Tonight I'd like to try to talk about what is sometimes called the Samatha and Vipassana or tranquility and insight or higher vision. And I'd like to start by talking about it intra-psychically, sort of within the mind. So the way I've been... One way I've been talking about how to stabilize the mind, which is also how to heal the mind, or the beginning of healing the mind is to train the attention to meet whatever comes up in mind with complete relaxation.

[01:24]

and what comes up within mind includes awareness of tactile sensations for example the tactile sensation of the posture and the tactile sensation of breathing so when in the in the arising or the coming of the tactile sensation of breath to meet that tactile sensation with complete relaxation to rest in that tactile sensation. So there's attending to it otherwise we wouldn't be able to know it and know to rest in it. But the attending is a relaxed kind of attending. It's not a forced focusing. It's actually of focusing of the attention on a way of attending.

[02:33]

So it's attending to the breath, but it's also attending to a relaxed, resting way of attending to the breath. That's one way I've spoken of attending to things that arise or come in the mind. Another way which is really, I think, very similar but gets a different, slightly different angle on it is to meet whatever comes in a very unelaborating uncomplicated way so that whatever comes you just receive it as it comes, you don't complicate it.

[03:40]

There's some interest in whatever comes because, in fact, if there was no interest there would be no awareness of it, there would be no cognition of it. So there is some interest, but it's an uncomplicated interest. So there again, within, within sort of inner events, The attention is being trained towards the way of being with the inner events. And what is the way of being with inner events? To be with them, to meet them with relaxation, to meet them as they're given without whomping them up or suppressing them, without praising or blaming. So this uncomplicated interest in, for example, the tactile sensation of the breath is calming.

[04:56]

But the attention is on the breath and the attention is also on being with the breath in an uncomplicated way. So there's some attention to being very kind of clean with the breath. Cleaning the awareness of any kind of elaboration or complication. Cleaning the interest in the breath of any complication. Again, receiving the tactile sensation of the breath just as it comes and this uncomplicated attention or this attention to this uncomplicated way of attending with the breath calms but also attending to anything in this uncomplicated way being interested enough to notice something in this uncomplicated way is calming

[06:06]

It's not just calming, it's relaxing. And being with things in a relaxed way is relaxing. But it's not just that, it also is in this relaxation there's flexibility that can come eventually too. And buoyancy. Now, still sort of speaking inwardly, within the mind, this meeting whatever comes in this relaxed, uncomplicated way, meeting whatever comes without comment, Doesn't mean there's no comments available.

[07:12]

It just means they're not grasped. So that if something comes, you meet it with no comment. And if there's a comment, you meet the comment with no comment. So the comment is not confounded with or in a complication of the meeting. you meet the thing sort of cleaned of the complication of a comment on it. And once again, if a comment arises, you meet the comment in an uncomplicated way, namely, it's just a comment. So if you meet the breath, it's just a breath. If you meet a sight, it's just the sight. If you meet a sound, it's just the sound.

[08:14]

If you meet a comment, it's just a comment. Very simple. And this simple way of meeting each thing and also being kind of clear that this is the way you intend to meet things a kind of clear direction in the way you're going to meet things, at least for some period of meditation, is calming, stabilizing, enlightening. Now the this way of of uh... training the attention is you could say the foundation for or opens the door into a new way of being with uh... all the events within your mind

[09:33]

and this new way of being with all the events within your mind is that one way it's described is that the prior thoughts Present thoughts and future thoughts do not wait for each other. Each thought is calm and extinguished. But I think what I would interpret, I would interpret and extinguish for you there in the sense that each thought is free of any kind of entanglement which hinders the harmonious interaction between all thoughts within the mind.

[11:10]

between which each thought in this realm that's opened by this calming, each thought is free of other thoughts and in harmony with other thoughts. And in particular, there is a harmony between the awareness and the object, or the subject and the object. Because all awarenesses are subjects, which means a subject is something that has an object. And all awareness has objects. And all awarenesses are subjects. But oftentimes there seems to be some conflict or separation between subject and object. There seems to be a conception that they're separate.

[12:19]

Not just that they're different, because they are different, but they're separate, like separate in being, two different existences. But they actually have a harmonious relationship which is working all the time and when we enter into higher vision we enter into that harmonious working of knowing and known, of subject and object. This is what might be called insight or higher vision. And when human beings hear that, because human beings often are enamored of a perspective of being a subject that's in control of experience, a subject which owns its body or owns its thoughts, we sometimes think that this vision would be that you'd be able to see into that world, that you or I would be able to see into that world and see this harmony.

[13:36]

But it's more like actually by this kind of meditation, the actual meditation goes into this realm. The awareness enters this realm. Now I'd like to make this shift and talk about this whole thing interpersonally. in the realm where there seems to be, you know... Before I do that, though, I want to say that in this realm where all the different thoughts are calm and where all entanglement among them has been extinguished, so that all the different thoughts

[14:40]

and all the different awarenesses are ready to live in this realm of harmony. That in this realm, the awareness in this realm embraces and sustains everything And the activity of the awareness embracing and sustaining everything and also being embraced and sustained by everything, that awareness is a higher vision. But it's not like looking into that. It's the actual embracing and sustaining of everything without exception in perfect harmony that is the higher vision. This is intra-psychic.

[15:48]

Now, interpersonally, between beings, it's basically the same. Namely, if there seems to be this person and that person, then the calming way of meeting other beings is to meet every being that comes and to meet every being in the same way that we talked about meeting whatever comes intra-psychically or within the mind. Namely, meet every being with complete relaxation. It means in the experience of meeting there is a resting in it. And another way to put it is, meet every being without comment.

[16:55]

Meet every being without thinking what they look like. Now, of course, when you meet some beings you do think, oh how lovely. But again, That comment is not grasped about the person. You just meet the person and they're just a person without the comment of what they look like. And then when the comment of what they look like arises, they're just a comment. But the comment and the person are not mixed together. This way of being, of meeting, each person, each being, this way of interpersonally being is calming, is relaxing, and is softening. And again, it opens the door to realizing harmony between self and other.

[18:10]

And it realizes the awareness which is able to embrace and sustain whatever being is being met. And this way of being in relationship is insight. Rather than have an insight like, oh I get it, Everybody's me. Or, oh, I get it. I should embrace and sustain everybody. You might have that understanding, but many people have that understanding, but they don't enact it. The interpersonal relationship doesn't show that. So sometimes you might think that the insight would be that you would understand your true relationship with beings from the point of view of, like, you'd have that understanding.

[19:18]

That's more like the intra-psychic version. The interpersonal version is that I was going to say that you act that way. But actually, it's not that you act that way, but that the relationship's that way. because it's not you doing it on your own side and them doing it on their side or them not doing it on their side and you doing it on your side you being enlightened and them not it's actually when the meeting is embracing and sustaining whatever comes this is the actually the way that you and the other being are meeting that in the meeting you're embracing and sustaining each other this is insight interpersonal insight or this is higher vision manifested in the relationship so again last week I talked about like if you were

[20:34]

doing some formal meditation and some thought came to you and you could receive it just as it was given and only as it was given and not ask for more or less, that would be in accord with the precept of not taking what's not given or taking only what's given. And that precept can guide you to understand that The real way that subject and object live together, the suchness of mind and object, the suchness, the actual way that subject and object are, comes to you in the training of receiving only what's given. When there's asking for more than is given or less than is given, that tense, grasping way of receiving, which is receiving with some reservations and receiving with some grasping, that way of being

[21:55]

sort of goes against this precept of not taking what's given, not taking what's not given, but also it creates a disturbance in the mind so that the suchness, the true relationship between knowing and known is obscured. Similarly, between beings, when we act that way, then it seems like there's stealing going on or there's taking what's not given. There's taking something in the meeting plus taking more. Like when you come to meet me, you actually do not come with a judgment about you. When your face comes to me, comes into my awareness, your face doesn't come with what you look like. I take that too, maybe.

[22:58]

I see your face and then I also say, I also take not what you gave, not what your face gave me, but I take what your face looks like from someplace else. That wasn't given. What was given was just your face before there was any comment. But then I took a comment too. I'll take a face and a comment please and in fact most people when they meet other people they don't just receive the face they take a face and one or more comments about the face so you're taking more than is given in that in that meeting and some people and then also okay some people then would think that it's scary to not do that like Stephen was talking about last week Inwardly, I don't know if you're speaking outwardly, but in dealing with your inner experience to receive it without adding or subtracting anything, in some sense to receive what's coming, not in exactly a powerless way, but in a way that's not a power way.

[24:07]

So not receiving it in a power way is not the same as powerless way. Receiving in a power way is when I see you, I don't have to just see you. I have a repertoire of comments by which I can cope with you. So I don't just stand here and receive you. I receive you and then I make myself feel more or less okay by a certain set of comments that will make me feel secure. And Stephen was talking, I think, a little bit about if you meet things inwardly or outwardly without comments, he felt afraid. Because when you meet things without comment, you experience your vulnerability. And put it the other way, when you meet someone And then you have a comment. You can use the comment to protect yourself from whatever.

[25:08]

Because you can comment yourself into a safety zone. Like, you know, there's a face and I know who that is and that person is this way or this way or this way or this way. So then I've got things, you know, this is a power thing to do with the face. but it's also stressful, it's not relaxing, it's not calming, and it doesn't open to the vision of the true relationship. And it hinders and encumbers us inwardly to realize the true, the harmonious working of mind and object. And in that harmonious working of mind and object, there is liberation from suffering. And outwardly, in the harmonious working of self and other, there is liberation from suffering. And it needs to be both inward and outward.

[26:10]

That the higher vision, which is like, it's a meditation, right? Inwardly, people maybe can understand that maybe that's a meditation to like be able to calm down and have the awareness move into a cord with the true relationship between awareness and object and that there would be liberation from suffering in that meditation. That's right. But it's also a meditation to meet another person and be in the relationship the harmonious relationship between you and the other person. That's a meditation. It's a meditation which heals the so-called external world. It's enacting, embracing and sustaining everything.

[27:23]

in the interpersonal realm and the other is in acting, embracing and sustaining in the inter-psychic realm. And there's another and I want to be very delicate about this, but there's another difference between the calming side, the calming side of training the attention, or the training the attention in the calming side and the training of the attention in the insight side. And the difference is that on the calming side There's a little bit of, there's a little bit, a little bit, it's so little I hate to even bring it up.

[28:38]

There's a little bit of working with antidotes to turbulence. A little bit of working with antidotes to tension. A little bit of working with antidotes to grasping. A little bit of working with antidotes to commenting. Whereas on the insight side, there's no antidotes. If there's tension, you just confess the tension. If there's disturbance, you just confess the disturbance. If there's stability but it's becoming dull or losing its vividness, you just note it.

[29:48]

Whereas on the other side, there's more or less allowance for counteracting it but I've been very hesitant to get too much into counteracting the any lack of calm or lack or if there's calm and relaxation any lack of vividness I've been very hesitant to get into antidotes to that because antidotes they can create more turbulence and also they are somewhat not in harmony with the insight phase where you don't have any antidotes. So I was thinking, you know, in terms of the traditional religious practices of confession and repentance,

[30:52]

that to some extent the calming practices are like confession and repentance, and the insight practice is just confession. If there's some problem, if there's some consequence that maybe needs to be enacted over on the calming side, whereas the insight side, we just confess what's happening. don't do anything about what's happening you just basically we could say cope but even cope is too much you just respond they're just responding as the other case is a slight agenda Once there is calm, then there doesn't need to be an agenda because once they're calm, once there's stability, and once then there's openness and willingness to feel vulnerable, then you can enter the realm where you're vulnerable.

[32:09]

You can enter the realm where all things within the mind are coming in a relaxed state, and then you can receive them without any comment and receiving them now without any comment in this relaxed state then one enters into the actual working of the relationship which is vision. It's possible before that when you just have calm you're calm but you have not yet in some sense penetrated into the nature of the relationship with the things that you've calmed down with. So once again, one side of the meditation is you train your attention, you train your body and mind to calm down with and relax with whatever comes. And once you relax, then you enter into the relationship with whatever comes more thoroughly.

[33:18]

because of the relaxation that's possible now. And that thorough penetration, that's why the word insight may be used, is the sight goes in. Whereas before the sight was just accepting what was, with no comment, now this site penetrates and is penetrated by it goes into or it's you know or it's embraced by both ways then again externally will be the same thing when meeting people in order to calm down if you're not calm you may have to like remind yourself to do those ways of meeting people. You may have to remind yourself to let go of your comments, to see people as opportunities for relaxation, to see people as opportunities for exhalation,

[34:37]

And then when you can meet people in this relaxed and flexible way and you actually are calming down through the meeting, then you notice that your body and mind have entered into this relationship with them such that you're not acting independently of them anymore and your activity is being led along together with all beings. So you're embracing and sustaining all beings and being embraced and sustained by all beings. So maybe that's way too much but maybe it's also enough to start with. Dennis? Pat? It would seem that people who are blind would be good candidates for higher vision for this kind of meditation.

[35:48]

People, it seems like people who are blind would be good candidates for this kind of meditation? Visually, yeah, they'd really be good visually. But they don't experience people visually. So it doesn't count. So they wouldn't be, in the visual realm, they wouldn't be good candidates for this meditation. The area that they'd be good candidates for this meditation would be in the tactile realm and the auditory realm. But there, it's likely that blind people in the tactile realm, that they may have heavier commentarial habits than we do. I don't know, because touch is so important to them. Some people might touch you or touch me and say, the texture of your skin is such and such, but a blind person might have much more to say than that.

[36:59]

They might have a tremendous vocabulary about about how things feel to the touch. I don't know. I, you know, like, like dogs and dogs and snakes live, you know, their sense of smell is a bigger part of their world than ours. And I heard somebody say, give an example of what the world of a snake might be like He said, it might be like, can you ever imagine when you're driving in a car through the desert after it rains and how it smells? So like you're driving through the desert when it's raining and you can smell miles and miles of desert coming to you through the smell. Usually that doesn't happen to us, right? Usually like when you drive to Berkeley or something, you don't like smell all of Berkeley.

[38:01]

You don't feel like, you smell, you know, like you smell a little, like a few, maybe the corner you're standing on, but you don't smell like miles of Berkeley. Whereas a snake, I think, you know, like for us, being able to see for miles, they can smell for miles. And sometimes we can get a little flavor of that, like that one example. When you're in the jungle or in the rainforest, You can't smell miles away. You know what I mean? Usually. You can smell just because of the way that the works, you smell more like the local area because it's so dense. But in the desert, you can smell, you know, the whole desert. If it rains, you know, way over there, you can smell it. You know what I mean? That's sort of like that vividness. Something like what it would be like to be a snake. But when there's that kind of vividness in there also might be lots of comments. So just to have a sense modality removed doesn't mean that you can do the meditation because there's no opportunity.

[39:10]

The opportunities are actually, the great opportunities are where there are lots of habits, lots of confusing comments. That's where the practice really gets challenged and that's where it can really develop. So it's not that you're a good candidate for the practice in some area where you're not challenged. You're actually a good candidate for the practice in the areas you are challenged, because that's the areas where you can relax those habits. and let go of those habitual entanglements and hindrances through basically not pushing the hindrances away but seeing the hindrances as opportunities, which is a way to relax with the hindrance.

[40:11]

is that this hindrance isn't hindering me. This hindrance is an opportunity to relax. This hindrance is an opportunity to not comment on the hindrance. This hindrance is an opportunity to not grasp it. Whereas usually I figure, you know, well, I don't have to grasp lack of hindrance, but I definitely have to grasp hindrance. Wouldn't be much of a hindrance then, would it, if I didn't? Yes, Nancy? Nancy? But after a while, it just goes on for so long, maybe an hour and a half, I can't cool down. I just have to get a little bit of a sense. I find I can't put the meditation or whatever. Well, I guess I want to stop or I want to be able to go back to sleep or something.

[41:16]

You want to go back to sleep and... I don't, at first it's okay, but it goes on for maybe an hour, an hour and a half. So what's it started now? You wake up in the middle of the night and then what happens? I'll start thinking, I'll be thinking about something. You'll be thinking about something and that's what wakes you up sort of? Okay, so you just wake up and you notice, and then you wake up and you notice you're thinking about something or you're thinking about things, okay? And then you... And then I try to concentrate on my breath. Yes. And I'm still thinking about it. And I try to just let it be, just come in like sound or... It doesn't... Well, it sounds like, well, first of all, it sounds a little bit like you're doing this technique so you can go back to sleep.

[42:22]

Well, at first I'm not, but at first I'm just trying to do the technique. And what's your reason for doing it? Because those thoughts are disturbing you. So I'm trying to not be disturbed. You're trying to not be disturbed. Okay, so what's happening is there's thoughts and there's disturbance, right? So, I guess what I'm talking to you about is... to meet the thoughts with no comment and then to meet the disturbance with no comment. It seems impossible to meet disturbance without comment.

[43:28]

And the thought, it seems impossible I would suggest you meet that with no comment. Maybe that one's easier to meet with no comment, the thought, it's impossible. Like you could just maybe say, it's impossible, and not even, yeah, that's right. Just, there's a thought that it's impossible to not comment on these thoughts. to not say this is a disturbing thought or to not feel this is a disturbing thought. And then you said that you try that and then I think you said something like it goes on too long. And again, too long, that's another thought, another calculation, which then you think, then I maybe just try to read.

[44:40]

And reading, and what's the reading going to do for you? Right. So the reading may be in some ways more relaxing than the meditation because you're a better reader. You have more experience reading. And maybe you read, maybe the way you read is that you read the words with less comment than when you actually try to meditate on these thoughts. So then, in fact, you're relaxing with the reading more than you're relaxing with the thoughts. So by reading, you put your mind onto a certain kind of material that you can more easily relax with. And when you relax, if you're also tired, then it's easy to shift into sleep.

[45:44]

Whereas if you weren't tired, you'd probably just keep reading and be relaxed. So some people are like that. They're more able to relax when reading certain material than when meditating on or paying attention to some other material, like certain kinds of thoughts or certain kinds of interactions. So in fact, you may be better at practicing stabilization while reading than when looking at your mind. at your thoughts, especially those thoughts that wake you up out of sleep. But probably, you know, maybe most thoughts. Now, there are certain types of reading you could do which, if you actually continued that reading, you might not relax with it. It's possible. So anyway, these thoughts are the thoughts that are challenging your meditation, the ones that you can't go to sleep with, that you can't relax with.

[46:46]

They're challenging your meditation. They're challenging also your sleep. So then you're going to have to have more skill to relax with those than you have with the reading. And so far you're saying that your skill level is not such that you can relax with some stuff. In other words, you concatenate comments about certain thoughts. Well, in some ways, you know, I think that in some ways maybe it's a good idea to give up meditation. Giving up meditation is very closely related to relaxing with meditation. So if you're meditating and you feel like this is like really not working, then giving it up is very similar to relaxing with the fact that it's not working.

[47:46]

You know, and that part of what relaxing is about is, you know, releasing, giving up something, letting go. Don't, you know, just say, okay, I'm meditating and I'm not going to stop no matter what, you know. No matter how bad it gets, I'm going to just keep doing it. Even though it's a meditation which is not supposed to, you know, basically make me feel worse and worse, but I'm just going to keep doing it no matter what. Well, that's kind of like tense. It's not really a relaxed approach. Relaxed approach is, well, I'm going to meditate, but I have no idea how long. Matter of fact, I'm just going to meditate for this moment. And I might not even be able to do it this moment. Matter of fact, I'm not even going to meditate. I'm just going to relax with what's happening. And I've heard that that's meditation. So I'm not even going to meditate.

[48:52]

I'm just going to relax. And also I noticed that without making this into a big deal, this relaxation, I noticed that it's hard for me to relax when certain things are going on. But if you notice that certain things are going on and that you notice that you're not relaxed, there's a certain relaxation in noticing that you're not relaxed. Because in fact, you're just letting your relaxation be your relaxation. I mean, you're letting your not being relaxed, you're letting your tense response to this material just be the tense response. And if you... And... Yeah. So there's some thoughts. There's a tense habitual reaction to it which is disturbing and painful or disorienting or agitating.

[50:01]

And then there's noticing that that's happening. And maybe at that moment there's just noticing that it's happening and that's it. And on some level that's not really a comment. And that's somewhat relaxing. And then maybe... You relax enough to say, I think I'll just read instead, which maybe is a good move because, in fact, you're noticing that you're not relaxing with this material, these thoughts you don't relax with. But you notice that, and that's kind of a relaxation, or that's kind of a simply noting it without further comment. Like, for example, this is happening. I'm not relaxing with it. I'm tensing up around it. Okay? You can stop right there, and stopping right there is kind of, I would say, a kind of a relaxed thing to do about it. Like, okay, I'm tense. So what? And I think as long as I keep looking at this, I'm going to keep flinching from this thing. That probably, like, where this is a yoga room, right?

[51:03]

Sometimes when you try to get into certain yoga postures, maybe your foot goes into a spasm or something, right? And if you keep trying to do that, if you're starting to cramp as you're going into some posture, if you just keep going into it, you're just going to cramp more and more and start spreading up the whole leg, right? So it's probably better just to give it up. So relaxing with the cramp would probably mean I probably should just give up this posture that I'm trying to get in now that this cramp's starting. And maybe just massage the cramp and forget about the yoga. But in fact, that's the kind of yoga that you notice you have a cramp. It's not one of the standard posture of asanas called, you know, notice a cramp. But it's actually on the periphery of many postures. that cramps happen, and what's usually a good idea to do, unless you have some other kind of skill, is just give up, relax, let go of that posture, and take care of the cramp.

[52:06]

And maybe today is not the time to do that posture. Maybe try it again and it cramps up again. And you come out of it and massage and try again. But sometimes you try again and the cramp doesn't happen. But sometimes you figure, let's just do something else. Let's go read or something. So this kind of the willingness to give up meditation is actually part of meditation. I probably should say that a few more times. When you're part of enthusiasm for meditation is giving up meditation. That's part of it. Sometimes you're doing something that's too hard and you should stop. Sometimes you're doing something that's too easy, and you should stop. You should give it up. You should take a rest. If you keep doing something that's too easy too long, your energy is going to drop, your enthusiasm is going to drop. If you try something that's too hard, your enthusiasm is going to drop.

[53:11]

So in both those cases, it's good to, like, let go of those practices and go on to something that's more appropriate, which might be something that seems rather mundane, like reading, but, um, reading scriptures is a meditation practice to you know if you read certain scriptures in order to read them you have to give up trying to get something from the text because the text itself in many cases is not you're not getting any information from the text like some texts have long lists of names of bodhisattvas. You know, this kind of bodhisattva, that kind of bodhisattva. And not in classes of bodhisattvas, like all these different kinds of bodhisattvas have different kinds of top knots. And bodhisattvas, you know, various kinds of bodhisattvas in this realm, in that realm, just list name after name.

[54:14]

And, you know, it's not like you can say, well, geez, I'm going to pretty soon know the names of lots of bodhisattvas. So I'm going to like be more, I'm going to be a well-educated, you know, person here because I'll know, like, you know, if anybody wants to know names of bodhisattvas, I'll be able to tell them. And I'll be like, you know, a famous person in my area for knowing bodhisattva names. But you know, you're not going to be able to remember these names. Unless you would, it would take you a long time to memorize these names. And you're not going to memorize them. That's not what you're doing. You're just reading. And this is like, in some sense, this reading is totally useless from the point of view of you getting any information or learning anything about anything. Except it is actually useful about learning about one thing. and it's useful about learning how to give up trying to get something because if you keep reading this you're just going to get more you're going to feel more and more frustrated because you're not getting anything until you start reading it and start to say hey I'm just going to read this and there's no story here this is just a list of names there's no story I'm not learning any Buddhist teachings but in fact you are learning a Buddhist teaching you're entering into a samadhi you're entering into an awareness

[55:26]

of reading these names and not trying to get anything. And you start to relax and open up. So, you know, reading, especially reading Buddhist scriptures or, like, in some cases, like, really, you know, trashy stuff sometimes where you... Well, maybe that's not it because in the trashy thing you still get a storyline, some... I don't know. But still, the point is anyway, you go into a state of mind by reading. And so... So one of the ways you've been successful, Nancy, is that you've been able to give up meditation more than, you know, a lot of other people have. You know, you've probably given up meditation more than most people you know. I mean, some people try it and give up, you know, they give up once and that's it.

[56:32]

But you keep coming back to these classes and trying and giving it up. And you try it, and you try it, you know, in the middle of the night at your house. You try it at work. You try it at all these different situations and you keep giving it up. Okay? But every time you give it up, you have a chance to try it again. Because if you practice too long and try too hard, you know, you'll lose all your enthusiasm. You know, you get so tense, you'll say, this is really bad for my health, this meditation. But it's not that the meditation is bad for you. It's this tense way of approaching the meditation. And it's like people aren't bad for you, but approaching people in a tense way is bad for you. And thoughts aren't bad for you, but approaching them in a tense way is bad for you. The things in the world and the Things in your mind, they aren't bad for you. It's the grasping them that's bad. So when you get up in the middle of the night, it's because you're grasping.

[57:36]

And then when you try to do a meditation practice, try to grasp a meditation practice to apply to that, that's not good for your health and you see it and you give it up. So you actually, then you're practicing meditation when you let go of it. So when you give up the meditation, you're actually doing the meditation. And then if you don't wait too long to give it up so you can still, like, read a book, you're okay. And you actually tried the meditation, experienced it, experienced some tension, and let go. And sometimes you might go back to meditation, but you can actually just let it go. Quit. Take a break. Take a break is part of the meditation. So that part, you've got that part done really well. Yeah. And that's a very important part that is, you know, not given... It's one of those things that people are very surprised to hear about, that a big part of practice is giving up practice.

[58:40]

And a big part of meditation is taking rests. Resting is a big part of enthusiasm. So, hey, Ron and Diana, I don't know which one was first. Diana probably knows if she's alert. Huh? Yeah. It's hard for him to see. Yes, Diana? Yes. Well, in some sense, the antidote was she relaxed in some way. She stopped trying to directly deal with those thoughts in order to calm them. she stopped trying to she stopped, I don't know if she ever was trying to get rid of them but she was either trying to get rid of them or relax with them or calm down with them and she wasn't able to so she calmed down with the fact that she wasn't able to calm down enough to just sort of give up trying to calm down with the stuff she recognized in some sense I think that the meditation practice that with this material it was too advanced for you there's certain material

[60:19]

that would be too difficult for us to rest in. And so I think the way to say, OK, I mean, theoretically, someday I want to be able to rest in any situation. I mean, ideally, that's the goal of practice is to be able to whatever situation you're in, like in sickness and in health, for rich or for poor, for better or worse, no matter what situation, you can rest. But sometimes, a lot of people can't rest in richness, but they can rest in poorness, actually. Like, you know, you go up in the mountains, you know, get up to a certain altitude. All you've got is your little cook stove and your little backpack. You know, life's pretty simple. And sometimes in that situation, a lot of people can, like, rest. When they come back home to their lovely home, with, you know, all the conveniences and, you know, opportunities for a refrigerator full of stuff, all kinds of fancy cooking equipment, they can't rest.

[61:25]

So some people can't, they freak out when they get, you know, in the woods. It's too simple here. They tense up, you know. So then, you know, where's the bathing facilities, you know? So different people are challenged by different things. But the ideal would be to be able to rest and relax no matter what comes. That's the point. No matter what comes. Whatever comes, meet it with complete relaxation. But some things come, like here comes a big monster coming to get you. You know, I can just rest with this. What are you yelling at? Well, eventually you want to be able to do that. Maybe now you can't do it, but that's... Someday... it's going to be really, really helpful if you can relax when something really intense is happening. And that's what martial arts are about, is to train us so that when somebody comes at us with a lot of aggressive energy, we can, like, relax, you know? Like the founder of judo, you know, they said that when you try to throw him, it was like this.

[62:38]

You know, you couldn't throw him anymore. But if, you know, if something resists, then you can easily throw it. If you push and it doesn't go that way, if you push, okay, and it pushes back, then all you've got to do is step out of the way and go like this and it'll fall on its face. But if it's completely soft, you can't do anything with it. So, anyway. Okay. she was challenged beyond her skill level she recognized it and gave up but if you keep practicing you may be able to finally extend the relaxation to these more challenging situations but to know that this is too hard and back off like now work is too hard now the middle of the night anxiety is too hard but it won't always be if you keep resting

[63:39]

and relaxing and giving up when it's too hard. You say, too hard today, but it might not be tomorrow. I'll try again tomorrow. . Right. Right. And even after I realized it, it kept on, you know, shaking. Right. But other things that are more intense, before it wasn't like that. Right. Right.

[64:42]

All right. Yeah, or it's either too much or too little to relax with. Like, I don't have to relax with this kind of problem. But sometimes when the problem gets worse, you say, oh, I get it. It's time to relax. You're on? When you mentioned reading about the names of the sattvas, I had this thought that it might be nice to fantasize or imagine things about the sattvas, that there are all these stories about all these different practices and different races they get in life and so on.

[65:45]

And then I thought, well, this may be nice, but maybe it's not exactly meditation because it's not elaboration. At some point, it might be meditation. But in the calming phase, what we're doing is giving up the elaboration. And ordinarily, if something's interesting and exciting, it draws your attention, fine. but you know and you can be making comments on it and have a good time but you may be quite upset too if you actually look carefully but these lists of bodhisattvas actually if you keep reading it's pretty hard to be imagining stories while you continue to read because the next name interferes with whatever story you want to make and actually when you sometimes when you just read the name you get some kind of interesting hit on that you know some interesting image comes with the name but then you read the next name so that you know, the past thought and the succeeding thought don't wait for each other, and you just go along, so you keep losing the last name and taking a new one.

[66:55]

So actually, if you keep reading that way, you enter into this non-elaborative way, and then you calm down. But there comes a time when, if you can enter into this realm, where you are actually in harmony with all things and receiving whatever comes. There comes a time to then act from that place and make a great elaboration. So the Buddha then, once realizing this consciousness, which is in harmony with all things, then the Buddha has lots of creative activity and tells lots of stories and gives lots of teachings. But it's coming from this harmony rather than coming from trying to distract ourselves from pain or trying to excite ourselves or trying to elaborate, to bring our energy up or whatever.

[68:01]

So there comes a time for this creative elaboration. when it's very beneficial. But it's also possible to be involved in creative elaboration but be totally out of touch with your suffering and use it actually as a distraction. And all the activity is imbued with an underlying sense of disharmony between self and other. and fear and so on, which is part of the disharmony. So you may not notice it, but the behaviors are maybe quite destructive. So it's possible that there's somewhat of a relief from your suffering, a distraction from your suffering, but you could actually like have a great time designing Well, a concentration camp.

[69:04]

This is a great thing, you know. This is such a neat concentration camp. And be distracting yourself from what's going on. And underlying this whole plan is the idea that the other is dangerous and needs to be eliminated. But you're out of touch with the pain of that while you're doing this imagination. But in the calming phase, anyway, you're giving that up for a while. You're temporarily withdrawing from using the imagination to elaborate and complicate what's happening. You're still using the imagination, but you're training the imagination along with the attention to imagine that there's only the present. and the present's not waiting for the future and the past's not waiting for the present.

[70:08]

So you're actually using your imagination in this different way. And using the imagination this way starts to remove hindrance and remove obstacles which are stopping you from being ready to enter into embracing all things. So usually we feel hindered to embrace whatever comes and be of service to whatever being we meet. That's because we have a habit to do that. And I also have a habit of having comments on everybody, so like why you can't be of service to this person and can be of service to this person. So by training the mind into simplifying this way, we become ready to enter into embracing all things. And then once we're embracing all things, then it may be a good time now to let the imagination think of the future.

[71:12]

Now that I'm embracing all things, what should we do next? How can we enact this new way of being together? Yes, Dean? Yes. [...] would ordinarily take years and years of study to master, like the great martial arts masters.

[72:14]

It's something that's very complex, and if you break it down into bits and parts, it seems effortless. And so it seems like what you're just saying, it's like when you get into this imaginative, not imaginative, this creative phase, it's like manifesting. Yes? It's manifesting. Pardon? I think maybe I should talk about it next week because it's 9.15 and it's a big topic. Yes. I mean, I'm going to come here next week. Are you? Yeah. Okay, see you then. Oh, Stephen? Stephen? This is Stephen. That's Dean. This is Stephen. Stephen wants to say something before we go. I just wanted to... Earlier this evening... Yes.

[73:23]

Yes. I couldn't get away to... Yes. I'm glad you noticed that. None of us could get away from it. I was resisting it. Yes. And I couldn't stop resisting. Yes. Right. And yet it was very unrelaxing. It was unrelaxing that you're resisting it. And so that's, again, another example of... You know, you could have, like, left the room. That's possible. But you didn't. So the sound kept coming, and it was, you know, and it hurt a little bit because it was very particular combinations have a certain dissonance, a little uncomfortable, right? And then you couldn't relax with it. And you didn't give up the practice of noticing that you couldn't relax.

[74:29]

So that was okay. But if we'd sat longer, it's possible that your body would have found a way to relax with it. possible you know i often experience in this class when they have like two you know upstairs and downstairs classes plus the stuff outside with all that stuff coming in when i first sit you know i'm it's you know it kind of hurts and uh but after a while i don't hear anything anymore it's not that i'm It's not that I'm cutting it out, I just relax with it so that it's still coming in and I'm still sort of hearing it, but I start to kind of like... There's a kind of harmony with the disharmony after a while. But it has to do with registering that I feel... accepting that I feel jarred by it or, you know, almost hurt by it at first.

[75:36]

Well, at first it's not Aikido. Aikido means loving energy. At first it's not loving. At first it's like... Then gradually you see how that, as you pay attention to that, you kind of lovingly attend to how you're not harmonizing with it. And then on that level you start to harmonize with it. And then that harmony starts to spread to this other area where you're... But sometimes it's too much and you can't do it. or you don't have enough time to find your way. So half an hour might not be long enough sometimes, but sometimes it's just about right. I sometimes don't, you know, they do actually see now that it's, you know, it's not happening now, right? They stop that about the time our period ends, they stop. So our meditation actually doesn't work.

[76:32]

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