.

[84:27]

Whether you've had first insight into the path or not, we can discuss that later. in this course. Next week is Miracle. So there's not 500 of us, but if any of you aren't enlightened by next week, don't come to the meeting. But if nobody shows up, We'll have to do something about that. We'll have to do something about that. We'll have to raise a flag or something upside down. So anyway, I think that... I don't know how much you understand what we talked about tonight.

[85:31]

In one way it's rather simple, but through the course I think we'll find that we have habits, even though we're Zen Buddhists, we have habits that this teaching can help us. We have habits of thinking of meditation in this yogic trance way. And this can help us, I think, figure out what zazen is. And as I say, I think if any place, if zazen fits in any place, I would say it fits in as the first, as access to the first rupa jhana. It's not a jhana. And it's not practiced like jhana. But the description of it, I think, would be if it's any place in your chart, it falls. That's where I would say it falls. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's a very good potential, very rich possibilities.

[86:34]

And it's in what realm is it in? It's in kamma vichara. It's liable to go into a trance. And I think if you study Zen stories, you'll find that these people fell into trances occasionally. Some of them even from schools about it. But that's, if we study the history of Zen, we'll find Also, it's very interesting, we'll find, I think, that some of our schools and some of our neighboring schools, or some of our ancestors and some of our disputes were because some of the Zen schools got into practicing jhanas, while putting too much emphasis on khan. These Theravadins studied in a... the jhanas in the way that we're talking about, or did they practice them in the way that they're described? I mean, did they set up the object?

[87:37]

If they did that, why did they do that? I mean, if they were practicing Buddhism then, then why did they practice the trance? Well, do you think they did not? so they couldn't do it. They couldn't have written it down if they didn't. Why not? They did it, and then they, while there, they couldn't write it down, so they came back. What? They hoped they'd know, but they wouldn't practice it. Well, there may have been many other meditation manuals around, or they may have done it before. Well, there may have been a copywriter. Right. or at some point they did it. Oh yes, but were they a Buddhist, that person?

[88:39]

Steve's asking about Buddhists particularly. Buddha himself did these practices. He did. But before his enlightenment, he went, he was quite, the story goes, he was quite, became quite an adept yogi. And also a famous ascetic. two different phases of his early career after he left home. He had a yoga teacher and an ascetic teacher. So Buddha knew these. And some of Buddha's disciples, as you see in the stories, particularly in Mahavagga, where he talks about how he formed the Sangha. Some of the guys he picked up were these yogis and some ascetics. These people are very susceptible to being able to practice Buddhism. Just like scholars are the worst people, you know, they're the most troublesome people, but they're very close to being good Buddhists.

[89:41]

People that can concentrate very on books and get things together like that and understand language through their own effort and work, they have this tremendous obstacle, namely this very thing of this language and philosophy and so on, but still they oftentimes have a real strong potential for practice too, because they know how to concentrate. Once they get the concept straight that they should, what they should do, they do it, they usually have the ability to do it, because they are already quite concentrated. And same with these people, these yogis, can become Buddhists very quickly. Even though what they're doing is quite off from the point of view of Buddhism, but it's very close. Buddhism comes, in a sense, from a radical re-looking at some ancient traditions. Buddha has a context. He had teachers. So Buddhists may not have ever practiced these, but Buddhists did practice them for sure. But were the Buddhists who practiced them the teachers of Buddhism, or were they people that got off the track?

[90:49]

I think they're people that got off the track, and I think that's why they put these on the chart, is because Buddhists did get into these things. states that have no function in Buddhist life wouldn't be in this chart. Wholesome states, unwholesome states, these various states, all of them have a teaching value. And so probably, if people can get into those states, Buddhists would describe them, if nothing else, then to protect themselves from them. And I think, quite clearly, if you do meditation in a Buddhist way, you'll naturally fall into these if you're not careful. You would say that But you see, you haven't gone to the next section. The next section, as I said, you'll find Buddhists practicing these jhanas. But there's a difference. And that difference, they're still called jhanas, but now they're called super-mundane jhanas. They're called jhanas at the super-mundane level. So Buddha practiced the fourth jhana when he died.

[91:49]

Why did he take the fourth jhana? Well, I don't know. But one reason why he might have picked it is what Lynn said. Another reason is because the characteristic of the fourth jhana is upeka. So what is his teaching? His teaching is just sit still, sit straight, and don't care if you're positive or negative. Don't run away from the puzzle. Just sit there. Equanimity is my best teaching. And if you're dying and you can't talk, you know, and so on and so forth...

[92:20]

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