Can the people in the back of the room hear me? Can the people in the middle of the room hear me? No? The back's okay, but the middle have trouble hearing? Pardon? It's not very clear. It's not very clear. Not now either? It's clearer now? Did you make some adjustment? How's this now? Is this good? We have the words, as all things are Buddhadharma, or we also could say, it actually says, as all dharmas are Buddhadharmas, or as all dharmas are Buddhadharma.

[01:25]

the word dharma by itself could mean the truth or the teaching and also can mean phenomenal elements of experience. When you say all dharmas or myriad dharmas, then it sounds like we're speaking of particular elements of experience, particular experiences. And then when we say Buddha Dharma, it sounds like we're talking about the teaching of the Buddha. So when all things or all experiences are Buddha Dharma, when all things are illuminated, by the teachings of the Buddha, or when all things are shown to be the teaching of the Buddha, then there are delusion, enlightenment, practice, birth, death, sentient beings and Buddhas

[03:00]

The list could go on indefinitely. But in this text there are seven items mentioned. Now we can hear the wind blowing. And we just recited a vow to hear the true Dharma.

[04:20]

The person who wrote the vow said that we vow from this life on through our countless lives to hear the true Dharma. The same person wrote when all dharmas are buddha dharma. If there is a vow in my heart or your heart to hear the true Dharma, do I mean to hear it someday? Or do I mean that I want to hear it every moment? It seems to me that awakened beings are listening to the true Dharma every moment.

[05:58]

Or that listening to the true Dharma, hearing the true Dharma in this moment is being awake, is an awakened being, is the awakened way to be. And I can ask myself and you, can you hear the true Dharma now? And it's a rhetorical question, in a sense. I'm asking us to always wonder, always wonder, am I hearing the true Dharma now? How is the true Dharma being heard now?

[07:08]

When all Dharmas are Buddha Dharmas, I think is being in the mode of listening for the true Dharma, moment by moment. For each Dharma, for each experience, how is each experience the Buddha Dharma? And I don't mean Buddhadharma like the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha in any sectarian way.

[08:23]

It would be how, this would be how is the teaching of any spiritual being which means how is the life of any being, of spiritual life, and how is that being the universe, realized through their life. How can I hear the true Dharma upon meeting any being of any religion or any non-religion?

[09:34]

How are all beings, all things, Buddhadharma? All things, everybody, the truth of awakening. The Buddha, of course, taught non-violence, was very rigorous and emphatic about being non-violent.

[10:41]

So how could we say or consider that when violence manifests that we would look to hear the true Dharma when violence appears? But it seems to me that when violence appears, when cruelty appears before us, that the vow is, at that moment, to hear the true Dharma. And that upon hearing the true Dharma, we will be able to take care of the true Dharma at the very moment that violence and cruelty are appearing, we will be able to hear the true Dharma, take care of the true Dharma, and then in doing so, right there at that moment when there's violence, the Great Earth and all living beings together will attain the Buddha Way.

[12:14]

that we will realize the peace and non-violence of the Buddha way simultaneously with the appearance of violence and cruelty. But it seems to me that if I can't hear the true Dharma when I see violence and cruelty, that I'll see his violence and cruelty and I will not see the way of peace and harmony simultaneous with it. As all dharmas are buddha-dharmas, there is delusion and enlightenment.

[13:56]

When there is delusion, there can be violence and cruelty, disharmony, selfishness, and so on. And there can also be enlightenment at the same moment. At the beginning of this retreat, at the beginning of each day, at the beginning of each moment We have to see and say what we really want.

[15:01]

Do we really want to hear the Dharma, the true Dharma? so that in hearing it we will be able to take care of it in this world and thereby, together with all beings, realize the Buddha way. Do you see that you want that? Do you see what you want? And can you say what you want? Can you remember to look, moment by moment, to see what you really want? To see what you want and to see what you really want. And then to say it.

[16:21]

We just read what an ancient Zen teacher really wanted. And he said it. So now we can read it. Is what you want the same as what he wants? Similar to what he wants? Different from what he wants? It can be different. What is it? What do you really want? The disciple of Buddha who wrote this Genjo Koan sometimes spoke of grandmother mind or grandmotherly mind.

[17:56]

It refers to the mind which is kind of like a grandmother's mind who always naturally thinks about the welfare of her grandchildren. Grandmother mind or grandmotherly mind. It refers to the mind which is kind of like a grandmother's mind who always naturally thinks about the welfare of her grandchildren. She doesn't have to work at it. She doesn't have to remind herself to care about them. or to care about him or her.

[19:16]

It just comes naturally that she would wonder if they're well and want them to be well. And not just some of the time, but want them to be well all the time and think about them all the time. is there a mind that feels the same way about the true Dharma, that naturally wants to care for it moment by moment? And I say naturally, but in a way it isn't natural for us to constantly think about caring for the true Dharma.

[20:19]

It isn't necessarily natural for us to want to dedicate every action, each moment, the action of each moment, to dedicate that to awakening, to peace and harmony. But the grandmother mind of this tradition is exactly that. It is to make our present activity, it is to make our present activity the true Dharma. It is dedicating our present activity to the Buddha way. Scratching your head, reaching for your pencil, blinking, playing with your lip, whatever your physical, vocal, and mental activity

[21:41]

And there is always, in each moment of experience, there is an activity, a karma, an intention. But is that activity donated, given, to the welfare of this world. The grandmother mind does that. All dharmas, all things, as Buddhadharma, all things illuminated by Buddha Dharma all things for the sake of Buddha Dharma.

[22:49]

Everything, every action for the sake of Buddha Dharma. Everything, every experience received and experienced for the sake of Buddha Dharma. This is the first sentence of the text. In the talk last night I mentioned about settling the self, on the self.

[24:26]

and then learning the self. Applying that to what I'm saying now, settling the self in the self, is to be in this moment, is to be present here, Experiencing this moment. Period. Experiencing sitting here plus nothing. And then, if you're here, if you've arrived at your place where you are, then learn or study this place, this way that you are.

[25:46]

Look to see what action is here. and look to see if there is the wish, if there is the wish, the vow that this be for the sake of the Buddha way. The content of the meditation once settled, this is the content of the meditation, or the first aspect of the content of the meditation, is to look at what you want, at what you intend, at what you're doing,

[26:52]

to learn what that is. At the beginning, when you look under this auspices, looking at what you're up to right now, there will be delusion, enlightenment, practice, birth, death, sentient beings and Buddhas. and anything else that could ever happen could be there.

[28:02]

That's the beginning. When you do learn, when you do study and learn what's happening, when you do look to see what your intention is, what your wish is, as you study it more and more thoroughly all the way to the end, you will find that all these things that are Buddha Dharma also are without an abiding self. And then you won't find anything. That will be the next phase of your learning. Once you find, once you look at what's happening right now in a subtle way and inquire into it and learn about it you will find that it has no self and you will not be able to find anything there.

[29:26]

And then you will move on to the next phase of the Buddhadharma, of the Buddha way, which is fundamentally leaping. So first, subtle. Then look to see what's there. And study it until you realize it's selflessness. and then realize the Buddha way, which is basically leaping. This is the first three sentences of the text. This is the content of the meditation. It's the content of the meditation which is available where you are right now.

[30:27]

So first of all you have to arrive where you are and then once you've arrived you will find something happening. And in what's happening there is an intention which is the activity of the moment. And then let's look at that intention. Let's study that intention, let's learn about that intention. And we'll study it until we find out that it can never be found. Because that intention is actually your relationship with the entire universe. The intention which lives in your heart and mind right now is your relationship with the entire universe.

[31:37]

The entire universe gives you your intention. And your intention is your generous relationship, your mutual generous relationship with the entire universe. And this cannot be found and therein nothing can be found. And realizing where you are, what you want, what your intention is, and realizing what it is, you realize the Buddha way, which is basically leaping in peace and harmony with all beings. Again, this is the first three sentences, this is the content, of the meditation which realizes the Buddha way.

[32:39]

Is there anything you want to tell me? Do you have any feedback for me? I don't get it. Your feedback is you don't get it? Don't quite understand what you're saying. Linda doesn't quite understand what I'm saying. When you said that to me, What was your intention? Did you see an intention when you told me that you didn't understand quite what I was saying? Yeah, maybe you were to, you know, talk a bit more about it. Maybe your intention was you wanted me to talk a bit more about it? Yeah. Could you hear that? So then, In her intention, or in her wish, that I would talk a bit much more about it,

[34:22]

Was that, is that intention for the sake of peace and harmony? Yeah. It is? Yeah. You want it to be so? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's what I'm talking about, that. Do you see that? Do you understand that now? Mm-hmm. See how that is? That you look, I ask you, or you ask yourself, and you look into the question you ask me to see the quality of the motivation. And in this case you found that you actually did want not only to learn more about what I was saying, but to learn more about what I was saying in order to realize peace and harmony in this world. What's leaping?

[35:46]

It's a foreign language from... Oh, leaping? Leaping is a foreign language, you know. Leaping is like this. That's leaping. That's basically what Buddha's way is. It's leaping. Understand now? actually that's a good question leaping is not really this kind of leaping is not from here to there it's not you can't get a hold of this leaping it's leaping clear of actually it says it's leaping clear of abundance and lack in the text did you read that So it's leaping clear also of here and there. It is actually, the Buddha way is actually how we are leaping free of here and there all the time.

[36:52]

It's our actual, it's our moment by moment freedom. So it isn't that settling in the self and the self and studying and learning about the self, including all our motivations, that that causes leaping. It's totally part of leaping. But it isn't that it causes the leaping, it isn't that it causes the Buddha way, it's more that it allows us to realize the leaping that's already going on. The leaping, our life is leaping, and leaping is our life.

[37:57]

The Buddha way is our life, our life is the Buddha way. So the meditation is an initiation into the Buddha way, which is already going on with what you might call the deluded way. The deluded way is easy for us to see. Matter of fact, our delusions are basically what we see. What we see is delusion. So how can we enter into enlightenment? By finding our place and looking at what our activity is, moment by moment. Does that give you some help?

[38:59]

Anything else? And others wish to express? Yes? Could you say more about the looking? Say more about looking? Well, the first looking, I guess, is a looking of, like, looking at your seat, to find your seat, and then you sit down and And then you look, for example, you look to see if you're, you know, what your experience is. And a moment ago I heard what sounded like some kind of a saw, like a mechanical power saw. And anyway, first of all you look to see where you are, you return to the place you are. And then you Once you arrive at the place you are, then you look to see what is your activity.

[40:06]

You look inwardly to see what you want, what your intention is. Can you see an intention right now? He said he could not see an intention right now. How about now? Can you see an intention now? How about now? Yes, sort of. Yes, sort of? What did you see? Just sort of kindness, warmth. You saw the intention of kindness and warmth? And in that intention of kindness and warmth, do you see anything more yet?

[41:22]

Pardon? You saw something but you don't know how to put it in words? Pardon? You couldn't really say you saw something. I feel an intention to help you see what your intentions are.

[42:57]

And I also feel an intention not to do too much work for you or for others. But I feel okay about telling you that there is a kind of intention in me to help you see your own. And as I said before, there's also an intention in me not to rob you of the exploration in your own consciousness of your own intention. But even though I did not want to do your work for you, I did show you an example of what it was like when I looked in my awareness that arose in my conversation with you, and in my awareness which arose in and through my interaction with you, that was an intention which I saw.

[44:06]

And my intention was to help you become aware of yours. But not, again, do too much for you. Because if I do too much for you, then when I stop doing too much for you, you don't know what to do. But if I offer you not too much, then you can maybe see how to carry on the work yourself. Anybody following this? When you look at yourself, And say you see something that isn't an intention of peace and harmony. She said when you look at yourself and you see something that maybe isn't an intention of peace and harmony.

[45:10]

But you see some intention? You see some other intention? For example? Okay, so one might look inside and see that one wishes to... one wishes to feel peace and harmony and also one wishes to devote one's activity to realizing peace and harmony but one does not... one wishes to be that way but one sees that one is not actually Or one is simultaneously also not intending to work for peace and harmony. You have some other motivation simultaneous with it. Or maybe you just wish for peace and harmony but you don't think that's what?

[46:17]

Did I lose you? Did you lose me? Well, I'm just thinking that if I look at myself, I might not see peace and harmony, and my intention might be, I might want it, but I might be a long way from it, or something like that. Do you say if you look inside, you might not see peace and harmony, but you might want peace and harmony at the same time you don't see it? You might see disharmony and war inside, And even while there's a feeling of disharmony and war inside, there's also a wish for peace and harmony simultaneous. So that might be an inner reflection of the way things are outwardly sometimes, is that you look at some disharmonious situation, you see it among people or animals and plants,

[47:24]

And you wish that there was peace and harmony while you're seeing the lack of it. You can see that outside and inside. So when you see that, what happens next after that? So when you see that, what happens next after that? Well, then you look and see what happens next after that. I don't say what will happen next, but a key factor is that This pattern which you just described, both which you can see outwardly and inwardly, but particularly inwardly, this pattern of consciousness has consequence. This pattern of consciousness is the evolutionary pattern of existence. It's karma.

[48:27]

This pattern of relationships you described, of where you see peace and harmony or lack of it, and you see wishes for it or against it, that pattern of relationship is your intention. And that has consequence. And watching this is watching the evolutionary thread of the world. Yes? Pardon? She says, is there always intention? In every moment of cognition there is intention. Could everybody hear that? Now I say that

[49:30]

And I don't know exactly what authority there is to say that, but it is a very clear message from the founder of the tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha, and pretty much straight down to the present, namely right here in this room, that every cognition, which means every conscious experience, or every experience of consciousness, has intention. And intention is the definition of activity or karma. And it has consequence. And, should I call you now or later? What's your name? Ra's. We have two Ra's? Okay. Could you wait just a moment? So I just want to say that every intention, again according to the founder, Shakyamuni Buddha, every intention which comes with every cognition, with every consciousness, has consequence.

[50:49]

Generally speaking, If you're not looking inwardly, if one is not meditating on what one's intention is, the consequence of the intention tends to be of a negative evolutionary quality. When we pay attention to what we're doing, and what we're doing is what we're intending, basically, the type of activity which is intentional activity, if you pay attention to the activity, the consequence has positive evolutionary vector or path. There will be consequences. Every moment of cognition has consequence. Always has been, always will, always has consequence.

[51:59]

But unattended intentions or, yeah, unintended intentions tend to have negative consequence and attended intentions. They don't always have positive consequence but they contribute to a positive evolutionary tendency. I was going to ask you before you said that, I was going to ask you where awareness came from. You were going to ask me what? You're asking me, is there such thing as bare awareness in relationship to this? Yeah. So practicing bare awareness of intention would be appropriate. Intention is not bare awareness.

[53:00]

Intention is the pattern of the consciousness But actually, every moment of consciousness has available bare awareness. But without training in bare awareness, sometimes it doesn't have much strength. So, for example, you could have a moment of cognition and the pattern of awareness of a moment of cognition, like right now you could have that, maybe Raz has it, which has the intention to develop bare awareness and once that bare awareness is developed to apply that to the intention, to ongoing intentions. Bare awareness is a type of attention which can be used to study intention.

[54:07]

And there could be the intention to develop that type of awareness even when you don't have it yet. Like Alison was saying, you could look and see, I don't have a peaceful mind, but I have the intention in an unpeaceful mind to have a peaceful mind. But I can see this is not a peaceful mind, but it is a peaceful mind which has the element of hoping for a peaceful mind. And you could have a state of consciousness where you don't feel that you have bare awareness, but you could wish to have bare awareness, and that would be the intention of the moment, which you might not be aware of yet. So someone could tell me that they wish to develop bare awareness so that they could apply it to intention, and I could ask them if they're aware of the intention at the moment, and they might say, no, I don't see the intention. And they might say, oh, okay, I don't want to do your work for you, and point out to you that you have the intention there, to develop bare awareness.

[55:12]

So bare awareness is basically the type of awareness that you would initially use to study your intention. Namely, just be aware of what your intention is without any further... without contributing anything to the pattern of relationship which you're observing. Let's see, I see. Three. One, two, three. Yes. Your name? No, no. Your name? Steve. Steve, and then Michael, and then... What? Oscar. Oscar? Pascal. Pascal, oh yeah, Pascal. Hi, Pascal. So, let's see once again. Michael? No. Steve and then Michael, yes. Steve? Steve? Is there any intention or cognition in enlightenment?

[56:20]

You said, is there any intention in enlightenment, and then what did you say? Is there any intention or cognition in the state of enlightenment? Or is enlightenment beyond intention and cognition? It seems to me... that within enlightened cognition there is intention. Still. But then sometimes people say, well, but enlightened cognition doesn't have karma. But for right now I would just say that my understanding would be that in awakened cognition, enlightened cognition, which still have intention, And the intention would be, the intention that all beings would open to Buddha's wisdom. The intention that Buddha's wisdom would be demonstrated to all beings, that all beings would awaken to Buddha's wisdom, and that all beings would enter and realize Buddha's wisdom.

[57:37]

That that intention that pattern of relationship would arise with an enlightened cognition. In other words, enlightened cognition also comes with a pattern of relation, just like unenlightened cognitions do. But the pattern of relationship in the enlightened cognition is compassion. And again, that cognition includes from the start, by its nature, it includes the awareness that this pattern of relationship is totally undraskable and that none of the elements in the pattern of relationship have any self. So it is an awareness of the selflessness of all things and yet it still has a pattern of wishing that everyone would awaken to this cognition. So I would say that there's still a pattern, but it's a pattern which, as a whole and all the elements composing it, are totally ungraspable and lack inherent existence.

[58:53]

Michael? I didn't understand the difference between awareness and bad awareness. You know, in a way, our basic cognition is actually bare awareness. Bare awareness means basically that you look at something like, you look at my face, and in looking at my face, all there is, is my face. Or you look at a feeling, and in the feeling there's just a feeling, and you're aware of the feeling just enough to be aware of it. But that's basically what cognition is like. Cognition is basically just clarity and knowing. That's actually the way our moment-by-moment cognition is. However, arising with that moment-by-moment cognition is the consequences of past patterns of relationship or past intentions, which as we read here, you know, it says, I vow from this life on throughout countless lives to hear the true Dharma.

[60:07]

But then the next paragraph says, however, or although our past evil karma has greatly accumulated, indeed being the cause and conditions of obstacles in practicing the way, because of past intentions which weren't attended to carefully, the consequences of past intentions, past karma, is that there's obscuration even of our basic awareness. So our basic awareness is really clear But because of past intentions that weren't attended to by that basic awareness, basic awareness, basic cognition can attend to intentions. But if it doesn't attend to the intentions, if it doesn't study the intentions, the effect of not studying creates obscurations within this basic cognition. And then it's hard, and then we have to train to get back to what's called bare awareness.

[61:12]

And we have trouble getting there because of the karmic obstructions. However, if we have trouble getting there, we also hear the teaching that our trouble getting there is, to a great extent, karmic obstructions. So then we can notice the karmic obstructions. Even though we are obstructed, we sometimes can be aware we're obstructed. Then by confessing and repenting your obstructions, the obstructions start to clear, and you can start practicing studying your karma. But there's a certain phase at which you can't study your karma. So that's why we first say, settle the self on the self, because it's hard to study the self if you're not settled on the self. But there may be karmic obstructions to even settle it. And then once you're settled, you may start to notice that you see what your karmic obstructions are, see what your karmic obstructions to learning about yourself are.

[62:20]

But again, seeing what they are, seeing that you have them, is the beginning of them clearing. Once they're clear, then you can look actually straight ahead at your moment-by-moment intentions. So there's obstruction to doing the meditation, and then even when you're willing to do it, there's obstruction in being able to see what you're trying to look at. But by noticing these different types of obstruction, the door starts to open so that you can actually look at what you're up to. We are up to something all the time. We're never not up to something. We're never not active. We never don't have an intention because we never don't have a relationship with the universe. We always have a relationship with the universe, and our relationship with the universe is our intention. And if we study our intention,

[63:21]

our relationship with the universe will be transformed. And the universe's relationship with us will be transformed. So the content of the meditation and the content of yourself is to study your relationship with the universe and the universe's relationship with you. And the way that manifests most easily, accessible way that it manifests, is as your intention. Your moment-by-moment cognitive activity is the pattern of your relationship with the world and the pattern of the world's relationship with you. As you study your relationship with the world, as you learn about it, it's transformed through that study. If you don't study it, it's also transformed through not studying it. If you don't study your relationship with the world, your relationship with the world is transformed negatively.

[64:29]

If you do study your relationship with the world, if you do learn your relationship with the world, your relationship with the world is transformed positively. The more you study your relationship with the world, the more you realize that your relationship with the world is leaping. and the world's relationship with you is leaping, the less you study your relationship with the world and the world's relationship with you, the less you study it, the more you think that your relationship with the world is not leaping, is paralyzed, is suffocated, is strangled, is stuck, is imprisoned. It's not really, but it feels like that, and that counts. It's called pain. It's called fear. And then it's called violence and cruelty. Okay? Pascal? We were looking at the intention.

[65:34]

Yes. If you don't look or if you look, one is positive, one is negative, more or less. That's what you said. Then I was thinking about the grandmother. Yes. Is she not willing, I mean, she wants the well-being of her grandchildren just spontaneously, just normally, without looking at her intention or thinking. Exactly. So how does it fit? Well, even with the grandmother, now that we get into it, if a grandmother, although the grandmother wants, what do you call it, the welfare of her grandchildren, if she doesn't look at her intentions for the welfare of her grandchildren, Okay? Then she will start to see and realize that her relationship with her grandchildren is less and less good.

[66:37]

She won't be looking to see her intention, but she'll start to feel worse and worse about her relationship with her grandchildren if she doesn't look at her intention. Now you say her intention is good, but a good intention an excellent, a wonderful intention of wishing the welfare of these children, if unexamined, tends to cause negative evolution of her relationship. But if the grandmother examines her excellent, wonderful, loving intention towards your grandchildren, it has positive consequences. So even in this case now, if we use this, it's kind of a metaphor, but now if we examine the metaphor in an actual case of a grandmother, the evolutionary process would also apply to that. Negative intentions. If you look inside and find a negative intention, but if you learn about the negative intention,

[67:41]

the learning about a negative intention has positive evolutionary consequence. If you have a positive intention and did not examine it and did not learn about it, then not examining a positive intention has a negative evolutionary impact. The positive intention normally would have positive results, because that's the definition of a positive intention, is that it's beneficial. But if you don't examine it, the non-examination undermines the positive quality of that intention. Does that address your question, Pascoe? I don't see it. I don't see it. Well, and trust could be that you sort of... The way you explain it to me is a question of trusting, I think.

[68:45]

Yeah. And I'm saying there's two ways of trusting. One way to trust would be that you would trust to try to study yourself and see how it goes. Another way to trust you is to say, well, maybe I believe he's right, even though I don't get it. But I think a better way to trust would be to try it out yourself. Experiment. And again, also understand that the consequences are, well, what do I say? How can I say this without getting way into this issue? The fact that the goodness of an action depends on its consequence means that the goodness of the action is not in the action all by itself. because it depends on the future. So that's another aspect of intentions not being actually having an inherent self. A good intention does not have an independent self.

[69:47]

It depends on its consequences. And its consequences are not just in the next moment, but long-term, which means there's a long-term lack of self of this good action. But we can get into that more later. Was there some other? Yes? I don't know. Do we have three people in a row here? Yes? My question was building on the idea of intentionality, seeing all this as an emergent, something that has an emergent meaning, rather than an entity, the way that you're talking about it. It does connect very much to what the other's response is, but in looking inwardly, it also, there could be lots of intentions, lots of meanings to something I'm looking at, and it's staying with that, so it kind of emerges, it moves, it's not static. So she's saying that as she examines intention she feels that it has an emergent meaning, not a static meaning.

[71:00]

I would say that it has both static and emergent. And static is not totally useless because static sometimes helps you find it. If you look inwardly, a lot of people when they start looking for intentions Actually, maybe they're gifted to see the emergent side, which is hard to find when you first look. Static or chunky intentions are easier to find. But they're not really static and really chunky. It's just that by giving you sort of an address or a place to get a hold of them, you can start with the static. As you examine the static, you find more the emergent or the dynamic. And then you realize, in some sense, you might think, well, the dynamic or the emergent is more real than the static. But as you study the, what do you call it, the dynamic or the emergent, you realize that by their very nature, they're not actually more real, that the lack of more real also applies to them.

[72:09]

More real is a conceptualization about static and emergent. Does that make sense? So we don't want to make, we don't want to conceptualize that which has caused us to see that we're emerging from or leaping from our conceptions. But it's sort of slippery. Slippery, yeah. Slippery or ungraspable, yes. And karma, generally speaking, the Buddha taught, karma matures on the side of the grasping. So when you do something good, skillful, which means has skillful consequence, or something unskillful has negative consequences, the demeritorious consequences or meritorious consequences mature on the side of the attachment. So when you first are involved, when you're involved in intentions, generally speaking, whether you notice them or not, we generally speaking have a kind of static, substantialistic attitude towards everything, including our intentions.

[73:19]

And so we think we can grasp our intentions and grasp the objects of our intentions and then the consequence of activity of our consciousness. matures on the side of the attachment. Where the attachment is, is where the results come. The more you realize how slippery intentions are, at the full realization of how ungraspable intentions are, they don't really have, what do you call it, the consequences do not mature on the side of attachment because there's no point of attachment anymore. So I would say that the Buddha's intention has consequence, but the enlightened intention has consequence, but the consequence doesn't mature at the point of attachment because there isn't a point of attachment. The consequences go all over the universe because the intention is the intention of the universe realized. The meditation is on the intention of the universe realized.

[74:22]

And there's no place to grasp that. So you could say slippery if you want to, or ungraspable. Yes? Leaping. Leaping. Is leaping natural in this sense that... Could you hear her? Could you speak up even though they can hear you? In the sense that salmon will move and leap upstream to lay their eggs. So your question is, is leaping something in the sense of salmon leaping? sort of instinctual, natural, in that order of word?

[75:25]

Yeah. Leaping is natural. Leaping is our nature. Leaping is our Buddha nature. It's our nature to leap, and the actual leaping is the Buddha way. When you're actually leaping, that's the Buddha way. And we have the nature which we don't necessarily realize, to practice this way of liberation and peace. But it's just like salmon jumping. It's not necessarily like salmon being selfish, though. It's like salmon leaping in the midst of selfishness. How can salmon be selfish? Well, they're kind of focused on, you know, salmon reproduction. I see. That's it. And, you know, they're beautifully conditioned to be focused on salmon reproduction.

[76:28]

They don't care about, as far as I know, they don't care about human reproduction. And now they're focused on salmon reproduction, they're focused on this salmon reproducing. They're not focused on the other salmons reproducing. So they have all these wonderful mechanisms And they totally, they work wholeheartedly for this reproductive activity, but also they, all through the whole thing, they're leaping. And if they don't realize that they're leaping, they're suffering salmon. And we too have various agendas which we make a big effort for. Well, that's okay. That's part of the deal. That's the situation in which we practice leaping. But we have to study the process of where we're making this big effort in order to realize the leaping. Because we do have strong intentions. I mean, we have strong, I mean, we have full-fledged intentions every moment.

[77:33]

We're never without one. Sometimes they're not so clear, but when they're not clear, they're wholeheartedly not clear. And sometimes they're very clear. We always have an intention. There's always a pattern of our relationship at the moment. There's always a way we're being born together with the universe in the moment. And the way we're being born together with the universe, that pattern of the way we're born is our intention. Our consciousness is not exactly the pattern of our relationship. Although our consciousness arises together with the universe, it's more the clarity and awareness of the relationship. Our intention is actually the embodiment of our relationship with the universe. And studying that, leads to the realization that the whole process is leaping.

[78:36]

Not studying it, we miss the leaping. And then we see salmon leaping, but we don't see ourselves leaping. So then we use salmon leaping as an example of what it is like to practice Zen. So a Zen person is like a vigorously leaping salmon. What? Is that true? It is true, yes. It's true in the sense that we say that. We use the image of a vigorously jumping fish as an image of a Zen woman. You know, just jumping out of the water, wiggling in the air and splashing back in. No attainment, no attachment, just full expression, and then it's all gone. But do the salmon use Zen practitioners as an example of what it's like to be a salmon?

[79:38]

I don't know. But the leaping is there. It's the question of discovering it. And so this meditation is to discover that leaping. But if we don't look at what we're up to, The consequences of not looking at what we're up to is to create more obstructions to the leaping, more obstructions to seeing the Buddha way, which is actually what's going on here. But you have to look at what you're intending, otherwise obstructions will manifest. And probably there are already some obstructions. Let's see. Kamisha? Kamisha. So she's going to share an example of an intention to see if she is catching on.

[80:51]

Yes. It made me think of being at work actually and thinking my intention was to do a good job at work. And actually what happened was I would have been given guidance by the manager because of my assumed intention to do a good job of following through with whatever that manager had said. And then actually at the end of it, realising that what that manager had said meant that in the end I hadn't done a good job. I missed the last part. You said, let me just repeat what you said. You were looking at work and you assumed that you had the intention to do good work. And then something with the manager? So, say, it's generally like the manager would give direction.

[81:58]

And the manager gives you direction on how to do good work. Yes. So, and then I would follow through with that and then I would experience negative... Okay. As a result. So then reflecting on that helped me to realize that actually doing a good job wasn't my main intention, but actually my main intention was to please my manager. Okay, that's a very good example. So she assumed she had this intention of maybe doing a good job. A manager gives her instruction about how to do it, and then she thought she followed the manager's instruction, but there was negative consequences. But then she looked back and she saw that there was another intention there too, which was the intention to please the manager. But the intention to please the manager is not the same as the intention to do a task well.

[83:02]

So that's a very good example of looking more carefully. So again, many of you have made vows in the past to do good work in this world, and sometimes you've repeated those vows over and over. This morning we actually read a vow I vow with all beings or we vow with all beings to hear the true Dharma. That's a vow which when you say that vow you might look inside while you read that and see if inside you actually feel like there's an inner vow which agrees with what you're saying. So sometimes you can say, I want to do a good job and you look inside and you say, I want to do a good job, but actually what you're saying inside is, I want to please the person I'm talking to. And sometimes you might want to please the person you're talking to and do a good job. That's also possible. The key thing is that you check in the present.

[84:08]

Now the past ones are important to remember. It's important to remember that you made vows in the past. And sometimes you can remember. That's very useful. They have effect. But the most important thing is, among, you know, those are important, but the most important thing is what is the current intention? There is a current intention. That's the most important one to look at. Then be aware of how that relates to past intentions. Like, currently I want to intoxicate myself, and in the past I made a vow not to intoxicate myself. So then you can, then you have this dynamic between those two. which is actually, in some sense, a bigger picture of your intention. So part of your intention is, right now I want to intoxicate myself, and maybe I want to intoxicate others too, but I actually in the past vowed not to intoxicate myself or others, and now I see that my intention actually includes both of those intentions.

[85:13]

Because in my past intentions I can see them feeding into the present one. So the present one is not... It's different if you wish to intoxicate yourself and you have not in the past said you didn't want to, then it's different than if you in the past said you didn't want to and now you say you do want to. So your past also can be brought in to see the texture of your present intention. And then you also can remember that this isn't the end of the story. I will continue to watch now to see what the consequences are. Yes? I think that's why I've got problems with chanting this vow, because... You have problems with what? Chanting the vow that you've given us. Yes. Because I don't think I understand it yet. I don't know whether it is my intention. So it's like you're asking us to say something, Yes. Yes. So, what are you doing again? Helen?

[86:29]

So Helen's saying that when I gave you this piece of paper that has this vow written by an ancient Zen teacher, and I'm asking you to say this before you know what your vow is, or what your intention is. And so I realize that might be the case, that I'm asking you to read somebody else's vow before you know your own. I understand that. But I'm not asking you to adopt his vow before you know your own. I'm not asking that. Matter of fact, I'm happy to hear that when you read somebody else's, it helped you realize that you weren't sure what yours was. Because I want you to find out what yours is. I want you to see what your intention is, and I would like you to say it when you find it. And if it turns out to be different from what you're reading, you might say, I can't read this anymore. It's possible that you would find out, I found out that my intention is to not hear the true Dharma.

[87:38]

And therefore I don't even want to say anymore this ancient teacher's intention to hear the true Dharma. I do not want to hear the true Dharma. You might find that. It's possible. And in that case you might, I would hope, if you found that you did not want to hear the true Dharma, I would hope, I ask you, I say, please tell me that you don't want to. Because if you can see that you don't want to hear the true Dharma, and you can express that, if you can see that and be aware of that and express that, that will have positive consequences. The consequence of that will be that, you know, you will hear the true Dharma eventually. If you can become, you know, aware that you do not want to. I'm not necessarily asking for it done, but how are you doing? Well, I think you... By saying that the result would be that I don't want to hear that you're done, you've rather twisted it a bit, because what I'm saying is I don't think I yet understand this well.

[88:47]

Not about the true Dharma, but the complexities of it. And I don't know whether the complexities of it. I don't think I've come out by saying I don't want to hear the true Dharma. No, I didn't say that you would. I'm just saying that could even be the result of your inquiry. It could be. But I'm just saying that I kind of want you to know what this person is saying, okay? Because what he's saying is, number one, he's saying what he vows. He's talking about his vows. But then he's also saying that even when we have these good vows, if you found something that you really wanted in yourself, like he did, even so, there might be a hindrance to realizing the vow which you just made. That's part of what you're reading there. So this text helps us see, or could help us see, that if you had a positive intention,

[90:03]

a positive aspiration for... I would say this is a positive aspiration for the whole earth and all living beings to attain the Buddha way. From his perspective, attaining the Buddha way means peace and harmony among all beings. That's his aspiration, is to hear a teaching so that he will be able to work for the welfare of all beings. That's his intention. And then he's also saying, for your information, that Because of past times when he was not clear about his intention, when he was not studying his intention, karmic obstructions may have arisen, blocking the realization of this wonderful intention. So if we hear about somebody who has a good intention and that person is telling us that there may be obstructions to realizing this intention, There may be obstructions to being aware of the intention and realizing it. Then we might see that we are not aware of our intention yet, or we are aware of our intention, but we see obstructions to it.

[91:10]

And then he explains how to work with the obstructions. So when you read this, you may realize, first of all, I don't know what my intention is, so I'm saying, yeah, right, that's what we need to find out. You need to find out what your intention is, not just in the big scale of wanting welfare from the world, but in the moment-by-moment examples. When you want to have lunch, when there's a desire to have lunch or an intention to have lunch, Can you see that there's an intention to have lunch? When you see what's available for lunch and you intend to have certain things and not other things, can you see that intention? There is that intention. Or you don't want to have any lunch. There is that intention. Or you've had enough in lunch. You're done. You don't want to eat anymore. That's another intention. These are moment-by-moment intentions. And you're

[92:12]

you're wanting to have lunch at a certain point in time and wanting certain things for lunch, that is a focal point of your relationship with the universe. Your hunger is an example, your desire for certain foods is an example of your relationship with the universe. If you attend to this intention, the intention will evolve. In other words, it will become more and more illuminated. In other words, your intention will become more and more illuminated as to how it is your relationship with your world. Not looking into this murky realm of your mind, not looking there and facing what's going on there, tends to darken it And then the intention tends to degenerate so that you still want lunch as you used to, but you less and less see that your wishing to have lunch is a relational thing.

[93:26]

And in other words, you're driven to have lunch by your intention, but without any illumination of your intention. So asking you to chant this thing in the beginning is to draw your attention through somebody else's vows, through somebody else's intention, to draw your attention to your vow, to your intention. And it can be different. It doesn't have to be the same as his. That's fine. The question is, what is it? And not only what is it in general, but what is it right now? And in addition, I want your attention to come to look at what you're doing when you have lunch and brush your teeth, but I also want you to see is how does that relate to the sort of big vows in your life? In other words, are you eating lunch in relationship to all beings? Is what you're eating including your intention to bring peace and harmony in the world, is that

[94:35]

infused in your having lunch? Are you eating lunch for the welfare of all beings? If not, fine. What are you eating lunch for? So I want all of us to look at our moment-by-moment intentions. Are you eating lunch to curry favor with the kitchen staff? Are you eating lunch to gain weight or lose weight? What are you eating lunch for? That's I would like you to look and see because I believe, it is my opinion, that if people will look at their intentions while they're eating lunch and driving cars and going to movies and talking to their friends and changing diapers, if they will look at their intention the world will be transformed into the realization of peace and harmony. And if people do not look at their intentions, that won't just maintain the status quo.

[95:42]

That will generally lead the world towards more darkness, ignorance, and suffering. Yes? You can read the Bible, yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so she said she could read the vow because she had the intention to please me. She could not read the vow because she didn't want to please me. And she could not read the vow because, although she doesn't mind pleasing me, she doesn't want to be pushed around by her desire to please me. You know? The key thing for me is that you will look and see every time you read the vow what's your intention as you're reading the vow.

[96:43]

And if you didn't read the vow, that you look to see what intention is there when you're not reading the vow. So, again, when you have lunch, is your intention to have lunch to please me, to not please me, to please yourself, to please your friends? What is your intention when you have lunch besides, is there anything more than you just want to have lunch? And it could be. You could be actually in a condition, could be, that your mind is such that your intention to have lunch is just to have your intention, just the intention to have lunch and you have no other agenda whatsoever. It could be that way. However, my experience is, for myself and other people, that it takes quite a few years of training, of watching your intention to get to the place where when you're having lunch, you're just having lunch to have lunch. Most people have to watch themselves, watch their intention while they're going to lunch and eating lunch.

[97:50]

They have to watch very carefully what their moment-by-moment intention is in having lunch and notice that there's lots of other intentions and obscurations involved in having lunch where you can't really see what you're having lunch, what your motivation is. You have to do that for a long time until you get to the place of simplicity where you're actually like eating lunch because you're hungry, period. And then when you're not hungry anymore, you stop. And you're sleeping because you're tired. It usually takes quite a bit of study of your intention to get to that place where the story is that simple. But your stories become more and more simple the more you study your stories. And also your stories become more and more flexible and less sticky the more you study them. I don't know who is next. Yes? What's your name? Juliet?

[98:51]

Juliet Grace? Yes? Could you speak up, please? That's a good idea. She says, am I saying that the transformation is purely by understanding, not by changing them? Not entirely. For example, if you, for example, there's a teaching which is in the Dhammapada, which is something like, avoid all evil, practice all good, purify your mind. This is the teaching of all Buddhas. So avoid all evil sounds like, kind of like change from evil to give up evil.

[99:53]

And practice all good might seem like changing things. Okay? Avoid evil, practice good. So what I'm saying is, in fact, if you practice good, that does have consequences. And one of the proposed consequences of practicing good is that you will be better able to look at your intention. There's other positive consequences of practicing good. If you avoid evil, in order to avoid evil you have to pay attention to your intention to do evil. So avoiding evil doesn't mean that you eliminate evil. it means that you will learn to become aware of evil intentions, of unskillful intentions.

[100:58]

So basically the intention to change things, whether it's skillful or unskillful, the main thing is to understand it. But if you have an intention to change things in a negative, harmful way, that intention does not require any attention in order to operate. In other words, you can be unskillful blindfolded. You can drive a car unskillfully blindfolded. You don't have to pay attention to be unskillful. But to be skillful, you have to pay attention, generally. Now, it is possible occasionally, if you've been skillful for a long time, you can do some skills that you've learned without paying attention. But in order to develop those skills in the first place, you had to pay attention.

[102:04]

And then if you're doing something skillfully without attention, generally speaking, the inattention to your skillful activity has a negative evolutionary effect. But to do unskillful things with attention has a positive evolutionary effect. So one person could do something skillful without attention, and another person could do something unskillful with, and the former case would have a negative evolutionary effect, and the latter case would have a positive. Not necessarily towards more skillful karma, but could be that, but more importantly, definitely towards enlightenment. So the point of paying attention to the karma, avoiding evil and doing good, is to clarify the mind so that you can save all beings. The Mahayana version of this text is, avoid evil, practice good, and save all beings. But saving all beings comes with the clarification of mind, which comes from studying the intention around good and evil.

[103:06]

It's not really to eliminate evil and manifest good, because this good, which is the opposite of evil, that becomes enclosing and entrapping too, unless it's understood. But the nature of evil and the nature of good is ultimately ungraspable. Realizing that releases us. from the trap of good and evil and opens the path of leaping, leaping clear of good and evil. But through studying good and evil, which means studying the intention, skillful and unskillful intentions, studying these intentions opens the way of leaping free from karmic obstruction in the karmic world. So the main thing in the practice is understanding. But in order to understand, we have to pay attention to our skillful and unskillful intentions.

[104:10]

It's required. We can't skip over attention, which means we can't wake up unless we pay attention to our relationship with the world, which is our intention. which means, again, study the self. Yes, your name? Peter. Peter? Can I just take you back to the basics? You mentioned that between life and awareness, all awareness is attention attached to it. Yes, all awareness has intention. It's not so much that the intention is a bad thing, but not paying attention to intention tends to cause a degeneration in cognition.

[105:12]

I couldn't hear that. We're aware of many things. Yes. You can use examples of things I'm aware of at this moment. Try not to observe, try to focus on what you're saying. So I'm not looking at my intentions. I would recommend that while you're trying to pay attention to what I'm saying, I recommend that you look inwardly to see what your intention is while you're paying attention to what I'm saying. Just like right now I'm talking to you and I would simultaneously look inside myself to see what my intention is while I'm talking to you. It's possible. Do you say concentration problem? Yeah, it is. Or it's a meditation problem. So what I'm proposing is that we learn when we make hand gestures and when we speak to notice that in... to notice...

[106:24]

in the hand gesture or in the speech, what intention is, is in that speech. Because that speech, if it's... The evolutionary opportunity in speaking is to notice what the intention there is. If you speak, if you were to speak without an intention, that speech would have no relevance to realizing the Buddha way. So there are certain activities which do not have intention in them, and those activities are not important in terms of realizing peace and harmony. So I often use the example of when the doctor taps your knee with the hammer to test your reflexes, and then he taps it and nothing happens, and then he taps it and the knee kicks, the knee jerk reaction happens, we say. You follow that? That reaction is not an intentional reaction. The doctor tapping your knee is intentional, but the reflex is not intentional.

[107:28]

Salivation generally is not intentional action. So the intentional actions are the ones that are important to look at. And many of our, most of our speech and many of our physical motions have an intention in them to be observed and enjoyed and understood. And to speak without noticing the intention is a missed opportunity of learning about the self. If we do not study the intentions in these actions, when there are intentions in them, then we're not studying the self, and then we don't forget the self, and then we aren't awakened by all things. Then we remember the self and we hold on to the self. But the more you study your intention in your speech and physical motions, and also inwardly, in every moment there's an intention, the more you study that, the closer you get to the point of seeing the emptiness as the whole process and being enlightened by all things.

[108:36]

But it is a real art to actually Make the vow that every action you're going to do is going to be an opportunity to practice, that you're going to study every moment to find the action. Every moment of sitting, you're going to be tuned into this channel of your intention. It's there. Buddha is not watching it for you. Buddha is seeing, the enlightened cognition is seeing its relationship. Enlightened cognition is to be aware of your relationship to everybody's intention. But the Buddha doesn't do your work for you. You have to look at your intention. And if you don't, you're missing the opportunity to enter the Buddha way. You enter the Buddha way through being aware of what your action is right now. It's there. If you ignore it, karma keeps going.

[109:41]

And the ignorance keeps going. If you don't ignore it, the ignorance karma process starts to unravel. Okay? But it's not easy to learn this. I saw a hand back there of a woman, and your name is? Jill. Jill? Jill. If we're all so deluded, how can we trust our assessment of our attention? I do not recommend you trust your assessment of your intention. I do not recommend that. I recommend you study your intention and study the assessment. But the assessment, by the way, is actually part of the intention. Because your intention in a given moment of experience is the total pattern of your consciousness, including all judgments and assessments. So I'm not saying trust the intention, I'm saying if there seems to be an intention, like to do good work, and then there's the assessment of this is a pretty good intention, that's part of the pattern.

[111:00]

And then you said, and then what? Do it again. Then what? After that, then? Do it again. So it's just a reflection of who you are. Yes, it is a reflection of who you are. Who you are is the pattern of your relationships. That's all you are. So your intention is a cognitive representation of what you actually are. And what you actually are is not a fixed thing, but a pattern of relationships with the universe. And that's what your intention demonstrates. So you're actually studying that, when we say study the self, settle the self, then study or learn the self, and the key to learn the self is to tune in to your actual pattern of relationship, which is your intention.

[112:02]

And then you do that over and over every moment, and the more you do that, the more you realize who, and not even what you are, but who and how you come to be. Buddhism doesn't really say what you are. Buddhism says that you can't grasp what you are because you are not some fixed thing. You are your relationship with everyone. That's how we come to be, is we come to be through our relationship with everything. When you study your intention dash your karma, you're tuning into how you come to be. You come to be through your relationships. And the more you study that and the clearer it gets, the more you realize how you come to be, the more you forget yourself, and the more you realize how you come to be. And the more you realize how you come to be, the more you realize how everything

[113:06]

Everything gives you life. Everything realizes you. In other words, everything enlightens you. Because now you see how everything gives you life. But it requires millions and millions of moments of studying motivation. And there are billions and billions of moments which have motivation, so you can miss lots of them and still observe lots of them. During this retreat, every moment, and there are an incalculable number of moments during this retreat, every moment has a motivation. If you would spot, if you would notice a thousandth of the moments that happen, and notice a thousandth of the intentions which will arise, that would be a very intense and educational retreat for you.

[114:12]

You would learn a tremendous amount about yourself. And you would experience considerable liberation in the process. But it's hard to notice a thousandth even. And some people notice, you know, a trillionth. But even noticing a trillionth is a wondrous event. Like, you know, my grandson he came to visit me one time and at the monastery and not with his mom and he wanted to come but then after a couple days he really wanted his mom and he was crying and crying, I want my mommy, I want my mommy, I want my mommy. And then, I don't know, he kind of recovered from that. And then a few hours later he said, You remember earlier today when I was saying, I want my mommy? Wasn't that something?

[115:16]

Just some awareness there, you know, of himself. It's beautiful. But some people go through a day and they didn't once check or notice what their intention was. So it's kind of a, it's a pity. It's a pity not to notice, especially a whole day of not noticing what motivation there was, in a moment. Yes? Having made it out, to work for the freedom of all beings, it feels somehow even more uncomfortable to notice my own motivation because while there is an intention for the welfare of all beings, I also I find it quite easy to ignore my own very selfish motivations which parted a life up with that.

[116:23]

And so I just wanted to share that difficulty I have. Yeah, that's right. If you not only say, I would like to help you, if you not only say, I would like to help you to the utmost of my ability to someone, if you say that, and at the time of saying it you really mean it and feel it, and then later you do not want to help them very much at all, and you notice that, then that would be much more painful than if you hadn't previously said wholeheartedly that you wanted to help them, and probably felt really good when you said it. And now you don't want to help them much at all. And so that would be even more painful than just... Like there's some people right now who maybe some of you don't want to help. And if you haven't specifically thought of helping that person, it probably doesn't bother you that much. But if there's some people that you really sincerely do love and want to help and then now you don't want to, it does hurt.

[117:29]

And that hurt is necessary. That hurt is useful, it's beneficial. It helps you realize who you are. Yes, Kanisha? Kamesha. I just wanted to kind of extend my previous example because I don't think I highlighted my motivations in my discovery that actually my intention was to please my manager. And sort of thinking about that and extending it further, actually my intention to please my manager was motivated by my hope that I would give either a reason to come back to me and say, well, you did wrong, or you didn't do as well as you could do.

[118:35]

So just thinking of what was said previously, again, that leads into a selfish, motivational mind-pop, and kind of another intention for me to avoid criticism and ridiculing. To avoid you being criticized and ridiculed. Yes. So in the end, I opted out of my original decision to do a good job and put myself first by doing something that meant I was pleasing my manager in order to avoid the possibility that my manager would come back and criticize me. So that whole thing kind of came up because I was avoiding the potential pain that I'd make from my experience when my manager came back and said you can do this and you can do that. Very good. Very good. But the main fluency is the increased clarity of vision.

[119:49]

So if you looked at a positive motivation or you found even more details about how positive it was, the important point is not so much how positive it was or how negative your example became as you looked more carefully. but that you got to see more and more clearly the relationships, all the different relationships that were there that you didn't see at the beginning. That increased the vision of how it comes to be more accurately. And sometimes you can learn and improve your vision better on a negative example than on a positive one. The important thing is that the vision of the dependent core arising develops. That's what liberates, that vision, that learning, which finally leads to forgetting self, good and evil, and being enlightened by everything. Yes? It's sort of a practical question, really.

[120:51]

When you watch your intention and you notice that your intention is maybe not what you would like it to be, sort of what to do with it? I've got this idea that you can reset your intention and maybe... first of all study it, but then come back to it and say, well, I'd like to reset it almost, and see if you can feel that with your heart. Do you think that that's a good practice, to be studying and then resetting almost? She said, looking at an intention and then feeling that you don't like the intention very much. It's not what you'd like it to be. And then she says, what about resetting the intention? Well, in a way, when you observe an intention and it's not quite what you'd like it to be, and then you wish to reset it, that's a new intention. And new intention to reset an intention... often follows from noticing another intention, that you don't feel good about the setting of that intention.

[121:59]

So then the consequence of noticing that intention would be to reset it, which is good, but even better than that is the fact that you are looking at the first one, and if that's a consequence of noticing the first one, an intention to reset it arose, if you didn't notice the resetting intention, that in some sense would have a negative evolutionary effect if you would just as a consequence try to reset but not notice, oh, my intention changed. Now there's a new intention. That's more important in a way than the resetting, although the resetting is important. One of the first days of work at the monastery in California called Zen Mountain Center, Tassajara, the first or second day of work, anyway, one of the early days of work, in my first practice period there, I was sent with another man to repair some pipes.

[123:09]

The stream had overflown and it had broken the pipes bringing the water down from the spring in the mountains. And we repaired one of the breaks in the line. And then we moved up to repair the next break in the line. And as we were repairing the second break, I said to my partner, I said, let's go back and do the other one, do the last one again. And he knew what I meant. We had fixed it, but we really didn't fix it very well. And so we didn't discuss what we were doing, but we both knew we did it kind of like, let's just do this one so we can do the next one. We knew we had several to fix, so we just barely did it. But it wasn't really that good. And when we were doing the second one, we realized we didn't do a good job in the first one. So then as a result of that awareness, our intention got reset and we went back and did the other one over.

[124:16]

But the fact that we fixed the pipe well That's good. But the more important thing was that not only did we... The most important thing was that we noticed that we didn't do the first one the way either one of us wanted to do it. And that awareness is the awareness which I remember 39 years later. You know, the pipe's not there anymore. You know? Long since they've done a much better pipe system than what we fixed. But the attention to our intention I still remember and so does he probably. And also we didn't say anything to each other but later he said how important that was for him. Years later he said how important that was. So the key thing is that you're watching your intention. If you watch your intention Moment after moment, your intention will become the same intention.

[125:23]

I say, I predict, your intention will become the same intention as all enlightened cognitions. You'll have the same intention finally. And not only will you have it, but it will be basically permanent. In other words, you'll always be focusing on the welfare of all beings. as a result of many years of training yourself to look at what intention you've got, which occasionally might be, I actually want the welfare of all beings. You might have that thought. That might really be what you feel sometimes. You might sometimes see, oh, I'm connected to everybody. Everybody's helping me. This is great. This is what I want. This is what's happening. They're the same thing. It happens sometimes. And that's wonderful. Your mind's just like a Buddha's mind at that point, except you don't have as much study behind it.

[126:24]

So then the next moment, it could be like, well, actually, I changed my mind. Or rather, actually, my mind changed. And now I want the welfare of a subset of all business. I still want the welfare of somebody, it just isn't quite as many people as before. But again, if you notice that, and notice similar intentions of that variety, your mind will become the mind of the Buddha. And that's, I think, what the Buddha has told us, that the Buddha did that kind of practice herself. Before Buddhas were Buddhas, they were just like us. They would accept that. They were noticing that they were just like us. If we don't notice how we are, that's the difference between us... Well, actually, at some point, maybe Buddhas weren't even noticing.

[127:27]

But at some point, Buddhas started to notice their intention, and when they did, the process of awakening was initiated. I cannot believe, but it's getting very close to dinner, lunch, dinner, lunch. Yes, what's your name again? Rob. Rob? Yeah. Rob? We're talking about theory. The whole thing would be in here. Just wondering if you could say very briefly about, in very nuts and bolts terms, when we're sitting these 30-minute periods here, and also when we're walking. And when we're eating. After eating, yeah. But I think we're taking 30 minutes. Okay, fine. 30-minute periods, yes. For example, the practice of counting your breath. Yes. One to ten. Would you have, how that links in with the actual, what you talk about, watching intention, watching motivation?

[128:33]

Okay. You could run through that. Yeah. So, counting the breath, for most people who are counting their breath, counting the breath is, this is a good question, counting the breath is really more like settling the self on the self kind of practice. And when you feel settled, when you feel you're counting your breath, and you feel settled in that, so you're just really present with your breathing, and you're not distracted, and you really, you know, can feel your... in your breath, they're just a breath. In your posture, they're just a posture. When you feel really settled, then you can turn to look at what your motivation is while you're, for example, breathing. But if you're breathing and you're trying to attend to your breathing but you're not able to, you're wandering off other places, it's a little hard to look at what your intention is because you're wandering away from what's happening.

[129:34]

So the first part of the practice is the settling part. What I'm talking about, as I said before, is more the next step. So first you settle yourself on yourself. First you settle your breath on your breath. Then you learn about yourself or learn about your breath. Then you forget about your breath. Then you're awakened by all things. So study your breath means include study your intention in breathing. Study your intention in following your breath. Any questions about that? You look like you do. No? Is that clear? My experience of counting bread, being distracted and then coming back to breathing, I think they have to settle. But I still don't have to be sure of how to get the intention.

[130:43]

But isn't that putting something on top of that? any questions about that you look like you do no is that clear um my experience of counting where i get very distracted then about breathing and then i think being able to settle but i'm still not have to be sure How, look at the intention. Okay, to go and have lunch. But isn't that putting something on top of that? I have the intention of going to have, wanting to go and have lunch. The practice of following the breath could be used both as a settling practice and as a self-study practice. You could use it both ways. But also you could use it just as a settling practice.

[131:47]

Once you're settled, actually, you don't have to do settling practice anymore. Settling practice is a warm-up. which can come to fruit as tranquility. Once you're tranquil, once you're concentrated, you don't have to do concentration practice anymore. Then you can study yourself. And you can study yourself in many ways, but the way I'm suggesting is study what your intention is. Because your intention actually is the pattern of your consciousness. And the pattern of your consciousness is a pattern of your relationship, and is a pattern of your relationship with the world. So studying your intention is a way to realize selflessness, to realize that there's no substantial self. So, tranquility practice can be practiced until it comes to realize, you train yourself until you realize tranquility.

[132:51]

And so for most people who are following their breathing, they're following it as a tranquility practice. They're trying to calm down, just to attain calm, concentrated, flexible, buoyant, joyful, clear state of consciousness. Okay? Then when you feel fairly settled in that way and clear and relaxed and present, You can just be in that state. And then you can start studying. But if you're agitated and feeling tense and distracted and you try to study, it's not so easy. So it's better to, first of all, settle. And one of the ways to settle is to follow your breathing or count your breathing. But also you can just be aware of your posture. Or you can also meditate on your feelings. But breath is a common meditation technique. Some people meditate on the image of the Buddha. Some people meditate on a blue circle. There's lots of things to focus on.

[133:53]

Once you're concentrated, once you're in a state of concentration, of tranquility, which again means calm and buoyant and awake, not just calm and sleepy, but calm and awake. Once you're in that state, you can let go of it following the breathing process for a while. And then in that state of concentration, if you are concentrating, you can look moment after moment at your intention. And then if you start feeling agitated again, Give up the study and go back to the settling. So settle the self on the self. And when you're settled, then learn about the self. And if you're learning about the self and you start feeling agitated and distracted again, that you're not really studying your attention, you're just daydreaming, well then maybe you've lost your concentration, so now go back maybe to follow your breathing again and calm down and get concentrated. And when you're settled again, then go from settled with the self to learning about the self.

[134:59]

So this text is about learning about the self. It assumes, as a prerequisite before, in order to penetrate this text, this teaching, it assumes that we're already settled. For not settler's sake, settle before you do this. Go settle some more. Now come back and learn about how your self is the manifestation of the universe through studying your intention, your karma, moment by moment. So maybe for a while, particularly in these 30-minute periods, you won't be able to apply this study of the intention for a while until you feel more calm. Okay? And then in these discussions, just learn about how to do that study for the time when you're ready to do it. And then in your thirty-minute periods or in walking meditation, just deepen your calm.

[136:04]

And when you feel calm, then this information about how to study yourself hopefully will just come into play and you'll be able to go right into it. Okay? So I appreciate that question. Because I think a number of people are probably working on, especially at the beginning of the retreat, just trying to arrive at their seat and be steady and calm there. And then When you feel calm, your mind's going to naturally say, hey, I think, let's study what's going on here. Okay? Yes? Well, the word should, I hesitate to use the word should, but I would say that in Zen meditation, we usually follow the example of the Buddha. And I've never seen a statue of the Buddha with her eyes closed. Have you? You can see the Buddha's eyes, the eyeballs, you can see the iris and the pupil.

[137:06]

The Buddha's eyes are open because the Buddha is meditating on her relationship with the whole universe. The Buddha is looking at all the sentient beings. So we're trying to learn to meditate like a Buddha. So we follow the example of the Buddha. But some people with their eyes open, have trouble calming down. So they find that it's helpful to close their eyes to be tranquil. So that's okay. But the instruction in Zen is actually to literally copy the Buddha's posture, including the eyes being open. But the Buddha's eyes are not open like this. The Buddha's, almost never looking up at the sky, the Buddha's eyes are always open kind of at a restful, calm, You know, the Buddha's kind of like looking down on all of her students. So the eyes will look like this. Which from where you are, does it look like my eyes are shut? Huh?

[138:07]

Almost, you can hardly see my eyeball, right? So it's usually cast down, but you are looking at the world of all beings. Buddhas are always looking at the world of all beings. So you're looking at all your close relationships here, but in a calm way. But again, if you find that you can't calm down with your eyes open, I support you to close them if that's more concentrated for you. So now it's time for lunch. Thank you very much.

[138:49]

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