In the Shurangama Samadhi Sutra it says the Bodhisattva Dhridhamati said to the Buddha, Bhagavata, what is the Samadhi through which a Bodhisattva rapidly attains Anutara, Samyak, Sambodhi, unsurpassed, total, authentic awakening? What is the Samadhi through which a Bodhisattva is never apart from Buddha face to face? What is the Samadhi through which a Bodhisattva illumines with her own light all ten directions? And the Bodhisattva

[01:05]

Dhridhamati goes on to ask, you know, what is the Samadhi that has all these amazing virtues and finally says, what then, oh Bhagavata, is the Samadhi through which a Bodhisattva manifests such virtues but without definitively entering into Parinirvana? And the Buddha likes the question and at the end says, I will tell you of that Samadhi with which Bodhisattvas must be endowed in order to obtain the virtues of which you speak and of even greater ones. So after opening up the teachings about this Samadhi for Bodhisattvas,

[02:21]

various things arose for me to address the issue of Bodhisattvas because I think some of the practitioners here are not sure they're Bodhisattvas or that they want to be Bodhisattvas. I guess first of all I'd like to thank everybody, especially those who may not be sure they want to be Bodhisattvas, for letting me talk about a practice for Bodhisattvas. Thank you. If you're not interested in these practices, thank you for letting me talk about them. And if you are interested, thank you too. So this is really Bodhisattva Shurangama Samadhi.

[03:31]

This is the heroic march Samadhi, but it's the heroic march of Bodhisattvas, so what I'm exploring with you is how do we live in this Bodhisattva Samadhi. And part of being a Bodhisattva is to know about and be devoted to and care for beings who are not yet wishing to be Bodhisattvas. How to appreciate and cherish deeply all beings, including practitioners who are not interested in the Bodhisattva path as yet. I remember maybe 25 years ago, I don't know, anyway I was doing practice instruction at that time, and one of the more

[04:43]

energetic and really bright Zen students came to see me and said, you know, I just want you to know I'm not really interested in saving all beings, I just want to save myself. And over the years many people have come to me and said, you know, this enlightenment thing or this Buddha thing, it's really like, I'm not really into that, I just want to like have a slightly better life, I just like to live a little less or a lot less suffering myself. Of course I want other people to be happy, but to actually want to attain Buddhahood, I can't really say I do, and I can't say I want to do it even for the welfare of others, even for the welfare of myself I can't say I want to do it, so I guess I'm not sure I'm a Bodhisattva or want to be a Bodhisattva. So many people in places like Zen Center that are Mahayana

[05:43]

practice places are not sure about this Mahayana thing. One of the hallmarks or key moments in the life of a Bodhisattva is the arising of the actual, really a full-fledged sincere wish to attain Buddhahood for the welfare of all beings. And this is, you know, I don't even know if really this has happened to me, but sort of. I mean, I sort of do want to attain unsurpassed awakening for the welfare of all beings, but I don't know if that's a real bodhicitta that happened to me, or just, you know, warming up to it. It is possible,

[06:59]

I think, seems to me, that somebody who has not even heard of Buddhism, that this mind can arise in them, that some person who's really totally confused, almost totally confused, in a state of significant wreckage, suddenly is struck by this amazing thought. Somehow they bump into Buddha somehow and they talk to Buddha for a little while and it comes up. So in a less severe form I would say some people who have heard of Buddhism and who are, but haven't yet started to practice, you know, what we call Samadhi number two,

[08:01]

they're not even practicing Samadhi at all, and yet their life is taken over by this bodhicitta, this thought of enlightenment, this thought of supreme awakening for the welfare of others. They're not even a yogi yet, but they have this amazing Buddha thought, Buddha mind seed in them. And some people, but on the other hand, some people are very compassionate, really, and very compassionate, and have realized actually what we call Samadhi number three. They've realized the understanding of the selflessness of the person, so they are yogis,

[09:01]

and they are wise yogis and enlightened yogis, and also this thought hasn't occurred to them. I mean, really advanced spiritual practitioners, not just, they're advanced yogis and they are nearly arhats or arhats, and they have not had this thought of attaining Buddhahood. They're much more developed than some kind of like really downtrodden, messed-up people who are totally struck to be a bodhisattva. This can happen, and sometimes these practitioners who are not bodhisattvas really understand a lot about meditation and can teach bodhisattvas how to do the bodhisattva meditations, even though they themselves don't want to do them.

[10:02]

In particular, some of these yogis who have or have not realized selflessness of the person could instruct bodhisattvas on how to meditate on the four phases of the activation of thought, because they're kind of like very sharp, very concentrated, and they actually can see how the mind works. But this other, this thing of this thought of complete perfect enlightenment has not struck them yet. So this can happen, and this Surangama Samadhi Sutra is for bodhisattvas, but it may not be that some of the bodhisattvas in this room want to do this samadhi yet,

[11:14]

because it may be too advanced, but you still may want to, because you want to be a Buddha, and you need the samadhi to be a Buddha. You need to enter this realm of the samadhi, which includes all samadhis, in order to be a Buddha. So bodhisattvas sort of have to like say, yeah, I want to realize the Surangama Samadhi. Bodhisattvas basically have to say yes to all attainments. They can't say, well, I don't want, not that too. No, no, we're talking about omniscience, total. If you don't want total omniscience, that's fine, that's what's so amazing that some people would dare to be that, I don't know what to call it, almost arrogant, to want to be a total hero, total heroine. And I really am not trying to talk, well, I am. I'm sort of trying to talk everybody into being

[12:25]

a bodhisattva, but in a very gentle, and I want to do it in a very gentle and respectful way, because like I say, some bodhisattvas are like really out of it, mostly, and some people who do not want to be bodhisattvas are really sharp and kind, very kind and wise. They just don't want to do this heroic stride samadhi. It's too much, leave me alone. I don't want to, or well, maybe later, I'm not sure. Bodhisattvas are kind of like, yes. They don't even know what they're talking about, you know. They just jump. Our bodhisattvas give practices to other bodhisattvas, and also bodhisattvas give practices

[13:31]

to non-bodhisattvas, and sometimes they give the same practice to non-bodhisattvas if they give to bodhisattvas. At Zen Center, Suzuki Roshi talked a little bit about following the breath or counting the breath, talked a lot about shikantaza, just sitting, and I think some of us got the idea like shikantaza was really the practice, the ultimate practice, dropping our body-mind is the ultimate practice of dzazen, by which we enter into this self-receiving and self-employing samadhi and so on, by which we enter into the precious mere samadhi, by which we enter into the shurangama samadhi, and I think it was in January of 1970 he said, okay, now let's everybody do the same practice of counting the breath,

[14:38]

and some people had previously been counting the breath or following the breath and they had sort of advanced to shikantaza, to just sitting. So they thought, okay, I'll go, I don't know what, I'll give that practice up and just count my breath since the teacher wants us to do that. But some people might have thought, well, it's kind of like going back to an earlier practice, a preliminary practice, and sometimes it's called a preliminary practice, but anyway, that's what Suzuki Roshi said, so I guess a lot of people said, well, that's what he said anyway, so maybe let's do that. Some people thought, maybe I'm already doing that, I'll continue, so anyway, that's what he said. And then in July I was at Tassajara and one of the very bright students said to me, you know, Suzuki Roshi, I think Suzuki Roshi wants us to stop counting our breath. He didn't say so, but I think he just forgot to tell us to stop. I'm going to start doing shikantaza again, and I don't remember him ever sort of saying, okay,

[15:42]

now you guys can, you don't have to continue. He forgot to tell us to stop, so I don't know of him ever announcing, well, that's over, now you can go back, you can go on to or back to shikantaza, just sitting. I didn't hear him say that. But he did assign that about two years before he died. But he also taught something like this, and that is that concentration is not trying hard to watch something, that's not concentration, that's not samadhi. Samadhi means freedom. In Zazen practice, we say that you should be concentrated on your breathing, but to be concentrated on your breathing, or to be in the samadhi of breath,

[16:54]

means you just forget all about yourself. When you forget all about yourself, you'll be concentrated on your breath. We say, in Zazen practice, we say you should be concentrated on your breathing, but really, to be concentrated on your breathing means to forget all about yourself, and just sit and feel your breathing. It isn't that you direct your mind towards your breathing, that you concentrate on your breathing, that's not concentration on the breathing. Concentration of breathing is, forget about yourself concentrating on breathing. Forget about yourself being a Zen student or a Bodhisattva, forget about it. And just notice your breathing, it's there. Since you've forgotten about yourself, you have nothing

[18:00]

better to do. But if you remember yourself, you have a lot better things to do than follow your breathing, as you know. Like, you can worry about yourself, you can be judging yourself, you can be promoting yourself, or demoting yourself. Anyway, when you've got a self, you've got a job. But if you forget about yourself, and there's your breath, and then there's your life, and then there's your self. But it's not the self you had, it's the self that's given to you, it's the breath that's given to you. It's the breath-receiving samadhi, and the self-receiving samadhi that you enter when you forget yourself. So, when you forget yourself, you will naturally be in a breath samadhi. You will be concentrated on your breathing, and when you're concentrating on your breathing, not you concentrated on it, but when there's concentration on breath, I should say, then you have forgotten the self. So forget the self, there's concentration on breath,

[19:04]

when there's concentration on breath, you forget the self. He said, you know, this is his instruction in some sense about how to, you can also count your breath. It's not quite the same, I wouldn't say it's quite as true to say if you forget yourself, you will count your breath. But you might, there might be numbers on your breath when it appears. Now this is an instruction which he could give to people who are bodhisattvas, and give it to people who don't want to be bodhisattvas, so he could be given to all people. But there's further instruction, and this kind of instruction actually could introduce somebody into samadhi number three. In other words, you can realize the selflessness of the person

[20:06]

by such a simple instruction. In other words, realize that the breath is not confused with the person, or with the self. The breath, the self isn't the same as the breath, the breath isn't the same as the self, the breath isn't different from the person, the person isn't different from the breath. Actually look at the relationship between the person and the breath, you'll realize that the person doesn't have a self that can be grasped by the form skanda of, or the conception skanda of the breath. So this meditation on breath with a little bit of prompting could turn into samadhi number three, and free one of self-clinging, clinging to the self of the person. The type of meditation which I mentioned earlier about how to enter into the Sarangama Samadhi is actually to start to look at the mind

[21:12]

and realize the selflessness of the mind. Bodhisattvas need to do this in order to have this, be in this samadhi. Another way to talk about concentration on breath is a way that would work for bodhisattvas, but you would have to be a bodhisattva to approach it that way, and that is just to attend to the breath with kindness, to be kind to the breath, but it doesn't mean to be kind to the breath again by sort of, in theory, it means to be kind to the breath practically, you know, be kind to the breath that you're actually looking at, so you're not trying to

[22:13]

like rivet yourself to the breath, you just got a breath and you're kind to it, and being kind to the breath doesn't mean you never notice it, just like a child, to be kind to a child doesn't mean you never notice it, that you never see it, you never talk to it, but it also doesn't mean that you're, you know, on the child's case all the time, and, you know, oppressing it with your attention. You're caring about the child you see right now, and when you don't see the child, you care about the child you don't see. Or you care about the breath when you see the breath, and when you don't see the breath, you care about not seeing the breath, and, you know, that's all.

[23:16]

Or maybe I shouldn't say you do it that way, but you could do it that way. We say, in Zazen practice, we say you should be concentrated on your breath. In Zazen practice, we say you should be kind to your breath, you should be kind with your breath, you should be compassionate with your breath, you should bring compassion to every moment of breathing. You should not treat your breathing as an opportunity for you to become a great yogi. That's not your perspective. In some sense, you know, it's your breath, you're taking care of your breath. Now, you will become a great yogi if you take care of your breath skillfully and compassionately, but your motivation is to care for the breath, not to promote yourself or to gain something for yourself in meditation.

[24:22]

You've forgotten yourself, you've given up yourself, you've given up trying to gain anything, and there's breath to take care of. I found this poem, it's called Kindness, it's written by a Palestinian woman. Shall I read it? Okay, I'm not very good at reading poems, but I do have a microphone. It's called, this poem is called Kindness. Before you know what kindness really is, you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth.

[25:34]

What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between regions of kindness. How you ride and ride, thinking the bus will never stop, the passengers eating maize and chicken will stare out the windows forever. Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness, you must travel where the Indian in the white poncho lies dead by the side of the road. You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night

[26:46]

with plans and the simple breath that kept him alive. Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing. You must wake up with sorrow, you must speak to it till your voice catches the thread of all sorrows, and you see the size of the cloth. Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore, only kindness that ties your shoes and sends you out into the day to mail letters

[27:49]

and purchase bread, only kindness that raises its head from the crowd of the world to say, it is I who have been look, it is I you have been looking for, and then goes with you everywhere like a shadow or a friend. The dual mirror samadhi is like facing a dual mirror, form and image behold each other, you are not it, it actually is you. So,

[30:12]

the instruction which I repeated over and over, the types of instructions which I repeated over and over of which are samadhi instructions, instructions for samadhi, which are initially instructions which help the mind calm down or help one realize the calmness of mind, which stabilize the mind, which make it more awake, even though part of it is, part of getting into this calm is that we sometimes slip into getting a little drowsy, but in the end the body becomes buoyant and awake and bright and flexible and soft and calm. Instructions are don't grasp anything, which is similar to forget yourself, don't seek anything, don't seek any gain from the practice, don't seek any improvement,

[31:17]

just relax completely with what's happening moment by moment. If you're aware of your body, relax with that thought, if you're aware of your breath, relax with that thought, attend to it with no grasping. And again, it's not grasping with something you're aware of, it's not that you don't grasp something, it's not even happening for you, it's that you don't grasp what you're seeing, what you're feeling, what you're thinking, what you're tasting, what you're touching. It's really that you don't grasp what you think you're grasping, what you think you're tasting, what you think you're touching, what you think you're seeing, what you think you're hearing, what you think you're feeling. Because we grasp objects of thought, we don't grasp objects of direct perception, direct sensory perception, we don't grasp

[32:27]

and we don't try to gain anything. And I feel that, as I said before, you have been hearing these instructions and practicing these instructions, and these instructions don't have to really be changed, I'm just now opening up, looking more carefully at what's happening, looking more thoroughly and deeply at what's happening, hopefully without activating some gaining idea. And it's difficult to bring up this additional work, this additional deep vision without activating some grasping, but I'm trying to do that, and warning you ahead of time. Yes? What is the instruction on meditating on the selflessness of the mind?

[33:32]

That's what I'm working up to. And the meditation on the four aspects of the activation of thought is a meditation intended to realize the selflessness of mind itself. Okay? So that's the particular meditation which I'm now warming up to introducing again. But again, I'm putting the warning out there. Let's approach this teaching and this practice with no acquisitive spirit, like, I want to practice this, and yet without seeking to practice it. I want to realize this practice without grasping for it, without seeking it. This is not easy, but that's what I'm trying to do, is both offer something and say,

[34:37]

this is really great, don't take it, just receive it with very open hands, not grasping hands, very open mind, not grasping mind. So the Buddha says, I will tell you of that Samadhi. So then he starts telling about the Samadhi, and he says the name of it is the heroic stride concentration of a Bodhisattva, and I mentioned yesterday that with this, by means of this Samadhi, Bodhisattvas can manifest parinirvana, but without definitively ceasing to be, and they can do lots of other amazing things, which if you excuse me, I will skip over for the time being, is that alright? And just to tell you the last few, the last two in particular, because they bear

[35:42]

on this practice of following the thought very intimately, by means of watching intimately how the thought process goes, and in particular the last two, the last three are, they are always in meditation as they teach Dharma to living beings. So even though they are quite active out there, you know, talking to people and showing people the Dharma, they are able to like be awake to the activity, no matter where it goes. They don't get involved, right, and yet they are quite active, they are not just sitting

[36:50]

in meditation looking inward at their mind and following their mind inwardly. They are doing that, but they do it while they are like running around, raising their arms in the air, you know, screaming about how wonderful it is that people are practicing so nicely. So they actually can stay uninvolved as they are quite active in teaching. Because of this Samadhi, no matter what they are doing, they remember the selflessness of the person, the selflessness of the other, the selflessness of the breath, the selflessness of the word, the selflessness of the feeling, the selflessness of the teaching, the selflessness of Buddha, wherever, they always see emptiness in everything, they never lose track of that, they are always awake to emptiness, and yet they are quite active. Some practitioners,

[37:52]

very advanced practitioners are attending to their inner phenomena and outer phenomena, but the outer phenomena are not too active, they are mostly just sitting still perhaps, looking inward at their mind, realizing the emptiness, but when they get up moving and talking they can't realize the emptiness in the activity. Bodhisattvas need to be able to do that in order to do the work of maturing beings. Of course, beings can be somewhat matured without being aware of the emptiness of the beings that are being matured, but for the full helping, the full saving of beings, the Bodhisattva needs to understand the emptiness of all things. The next one is they understand that dharmas don't arise, don't even arise, and yet they talk to people in terms of dharmas arising and ceasing, they bring up the apparent

[39:00]

arising and ceasing of phenomena, and in particular they bring up the arising and ceasing of mind, even though they understand that mind doesn't arise. And the fact that they understand that mind doesn't arise helps them skillfully bring up the meditations on the arising and ceasing of the mind, the arising and ceasing of thought, the arising and ceasing of thinking. So in the spirit of the Bodhisattva tradition which realizes that nothing happens, you're being encouraged to look at the illusion of things happening, and to talk about things that are happening so that you can realize nothing's happening, and then you can help others also realize this. The last one is they go along without fear, like a lion. Once again, there is a practice of following one's own thoughts, and that's a nice simple

[40:17]

expression, the samadhi of following one's own thoughts, which means following one's own thoughts no matter where they go. It's not just follow your thoughts when your thoughts are about your breath, or when your thoughts are on your posture, or when your thoughts are on your feelings. Not just follow your thoughts when you're in the zendo, but follow your thoughts wherever they go, which means wherever you go, which means you think you went some place, and when you think you go some place, follow your thought that you think you went some place. Follow it. But here it means follow it very, we haven't talked yet so much about it, very, very intimately following it, following the whole process of each thought, following the whole process of each moment, to really, truly, intimately follow the thought. Not just follow part of it, or every third thought, and also not follow

[41:23]

just some thoughts, but follow all of each and every thought. This is the entrance into the samadhi so that we can not lose our meditation while we're trying to help people, and also so that when we're in our meditation, we don't have to stay there, we don't have to stay in the form of meditation we're doing, we don't have to stay with these nice thoughts that are easy to meditate on, we can meditate on any thought, which means we can be any place. So first I say, meet whatever comes with complete relaxation, which means meet whatever comes with no mind, with no usual mind, with no usual mind of discrimination. Give up your usual mind in every meeting. Calm down. And then, when you're calm, and if you can become

[42:31]

calm during this retreat, great. Now, you continue to meet whatever comes with no mind, whatever comes, but in particular, now we're saying, would you particularly look inward, turn the mind around, and look back, shine the light back, and look at your thought. Gently, without trying to gain anything, because if you try to get anything, you're not meeting it with no mind. Look at your mind without even distinguishing between your mind and other minds, just turn around and look at the mind, and now, when you can do that calmly, with calmness, now let's look at this illusion, in a way, of the arising and ceasing of thoughts, of the arising and ceasing of intentions, which are the shape of the thinking, the shape

[43:32]

of the thought. And so, if you do not feel fairly well stabilized, as a group, I would suggest to you, as a group, I don't know where each person is, but don't be impatient to start this development of more intimacy with your thought process. If your thought process appears to you in a certain way now, but you don't feel too intimate with it, and it's not too clear, but this not so clear thought process is appearing to you, you're relaxing with, you're not grasping, it's not too clear and sharply defined breathing process is appearing to you, but you're treating it kindly, not grasping it, not rejecting

[44:32]

it and calming down with it, that's enough for now. But if you feel that you're calm, and particularly if you've got to the place of getting kind of sleepy, and if you can wake up then again, then you're even calmer, then you may be ready to like look carefully at this thinking process. And that's what I'd like to say a little bit more about, but I see some questions. Yes, and yes, and yes? Yes? It went away? I answered it? Okay. Yes? Someone was confused, one of the basic teachings about impermanence, about nothing kind of lasting, things coming up and then passing away, and now you're saying there's no arising or passing? Well, the teaching of impermanence is that everything that arises ceases. The teaching of impermanence is not that things arise. Impermanence is not making the point that

[45:35]

things arise. What impermanence is that everything that arises ceases. If you see arising, whatever you see arising will cease. That's the teaching of impermanence. But in Nirvana, there is no arising and ceasing. Impermanence is a characteristic of the world of birth and death. Nirvana is another world, another way of seeing life. There is no birth and death there. And there is a teaching that all Dharmas are essentially original, originally Nirvanic. All things are originally and fundamentally in Nirvana. All things are not arising and ceasing. However, if you look away from this fundamental way things

[46:38]

are, that they don't arise and cease, because they don't form and unform, then you see them form, and everything you see form will unform, will disintegrate. But in Nirvana, things don't come together and fall apart. You're letting go of the whole process of making and unmaking things. You're free of that. Well, that's part of what we're saying here, is that although they understand that things don't arise, they realize that people who do not understand yet that things don't arise, in other words, people who think that things do arise, they need to talk to those people in terms of the way they see things. You see things arise, you see their impermanence, so if people don't even see impermanence, it's hard for them to notice even arising. But if you can notice impermanence, then that helps you see arising. So meditating on impermanence

[47:48]

means you meditate on the arising and ceasing, not just the ceasing. The ceasing is that you can start with the ceasing and then notice, well, there must have been some arising, maybe you can find the arising, and that's related to the meditation we're talking about now. And we're trying to get more intimate with the process of these impermanent phenomena, which some people understand never really happened, that they're always in nirvana, but they sometimes put on this show of being in samsara. So we're going to do this samsaric show and realize the nirvanic show, hopefully by this meditation. Yes? You can follow all thoughts completely without moving. That's right. As a matter of fact, we teach in Zen often, particularly Soto Zen, the practice of don't move. And not move means not just don't move, but it also means be unmoving with the arising and ceasing of things. But being unmoving with them also means that you're

[48:54]

intimate with the arising and ceasing, but you're not moving with it. There's this unmoving intimacy with the process of change. Following the thoughts means you're going to follow the process of thought, you're following something that's changing, you're watching the process of illusion, you're watching the process of change, and hopefully unmoving with it. So unmoving is another way to say forget yourself, or just be kind with everything. You don't move from being kind with the process of thought. You're unmovingly present with it. But you might think you're not moving, and as you get more intimate, you realize there's some wiggling, so then we have to be more still, so that we can be unwigglingly present with

[50:02]

this process of thought. Yes? I've noticed in my thinking process, my thoughts are like a train. It's like one thought leads to a series of others. So, in the four phases, how do you count that, beginning, end, and all? Part of the calming down is to let go of the train. I don't want to go so far as to say get off the train, but anyway, let go of the train. So the appearance of the train of thought is what we call discursive thought. That you're putting this thought together with that thought, and that thought together

[51:05]

with the next thought. Well, you say it leads to it, but I'm suggesting to you that this it leads to it. That it leads to it. That way of seeing things, that's called discursive thought. That's called mental elaboration. So you've got this thought, okay, then you've got this thought, then you have the thought that this thought has to do with that thought, this thought related to that thought. This is elaborating on this stuff. This is getting involved with it. You're talking like these things are doing it on their own, but the way that they're doing this is your mind creating discursive thought. This is discursive thought. You've discovered discursive thought. Congratulations. But that's what that is. That's the thought that you need to not grasp. The train. So you're saying if I wasn't grasping or having discursive thinking that I would be in a samadhi

[52:12]

where one thought would come and I'd just see it pop up and get intimate with it, and it would then end, and then something totally unrelated from somewhere else would come up and end again. No. But close. Close. If there was no discursive thought, it would be like this thought would come up, and we haven't yet said that you're going to be intimate with it, but let's say that it comes up and you're intimate with it. Let's just say that. Let's not say it. Let's have two cases. One is a thought comes up and you notice the thought come up, but there's no discursive thought. In this case? So when there's no discursive thought, a thought arises and ceases, and another thought arises and ceases, and another thought arises and ceases. That's not discursive thought. But you said that one thought arises and goes away, and then another thought which is totally

[53:14]

unrelated arises and comes down. Okay? It's not that way. The next thought has something to do with the previous thought. There is some relationship between this thought and the next thought. There is a relationship. The next thought can't happen without the previous thought stopping. The stopping of this thought is a condition for the arising and ceasing of the next one. They are related. They are related. This thought arising and ceasing and now this thought arising and ceasing, and now this thought arising and ceasing. This thought arising and ceasing. Okay? A condition for this arising and ceasing is that the previous one ceased. They are related, but they're not connected. They're related. And and connecting them is mental elaboration, which is actually another thought. It's a thought that they're connected.

[54:15]

That's what makes discursive thought. If there is no discursive thought, then the connection between the thoughts is not there. However, although the connection isn't there, the relation will be revealed. That's the case of not, there's no discursive thought. Just thought, boop, thought, boop, thought, boop. Now, if there is discursive thought, let's go back to the case where there is discursive thought. Okay? Ready for that? Then there's this thought, and then there's another thought, but this thought actually seems to be an elaboration of the previous thought. Like it's thought, but it's not just thought, it's a thought, and it's connected to the previous thought, and it's filling out this thought, or extending this thought, or continuing the story. And there's another one, and maybe that also is continuing the story of the previous thoughts and incorporating them. So that's discursive thought. And for the third thought, to like be connected to the previous thoughts, then there's a kind

[55:17]

of what we call running back and forth. So there's this thought, then there's this thought, but this thought isn't just this thought, this thought is like going back to the previous thought and saying, that thought's connected to this thought. That way of the mind working, running back and forth, is the etymological meaning of discursive thought. It means run back and forth. But isn't it also watching the patterns of the mind, when you realize that you have these thoughts that are connected, and you're at this end, and you look back, and you're trying to see the map of the inclinations. Yeah, trying to see the map of the inclinations, being involved in that, is being involved in discursive thought. So you're saying don't do that. I'm not saying don't do that. But I'm saying, I'm suggesting, give it up. Give up being concerned with the trains. Now even if I give up being concerned with the trains, the trains run anyway. Because it's a deep habit to keep trains running in the mind.

[56:23]

So the meditation that I'm suggesting for calming down is meditation of observing what's happening, period, and period. That's the meditation. Now if you observe what's happening, period, that means you're observing what's happening, period. That means you're observing what's happening, period. That means you're observing what's happening without anything else. And if there's a pattern of thought, like you said, you can give me any example you want, but you give me an example of a pattern of thought, so a pattern of thought, period. One thought, period, a pattern of thought, period. Whatever it is, period, which means you don't get involved, which means you don't get involved, which means period, which means you don't grasp it, which means you don't seek it, which means individual thought, relax.

[57:26]

Pattern of thought, sequence of thought, discursive thought, relax. There still is either just one thought arising and ceasing, then another thought arising and ceasing, or else there's a connection between them, but whatever it is, you don't grasp it. That's the meditation. The meditation is not to try to, like, stop, you know, the discursive thought. Some people say that the meditation is to stop discursive thought, is to stop mental elaboration, and that's true in a sense, but it's really, that's the meditation, but it doesn't mean, that's the meditation, that's the way of looking at this stuff. But what you're looking at might be involvement. What you're looking at might be discursive thought. But what you're looking at might be this rat running around in a cage, pumping this wheel, you know, trying to get the cocaine pellets. What you're looking at could be anything, but the looking is just period.

[58:28]

So sometimes when you meditate, like, just looking at patterns, sometimes the patterns break up for a while. If you're looking at patterns of involvement in thought, significant trains of thought, significant stories, as you look at them in this way of not getting involved with them, of relaxing with them, sometimes the cars and the train break apart and the train turns, it's not just a train anymore, it's just individual cars. And you get a break, there isn't really a discursive thought going on. That is nice in a way, because then you can more easily look at the individuals, and then you can look at the rising and ceasing of the individuals. That would make it easier. But you can also look at the rising of a train, beginning and end of a train even. But it's a little bit bulkier. But it isn't that I'm telling you to get in there and break the train up, you know, and break up the train into individual parcels, individual things.

[59:36]

I'm just saying, first of all, treat everything that comes, individual cars or trains, treat them with no mind. In other words, treat them the same. In other words, just relax with them. In other words, don't grasp them, don't seek anything. When you do that, it often tends that the trains do start to be different. You get different trains coming by. Sometimes you get real short ones. Or even, you know, just little tiny little packages start being delivered to you. And that's easier to analyze, but then they're faster. But the thing is, since you've been relaxing with everything, you get faster too. The meditation gets more supple and quicker. And you can actually, like, catch stuff that you couldn't catch before because you were so busy trying to reorganize trains. So if patterns of thought are appearing, then patterns of thought are appearing.

[60:37]

So in the pattern of thought, there will be just the pattern of thought. In the individual thought, there will be just the individual thought. Whatever is appearing, you let it be. And the more you relax, if you can stay awake too, the more you can get intimate with whatever is presented. So I'm not recommending that you get in there and try to change what's being presented. So we have a Bodhisattva precept called, don't take what's not given. But it could be put positively, work with what's given. If you've got this big, bulky, discursive thought being presented to you, say, okay, I'm not going to try to, like, take some other kind of thought. I'll work with this thought. And the more you work with this thought, the more manageable it seems to be. It's not exactly, you know, you just get more skillful with it. And so patterns of thought, individual thoughts,

[61:37]

really patterns of thoughts are illusions, really patterns of thoughts are individual thoughts about patterns of thought. But they create this illusion. You know, just like I swing my arm around, you can see a circle. Can you see it? Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's not really a circle there. But your mind can make one. So then what is awareness? Well, that's what we're trying to find out. What is awareness? We're trying to find out what is mind. But it's hard to find out what mind is because it's actually formless. And excuse me for saying so, but it's not only formless, but it doesn't even arise. Mind doesn't even arise. But it's not non-existent. It doesn't really arise and cease, and yet it is. It's formless. So by watching the arising and ceasing of it, we have a way to tune, that's a way for us to find it. Mind can't be found, but by having these marks of arising

[62:40]

and before arising and fully arisen and ceasing, by having these marks, we can tune into something that has no form and realize what it is. Mind is emptiness. Mind is nirvana. Mind is total freedom, actually. But we see it coming in these little packages. So, since we see it that way, we can use these images, these marks, as ways to tune in and find out what's actually there. But it's difficult to successfully watch it, as some of you already realized when you first heard about it. And now we could have some more questions,

[63:41]

but then we won't get into any new materials. Do you want the questions now, or do you want me to go a little further to bring this up again? Huh? Okay. So, it's further means, again, it starts with something I said before. So, in order to... We're talking about following, you know, being able to be awake and stay awake with your mind no matter where it goes. And a way to help that is to, like... Once you calm down with your thinking, you have to relax with your thinking first, though. You've got to calm down with it before you start being able to follow it. You can't follow your... I don't think I can't follow my thought wherever it goes if I'm tense and agitated. But if I get calm and relaxed with it, then I can start becoming more intimate. And one way to become more intimate is to look at it, to clearly observe, and then see if I can clearly observe without grasping.

[64:45]

But actually, in order to get intimate with it, I kind of need to grasp a little bit. And one way I'm going to grasp this thought... It's kind of a trade-off. I'm going to start grasping a little bit. I'm going to try to grasp this thought in terms of... Before the thought arises, not yet arisen, on the about to arise, fully arisen, and perished. And someone suggested that for her, it seems like she feels, and also she noticed other people feel, that if you're aware of a thought, most people can be somewhat aware of their thoughts, so now when you're aware of your thought, you have turned the light around, and you've shined it back, and you're looking at a thought, and you might be able to see that it ended. And after it ended, well, you can contemplate that it's ended.

[65:48]

Just like if you saw someone die, you can see, oh, they're alive, and now they've died. And then... But that's something you actually can contemplate, this like deceased quality, perished quality. And then after the perished thing, you look at something that's not even perishing anymore. It goes one step beyond perished. So you have a thought that's perished, and you go one step beyond a thought that's perished, and now you have a thought that hasn't even arisen. So that may be a way for you to back your way into the beginning of the process that someone suggested. So then you... Because people have trouble contemplating something that's perished, but you can contemplate something that's perished. Because although it's perished, in Buddhism, perished impermanence does not equal annihilated.

[66:54]

So when a person perishes, they're not annihilated, because you can actually palpably experience their perished thing. It's a strong, it's like perished. It's like this is a very powerful thing, this perished thing. But then that goes, and then there's like, you don't have a new person yet, but that you can contemplate too. This is that, this is the mind that's there, in a way, in an un-arisen way. The mind that's un-arisen. You're actually looking at the mind that's un-arisen. And yet, this un-arisen mind seems to be connected to the about-to-arising mind. And then you can, maybe you can catch from the no-mind that you're looking at, the about-to-arise mind. And then the arisen mind. This is very intimate, right?

[68:00]

You've got to be very relaxed and calm in order to tolerate this intensity of your mind, which includes the un-arisen quality, the about-to-arise quality, the fully-arisen quality, and the deceased quality. Now, if anybody among us is calm enough to do this meditation, great. If they do the meditation, wow. And then, if you can do this meditation for a while and become familiar with this amazing intimacy, actually, intimacy with, again, excuse me for saying so, the illusion of birth and death, the illusion of thoughts arising and ceasing. It's an illusion. But it's an illusion which we live on. It's the root of our life of delusion. And the root of the life of delusion

[69:03]

is right there in those first two phases. The root of delusion is a misunderstanding of the un-arisen state. We misunderstand it. We think the un-arisen state of our mind, the un-arisen, the nirvanic state of our mind, we think it's non-existent. We think it's not there. Well, I don't see anything. All I see is the floor. Can you see the un-arisen quality of the thought of the floor? Well, no, I mean, it's not there. How can I meditate on it? Well, sorry, calm down. So then, you know, just go back to the calming for a couple more minutes, weeks, years, until you're so calm that you're not only calm but you can be awake. And then you can, like, watch your thinking again, watch your thinking again, and maybe someday you'll see

[70:05]

that that thinking which you're aware of, that just before the thinking was there, there was about to think. You see it, and you can contemplate it, and then you see that there's a mind that's un-arisen, and that the un-arisen mind must be there before the about to arise mind can come up. And if you look at those two, you see the un-arisen mind, which, if you think that that's nothing, that's delusion. And thinking that the un-arisen mind is delusion is the root of delusion. Did I say thinking that the un-arisen mind is non-existent is delusion? That's the root of delusion? That's right. So that's what we think.

[71:07]

We think something that's un-arisen doesn't exist, so we think actually nirvana doesn't exist. And then the about to arise, to think that the about to arise, okay, to think that it arises, that's also the next step in the development of our life of delusion. If you can catch those first two, and just check out whether actually this un-arisen mind, just check out to see has this thing perished? Does it perish? Does it not perish? You know it doesn't arise because that's what it is, it's not arisen. But does it perish or not perish? And if you can then take the one that you think is arising and ask whether it's arisen or not, you do that with those two, you will realize emptiness of mind, and you will enter the Samadhi. If you want to be a Bodhisattva, if you're a Bodhisattva, you then will enter the Samadhi,

[72:09]

this amazing Samadhi, which you need. You Bodhisattvas need this Samadhi, and this is how you get in. But once again I warn me and you that we must be very calm before we start this meditation, and then we need to spend quite a while getting comfortable with this intimate, this intense intimacy with the thought, before we then analyze whether it actually exists. So if we can become at ease and settled and calm, then with this observing even more intimately how our thoughts are arising and ceasing, how they appear to arise and cease, if we can be intimate and calm with that, then, based on that, we can then take the next step and analyze. So it's like, first is the yoga of calming down with the thought, and that means, you know,

[73:10]

that includes thoughts of breath, thoughts of body, thoughts of sound, thoughts of emotion, thoughts of attitude, thoughts of judgment, thoughts of praise and blame, all thoughts. Calm down with them all, relax with them all, give up discursive activity around them, and so on, and then move to more intimacy with them. That further intimacy is, what is it? It's empirical, okay? The calming down, it's empirical in the sense that you're calming with some empirical thing. You're calming with whatever comes to you empirically. You relax with it. Then you look at and observe empirically what it is. You watch the life cycle of this empirical phenomenon called mind,

[74:13]

you watch how it arises and ceases, and you even watch this wonderful empirical phase of not-yet-arisen, and the empirical phase of perished. These are empirical, contemplatable phenomena, or aspects of phenomena. And then you go from an empirical observation to the last phase, which is a philosophical analysis. And, like I say, when you tell bodhisattvas about this, they say, yep, I'm signing up for this, and although I realize that it may be a while before I get beyond just calming down with what's presented to me, but if I can, after that, I'm going to do this great practice of learning more thoroughly how to follow my thoughts, and when I can fully follow my thoughts and stay awake with that, then I'm going to look and see what they actually are, and I'm going to ask them questions, and I'm going to find out, I'm going to find out the root source of delusion,

[75:15]

because people need me to do this. I'm going to do it. I mean, of course, I'm going to do it means I'm going to give my life over to the Buddhas and bodhisattvas and all beings, and they're going to help me do this. But it may be very slow, and so I think, realistically speaking, maybe nobody, including me, is going to really be able to get to the phase of philosophically analyzing these thoughts in this session, or this practice period. But maybe some people can start exploring the intimate relationship, the intensified intimacy with the thought process during this session, and if not, just keep working beyond. But maybe now you understand what needs to be done, even though it may be a little bit too advanced. But I wanted you to know about this, so we realize some of the work that is ahead of us as bodhisattvas,

[76:18]

and of course we're patient with not getting there very fast, and also we're happy that we don't have to go there now, that we can just relax and do, you know, the groundwork of tranquility, which is very important, and also very helpful to everybody else, if we would do that. We're already, you know, bringing benefit to all beings by that kind of practice. So I would welcome, you know, individual questions. In Doksan you can talk about how to do this practice, and also in this group you can bring it up too. So we can go a little deeper into studying this, at least a little bit deeper, but again, keep your feet in the ground, okay?

[77:20]

Keep your feet in the mud of your experience. Don't get too excited about this realizing emptiness of thought, and penetrating the root of delusion, which you must do as soon as possible. Just one more question there. Yes? In these four stages of the arising of the illusion of thought, are those stages connected, or is that also an illusion? The connection between them, is that an illusion? Yes, the whole process is an illusion. But that's why we have to study this illusion, in order to penetrate to its root. Really, ultimately, everything is peaceful and not arising. Nothing is happening. And again, that doesn't get converted into there is nothing.

[78:23]

Just that what really is, it isn't really into the arising and ceasing. The arising and ceasing thing is something that we've made up. It's very convenient for us in a lot of ways, but it's an illusion. Really, there's just like great peace and non-arising. And Bodhisattvas need to understand this in order to save beings who are wracked with misery in the world of arising and ceasing, which they do not pay attention to, have not studied, and are totally hooked by and in agony about, as you know. So this is a proposal about how to help people who are in the world of arising and ceasing, by realizing the illusory quality of that. But it isn't that then we don't talk about it all the time and watch the arising and ceasing very carefully. We're like totally into studying delusion. It isn't like, oh, it's delusion, I'm not going to study it. No, Buddhas are those who study and understand delusion. They aren't those who talk about enlightenment all the time.

[79:25]

Excuse me for talking about enlightenment, but see, I'm not a Buddha. But when I'm talking about delusion, I'm doing Buddha's work. And when you study delusion, you're doing Buddha's work. Of course, you won't grasp delusion, right? But if you do, you confess it, and that's Buddha's work. So we all have some delusions to watch. I hope you can find some delusions. And then we can clearly observe them and understand reality. May our intention...

[80:06]

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