So this is a picture, this is a drawing of the Eightfold Path, okay? So I'll start again from kind of the beginning, with Right View, and this is a mundane Right View, or in other words, we're now meditating on the workings of the world, how karma works. We're in the world now, still believing in a self that can do things, and we watch this very carefully, and as our meditation on what we're doing gets somewhat developed, if we see how things work, if we see the different kinds of karma there are, and what they lead to, our thinking starts to change, and our thinking starts to be inclined towards, our

[01:00]

intention starts to develop that we would like to find a way through this, a way of peace and happiness through this field of karma, and so gradually our thinking starts to tend towards thoughts of renunciation, of letting go of our attachments in this world of karma, our thinking starts to go towards loving-kindness and thoughts of harmlessness, we're looking for this way, how can we behave in this world harmlessly, lovingly, and with detachment, start thinking this way. Then we start to concentrate and look at our speech, one of the main types of speech, I mean the main type of karma. So here the first type of karma is thinking, or intention, the root of karma, then speech, and a speech hopefully that would be in accord with the intention, which develops from understanding somewhat

[02:02]

about how karma works, so speech that also expresses detachment, speech that's true, that comes out true, that isn't stuck on, you know, gain, protecting ourselves from loss, but really we go for the truth, we try to say the truth, speech that's gentle and kind, and trying to address the truth, not spending time saying things that don't bear on the truth, speech that's in accord with the right intention. Then action, which is also in accord with the right intention, action that's harmless, action that's gentle and beneficial, and then we start looking at the karma in the realm of livelihood, so again we want our livelihood to be a livelihood that's in accord with honesty, so we speak the truth, we use our

[03:04]

bodies in ways that aren't harmful, we earn our peace, we earn our livelihood in a peaceful way, in a harmless way, in a legal way. Now we come to right effort. Now these first aspects here, you can practice all these, you can practice right view, right intention, right speech, right action, and right livelihood in formal meditation practice, but also in daily life. Right speech in our zendo, of course, is usually not talking, but of course people do sometimes think in the meditation hall, so thinking again should be according to that intention, the right intention. Right action in a formal situation is formal ritual postures, which hopefully are done in such a way as to express detachment, kindness, and harmlessness,

[04:11]

and our livelihood, when we're doing formal meditation, is in accord with those principles too. But you can also practice these things, of course, in daily interchanges. When we come into right effort, to some extent what we're doing is we're moving a little bit more emphasis on what it's like when you're actually, strictly speaking, really concentrating on meditation now. But all these previous practices are setting up right effort, and traditionally right effort, you know, traditionally, I mean, in the earliest expressions by the Buddha, right effort was taught in four aspects, and the four aspects are to make effort, to endeavor, to prevent unwholesome states, unskillful states of mind from arising.

[05:18]

That's the first aspect. Second aspect is to abandon or renounce any unwholesome states that have arisen. And the third one is to endeavor to give rise to wholesome states that haven't yet arisen. And the fourth aspect of right effort is to maintain and mature any wholesome states that have arisen. So those are the four aspects of right effort on the path, on the noble path. Now someone like me actually might think, you know, kind of dualistic, but I would say right off that all four of these aspects of right effort are completely contained in sitting still and upright. So our Zazen practice completely includes these four aspects,

[06:24]

even though they sound different from the way we've been taught, Zazen completely embraces these four aspects. I hope to make that clear to you quite soon. I would also say that our sitting meditation practice, which is not really just sitting meditation practice, but Zen practice throughout the day and night, but is, you know, ritually expressed through the meditation hall, our sitting practice, our Zazen practice, is all eight of these. The whole Eightfold Path comes out of Zazen practice and goes back to Zazen practice. So they look like eight, but this is just, you know, to help us understand some of the complexities that are involved in one practice. They're not really separate, they're not really a different thing. When they're fully developed they're simultaneous, and fully developed Eightfold Path is what we mean in Soto Zen by

[07:31]

Zazen practice. And maybe you can see how that applies in this particular case of right effort. Okay, ready? The first one, preventing unwholesome states from arising in the first place, or preventing unwholesome states that haven't arisen from arising. And the way you do this basically is, you know, you're alive and something's happening to you all the time, right? You're experiencing it, things are happening. You're living in an active, changing world and you can sense that, you know. You're impacted and responsive to all things that are going on. And moment by moment you're sensing colors, or smells, or tastes, or tangibles, or smells, hearing things, and thinking things. Now, the way of being, the kind of effort that

[08:42]

prevents unwholesome states from arising in the first place, is that when some object, when some energy or some impinges upon you and you sense some object, you make that interaction into some awareness of an object, like we usually do. Some electromagnetic radiation touches you and you think you see color, you feel like you see color, or a mechanical wave hits your body, particularly around your ear and you feel like you're hearing sound, and so on. So you feel like there's some sound out there, some color out there, okay? In other words, normal sensory experience. The way of being with that experience that protects you from the arising of unwholesome states is that you just allow that sense experience to be the sense experience. You let what you hear

[09:47]

just be what you hear. You let what you see just be what you see. You develop a presence with your experience that is very close. It doesn't get more elaborated than just the sense experience itself. It's not just a sense experience, it's actually your meditation, it's your effort, but it's not any more complicated than the sense experience. You don't make life any more complicated than it has to be. That's it. That's it. No more than that. Now when I go like this, maybe some of you made something more of that. Like, oh, that was loud, or that was sharp, or that was good, or what's he

[10:50]

talking about, or just living that simply, letting the sound just be the sound. Letting your mind, keeping your mind at the level of sense data, keeping your mind at the level of what's given to you and not making any more of it than that. This is what we call in Zen, having a mind that's like a wall. And if you have a mind like that, you enter this Buddha way, just with that mind. So when you have a mind like this, when an object appears, either outside or inside, some sense object or internal thought or internal concept, when it arises, when the object arises, there's no response to it, there's no agitation, there's no activity of the mind in relationship

[11:53]

to the phenomenon. There's just a hand, just a sound. There's no elaboration, there's no, as Bodhidharma said, there's no coughing or sighing in response to the data. No kind of like, ah, coughing. Very, very radically simple. And in order not to react at all to what's happening to you, you have to give yourself completely to what's happening to you. It's a wholehearted intimacy with what's arising. If you give yourself completely to this simple way of being with whatever's happening, that way of being leaves no energy, no energy can go

[12:54]

towards fostering the arising of unwholesome states. There's just nothing left over to promote the unwholesome states from arising. This way of presence prevents the arising of unwholesome states. Particularly unwholesome mental states we're talking about now, because we've just come through right speech, no, we've come through wholesome speech, wholesome physical action, wholesome livelihood. But now we're in some wholesome posture, and we're probably quiet, but we might be talking, but we're speaking wholesomely, so we're talking about now getting into subtle details of the workings of our mind, and trying to now have our mind work in such a way that no kinds of defiling, obstructing, negative states of mind come in to interfere with our

[13:57]

presence with what's happening. Now, if we started this eightfold path, which most of us do, with still some belief that we exist independently of all other beings, that there is a self that exists independent of others, we're still falling for this dualistic world, which most of us are, as we practice. And because of that dualistic thinking, there still is, because of that dualistic thinking, the possibility of greed, hate, and delusion. So greed, hate, and delusion are present possibilities for us until we completely become free of all dualistic thought. And if we are not present, when we still have that potential, when we're still somewhat ignorant,

[15:05]

in other words, when we're still somewhat ignoring the radiant interdependence of ourselves with all beings, when we still look away from that light a little bit, we are susceptible, because of that division, we are susceptible to trying to avoid something, trying to grasp something, or being confused about which we should do. Greed, hate, and delusion are still possibilities for us as long as we have this basic misunderstanding. However, if we practice right effort in this way, this greed, hate, and delusion do not give rise, do not flower, do not proliferate, and give rise to these other kinds of obstructions, which I'll now tell you about. Maybe I won't tell you about them yet. Maybe I'll stop for a second and see if you have any questions about the first aspect of right effort. No? Yes? She says,

[16:25]

when you're first experiencing sense experience, what is happening with thought? Okay? The thought is of the sense experience. The kind of thing when you have a sense experience and you're practicing this kind of right effort, the first type, the type of right effort is the way of using your thinking, which accords with right thinking. So what is right thinking? Right thinking is when an object of awareness comes up, how do you think about it? You think about it lovingly, harmlessly, and with renunciation. What does that mean? What's the way to do that? It's to let the thing be itself. Just like me looking at you, I'm looking at you, I'm thinking of you. If I think of you in this way, which I have a wall like mind, what would a wall do

[17:26]

if it looked at you? It would just see you. It wouldn't judge you, you know? It wouldn't try to make you into something other than what you are, and that would be a harmless way of thinking of you, and a loving way to think of you, and also it would be a renounced way of thinking of you, because I would be giving up all of their agendas other than just simply seeing you, which is all that's happening anyway. So that's the kind of thinking that's going on, and the thinking is of the object. The thinking is always of the object. There's different kinds of thinking. Some kinds of thinking are all scattered all over the place, and twisted into judgment, and disapproval, and harmfulness, and attachment, rather than simply inclined towards what we're aware of, with no more complexity than that. So that the thinking, which can be extremely elaborate, the thinking is simplified into just being aware of the object. It's radical. It's like the thinking

[18:34]

which can be so complicated, there's no more complicated than sense experience. But for thinking to be no more complicated than sense experience means that thinking drops off lots of complexity. You got it, you got it, exactly. So when thinking, when a sound comes up, and it's just a sound in the face of thinking, that means the thinking is renouncing lots of other things it could make out of that sound. So Buddha said, train yourself like this. In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the heard. In the imagined, something's being imagined, it'll be just the imagined. In the cognized, there'll be just the cognized. When, for you, or for

[19:40]

the practitioner, they're in the seen, they're just the seen. In the heard, they're just the heard. In the imagined, they're just the imagined. And in the cognized, they're just the cognized. Then there will be no you that identifies with it, with what's being seen. Also, you won't dis-identify with it. You won't put yourself in it or out of it. And there will be no here or there or in between. And this is the end of suffering. So at the beginning of this, when you first started meditating on karma, maybe there was a little bit of like, I'm over here meditating on karma, I'm watching myself do this stuff. Now at this phase, you're starting to look, you're still looking at your karma, you're still maybe seeing, you know, things happen, but you're just letting the mind be nothing more than what's happening. So it's a radical simplicity and

[20:49]

just letting things be like that. This prevents the arising of unwholesome thoughts. This prevents, even though deep down you still haven't uprooted the belief that you're separate from other people, and you're still not really looking at this very bright world of light where you're interrelated with everyone. You're still not quite facing that. Still, this dark world of ignorance where you think you're separate from people is not up-chucking all this greed, hate, and delusion into your face, because you're acting like you would act if you didn't believe, you know, that you were separate, if you didn't have dualistic thinking. So this bright effort is like a warm-up to non-dual thought. Even though you still are capable of slipping into non-dual thought, and if you veer away from it and make things more complicated than that, the results of your deep belief in individual existence will throw up greed, hate, and delusion, which are

[21:57]

a lot of stuff in your face. Okay? But maybe I should go on to the next one. What do you think? Do you think I should ask more questions now? I think the people who want to ask questions think they should. Yes. But the only way to do this, though, is to notice how you talk to yourself, right? The only way to do what is? The only way to do what? So Liz is suggesting that the only way to leave things alone is to notice that you don't leave things alone. No, that's not the only way. That's one way, though. Okay, so if you should happen to be meditating, okay, and instead of, we're not talking about seeing or heard, but now we're talking about that you're imagining that you can mess with the scenery, but you notice yourself not just leaving it that way. So now you see that. You're imagining now that Liz can do something with what's happening. That's an imagined thing.

[22:59]

Okay? Then you let that be. So you're right. If you catch yourself at messing around with what's happening, and you catch it right at that time when you're doing that, and you just let that be, then you're doing it too. But you could also have something happen where you didn't yet interject yourself into the process. That's also possible. But even if you do interject yourself in the process by imagining a self separate from what's happening, you can still recover at this point. So what you're saying is one of the ways it can go, but it can also go a more simple way, a more direct sense way. And if you let it be that, then the unwholesome, then the results of greed, hate and delusion will not come up. Okay? Try it. Yes? Is your name Alec? No. What is it? Sunchild.

[24:00]

Sunchild? Oh, hello. What is the sense perception of emotion? What is the sense perception of emotion? You mean, what is it when you see an emotion? You perceive that you have an emotion? Yeah. An emotion would be an example of perhaps something you cognize, a mental state that you cognize. You might be aware that there is some pain, or you see some other positive emotion that might arise, some faith, some compassion. You can observe these emotions, these emotions could come up in the context of still practicing the right effort at the first level. If you're practicing at the first level, however, you would not see greed, hate and delusion. Those emotions wouldn't come up. So it sounds like, when you say cognizing, that's the mind recognizing a sensation and calling it.

[25:10]

Yeah. Well, that would be more like an imagination, that you have some concept. The mind sees something happens to the body, the mind converts it into a concept, and then the mind says, that's happening, the mind perceives the concept. That's what I would call an imagination. But when you are imagining something, if you let what you're imagining just be what you're imagining, and that's all the more that's happening with it, your mind's like a wall. Your mind is at the level of simplicity and non-elaboration of the sense data, or the experience data, that totally engages your presence, doesn't disperse your energy into elaboration, and doesn't allow any space for that dispersed energy to either make an opening for the arising of these unwholesome states, or give them energy.

[26:12]

But these unwholesome states are still potential until we go all the way around the chart, you know, a few times. Now, if you keep asking questions, we're not going to get to the next thing. I think the next thing is pretty important, because most people missed this first one, unfortunately. Anyway, what happens if you don't practice what I just suggested, as the way to prevent the arising of these unwholesome states, what happens is, they arise. And these unwholesome states, we don't usually see, actually, just plain old greed, generic greed. We don't just usually see generic ill-will, I mean, generic hatred, and generic delusion. It usually manifests, when we're trying to meditate anyway, it usually manifests in a more complicated way. But still, a simple way of talking about how complicated is what can arise, is a way that's called the five hindrances. And these five hindrances are based on greed, hate, and delusion.

[27:18]

And they're really not five or seven, but anyway. Based on greed, the hindrance of sensual craving or sensual desire arises. And that can be sexual lust, but it can also be just desire for certain kinds of senses, an attachment to certain kinds of senses. Like it can be like, you know, Pasahara is kind of a beautiful place most of the time, actually all the time, but anyway. And you see colors, and you sort of like how it looks, but you wish it would stay like that a little while, or get a little brighter, a little duller, anyway. This kind of craving and attachment to the way things look. Or, you know, you hear the stream, and you think, a little louder would be nice. Or a little quieter. Or you look in the stream and you see those fish, those trout, and you say, you know, I wish that one was a little longer. Or I wish the lighting was a little better on that one. Or I hope they stay there for a little while. Anyway, as you notice, this happens based on greed.

[28:22]

And greed is based on dualistic thinking. Another thing that arises is ill will. And ill will arises usually in relation to something painful. You want to get rid of it, you want to get away from it, you want to eliminate it, you want to avoid it. Both of these create disturbance in your mind, and pain. Which you've already seen when you were practicing Right View. Which you've been practicing all the way around, and you're still practicing it, you're still noticing how certain kind of karmic maneuvers cause pain. And now, rather than sort of notice that, you're not so much noticing the pain, you've already been convinced that messing with things... Well, you've been somewhat convinced that messing with things is not a good deal. But you just missed, and you fell on your face and forgot that messing with things wasn't a good deal. So now you've got this stuff in your face again. If you really were convinced, you wouldn't have this stuff happening.

[29:23]

But since you at least batted your eyes for a second, and lost your faith in meditation for a second, now you've got these problems. Maybe ill will, maybe sensual desire. And again, parenthetically, we're not saying here that when something pleasant happens, you shouldn't enjoy that it's pleasant. It's just that you're practicing renunciation, right, from Right View, from Right Intention. It's that when something pleasant happens, you've already seen that it would be good if you'd renounce it on the spot. You've already seen how when you grasp pleasant things, it causes you pain. So your intention is, when a pleasant thing happens, to say, Hi, that's it. But maybe you didn't do that. When the pleasant thing happened, you judged it, you attached to it a little bit, and now you've got the sensual desire in your face. Now, in relationship to delusion, when you're confused, and the sensation is not really positive or negative, it's kind of neutral, and you're kind of bored with neutral sensations.

[30:32]

So, what do you do? Make life more interesting, right? So let's have a little, let's take a nap. That would be nice to do if everything's boring. Actually, this is a beautiful place, but sometimes it gets boring, so you take a nap, right? Or just be dull. Be dull and drowsy. That's one response to some neutral sensation. In other words, not just like, okay, here I am, neutral sensation, neutral sensation. Here we are, neutral sensation, neutral sensation. All boring. Neutral sensation, neutral sensation. A neutral sensation is neutral sensation. A neutral sensation is neutral sensation. This is not that interesting to some people. It isn't really that interesting, I don't think. The reason for letting neutral sensation be neutral sensation is because it sets you free from suffering. It's not that it's fun, necessarily, to let neutral sensation be neutral sensation, but there could be a little joy there. You could have a little joy because if you heard the Buddha's teaching,

[31:34]

that letting neutral sensation be neutral sensation will be the end of suffering, you might say, this isn't that interesting, but I feel some joy because I get a feeling like I might be on the path to freedom. So, you know, it's kind of like there's some joy there, even though this is really boring. And my mental powers are not really doing much here. Jazz it up, or whatever. But if you don't find it joyful to just leave things alone and walk the path of Buddha, then you jazz it up with a little nap. Or, you can jazz up neutral situations by getting excited. Now, you could even have ill will about a neutral sensation, even though we usually have ill will about negative sensation. You could even transfer it over to getting angry that things are neutral, instead of just getting angry about them being negative. So you could even get angry here. But usually people don't, they have other ways. Like I say, they take naps. Another way is you get excited. Do something to excite yourself. Like get restless.

[32:38]

Squirm on your seat when you're meditating. Squirm a little bit. Have a little Kundalini. That's a good thing to do, right? It's in the books. Much more interesting than just sitting there. Or, another thing you can do is worry. Worry, that's a good one. A lot of people are good at that. You can worry about what you did and what's going to happen, or you can worry about what you're going to do next. Or when you're going to do it. Or what's going to happen to you. Worry. That's not so boring. Another thing you can do is doubt. Doubt that actually this whole practice is going to work. Because actually, you just did doubt, that's why you got this doubt. You doubted that it would be a good idea just to leave things alone. And now, rather than notice that you just left things alone, I mean, you didn't leave things alone, and now you got troubles, and now you're worrying, rather than noticing, now you're doubting, rather than noticing that the Dharma is unfolding right before you, and actually being happy that it's going according to plan,

[33:42]

you doubt the Dharma. Even though it's saying to you, we told you that this is going to happen. You say, I don't know if I like this Dharma. I don't know if I like this Sangha. And I don't know if I like this Buddha. So all this stuff can happen. So all this phenomena can happen. Now, then you come to the second kind of right effort. Which is, now that some of this stuff has arisen, we've got to abandon it. Still, this right view is you start to notice this stuff's happening. You have a sense of how it happened. It happened because you lost track of your meditation for a little bit there, or for a lot. Now you're going to basically apply this right intention again, but it's going to take on some kind of variegated manifestations, because it has to address these particular problems. But again, it's going to be basically the same thing. How are you going to apply renunciation,

[34:45]

loving-kindness and harmlessness to these negative phenomena? So we don't come in here and start bashing them down and kicking them out, because that's more negative phenomena. We really, at some level, aren't that excited about being successful at abandoning them. We're going to not be so concerned that we'll be successful. We're not so worried about it, that we are going to be able to pull this off. We're kind of detached, as we proceed now to try to abandon these things. Detachment will make us more flexible in our process of dropping these and becoming free of these unwholesome states. So there's infinite techniques about how to respond, which you can develop to aid you to drop these abandoning states, but sometimes five types are taught.

[35:46]

One type is to apply a direct opposing antidote. Another type is to apply self-respect and decorum. Another one is to ignore it. Don't feed it. Another one is to look right at it and meditate on it. Another one is, and we'll use this one last, is direct suppression. What? Direct suppression, which you should only use as a last resort. It's the clumsiest. It's the hardest one to do lovingly. Okay. So the first one, the first one is like apply a specific antidote to each type. And each one of these, we can discuss for quite a while, but I'll just briefly mention, that for ill-will, you apply loving-kindness.

[36:49]

Now loving-kindness is a general thing here, but you kind of focus on loving-kindness for the ill-will. For sensual lust or sensual desire, you apply, you know, get serious. You know, come on. Death is quite near. Are you really spending your time like worrying about the leaves being a little bit greener? Is that really the way you want to spend your time? You meditate on impermanence. You remember impermanence. And it makes you a little bit more serious, and you stop dabbling in messing with what's coming in. It isn't that we shouldn't be artists. Okay? It's okay to be an artist, a painter. But first of all, let what's happening be what's happening before you start your artwork. Don't wish that the world was different from what it is, and a little bit brighter, before it even happened,

[37:51]

before you let it happen. Now that you've got this lust happening there, the antidote to that is to do what you should have done in the first place. Just be more concentrated and serious, and try to come back to what's happening. There's various techniques about how to meditate, how to intensify the meditation on impermanence. And sometimes I mention these, and people get kind of excited when I mention them, but I would mention these. Try to think of yourself as kind of being caught in sensual desire when you apply this. So, I used to meditate, when I would get caught in sensual desire, I would just meditate on myself, kind of like run over by a truck. That would usually get me sort of serious. Or I'd meditate on, you know, and stop fooling around with sense data. Stop kind of hooking on it, you know, wallowing in it, and sticking my head in it, and so on.

[38:53]

I would just sort of meditate on myself. Or if that didn't work, I'd visualize my teacher just after he died. That would be serious. Just get me kind of like now grounded. And then, you know, you can meditate on other things which kind of snap you out of this kind of indulgence in sense experience that you're temporarily hooked on. That would be handy. Meditation on death, impermanence, and so on. Okay? Then for dullness, drowsiness, if you're in meditation, if you're going to sleep, if you're going to keep sitting in meditation, sometimes just imagining some, imagining some light. Or, you know, looking at a spot in the middle of your forehead. Kind of like looking cross-eyed up here. Or get up and take a walk. You know, or jump in cold water. Just have something to rouse yourself. Just, you know, just rouse yourself up with that sleepiness until you get yourself balanced. For, um,

[39:54]

for restlessness and worry, it's good to meditate on something very simple and plain, like the breath and posture. That'll usually calm the restlessness and the worry. For most people, that'll work. Just mindfulness and concentration on the breath and posture. And for doubt, if you have some doubts, bring your doubts out for discussion. See if they really hold up, or if you're just fooling around. You know, ask questions, discuss, debate, to see if you really think that, you know, this teaching is not good, or truth is not so interesting, or whatever. Read scriptures. Inquire into actually, you know, whether this teaching really is any good. And that usually will, for most people, if they make the effort. It starts to calm this kind of doubt. So that's the direct antidote method. Okay? There's four more methods. For self-doubt,

[40:55]

would you do the same? Self-doubt? What do you mean by self-doubt? Getting down on yourself. So you're getting in a negative place towards yourself. Well, that sounds like your will. Okay? So in that case, you apply loving-kindness to yourself. Now, another kind of getting down on yourself is a form of laziness, which you're not, you know, you use, you use negative thoughts about yourself as an excuse for not making effort. And that's just kind of laziness. Then you realize it isn't really that you're down on yourself, you're just trying to use your ordinary humanness as an excuse for not making effort. It's a real tricky form of laziness. But I think what he was feeling more is like negative ill-will towards yourself, and that would be loving-kindness. The other form, you should just, you know, tell something about that and see if you can fool somebody who's a meditator. As, you know, it's a very tricky method. A lot of people use it. It's called, you know,

[41:56]

self-disparagement as a form of laziness. Or, you know, teenagers don't have that. I can't, I can't do math, I can't do science, I can't do art, I can't walk, I can't wash dishes, I got a headache. But then, you know, when certain other opportunities arise, you know, as the telephone rings, suddenly there's a tremendous amount of energy and courage, and it's like, where did it come from? Okay? Now, it might be, you know, I haven't told you the rest of them yet, and the other four, but before I tell you them, I just want to mention that it might be that without applying these five particular antidotes

[42:57]

or going into the other four methods of promoting abandonment of negative states, it might be that instead of applying these antidotes, you might be able to just immediately turn around and go back to the first form of right effort, and maybe the negative state would just drop away without even doing anything, just by you returning to what you didn't do before, namely, just go back to this wall-like mind in the face of the appearance of this negative state, and you wouldn't have to do anything. Just be present and clear with the negativity, and it might drop away. So if you have the, what do you call it, presence of mind to regain your equilibrium and just be present with it, it might just drop away after appearing. It might just go blip, and you say, oh, okay, back, got it, boom, it's gone. That sometimes happens. But sometimes when you look away, you still have a chain reaction, and you try to reassert your balance,

[43:58]

and it just keeps, you know, you've got a tidal wave coming, it just keeps hitting you, hitting you, so you have to do something a little coarser to go with this thing. You set certain things in motion so that you have to do a little bit more than trying to recover of a simple situation from before. So it's not exactly that you're messing with a situation, it's more like you're meeting it. It's like it requires something a little bit more complex than the previous practice which you didn't want to do. So now since you didn't want to do that simple practice, now you have to do a complicated one. But it's not exactly that you're looking for a complicated practice. It's just the situation is requiring of you. Yes? Just seeing things as they are, trying to acknowledge others, and just being independent. Yes?

[45:34]

Yes? [...]

[47:30]

Yes? Yes? I'm trying to follow what you were saying. Right, so if you're trying to follow what I'm saying, I'd like you to say it a little differently. Rather than seeing things as they are, you see the practice of just being like a wall. The wall doesn't see things as they are. The wall is just the wall with how things are. It's not separate from how things are. So the wall like mine doesn't even separate itself from the object. It doesn't even say I'm separate from the object. So if you could say it this way, instead of saying seeing things as they are, you might say in being what's happening, or in just being with what's happening,

[49:07]

rather than separating this meditation from what's happening. If you could do that, it might save some trouble, but go ahead. Well, I was thinking trying to practice interdependency with other people, again, the community, and sometimes seeing the... just there's no reaction to some of it. Sometimes when those reactions come up, not necessarily as strong as ill will, but just a slight negative reaction. That's ill will. Laughter It's slight ill will. Slight ill will comes up. How much to try to apply the activism, or how much to try to just be with... Yeah, that's what I was just saying. If you're meeting some person

[50:09]

or some other phenomenon, and some slight negative energy comes up, some slight negative ill will comes up, you might be able to just like say, okay, we got ill will. That's it. And just say, ill will is... let ill will be ill will. That's it. You don't even look at it. Just ill will is ill will. You don't even say it. Just ill will arises. Ill will arises. Tiny ill will arises. And the ill will is just the ill will and that's it. Then you don't identify with it. You don't put yourself into it. There's no here or there in between, and you're free. So, you might be able to do that. But if you try it and you can't, then you might have to like do something a little bit more coarse called generating some loving kindness towards whatever it is that you're looking at. If you can get by with recovering on the spot, great. If you've activated

[51:10]

something a little more gross than that, you might have to like, if you're leaning way back, you know, like, you might have to come forward with, I hope, you know, I wish the best, you know, I really hope this thing gets happier, you know, finds its own true nature and becomes free and you're more then you finally come up upright. But don't go too far and start saying, oh, I love this thing and so were you, great. So, if you can just recover by going back in to basically our fundamental practice and the thing drops away, that's the best. But if it's gotten a little too rough for that, you might have to do something, this loving kindness thing to bring yourself back. Or, if you've gotten attached to something and you say, oh, there's a little attachment, you're walking along and you see something lovely and you go, little hook on there, you say, oh, come on, come on, stand up straight now, ok, we're back now, and then it goes and drops. The lovely thing's

[52:11]

still there, but the attachment just dropped away and it was just lovely. That's it. You know, kind of like, don't go away. Now that I'm not holding on to you anymore, please do me a favor of staying. No, it's just, you know, lovely thing's there, that's not the problem, lovely thing's not the problem, it's that hook. So, you catch the hook and you say, oh, there's the hook, ok, got a hook, hook features the hook, so then there's not me in the hook, but me, there's not here or there, and, but, sometimes you have to do a little more than that, you say, ok, there's a hook, here's me, hook, me, hook, [...] I'm stuck, ok, ok, now let's see, we're going to die soon, right? Oh, yeah. Not just we, I'm going to die. Maybe I can look at, close my eyes and look at that for a second.

[53:12]

I am, there I am, ok, alright, I give this, and you let go. That could happen. I'd like to go on to the other ones, I just, I just mentioned, at any point you could recover and go to a more simple practice, but sometimes you need, sometimes, sometimes you need something a little rough, a little coarser, a little more heavy duty, because you've gotten just more heavy duty stuff. Ok, so we're meditating, we're meditating on our karmic world all the way around here, but now with right effort we're trying to like really settle into it, and really become intimate with this world, and understand it, and become free of it. You know, and get real, kind of really get clear and concentrated in this messy world, which is still going on. If the, the first one is not necessarily the most subtle or the most gross, it's just one way, the direct antidote. Sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. If that doesn't work, you might try that first, you might try, find out for yourself

[54:13]

which one's worse. But anyway, another one, which isn't necessarily second, for you the second one might be, might be best for you, is to, is to look at the dharmas which are always present in a whole state of, present state of consciousness, which is the dharma of self-respect and the dharma of decorum. Look at those dharmas and use those dharmas of self-respect and apply them to whatever kind of, this mess. Ok, so if you're in ill-will, you just say, well, this isn't really up to par, this isn't really my kind of thing actually, this isn't my style, or not my style, it's just not appropriate for me, that might work. Or actually, this is going to bother people and they're going to bother me, I'm going to drop it. That's another way to deal with it. That's the second method. The third method is, look away. Just look away. It's not the same as denial. It's not the same as denial.

[55:15]

It's not the same as denial. It's not sticking your head exactly into the sand, it's just looking the other way for a second, or for a minute. What? The karma. Ok, you got this, you got, what do we have here, we have, this is, this can apply to ill will, this looking away can apply to ill will, can apply to attachment, can apply to worry, can apply to any of them. Ok, just look the other way. Particularly, particularly it works with, I think, all of them. It could work with all of them. And Peter asked, does that get rid of, what did he say, get rid of the karma? What happens to the karma? What we're looking at here is not, is, what do you call it, we're looking at not exactly karma, in this case, we're looking at a detail

[56:16]

of the karmic situation. We're looking at a negative state that arises in the world of karma. This is not specifically speaking karma. Karma will be going on throughout this whole path, karma will continue until we completely become free of the idea of self. It doesn't mean we throw the idea of self out the window, except we're not falling for it anymore. When you don't fall for the idea of karma, your life, the idea of individual self, you live a life that doesn't, that is free of karma. As long as you still haven't gotten free of that, there's karma going on all the way around you. Now we're at a phase here where we're still in the world of karma, you're still probably somewhat thinking of self-doing things, like self-practicing right effort even, you might be thinking that, a little bit. Or even if you aren't thinking it, you have the latent capacity to do that, which can be activated in karma. What I'm talking about here is an effort by which you can settle into the karmic world to whatever extent

[57:16]

it's operating, and really settle with it in detail and intimate, settle with actually what's happening and become absorbed in the actual process of cause and effect, and start to absorb in your body and mind interdependence. And you're living in these negative factors, and they're negative primarily not because they're bad, but they're negative in the sense that they disturb your meditation, they distract you from being present with what's happening. So again, the first practice was what's happening is what's happening. What's happening is what's happening. In the herd there's just the herd, in the scene there's just the scene, in what's happening there's just what's happening. If you do that, you're already intimate with what's happening, you're settled, you're ready to go into deeper meditation. If you don't do that and these negative states arise, they start shaking you around and you experience a dislocation from what's happening. And that's, it's not like

[58:17]

these aren't exactly evils or unwholesomeness, but they're unwholesome in the sense that they distract you from perfect presence with what's happening. Okay? So it's not really karma that we're trying to get away from, actually we're trying to like perfectly settle with the nature of cause and effect so we can completely understand it. Which will take us up to the second right view, which is right view, which will liberate us from the world of karma and liberate us from the belief in self. We're trying now to really get into the meditation here, really get into it, and not have any distractions from what's happening. So the next antidote, or the next response, well I said it, I was already talking about it, I want to say a little bit more about this one, of looking the other way, and how it's not denial. Okay, it's not denial, it's just looking the other way.

[59:19]

Like, for example, it's not that I'm denying Deborah, I mean Rebecca. That's my name, that's all. It's not that I'm denying her name either, when I don't remember it. I just look at another name. So if I look over, you know, at Bill, it's not that I'm in denial about Deborah, as a matter of fact, I can still see her out of the corner of my eyes, and maybe I should look all the way over at Leslie. It's not that I'm in denial about Deborah, I still can remember Rebecca's really name, Deborah. I'm just looking away from her. I'm looking at Leslie now. But I don't feel in denial about Rebecca. Okay? But it may be that when I look back at Rebecca, you know, it might be that I get kind of like, you know, I kind of freak. It's possible. And if I just look over here, David and I have to look

[60:20]

way over at Jonathan, that I don't freak anymore. I still know she's there, but I can calm down a little bit. Every time I look at her, I go, she's in there now. So I have a funny story, which I told before, but tell one more time. I'm going to tell ten more times. One time when we still had the old Zen Do, you know, which is now the student eating area, that used to be our Zen Do over there before it burned down. And it was when we first started learning, you know, elaborate Soto Zen forms of how to serve meals and do service and stuff like that. We used to have forms and we used to do them, but we were intensifying, getting more detailed about them. And I was on the crew, which we called Do-on-ryo, which are the people who take care of the rituals, specialize. Their job is to keep the rituals going in the meditation hall. And the leader of the Do-ons is called Ino, right? Or the director

[61:20]

of the meditation hall. And this director of the meditation hall is a person that I went to junior high school with, and high school, and college. One of my best friends. Somehow, he got to be head of the Do-on group and he was in charge of the discipline in the meditation hall. But still, I guess he was bored with it, so he liked to entertain the Do-on-ryo and get us to laugh. So one time, when we were serving this formal, you know, serving in the zendo, we served these pots, you know, and the servers had the ladles, and then they put the ladles in the cereal, like oatmeal or something, and then they pour the oatmeal into your bowl in a ritual way, right? Well, when the server came to him, and to serve him, he reached into the oatmeal with his hand and scooped the oatmeal out with his bare hand and put it in his bowl. Well,

[62:22]

some of us sitting nearby thought that was really funny. This is the director of the meditation hall, and we had a raised seat for the teacher, the visiting teacher. We had a visiting Japanese teacher who was coming especially to teach us the forms, and he was sitting there watching his meditation hall director do this. And he closed his eyes. He has come to America, and Zen Center has given him a director of the meditation hall, and this is what he's doing. And his Don Rio is laughing at this guy. So he closes his eyes, but not for the last time. He opened them again after the meal was over. So, then we had to get

[63:23]

through the rest of the meditation, the rest of the meal, but he kept trying to do funny things to see if he could get his fellow Don to laugh and giggle during the ceremony. This is serious Zen practice, right? So what I did was I had to close my eyes because every time I looked at him he would be doing some kind of thing like this. I wasn't in denial about him. I knew he was there. And I knew if I looked at him what he would do, something, you know. So I didn't look at him. But sometimes when you're meditating you just don't look at certain things because you know when you look at him you're going to get a little disturbed. You're not going to be able to like stay present with your concentration on him. Sometimes it's okay, but sometimes it's more serious. And sometimes you're just actually getting somewhere in your practice, and you get, you know, you can spend quite a bit of time distracting yourself if you don't look away from some of this stuff. But it's not denial. You shouldn't lose track

[64:23]

that you have to like, you know, something's arisen. Then it can drop away and you don't have to look away from it anymore. The other way is to look directly at it. And that's similar to what we started with. Okay? Just resume your clear meditation on it and look at it and once you, if you look at it clearly it will drop. So what's the difference? Between? The first one and this one. It's actually kind of the same, isn't it? It's the same. It's kind of like the same. So that's another way to get back to maybe you can just recover by doing what you should have done in the first place. Except in the first place you didn't have this kind of thing to deal with. So it's a little different. Before you just had, originally you just had a sense object or a thought. You didn't have a negative state. Now because you didn't face what's happening you've got some negativity to handle. So you're looking at the negative state rather than the initial state subject. Right, right. You've got something a little bit more difficult to look at than that.

[65:24]

It's more difficult in one way and it's easier in another way. And the way that it's more difficult is that it's coarser and more tricky. But it's easier in the sense that it's obviously trouble so you better pay attention to it. The other one, you didn't realize how serious it was to pay attention to, like a color or a sound. We think, oh, you know, you don't have to meditate on a sunrise. You can kind of just sit back and go, oh. But it's not that simple. You've got to be careful of simple sense objects otherwise you can get suffering. And not if maybe the thing itself won't bother you but you set up a habit of indulging in things like that and you can't stop. So, since you don't realize, since we sometimes don't realize that just simple indulgence in sense pleasures can set up habits that we can't reverse we get into bigger trouble which teaches us you see, you can't, you don't have this space to mess around. So then you see, okay, I get it, okay, I got it, okay, meditate. Now I'll face it. That same way of facing should be able to be applied then

[66:25]

to lesser evil things, lesser distracting things, lesser disturbing things. But a lot of times we won't do these things unless they get really bad. There are different kinds of horses, right? Some horses go at the shadow of the whip. Some horses go at the sound of the whip. Some horses go at the hit of the whip and some horses you have to draw blood. So, if it's just a slight thing, is it not free to do it? Great. Just look at it, you're free. If you don't do that then zap. If you don't do that it's harder. Just knocking the door gets louder and louder until you say, okay, I got it, okay, here we go. I'm here. The next one which this is really the last one I think really. If the other ones don't work this should be the kind of last one, that's direct suppression and it does work but it's a little rough

[67:26]

and it doesn't have that loving kindness quality usually. It's hard for it to be that way. But, you know, seriously, stop it. You know, like, okay, stop it. Give it up. Well, it's not going away. Really give it up. Still there. Okay, I'm not kidding. You know, you get kind of, you may have to get kind of hit and you can, stuff can go that way but once it stops then, you know, you want to go back to a lighter method and maybe not get in a problem in the first place. So those are the, those are some techniques or some ways of responding to when you haven't done your job, you haven't been present with what's happening and as a result of that stuff flying up in your face and disturbing your meditation this is a way to recover from the results of negligence. Okay, once you've recovered then you can go back to the first one again which is prevent further unwholesome ones from happening by just being present

[68:26]

with what's happening. Okay, now to be simple the first one the first right effort of being present in such a way that the unwholesome states these negative states don't even arise that first one is actually basically the same as the third and the fourth because the third is to give rise to wholesome things wholesome states skillful states and the fourth one is to mature the skillful states but really the first one is the basic way then of giving rise to skillful states because the skillful states are stabilization and insight or sometimes it's called the four foundations of mindfulness or sometimes called the eight factors of enlightenment but if you look at what's on the list of the eight factors they're basically just an elaboration of the first one of the first way of being present all this kind of stuff comes right out of that basic

[69:27]

presence leaving things alone and leaving things alone not in general but in specific in terms of how they're happening you're there with what's happening you're not someplace else you are there I say you are there with experience but there's presence with the experience not even you there's presence with the experience intimate presence clarity about what it is being tranquil with it being balanced with it being concentrated on endeavoring to be present all these things are coming together on just simply being with what's happening so all the wholesome practices come from this presence so the first the third and the fourth are basically the same practice and the second is for what happens if you don't do the basic practice so the first one is how you protect against even needing to do the second one and the first one also how you give rise to further witnesses of the first one and how you ensure the first one

[70:28]

so that's the story right after I wanted to go on indefinitely but that's pretty close to indefinitely ok do you understand sort of sort of what sort of now the thing is to put it into practice and you can start right now if you want very simple just let the heard be the heard got some heards there right blue jays paper somebody's talking let the heard be the heard let the seen be the seen let the imagined be the imagined let the cognized be the cognized that's it just keep working

[71:29]

until that's the way it is you're basically doing you're making right effort and also that will be finally freedom from suffering this is one of Buddha's simplest teachings but apparently he actually did say this he did sometimes give really simple teachings but not easy necessarily it would be so simple because you really got to renounce all your fancy trips to do this okay thank you very much

[72:04]

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