This is the third class, I think, and the last two classes we were talking about tranquility meditation or mental stabilization. And I'd like to bring up the insight meditation and compare the two at the beginning. Both types of meditation, both tranquility and insight, share in being practices of mental or training of attention. Both are ways of training attention. And they also share at the beginning the practice of concentration.

[01:14]

Stabilization practice can be refined to the point where it actually realizes, well, you might say, I don't like the expression, but an altered state of consciousness. Tranquility meditation can actually give rise to an altered state of consciousness that's not like ordinary consciousness. And so its later development in that regard is different from the later development of insight. Insight is not about developing altered or higher states of consciousness. It is about a reorganization or a transformation of the way we are in the midst of some particular state of consciousness.

[02:30]

Tranquility meditation and insight meditation both start as basically the same practice. They diverge as if you would continue to develop concentration to higher and higher states in order to create some special state of consciousness, then it would diverge from the concerns of insight meditation. Some of the higher states or deeper states of concentration, the states are, I would say that the higher parts of them constitute the highest worldly experience. However, and they have the qualities of being calm, deeply, deeply calm, blissful, holistic, and holistic to the point where the perceiver, what is perceived, and the process of perception

[03:59]

are holistic. The split between subject and object, the split between subject and the process and object and the process is, I would say, can get very subdued, almost extinguished. All the anxiety and affliction that arises around a sense of being separate from others, separate from the universe, those anxieties, those afflictions do not arise. If one were to attain these higher states of concentration, what one might think is that one has attained liberation from suffering, because suffering is highly attenuated.

[05:10]

Not only is the suffering attenuated, but you have Like I say, you feel as good as anybody can feel in terms of physical feelings. In the highest states, they're the best in terms of worldly experience. However, these states are temporary, temporary, temporary. Like all phenomena, that are created by conditions. When those conditions change and they do, the phenomena cease. These meditations can be reproduced by the yogis, but they're still temporary. They do not constitute a fundamental change in the mind, a reorganization. They are a special state. that way they're not the definitive reorganization of the mind which we in some sense I don't want to call it enlightenment but which is part of the process of enlightenment which constitutes a I don't want to call it permanent but an irreversible reorganization or irreversible transformation of

[06:41]

the way of functioning within experience. It's the inside side. So although concentration is good at the beginning, good in the middle, and good at the end, it is not enough in itself to realize enlightenment. It must be brought together with insight. In a sense, insight in itself is enough to realize enlightenment, but insight of the fully realized quality of insight, in fact, includes concentration. You don't have effective transformative insight if the mind isn't somewhat stabilized. So the insight is based on actually a somewhat lower level of mental stabilization, higher than what people are normally used to, lower than what is possible.

[07:47]

States of concentration would take most of us a long time of special training to attain. The lower levels don't take so long. And those are the levels that the tranquility practice and insight practice share. The tranquility practice is, in a sense, it is abstractive. It's a pulling away. Stages of pulling away are shared by insight practice. Pulling away, I've been speaking of in terms of, or Donald mentioned to me some term about Was it withdrawal of the senses? Was that the term you used? Withdrawal from the senses. Withdrawal from the senses is the way you like to say it.

[08:52]

And previously, you'd heard it was withdrawal of the senses. Yeah. So withdrawal from the senses, restraint from the senses, or you could say discarding. That's a little heavy, but anyway, a kind of discarding of the senses. Anyway, the thing is that we're not going to get involved in sense experience. And I suggest to you that the training is a training of an inner image. So in stabilization practice, we focus on one image, one idea.

[09:54]

And we develop a sharp focus. In the higher states of tranquility, the focus becomes sharp to the extreme so much so that there is actually no awareness of anything but that at the extreme and in that state you enter into a different state of consciousness but prior to like having just the object of focus that that's the only thing you're aware of you are focusing but there's other things going on and you're aware of them However, you do not get involved in them. That kind of concentration is the beginning of Samatha practice, and it's also the beginning of Vipassana practice. It's the beginning of tranquility practice, and it's the beginning of insight practice, a way of being, of choosing an object of focus

[11:00]

to develop concentration, but still aware of other things that aren't your object of focus. Just that you don't get involved in them. That's your focus. Oftentimes people talk about coming back to the focus, but you wouldn't even be coming back to the focus if you hadn't gotten involved in them. So if you should get involved in them, if you happen to get involved in something other than what you've chosen as your image of concentration, if you should happen to get distracted, then you come back. But if something happens and you don't get involved in it, you never left. You were situated or resting calmly in your focus, and yet you're also aware of other things, but you did not get involved. And in one sense, the focus can be the breath.

[12:05]

So you're aware of the breath, but you also hear other sounds besides breath. You have various thoughts. And there can also be thoughts which, in some sense, seem to be connected to the breath. But you don't get involved in those trains of thought connected with the breath. They're there, but you're not involved. If you get involved in the trains of thought associated with the breath, if the breath is your point of concentration, then, in a sense, that involvement in these trains of thought is, in a sense, an elaboration of the breath. So the basic concept of breath you're focused on, but you don't get into elaborations of that basic concept. There is an instruction given by the Buddha, which I've mentioned in a number of classes here and elsewhere, in which he gave, where he said, train yourself a herd that will be just the herd.

[13:20]

And that herd is H-E-A-R-D. If it was the other kind of herd, it would be the same. It would just be the herd. And in the seen, spelled S-E-E-N, there will be just the seen. Then he actually said in the reflected, but that's a technical term, which is a summary of in the tasted, in the smelled, and the touched. Smelled, there will be just the smelled. In the tasted, there will be just the tasted. And in the touched, there will be just the touched. Cognized, there will be just the cognized. The difficult thing I was proposing to you in terms of understanding this is that these are either four or six categories of conception.

[14:26]

conception of what's heard, the conception of what's seen, the conception of what's tasted, the conception of what's touched, the conception of what is smelled, tasted, and the conception of what is thought. Six categories of conception. In each of them, there will be just that conception. If you choose the breath, The breath will either be the pure mental idea of breath, or it will be the idea of the sound of the breath, or the feeling of the breath in your abdomen, or the feeling of the breath at your nose. Or it could be the sight of the breath if you were meditating in a cold place. And it could be the sound of the breath, but one technical point of meditation is we usually recommend that you don't breathe loudly enough to be able to hear your breath so although you could hear a sound associated with the breath then you're breathing too loudly probably and what some people do is they breathe loudly loudly on purpose because it makes it easier for them to stay with the concept of their breath because they not only have you know you're adding another

[15:52]

vehicle to, you know, experience the breath. So some people do that. But we usually recommend not to do that because it's not good for your health to be breathing that loudly. Headaches and stuff eventually. There's various problems with that, so don't do that. But I'm just saying you could do that. You could be aware of the breath in that way. So then, of course, there's other things you can be aware of. sound of a piano, and that's okay at these early levels of concentration. If any of you try to do this, your first attempts will be the first level of concentration. Some first attempts might be more successful than others, but basically your first attempts are your first attempts.

[16:57]

And everybody goes through these first attempts or this initial stage until they reach a point where basically you're fairly steady in being able to stay with what you're focusing on. You're fairly steadily not getting involved in any of the images. You're not even getting involved with the breath, if that's what you're focusing on. Being involved with the breath would be a conceptual elaboration of the breath. One of the people who was here last week, are you to Michael? Diana? He's just a friend of yours? You seem to be trading off. Huh? Yeah, anyway, Michael told me last week, after class, he came up and he said, so should we be getting away from conceptualization?

[18:01]

And I said, that would be another kind of conceptual elaboration, to get away from it. So get involved with it. Even the thing you're focusing on, you're not involved with that. And you're also not involved in anything else. you're not involved in anything. You're focused on this without involvement with it. And other things that you're not focused on, you're not involved with them either. When that's steady, you attain what's called access concentration. And access concentration is access to both higher states of stabilization, higher states of tranquility, and also access to insight. So at this level, there's some focus on some image, like the breath, or even just the image of no elaboration, just that idea.

[19:11]

But the focus is not too tight yet to be antithetical to insight. And it's not too tight to be a point of departure for increasingly intense narrowing of the focus to develop deeper and deeper concentration. You can go either way from here. The insight practice will stay concentrated, but will stay relatively broader, kind of broader focus than the later kinds of concentration which are possible. The early concentrations are both a little broader than what can be developed. They're stable. The kind of concentration we need for insight has to be somewhat broad because basically it's steady, stable, balanced, but also aware of whatever is going on.

[20:24]

Because insight will be, again, to reorganize the whole field of the mind. So we want to be aware of the whole thing. For this class, I'm not going to go any further at this time into how to intensify the concentration. A time later I'll do it, but I'm not going to go further into how to tighten the concentration and narrow it more and more. There are ways. I'm going to stop here for now at the place where insight and concentration are both possible. Well, where insight and concentration is going on and where tranquility and concentration is going on, but we haven't yet gotten so concentrated that we couldn't do insight. If you get really concentrated, you can't do insight. Now, once you learn how to do insight, it is possible to do it even in these higher states of concentration. But to develop insight, you can't be overly concentrated because you don't have enough material.

[21:31]

Because the insight is about reorganizing your whole mind. And so we need to be able to take in the normal, full functioning. And one other thing I wanted to mention, might be helpful is that at this level of concentration and at this level of insight that we're talking about here, we're just starting insight work and starting concentration work. What I spoke of before of the kind of holistic state of mind where the subject-object and process of subject-object or perceiver-perceived and process of perception are like not broken up into separate entities that can be achieved in the highest levels of concentration. In insight

[22:34]

It's different. In insight, these elements are not subdued, almost non-existent. The difference between them isn't subdued, but rather the insight between them, the separation between them is seen as an illusion. And this is an understanding. And this understanding of the non-separation of subject and object or self and other That is irreversible, whereas the state of mind where that's attenuated is temporary. As soon as you come out of that concentration, you again slip back into the basic pattern of subject-object being separated. But through insight, you actually transform the mind into never again falling for that as a reality, which is another kind of definition of enlightenment, that that process is no longer taken as substantially a dualistic process.

[23:48]

So concentration itself is not enough to overcome duality. We need insight. Even while the structures of perceiver and perceived are operating, we see how they're interdependent and therefore how they're not separate. So even while it seems still going on, we are no longer fooled by it, which transforms the way we are in the world, which transforms the way we are with beings. who we now understand are not truly separate from us we understand that and we don't once we understand it we don't forget ever I mean as long as we have this set up here this may not carry beyond this life unless you really get it down but I won't get off on that yet so So at this point, I would invite questions about the early stages of tranquility meditation or any questions you have about the relationship between tranquility and insight in terms of what I've been bringing up.

[25:11]

Martin? When you talk about insight, Are you talking about being aware of what's happening in my mind? The thinking process of knowing what you're thinking, being aware of that? In the process, in the practice of training attention to develop insight, then part of what's involved is being aware of, would you say, what's going on? What's happening in my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, and my... part of training, insight training. It doesn't account for insight because you could already be aware of what's going on inside you but be confused about it. Being aware with no judgment, just knowing. Being aware with no judgment is part of concentration too. It's part of being aware of something with no judgment

[26:15]

is part of what stabilizes and calms you down. But being aware with no judgment is also... That way of being with phenomena, aware of it without judgment, is stabilizing and concentrating and quite similar to shamatha practice. The insight practice will take more into account. It will start to investigate these phenomena and when insight is realized, the way the mind relates to things is transformed so insight training is not the same as insight but at the early stages of insight training it's quite similar to the early stages of what you just said would also calm the mind if you are aware of phenomena with no judgment or in other ways that you're aware of phenomena a judgment might arise but you don't get involved in the judgment be focusing on your breathing and then some other thing could arise and then there could be judgment about that other thing or more simply you could be concentrating on your breathing a judgment could arise like I'm doing well if you got involved in that I'm doing well that would be an example of getting involved in conceptions but if you're

[27:43]

focusing on your breathing and the step, I'm doing well, arose, but you're just aware of it without grasping it, without getting involved in it, then you'd still basically be with your breath and it would just be like being with the breath and out in the trees are little judgments like I'm doing well, I'm not doing well. I guess I'm talking more about when I'm not meditating. Just being aware of what's going on is mindfulness. One of the meanings of mindfulness is just being aware of what's going on. And mindfulness is part of both stabilization practice and insight practice. It's just that insight practice makes more of mindfulness than stabilization practice does. Stabilization practice uses mindfulness to remember what you're focusing on.

[28:47]

Psych practice uses mindfulness to actually investigate all phenomena. Mindful of what's going on throughout the day, just purely mindful, like I just said, in the scene there will be just the scene, in the herd it will just be the herd. That way of being mindful can also be a concentration practice. So that kind of mindfulness is compatible with concentration practice or with just everyday mindfulness. If you want to use it in conjunction with a concentration practice, it can stabilize and calm the mind. Make sense? The difference between these two at the level of concentration is small, because at the basic stages here, they're sharing the concentration. So they're quite similar. And they even can have the same object of focus.

[29:52]

And actually, it's probably good that they do at the beginning. However, the topics for insight can then be basically endless. They embrace the entire range of experience eventually. Nancy? If you knew how to practice them, then you would consciously not take on those practices. So far, I haven't told you how to do them, so you don't have to worry about it. The level of concentration which I've recommended so far, you can go right ahead and do that, and you won't get too narrow. point that you achieve access concentration, at the point that you would be able to steadily stay, for example, not elaborating on concepts, that you were steady on that, at that point you might be tempted to slip into some of these higher states. At that point, let me know and we can talk about whether you should go that way or not.

[30:58]

But you still have to reach this access stage, which is quite an achievement. I think you'll That would be an event for you if you actually achieve stabilization at that level. And then it might be possible to go into other states, but until that time, you don't have to broaden yourself. Actually, in both cases of insight and tranquility at the beginning, there's a kind of narrowing. And when the narrowing becomes steady, then you can go off into insight or higher concentration. But I'm going to recommend that if you get to that place, that we go off into insight first. And I also mentioned, which I think I mentioned before, this whole concentration side is not limited to Buddhist tradition. The concentration techniques, a lot of them, are shared by many traditions. It's the insight side that's, in some cases, uniquely Buddhist.

[32:05]

Patty? Would you be aware at the access point? You might forget that I mentioned the word and then not think, oh, I'm at the access point. But you might notice, but you might not notice, you might notice that you were able to not get involved in any of the concepts that you're cognizing. And you might notice that it had been hours since you did. And you might notice... that you felt, you know, overcome by certain new feelings of joy and buoyancy and flexibility, you might notice those things. But if they happened and you didn't notice them, that would be fine, in my opinion. But if you ever sort of wondered, I wondered if I've achieved mental stabilization then I would ask you some questions to see if certain things were going on with you and then you would say yes and then I would say oh and then you would say oh I guess I've achieved access concentration but you wouldn't necessarily you see you're not sitting there thinking you know I wonder if I've got access concentration yet that thought might occur to you but it might not occur to you I'm just telling you this because I thought it might be helpful to give you some perspective

[33:33]

but we're not actually going to be trying to get there. We're more just going to actually try to like, well, basically we're going to try to sit and not try to, and try not to get anywhere. We're going to try to like be with what, work with whatever is given to us with this, in the spirit of, thank you very much, I have no complaint whatsoever, kind of. Whatever is given, we just receive it and don't try to do anything with it. And then receive the next thing and don't try to do anything with it, like this. So our basic mode is, you know, could be focusing on the breath, and when the breath is given, we don't do anything with the breath. That's our focus, which maybe we remember, but we're not doing anything with it. Other things happen, other things are given, but we just receive them, we don't do anything with them. So our basic mode is not to grasp anything, not to get involved in any of the concepts that are arising in our mind. with an understanding to use the breath, maybe, as a helpful device to develop concentration.

[34:36]

Receiving the same as noticing? Well, basically, we're talking about receiving something that we're noticing. So it's the same. Receiving is emphasizing that what you notice, you're given. At this level, we're not like making what we notice happen. Our experience is like, you know, like I just got that piano thing given to me, and I notice it, but I'm not arguing, I'm not wishing, I'm not saying, blah, blah, piano. Yes? Kate and Lucy? In practice, said something like, in the practice of training attention to examine and dismantle your reactive patterns, where does that fit in? Well, for most people, it would fit in what I've already said to some extent because most people, one of the basic reactive patterns is conceptual elaboration.

[35:43]

That's a basic reactive pattern. You have a concept and then you get into elaborating it. It's kind of narrowing in the sense that a concept arises and you could get into all kinds of elaboration, but you don't. So all that kind of getting involved is sort of like put on the shelf for a while. So you're kind of like you're not doing that now. So you're kind of like just staying simple or trying to train yourself to be simple. in situations where your imagination can do a lot more. So you're training your attention and training your imagination at the same time to just be simply with what's happening moment by moment. So in a sense, you said dismantling reactive patterns. You're dismantling the reactive patterns which cause agitation.

[36:45]

which interfere with realizing calm so you're dismantling those by this kind of exercise there are other reactive patterns which aren't really dismantled but which don't come up in the midst of this training but they're not really dismantled that's why i said when you when you attain stabilization certain afflictions don't arise anymore Any more means, I should say, don't arise at that time. But as soon as you stop the concentration practice, those reactive patterns can rush right in again. That's why we need insight, which can irreversibly dismantle these patterns. You can also dismantle them irreversibly a little bit at a time. And also, sometimes you can dismantle some very fundamental patterns of organization of your mind, and once those are irreversibly reorganized, then a lot of other patterns, reactive patterns may still arise, but when those reactive patterns are brought together with this new organization, they stop.

[37:55]

So maybe you've had the experience of seeing how something is really unhealthy or unskillful, you know, dash stupid. You see that. You see, well, that was stupid, what I did there. That was stupid. But then you do it again. And you say, how come I'm still doing this? This is a strong habit. But every time you see it, you see you don't want to do it, and it's not helpful. And the juxtaposition of that understanding that it's stupid together with the behavior, behavior is washed away by that understanding. So in one sense, insight is a radical transformation which then can be applied to deeply ingrained habits. And then that's why the insight, once it occurs, it can be used to reorganize the entire field of awareness.

[38:57]

Lucy? Do you use breath counting as a way to focus, or do you suggest that? I was actually going to mention that. In a sense, a funny thing is that breath counting is a kind of mental elaboration of the breath. You've got the breath. You look crestfallen, but anyway, it's OK. It's like, in a sense, what do you call it? Counting the breath is like, in one sense, it's like training wheels for following your breath. In another sense, it's a kind of elaboration of the breath because you've got the breath, but sometimes people have trouble focusing on their breath, so the numbers seem to help them focus on their breath. So this is a special elaboration of the breath, which sometimes helps. It makes the breath kind of bulkier, easier to find, because you've got these numbers. But numbers, you've got the concept of breath, and then you apply these numbers to the concept, so you see you're actually elaborating the concept. But sometimes...

[39:59]

Part of this is about being flexible. So you have to sometimes elaborate this concept a little bit in order to train yourself at not elaborating. So if you're trying to focus on the concept of the breath, but it's all foggy, then it's hard for you to tell, if you have a foggy concept, whether you're elaborating on it or not. That make sense? Take a little chunk of fog and put it out there. And then it's kind of hard to tell whether that's the chunk of fog or whether you just elaborate it on a little bit. Does that make sense? No? Take some unclear amorphous blob. Take it there. And then look at it. And then maybe you think it grew a little bit or shrunk a little bit. But you're not sure because it didn't have definite shape, right? Can you imagine that? Whereas if you put one finger up there, a very clear finger, it's pretty easy to see if it gets fatter or skinnier.

[41:07]

Does that make sense? So the breadth is something that sometimes people have trouble saying, well, what is the breadth actually? So if you count it, the numbers make it clearer, like this is number one or it's not. Which number is it? Which number of breath is it? Well, I guess I don't know. Well, if you don't know, then go back to one. If you say, which breath is it? You say, number three. Really? Yeah, it's really number three. Okay. Then you feel confident that you're staying with this thing. You're not elaborating because if you elaborate too much, you have, like you count one to ten usually. If you elaborate too much, you have things happening like 14. That's kind of like But if you go 1 to 10, 1 to 10, although it's an elaboration of the breath, it is somewhat restricted because you say 1 to 10. Then you have to go back to 1. And you do have a sense of, like, you go 1, and then you go... I guess... I don't know if I said 2.

[42:11]

Did I say 2? So you go back to 1. And you go 4. Great. And then... You don't remember the last number? Was it four? Did I actually get to five? Or did I just think I got to five? Or did I skip to seven? So you feel kind of unclear because numbers are somewhat clear. But breath is a little bit more subtle than numbers. So sometimes people use the breath. But after you get more steady on the breathing, you realize that the numbers actually are coarser than the breath itself. The breath is actually a little bit less clear than the numbers, but they're more coarse. The numbers are more coarse than the breath. So then when you get fairly steady with the breath, you oftentimes recommend, well, now you don't need the numbers anymore. You can just follow the breath. If you follow the breath really well without any mental elaboration, you realize you don't need the breath. So actually, like,

[43:12]

that breath is like not don't need it anymore so you can drop it just like you drop the numbers and then you're just basically not elaborating on what's happening so whatever happens you don't elaborate you look at somebody's face you don't elaborate and people have told me you know when they look at some people's face the people that they have history with order to not elaborate Because they see the person and they immediately say, I got a history with this person. How can you leave that history alone? Like last Thursday, they were really nice to me. Or next Thursday, they might be really nice to me. Or last Thursday, they were really mean to me. So it's hard to just, you know what I mean? Some faces, when they happen, it's like they're just ready to burst with elaboration. They're like . But if you train this way, you can actually look at a face and not get into that potential. So with the breath, too, at the first, it's okay to use counting, but then when you're consistent at the counting, you maybe find that it's a little coarse and a little extra, and you don't need it anymore, then just go to the breath.

[44:28]

And when you can just work with the breath in this very simple way, you won't even need to focus on the breath, you can just treat everything that way. Let's see, who was next? I don't remember. Was anybody else? I just saw Sarah and Edith. Was anybody ahead of them? They just raised their hands. Were you ahead of them? No? Okay, so Sarah, Edith, and Linda. I just had a question about all of the breath. Could you also, when you have experience, in this level of mental training what we're training is the mind consciousness mind consciousness is aware of concepts so you asked about simultaneous or or what in this realm i i would suggest for the sake of meditation and it may also be true in some level that what we're dealing with is a realm where we go one concept after another and they're not simultaneous

[45:30]

that in the realm of mind consciousness the mind has one concept per experience or per moment and as soon as the concept changes that experience is over and then we have a new a new experience when a new concept arises and a new awareness and that and then the concept and the mind change and we have a new experience so we have a sequence so in that realm I would say what's going on is you know the concept of Reb's voice the concept the concept of the sound of Reb's voice, the concept of the sound of that train, the concept of Reb's voice, the concept of the train. They're going back and forth, you hear them? Train sound, Reb sound, train sound, Reb sound. I don't know. Train. Reb. Piano, train, Reb, left, piano. It's just in the sound realm now. And then in between those, there's like, feeling of your butt on the cushion, feeling of your back, seeing people's faces.

[46:35]

So you have concept of a face, concept of a sound, concept of a face, concept of a pressure, concept of a temperature, concept of a taste, concept of a thought like what time it is, do I understand, this is what he's talking about, I get it, all these things. This is like very rapid change of the concept. But it's sequential. Simultaneously with that is something else going on, which is, that simultaneous is in another realm where we're having sense consciousnesses. And those are going on also. But those are not mediated by concepts. So we're not training at that level here. We're training in the realm of concepts. Did that make it clear? It looked like you were following it. If you have any questions, you can ask them. Do you? OK. All right. So part of training in concentration is a training called right effort.

[47:50]

It's a concentration training. And right effort is sometimes presented as four right efforts. And what I'm emphasizing here is actually the first of the four right efforts. The first of the four right efforts is a training which is to prevent the arising of unwholesome states. You can train yourself at not elaborating on what's given moment by moment. as that training is realized, unwholesome states do not arise. If we slip and get into elaboration, that makes an opening, and unwholesome states can arise. So then you have unwholesome states. Now you not only have like you're sitting there with something like your breath or the sound of a train,

[48:57]

which you then are trying to train at just B without any elaboration then you can also have like another concept arise which is presenting you with a rather difficult phenomena to deal with and so I think next week I will tell you about what happens in the process of meditation if you don't if when you're not able to this non-involvement with your conceptual experience, which is these various hindrances that arise. So the first right effort is to prevent these hindrances from arising if they haven't arisen. The next right effort is to deal with these things that arise when you slip on the first point. Basically five kinds of hindrance. aversion or ill will sensual desire restlessness and excitement worry and doubt so those are those are the hindrances that arises if you when they don't always and immediately arise every time you get into a little bit of mental of conceptual elaboration

[50:28]

It's just that if you don't get into conceptual elaboration, that holds them off. And as soon as you do, they can come in. When they come in, they're quite challenging. They're more difficult to deal with than the sound of the train. They're more like, sound of the train, elaborate, and then hate the train, or hate trains, or hate the yoga room for having trains nearby, or hate Donald, you know. Those are kind of like things that arise when you don't just let the sound of the train be the sound of the train. If you let the herd be the herd and the scene be the scene, you're cooking. If you slip and some of these hindrances arise, then they have to be, well, not have to be, but they can be dealt with. And so next week I'll talk about those and how to deal with them to help you recover the basic program. But if you're doing this basic thing, they don't arise, which makes life simpler. You don't want a simple life?

[51:32]

You know how to make it more complicated. Just get involved in your concepts and elaborate on them, and you'll have a complicated, agitated, non-tranquil little experience there. If you do this, your mind will become tranquilized, stabilized through this non-grasping, non-elaboration process. It's actually a simple practice, but it's hard because of these deep, strong habits of elaborating and judging and measuring and weighing everything that happens. So it's a hard turnaround, but it's actually quite a simple instruction. The complicated part is to head off all the possible ways to escape from it. Do you think that axis meditation and the axis level as well as the higher states are attainable by some people?

[52:38]

Like I sort of outlined last week, I made these kind of circles, in some sense moral circles. The first circle is like for gross things like taking drugs, driving recklessly, getting in accidents, stealing, lying, being cruel to people. Those kinds of activities, if you get involved with those, you're going to have a hard time practicing mental stabilization because it's going to be hard for you to say. You might try, but it's hard for you to say. In the scene, you're just a scene. You're going to feel like, in this scene, I've got to get out of here. Or in this scene, I really feel terrible. You sort of have to kind of discipline your life to some extent and not be in too much cruel relationships. You have to sort of settle that stuff first. Then if you've worked on those things and you haven't been cruel or intoxicated yourself or overate and so on and so forth, then the next step is to create an area of moral clarity.

[53:55]

That's my latest thing I got from the New Yorker. Areas of moral clarity. You start with some area of moral clarity. And then you work in that area. So when can you meditate? When is it all right to meditate? And if you're unsure about it, try to find some place where it is morally clear that it's OK to meditate, that everybody will support you, that you're not stealing the opportunity to meditate. If you're meditating and you're not morally clear that it's If it's not morally clear that this meditation is a morally clear area, then when you try to sit, you're going to be undermined by your moral unclarity. That's why you need to set up. When you come to this class, you need to check with your spouse and your children and so on, or your boyfriend or your girlfriend or your lover or your uncle or your employer.

[55:01]

You have to check with those people to make sure it's really OK for you to be in this class so when you arrive, you can listen. So if people clarify these areas and make a space where they feel like, you know, I actually like, it's okay if I meditate now. If you clarify those things and then you take care of your body so your body also says, it's okay if you meditate now. Say to your body, is it okay if I sit here? Body says, well, how long are you going to sit? Say, how about a half an hour? Say, okay, that's it though. You know, how are you going to sit? I'm going to sit in full lotus. No. Don't sit that way. Okay, I'm going to sit in the chair with a nice padding. Okay. You make this deal. You get permission from your... You organize your life so that it's morally not in a state of, you know, tumultuous upset. You get permission to do the meditation practice. You get your body in a position where it's going to let you sit. And then the inner thing, the hardest thing in a way, is then you see if you can get your mind to say,

[56:06]

it's okay not to elaborate and get involved in everything that happens it's okay if you like just for a few minutes anyway not for the whole period but for 10 minutes out of the 30 it's okay if you do not get involved with this actually five i'm just going to give you five for five minutes and if it works out all right we'll give you another five so you need to like if a person clarifies this and gets organized this way anybody can do it but if you don't get organized this way yet to be really gifted and advanced, I think, to be able to concentrate with all this stuff unclear. It's pretty hard to, like, you know, apply yourself wholeheartedly when you're not clear. But some people can do it. I used to watch my daughter concentrate, do her homework, you know, in her room, you know. Like, I would not have been able to study in the place she studied. I could not see moral clarity in that room, you know. To me, it would be like, I would have to, like, make a place to sit down and turn the radio off before i could like do my homework but she was living in this chaotic scene you know with all this stuff happening all over the place and she just sort of get in there somehow and she could concentrate i wouldn't be able to if a person's unable to concentrate it there's a way to organize things so that they

[57:28]

so we can make a clear space so that and that's part of doubt too is the doubt is like is it okay to do this exercise and when it's clear then you can apply yourself and then i think anybody can do it do it and actually anybody could even do the other ones but you have to like create a very special situation to create these higher states of concentration You'd have to get a lot of people to really support you to withdraw from ordinary activities for quite a while in order to do those. But access concentration, you might be able to all realize that and still live in Berkeley or wherever. Okay? If there's no other comments tonight, we could stand up and sit down for a little while and end with a little practice.

[58:21]

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