It's already, yeah, I think our time is about 8.10 almost. So it's already kind of getting a little late. We have a plan to do Fairmont tomorrow. And I think the way we're scheduling and doing it all was we get up. Pretty much at the usual time, assuming we go to bed at the usual time. If we don't go to bed at the usual time, we'll get up later. Anyway, the wake-up bell will go off at some point. And there'll be a... a dental bell up at the Zen bell, maybe reflected by a Han. Would that help? Oh, I think so. I told Jessica, she knew me. Good. Could you echo the dental bell with the hon? Sure.

[01:02]

And so the priests, please wear your faces to the ceremony. And so we're doing this ceremony, which is usually done on February 15th, we're doing it on March 5th. And I think, let's be honest about that. In your announcement, you said March 5th, wasn't you? Because if you said February 15th, some people might giggle. Well, you know, somebody might be offended if we start giggling. I don't know who. But I thought maybe we didn't want to encourage it too much. It's kind of a solemn thing, this ceremony. But if it turns into something funny, I guess it'll be funny. Let's see. So the ceremony starts out with a very formal and elaborate offerings of material things to the Buddha, including nine vows as part of the offerings.

[02:20]

And then after that, there will be a very formal incense offering, which some people have practiced today. And I've hesitated to do this kind of thing before because We've done it a few times at Zen Center. It's a yearly memorial service. We've done this offering. And I've hesitated to do it because I felt that something might be turned off by it. I hope that it doesn't offend anyone. But we'll try it and see how it works. We're practicing it, so I'd like to do this tomorrow. And then after that, we'll all do nine bows and pay homage to Shakyamuni Buddha. And then we'll do a mantra, which is called the Heroic March Mantra. In Sanskrit, it's called Surangama Mantra. It's the mantra that's at the end of the Surangama Sutra, Heroic March Sutra. And it's kind of a mantra or dharani to bring peace to the Sangha.

[03:30]

And so we'll walk around trying to sing. The chant cards will be passed out. And while we're chanting this, we'll walk slowly in a serpentine pattern, which I thought I might draw on the board. I don't know how many people in the room saw it, but you can walk in this pattern You put your body into this pattern regardless of what anybody else is doing. Not regardless, but even if there's nobody in front of you, you can still walk in its pattern. So here's the main altar will be pushed back. And so people will be in rows. People will be in rows. We'll do two rows and like this.

[04:32]

So there'd be rows here. I don't know how many rows there'd be, whether there'd be four rows and two rows on each side, or whether there'd be three. There probably won't be four rows, but there might be four rows. There'd be three rows. And the way a serpentine goes is it goes like this. And then it goes over to here. And this one goes like this. And now I'm like that. In fact, it goes like that, around like that, up like this, and around like that, and then around like this, back over here, back like that, down like this, and around like that, up like this, and around like that, and then like that. You see how you do this pattern, you get yourself around the room. Unless we had about 40 people or so, we might not fill up four rows. But even though we're going to be out in this row, we can still walk up there in this pattern. So we'll walk around slowly three times.

[05:39]

And I think this row, we'll get back to that place first. Whenever you've gone around three times, you can just stop. And then after we're all stopped, the chanting will end. We'll do the Heart Sutra. Yes. After the first revolution, do we do those two inside turns, or do we just move around and out? No, why don't you come and show me? Here, after we go around once. Yeah, you're back in turn. Do we follow this pattern, or do we come around like this, and come around like this? No, you follow this pattern. OK. So on your side, you'll walk on four You have four imaginary lines. You walk yourself up and down, back and forth four times, back and forth twice, and down four times on each side. That would be the pattern you're going to do. Walk slowly so that you can do the chant. And the chanting will be a mantra in which it goes, We'll do it with the makulya.

[06:49]

So we go, Like that. And was hitting it like this today, which was good. And I noticed that just about the walking with the drum beat was just about the right way of walking. So if you do it like you did today, or even a little slower, then you could actually walk with the drum beat and chant with the drum beat. So then we come back, and then we do the Japanese Heart Sutra. We'll do an echo, three bios, and that'll be the ceremony. And then we'll sit down, sit down there.

[07:51]

And I guess some people will clean up the orphanage or something. I don't know. And we may want to move the altar back a little bit so the servers can get in, or the servers should serve on the other side of the room or something. Maybe it's easier to just move the altar a little bit. And then we'll have breakfast, and that'll be it. And I don't know how long that'll take. The ceremony takes, I think, about 45 minutes. That's it. Yes? You want to mention where people could be lining up? Actually, I think it might take a little bit more because of the special incense offering, which is quite slow. Yes? You want to mention where people could be lining up when they come in? Yeah, so the altar will be pushed back. So the people who have been to the very special incense offering, you know who they are, who you are.

[08:54]

So you line up there. Don't stand in the front row unless you're one of these people. And we have quite a bit of space between this row here, the rows, and the Abbott's Pond. We have quite a bit of space because the people in the front row are going to come stand over here and walk like this to make this offering. So it's good if there's a little clearance there. So this key person right here at the front of the second row should be quite a ways from the pond. to leave some space there so that people can walk in a straight line to make this all. How many abreast? In the rows? Actually, if it was not very many, that would be good, because then we might have four rows, which would be nice. Except there were two or three abreast in each row. That might be good. Then we'd have the pattern set for the serpentine movements. Can I say something about that? So the altar is moved back, like we have it set, and the instruments are also moved way back so that you can line up, like you said, to get away from that front time.

[10:01]

You can line up the first corner person could be sort of where the lacubriant is, the bell. Yeah. Because we've got them way back by the back times, just maybe that far off the back time. You can also maybe go around and move the rows around a little bit before you start the ceremony to set up some pieces of people. Yeah, we talked about that. So that's the kind of . I hope it's a good ceremony. I thought we started with easy for people to go . OK. So that is like that. Can I make a request?

[11:04]

Yeah. As a fire watch this evening, would it be all right if I, as soon as class was over, began extinguishing lanterns so that they'd get up for good? Would that pay off any good? Well, yeah. And I may just sort of kind of, I don't know what exactly. I thought I might just offer a few comments for a little while. And then we'll see how things go. And I don't know, we'll wait until 9 o'clock. Yes. Kind of. History of the ceremony? You mean like history, how it developed over the centuries?

[12:12]

Well, I mean, I can. Let's see. I think there are Um. I think what dharma is, what the teaching of Buddhism is, or the proofs conveyed by Buddhism, I think what it is, basically, is it's the universe, the way it really is.

[13:31]

And I think what Buddha is, is to realize that dharma, to realize the universe, to awaken to it. Then when one awakens to the universe or understands the universe, one is very well equipped to help people who do not understand the universe and are therefore suffering with their misunderstandings of what's going on. So you or an enlightened being sees the way things work, sees people working that way, and also sees people in misery because the way they're working is lacking understanding of the way they're working. And the way it works, when you understand the way things work, is you naturally want to help other people understand the way it works.

[14:34]

Unfortunately, that's the way it works, apparently. I don't know if you followed that or not. Was that part of the reason for the parents of all beings? Yeah, I'm sorry, I'll get to that. What a lot of Buddhist practices and ceremonies and stories are about are ways to convey the way the universe works. So, for example, the practice, the various practices that Buddhists have done, those practices themselves are actually the way things are. I mean, they're actually demonstrations of the way things are. The enlightenment and the practice are inseparable. The practice shows the enlightenment. The enlightenment proves that the practice is in line with the way things are. And but the crux for human beings in realizing this is that we have, and why we suffer and what the teachings are encouraging us to do, we have trouble because if things aren't going the way we think they should go, we suffer.

[16:01]

And also, even if a teaching tells us about a way to behave, that might help us get free of our clinging, we even then still sort of kind of criticize and make deals with the teaching, or do the teaching while still secretly holding on to various opinions or something, like, this is why it's okay, I'll do it under these circumstances, or something like that. So these practices, in order to really set us free, we have to do this thing called drop body-mind or do it free of any selfishness. So that even if you do some of these practices, and even if they were sort of perfect reflections or appropriate reflections of the harmony of all things, still if you're clinging to your own ideas, then practice and enlightenment aren't the same thing.

[17:11]

And the practice is not the same as enlightenment. And you didn't ask about that, but I feel like I have to say that. And the fact that people claim is part of why Buddha's practice, that fact and how that works is part of the reason why Buddha's practice looked a certain way. It's part of the reason why Buddhas appear and disappear. So there is this thing about Buddha, like so now Buddha is, Buddha died, you know, went away. And various other Buddhist teachers have appeared and encouraged people, and then they went away. But the people who teach Buddhism, and particularly the Buddha, some of the Buddha has said in the later developments of his teaching, in the Lotus Sutra, for example, the Buddha said, you know, I didn't really appear and disappear.

[18:17]

I wasn't really like born. and then grew up and got enlightened and then got old and then died. That really didn't happen. Actually, I've always been here, and I always will be. But if I'm always here, people will not understand that although even if Buddhists are around all the time, they're still rare in the sense that you shouldn't miss the chance to appreciate a Buddha. But if something's around all the time, you tend to think, well, yeah, I know it's rare, but still, tomorrow I'll practice, or tomorrow I'll go talk to the teacher or whatever. So Buddhas go along with, in a sense, the transient quality of human life, even though what they are is something that's not transient. And the enlightenment enacts itself in an infinite, eternal place that is always going on, doesn't come and go. In the Dharma realm, there is no coming and going of these Buddhas.

[19:21]

But out of compassion, Buddhas play a game, do a play, do a theater piece called appearing and disappearing, so that people will appreciate them more while they're around. And then they really have to go away, otherwise Still, it doesn't seem to work. So they go away. In the phenomenal world, they disappear, and they come back. They come back, actually. After they disappear, they come back as soon as you do what you should have done while they were here, or wouldn't do because you thought you had a lot of time. And then they come back. They come back as soon as you do the practice, which you wouldn't do when they were around because you thought you'd be awake. That's one of the stories in the Lotus Sutra. So, for example, the very form of incense offering, these people moving slowly and carefully across the room to make offerings to Buddha, is another theatrical expression

[20:36]

of the way the cosmos works. That the cosmos is a combination of order and impermanence. And this dynamic is part of what we act out and practice. That in one sense, Buddhist practice is a very ordered, stable, continuous thing, and another sometimes is trying to convey that things are always breaking apart and changing. And how can you convey that through the forms of practice is part of what we're trying to do by these movements, by these ceremonies. So I don't think we have time tonight, maybe. But I just wanted to tell you another example of this.

[21:39]

And this is a little bit abstract, so I maybe put you to sleep. I don't know. But how's it going? I have a question. Yeah. You said the ceremonies are an enactment the order and impermanence. I can see that they're an enactment of order. Where is the enactment of impermanence? Or is it just that when you try and structure an order that inevitably it won't fit exactly the way that you wanted it to be? Anything? Well, this particular ceremony, the whole point of the ceremony is that the Buddha died. The leader died.

[22:42]

That's part of the impermanence here. And what's our response to our leader dying? We do this very calm, stable, solemn thing. That's one way it's thought to work. we're kind of, in a sense, this whole ceremony is kind of a response to the disappearance of the Buddha. But if somebody you love or somebody who's really important to you dies, you may have a tendency to freak out. For example, in a sense, I think what happened here is that our practice period died early. I was trying to get it to be born early. Instead, it died early. But when something dies, another part of it is that after something dies, something else gets born. So another part of what we're doing here is by solemnly, mindfully celebrating or observing or honoring the passing of the Buddha, we solemnly, mindfully are getting ready for the appearance of Buddha.

[23:52]

Because to see the new Buddha or to see Buddha, because how does Buddha appear? Who sees the Buddha? Well, the people who see Buddha, like in the Lotus Sutra it says, those who practice all virtues, are gentle, peaceful, upright and stable, will see my body, proclaiming the teaching. This is the Buddha explaining that he doesn't really disappear. This disappearance is just an act. So then the Buddha says, whether I'm currently here or gone, even when I'm here, you can't see me unless you're practicing all virtues, you know, gentle or

[24:57]

calm, peaceful, gentle, and upright and stable. You won't be able to see the Buddha anywhere, even if the Buddha's around. And then Dogen comments on this and says, what he means by practicing all virtues is that you enter the mud and water for the sake of all beings. That's what practicing all virtues means. So for example, this afternoon, today, all of us, I think, did a little entering mud and water. The ceremony, arranging the ceremony, we entered some mud and water for the sake of beings, for ourselves, and for . We organized the ceremony. People made effort. People got involved. It'll cook dinner. That's called practicing all virtues. If you do that for the sake of all beings, then now in the ceremony, will we be gentle?

[26:01]

Will we be flexible? Will we be upright and stable and alert? This is our attempt in the ceremony to do that. So that while we're celebrating the passing of the Buddha, the Buddha says, I appear to pass. But whether I'm appearing in the past or newly appearing or around for a while, in any case, if you want to see the Buddha, you need to do these practices. So in the ceremony, the ceremony is a demonstration of the practices you do to see the Buddha, whatever the Buddha, whatever stage of the Buddha's illusory thing happened. The fact of the Buddha not being around, or the fact of the Buddha always changing, and the fact you can't see the Buddha because the Buddha is not a fixed thing, but you can see the Buddha through your practice. So we try to do, we use the ceremony as a way to do the practice in the face of the fact of Buddha's, Buddha is impermanence.

[27:05]

And to see impermanence is Buddha's mind. Not to mention all the things that happen to you unpredictably in the ceremony, too, which every ceremony is different for each person. And that's part of what it's about, too. But I was about to start this thing. I don't know if I should continue or not. How's it going? Some people are OK. Other people, I don't know. It's now 8.30, 7 and 1 half. Yes. What do the words mean? What will be the mantra? I think if everybody want, or a lot of people want, I could go through the mantra and explain. Most of these things are like Sanskrit sea females. And you can say a little bit about what they mean, but they don't have like, you know, they don't mean like green or yellow or something.

[28:09]

They usually have a full constellation of associated magical powers and the deities associated with them and so on and so forth. You can give a little lecture on each syllable. And this kind of stuff has been, you know, there are books explaining what this particular mantra means. Could you translate it to a couple of sentences? Pardon? It would be possible to translate it to a couple of sentences. It would be possible to give a little lecture on each syllable. But there's a C syllable, which it has been named, like ho. Another one you would have to tell it. So that syllable has a DA associated with it and some explanation of its function. in the spiritual world, to get a few sentences of each one of those. And this mantra is the last mantra in a much larger mantra, which is sometimes chanted, but it takes 30 minutes to chant it, and I thought it would be beyond our ability.

[29:14]

But it's actually, I think we have it in the library if somebody wants to. If you want to go through it sometime, we can do it. I thought sometimes it would be nice to go through the Daish and the Rani and go through this mantra. But it's very detailed, and I don't know how many people would be interested, but if some people are interested, I could show you as well. It is really interesting. I don't know if that made any sense to you, what I just said. It's a different kind of conveying of teaching than we're used to. But it's not that you can't translate the syllables into a sentence, but you can explain in several sentences what the syllable means. But that's not translation of the syllable. The syllable isn't like, doesn't translate into some sentence. Anything else? No? Well, I'm just going to say that

[30:18]

I was going to give the story, again, this is a book I read. It's a book called Hamlet's Mill. Hamlet's Mill. It's a book about, the proposal is, this guy, this person's making this proposal is, he says that the story of Hamlet appears, of course, Shakespeare told it, but he heard it around in Europe. It was a story that appears in various parts of Europe. It appears in Germany, Poland, what do you call it, the Slavic countries. It appears in Iran. It appears in Central Asia and Siberia. Almost exactly the same story appears in these different places, which do not, by usual anthropological study, the movement of these stories don't move between all these places. It's kind of surprising that this story would appear so similarly in all these different widely dispersed cultures. And part of what this guy's hypothesis is, is that the reason why the story appears so widely around the world is that the story comes from astronomical observations.

[31:37]

And that what a lot of early myths are about, that Hamlet actually comes from an ancient myth. It's actually a very ancient story. And that a lot of the early myths, what they were, were narrative versions of lots of astronomical observations. Even the astronomers who spent all their time, or even the people who watched the stars and did all that research, even those who did that and somehow had some kind of insight into the movements and the patterns of the universe from where they were looking, even they could hardly remember or understand their data. So to help themselves understand and remember the conclusions of their research, they made stories. narrative versions of spatial information because narratives happen in time and people have a lot of people have easier time relating to spatial information to a time thing than just spatial information stories are easier for people in some ways like birth and death is not a spatial thing for most people it's a narrative thing over time right

[32:49]

So Hamlet is an actual story that describes a celestial or cosmic pattern that happens. And the story is about the killing of a leader. And a leader often symbolizes order. And for Shakespeare, too, he told so many stories about leadership and how it came into being, how it was changed and destroyed, and what happened when people messed with it. And he saw leadership. He valued leadership. He valued monarchy for the order that it conveyed, the simple, you know, mandolic order that leadership was. made possible, but also he told stories about what happened in history and how people messed with it and what happened to it.

[33:51]

He told stories of cause and effect. Histories. And so Hamlet's very interesting because it's a story of a leader being killed and then inside the story of the leader being killed is a prince who tries to find out what's going on and tells inside the play, he does a play about the leader being killed. There's a play of Hamlet inside of Hamlet. And Hamlet's a play inside of Hamlet. There's a cosmic Hamlet and then there's a Shakespearean or, you know, widely dispersed cultural story inside this bigger story. And you can make story within stories that way. And the Buddha is even a story like that. The Buddha in this, this is not quite the same story because the Buddha was not killed But in a sense, the Buddha kills himself or herself for the sake of beings because, in fact, king's sovereigns must be killed.

[34:58]

The order cannot stay the same. You can't have a Buddha just sitting there forever. In fact, it doesn't work. They have to die, either be killed or just somehow decide not to hold on to life anymore themselves, which he did. And yet he says, but this is not really what's happening. Actually, I'm going on forever. Actually, leadership and order goes on forever. But if leadership and order goes on forever, somehow people don't seem to get that. In fact, there's also this thing called impermanence or change. So things get wacko if you have order without change. But if you just have change, people can't deal with that, so they have to bring in order. So there's this dynamic between order and change or hierarchy and anarchy. of birth and death. But that birth and death is also a narrative version of something that's not narrative, something that's spatially simultaneous. And in fact, the transmission of Buddha or transmission of Buddha's teaching does not happen over time, like from one generation to the next.

[36:09]

It doesn't happen that way. It happens in all generations simultaneously. When a teacher looks at a student, If a teacher looks at a student and only sees one generation there, the teacher cannot be a teacher. If a student looks at a teacher and only sees one generation there, a student does not see the teacher. Not in the cosmic Buddhist sense. In the Buddhist sense, the Buddhist sense is over all time and all space. So when you look at a teacher and you see all teachers, you are a real student. When you're a teacher and you look at a student and you see all students, you're a teacher, a Buddhist teacher. But it's hard for people to understand that simultaneously, so we tell stories of succession and so on. And then we use the stories of succession to work our way into an understanding which is simultaneous, so that all time is at one place at one time.

[37:15]

Because people have a hard time understanding the data or dealing with the data of everything at once. But that's what the Buddha is. And that's why the Buddha says, actually, this is not really true that I'm just appearing now and growing old and disappearing. But I do that because it seems to be helpful. And then we also recognize that we think that happens, and we get sad. And in some sense, every time I sit there at those Parinirvana ceremonies and I hear that story, I'm really touched by Buddha passing away. By him going up in his jhanas and the guy saying, well, it looks like you're gone. And the other guy says, no, no, he's just going up and down those jhanic states. This isn't death yet. And he goes up and then, and that's something that's really touching to me. At the same time, I feel like, well, it's just, you know, even Buddhists said this isn't really happening. I'm falling for something that Buddhists set up that Buddhists said didn't really happen.

[38:20]

So to deal with this dynamic and this coming and going, and also to play it, we're playing it out, we have to play it out right here. In fact, too, we need leaders, but we also have to get rid of our leaders in some sense. And early agrarian societies used to kill the king every year. You maybe know about that. Literally, for the sake of fertility. And then as we moved away from that, then there came other ways of trying to kill the king or kill the leader to keep the vitality of the situation going and then make a new leader. And all that's going on during these ceremonies, I feel, that this is our version of This is a yearly version of thinking about this thing about killing a leader or this dynamic between order and chaos or ordering and criminals.

[39:37]

Yeah. I've read the cover. It's very like what you're talking about. Nature, or most systems in the universe. Excuse me, did I answer your question on that? Yes. Good. Yes? We have this large elements of randomness. And within that randomness, there's some order, but it's not predictable. Things have an order. But it can't be predicted which direction they're going to go in. So therefore, I'd say, if there's order, then yes, they'll be creative with something you can come up with. And it doesn't all fall apart, or it doesn't have a bridge. It's a really interesting balance going on there. Yeah. And some of the responses, what system did they create? Are they chaos? But what systems have this order, this microgas? The system we looked at. Like what is it? Chambered nautiluses are a response to chaos according to this. Oh, the chambered nautiluses are a response to chaos.

[40:53]

Chambered being a kind of order that moves it. Yeah. And again, this reminds me again of this. The terror of creation, of that first moment of something appearing, of that dynamic creativity, if you can stand that at the beginning, as it first happens, if you can stand that, that's very important for us human beings. That's the beauty for us. And that's not a fixed thing. And that's part of what's terrifying about it. It's so free of everything we're ready to call it. Anyway, I had this idea. But somehow I feel like it's not going to work.

[41:58]

It feels like we're too tired. But anyway, the idea was something like this, that we would choose. one of the people here be the Buddha and have the Buddha lie down maybe on his table and give us perhaps one of the tired or sick people. We go get some sick people out of bed. Wow. And that person could play the role of the Buddha, and we could do a little play, some kind of play about with this dying Buddha, and then see where that went. And then maybe it wouldn't go far, and we'd just go to bed and die. Or maybe just I said that, and that's enough. Go to bed anyway.

[42:59]

What? Yeah, I was prepared to be here till midnight, and I thought that we could let people know that that would be OK. We could get up later tomorrow if something developed. I didn't know where this would go. I thought we had some potential to go somewhere, but I didn't know if the board could even get started. Who wants to be the Buddha? What? No, I don't. Well, who wants to be a Buddha? Do any of you want to be a Buddha? You do? Well, good. What did you say about the jhana state? You do not have to. Buddha said that. He said you do not have to go through the jhana state.

[44:07]

It just happens. But it's optional. Yeah, it's optional. By coincidence, our founder was a master of jhanas. He actually recommended that his students practice it. But when they asked him, every time, as far as I know, every time he was asked why to do it, he never really gave a reason. He just said it was good to do. And my interpretation of that is that there really isn't really much reason to do it, except that they're kind of helpful, but they're unnecessary. And in the Visuddhimagga, the Path of Purification, it says that you can go directly from precepts insight practices. It's insight that you need to have. You have to have wisdom, but you don't have to have these jhana states. Of course, you can't have wisdom without some composure, because your vision, if your vision's unstable, you can't see what's going on.

[45:09]

But if you see what's going on, that's enough stability. And jhanas do help you stabilize your mind, and when your mind's stabilized, you're much more effective, usually, at practicing insight, but you don't have to do the jhanas. Harvard Buddha did. He got very good at them, but he didn't have any insight in the jhanas. Yes? Jhanas are formal, actual, they're trances which are induced, which are the results of high states of concentration, where you actually go into a trance, and you actually, like, you change your, you actually start to see, the world actually changes for you. States of consciousness. Your state of consciousness changes as a result of these, and you go, like, into a trance, where you actually, like, don't see people anymore. The fact that I don't want to do one, but do you know of, like, the, I mean, I already talked to you, what kind of practice was that one? Well, the one that you're already probably doing that's close to it is, by mindfulness of breath, you can actually get into vaginas.

[46:14]

And you have to do it a little bit more obsessively than we usually do it, with some sense of eschewing sensory phenomena with a kind of negative attitude, so that you actually... And then red everywhere. And you hear sounds, but they're not like the sound of Reb's voice. It's more like the sound of an animate being or an inanimate being. And things like that, which is called the fine material realm. You actually get projected into another state of existence. Have you heard about the three worlds? Well, you get projected through these transits into the second world. There's the kamadhatu, which is the... Kama means sex. There can be sex in the first two worlds, but sex in the kamadhatu means sex in the sense of sex like with genitals.

[47:16]

And eating like by the spoonful. or by the ice cream cup full, you know. Where in the rupa dhati you still receive nutrition and you can still have sexual activity, but it's no longer genital sexual activity or eating with, you know, spoons and forks. That's the second world. The third world, the arupya, there's no... the sense organs are not operating. It's just mind consciousness. It's formless. Yeah. And you can get in these states by obsessive concentration on certain topics. You actually get yourself so you don't see anything but those topics. And so very few Zen monks have done these practices, but sometimes Zen students fall into them just by chance, by concentrating on their breathing or focusing on a wall or something for a long time. Another way to do it is just to, like, there are these discs.

[48:22]

You imagine that you actually make a disc on the ground, slightly mounted, fairly smooth. And you can do a white one or a blue one. And you just look at the disc until you get very concentrated on it and you can very clearly see the edge of the disc and the shape of the disc. Then you close your eyes until you can see the disc almost as clearly with your eyes shut as you can with your eyes open. And then you take the disc and you expand it until all you see is this blue or white disc. And then if you stay with that, you go into this, then you get this trance. Well, you develop high levels of concentration. Also, you get, in those states, there's no negative sensation. Avoid. You have no negative sensations. However, you're still, when you come down from them, oftentimes people go right into hell because they have no insight.

[49:27]

So when they get into the pain, they... Yes. I was just thinking when Doug was reading that, I was remembering in the story of the Buddha where when he first left home, he went searching out these various teachers who were famous at the time and mastered their teachings, which was these realms of non-perception and no-thingness. But every time he mastered it and they offered him the teaching seed with them because they saw he was equal to them, he said, no, I didn't find... release here. This wasn't what he was looking for. So Buddhism is not about getting some state of mind, although the Buddha in his youth did that stuff. He was an expert or an adept at conjuring up high worldly states of mind. He could get into the highest possible worldly state. which is this state which is almost like nirvana, where you just get totally cooled out.

[50:29]

And he explained that some people get in that state and think it is nirvana. Buddhist practitioners get in that state and realize that, yes, it's extremely restful, those states. It's like, you know, you want to relax, It's very relaxing. And you get fed there whatever you need to get fed. And if you've got any kind of, like, physical ailments or anything, they can come and take care of it. But you're not necessarily developing any insight and you're not necessarily aware of impermanence, for example. So when you come back, you're not necessarily any better educated than when you went in. However, if you do want to study Buddhism, of Buddhist teachings, then you could use that concentration. And you could study probably, you could probably read a sutra and, you know, remember what you read, like very well, maybe every word.

[51:34]

And you could study much, much more effectively when you can concentrate. But it might be better just to go right ahead and study. On the other hand, if you can't study, then practicing concentration may be a good thing to do. And even developing these high levels of concentration might be good. But I think what in most Buddhist schools you do is you get up to the place where you have a concentration just about as good as it takes to get into these trances. But then instead of going into the trance, you start studying the teaching. You start looking. You apply that concentration to look at what's happening. You study the self. And if you try to study the self without much concentration, you might not get very far. If you study the self with a little concentration, you get quite a way. If you study the self with a lot of concentration, you just learn in a certain, like in one week, you can learn what ordinarily you'd learn in six months.

[52:43]

Or in three months, you can learn what you learned maybe in 10 years if you're concentrated. But if you don't apply it to yourself, you're not really on the Buddhist path because the self is the place that we get attached and it's the place where we get released. So in some ways, it might be better to make a compromise, maybe to study this rather than wait for, let's say you're right at point A. And if you study concentration for, I don't know what, a year, after studying concentration for a year, you might be able to study this cell better than you can now. But the year might not be reached before you died. in which case you would have wasted your time to a great extent because you didn't study yourself. It might be better to study concentration for a few minutes, get a little concentrated, and then study the cell because you can study yourself even for a short period of time.

[53:53]

It's so beneficial, even though your concentration isn't high, that might be better. For example, if you would just practice this self-enjoyment samadhi, even for a short period of time, you would have basically done this fabulous thing in the whole universe. I mean, throughout the whole universe, you would have turned the dharma wheel. And what you get for doing that is a lot more than you're going to get for getting some high state of concentration for yourself. It's incredibly, incomparably superior. I mean, they're just not comparable. However, one you can do while holding onto yourself completely. The other you have to drop yourself completely, at least for a little while, to do a practice that has nothing to do with you, that you don't understand in the slightest. And nobody understands in the slightest, so there's nothing wrong with you.

[54:56]

Even all the Buddhists together don't understand it. Well, they understand it a little, but they don't understand it completely. So if you don't understand it completely, don't feel bad about it, but do it, even though you don't know what I'm talking about. That's the Buddha's recommendation. Just do the practice. Realize what's happening right now, even though you don't know how to do it. To take that on is what all Buddhas have done. So part of what the Zen school is saying is it's better to do what Buddhas have done for a minute than to do what worldly people do for a long time. And remember that when Buddhas start practicing, when they're first starting, they are actually just like anybody else who's just starting. And they all start it. at some point, and they all did beginning practices, and then intermediate practices, and advanced practices, and then they all eventually stopped practicing.

[55:57]

And died. And it started over. But it's nine o'clock, and if we're not gonna do this theater thing, probably should just go to bed. What do you think? Want to go to bed or stay up all night? Huh? Go to bed? Hey, Mark, that's sweet. Not to say you other guys aren't sweet, because you're not like Mark. Not everybody can be like Mark, you know. Even Mark can't be lucky enough. Anyway, maybe next year somebody can be Buddha, and they can die, and we can cry. Can I ask a question? I don't ask it now. I probably never would ask it, which is, how does putting yourself, slipping past himself and joining Samadhi, how do those tie together?

[57:08]

Shikantaza is self-enjoyment samadhi. If you just sit, that is self-enjoyment samadhi. And that is studying the self. Because to study the self is to forget the self. And if you just sit, you forget the self. If you remember the self, you're not just sitting. you're doing, I don't know what you're doing, you're maybe sitting cross-legged, remembering the self. But to just sit means you're actually just sitting. You're thinking about just sitting. You forgot the self. But that's self-enjoyment. Because what your self really is, is completely not yourself. That's called just sitting. Okay?

[58:14]

Now you know. It's easy to do, hard to understand. I shouldn't say easy to do. It's not difficult to do, but very difficult to understand and explain. That's why we talk. Buddha talked. He was a talker. He was a great yogi, a great insight, great liberation, and something of a, you know, talkative person. Talked a lot. I mean, you know, it was the main thing, actually. I mean, Tripp was talking. He didn't, like, didn't walk that far. He didn't run that much. He didn't build a lot of monasteries. He didn't raise a lot of money. He didn't tap dance. He didn't do backflips. He didn't write any books. But he talked, you know, pretty much all day long when he wasn't listening. And he never said a word to anybody. He was called the quiet one of the shock units, right? Okay, so let's get up and do the ceremony, see how it goes.

[59:17]

Yeah, we'll do the ceremony. And then we'll sit, and then some people will go get some food and bring it up to us, and then we'll eat it. And then we'll leave the zendo, and then I don't know what will happen after that. What? Would there be a shoten? Yeah, why not have a shoten? Who's a shoten? So we don't need it. But you need the product. We want to show it to them. We just don't want them to do anything. The kitchen people would be for the ceremony, and then they'll go do their thing, right?

[60:29]

Yes, where Rox is to the ceremony. And I want to see... Black? No. Okay. Basic black. Basic black. Basic black. It's semi-formal. This is the spring formal. And should we get up ten minutes later? Yes. Well, four minutes later, 15 minutes later. It'll be 15 by the time we get out of here. 4.20, dance show. 15 minutes later. Is that okay? The dance show later, too? Yes. Why? 15 minutes later. This is out of control. Mayor Intention.

[61:44]

Mayor Intention. Equally penetrated. I'm reading and playing.

[61:48]

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