So, again, the basic, the starting point of this process is that Right View is to suggest to us that we begin by paying attention, by meditating on our life, our dualistic karmic activity. And as we study that, we become aware of how we're involved in dualistic thinking of ourselves as separate from others, and how we think we can do things on our own, and watch how that world of cause, karmic cause and effect, works, how skillful action leads to wholesome results, good results, and unskillful action leads to trouble. And as we meditate on this, our thinking gradually starts to shift somewhat, and it becomes more and more directed towards renunciation, loving-kindness, and harmlessness.

[01:07]

Practicing Right View, we start to see how things work in the world of delusion. By seeing how the world of delusion works, we start to overcome delusion. Overcoming delusion, we start to also transform our thinking in the direction of, at least in tendency, to go the other direction from attachment and aversion. So in those first two, we start to move in such a new way as to start to lean into a deeper study of delusion, hatred, and greed, and to try to develop an alternative approach. Then, still meditating on dualistic karmic activity, we direct our attention towards

[02:12]

our speech, and again try to enter into speech with the right intention, born of Right View. So we try to speak again with harmlessness, renunciation, and loving-kindness. Then, moving into our bodily activity, we try to act in that way, according to renunciation, loving-kindness, and harmlessness, which means we avoid conduct of killing, stealing, and sexual misconduct. Then applying speech and bodily postures to our actual work, our livelihood, we again try to practice Right Livelihood with the same intention that we developed out of meditation on the laws of karma, and actually how we see karma working. We move into speaking and acting rightly, and practicing a livelihood, realizing a livelihood

[03:15]

which is legal, peaceful, harmless, and honest. And now that we've applied our study of karma, applied our right intention to all the different realms of karma, thinking karma, speaking karma, acting karma, now we're ready to go look deeper into our mind, which we did this afternoon, and notice that there's a way to have our mind, although it's still involved at this level, it's still involved in karma. It is definitely still involved in karma. And it is possible that we can observe karma without any negative states disturbing our

[04:17]

vision of the karma. So we've been watching karma all through this time, and learning something about it, and hopefully trying to do better and better karma, and the better our karma is, the more wholesome our karma, the easier it is for us to study the karma. But still, even a more calm and stable vision of karma can be realized. And that's the right efforts involved. So once again, we're still in the dualistic world of our personal action, which is still bondage and still misery, but it's possible to study this field with no negative states of mind impinging on the scene of dualistic action. Of course, it's also possible to try to meditate on dualistic karmic activity with lots of negative states. It's just that if there's negative states, it's not as easy to see how it works.

[05:17]

As a matter of fact, it's really hard to see in detail the law. So, right effort is about developing an attitude, which we say in Zen, is a mind like a wall, which does not react to phenomena as it's presented, and that non-reactive, stable presence with phenomena as they arise prevents the arising of disturbing mental functions, and you develop a clearer and clearer vision of actually how the world of bondage works. And as I mentioned, if we slip from that kind of presence, which doesn't meddle with what's happening, then these negative disturbing states, particularly in this case, they're negative particularly in the sense that they're disturbing our vision now, because we're starting

[06:19]

to get close to be able to actually see exactly how things work. Our mind's getting pretty well organized, pretty clear, but if we mess around at all with what happens, a lot of negativity can come in and stir it up. If we have this kind of presence, this kind of mind which does not add anything to what's coming up, these states don't arise. If they do arise, we talked about antidotes to get back to the simple situation again. So now we're at this point where if we've done our work up to this point, we have now a fairly clear vision of the world of bondage and cyclic birth and death. There's more work to do though, because there still is behind this story of personal action, there still is a belief in personal existence and or we don't yet understand the self.

[07:28]

Because we don't understand the self, we're still in pain, still anxious. And in response to that pain, we try to cope. On some deep level, we have these coping mechanisms of greed, hatred, and confusion. So there's a basic ignorance of us looking away from the true nature of our self, of how it actually is. Not an independent thing, but an interdependent thing. We look away from what the self is, we see this narrow, narrow division of the self, and we feel anxiety and pain. And in response to that, in addition to the basic ignorance, greed, hate, and delusion arise as strategies, basic strategies to deal with the pain, which then drives the process around. So that's still going on at this stage. I'll write it. We haven't yet gone down to the bottom and reworked our basic dualistic thinking.

[08:38]

But we can see pretty clearly what's going on now. The next step is to practice mindfulness in this fairly clear field. Now mindfulness is not particularly different from this kind of presence, which doesn't mess with things. Mindfulness doesn't mess with things either. But mindfulness is emphasizing a, I would say, maybe brings in the dynamic, starts to open up to the dynamic quality of the process. We're seeing how things work. But now we develop an awareness with things so that the truth or the dharmic working of the dharma in this karma, the dharma starts coming forth out of the karma. The mindfulness is a kind of presence that allows the interactive, interdependent quality,

[09:42]

which is hidden inside of the karma, to gradually start to surface. Things are going to get a little bit more dynamic now. So we're seeing karma still. But now we start and we're getting quite stable watching the karmic process. But we start to now see some relationships that we didn't see before. We start to see some dynamism. In addition to the ordinary change, we start to see interrelationships. We start to see conditions and causes that are determining this dance, this stream of karmic accumulation, this cycle. And we continue to be present with that and try not to get excited or depressed or anything, but leave it alone.

[10:43]

We continue to practice right effort. We're continuing to meditate on karma. We're now getting more and more kind of like purely present. So we can become more and more sensitive to the dynamism of the situation. Until basically this kind of like, you know, this proposal of Buddhism is that you finally will see in the midst of the world of bondage, in the midst of the world of delusion and duality, there shines forth the truth, the Dharma, which has always been there. And now we have, through this discipline, made ourselves able to receive it. And we see that in this dark, stuck, mechanical world of lawful cause and effect, there is

[11:47]

actually a great light. And this light is completely free, and the whole situation is completely free. And without disturbing the karmic pattern at all, we see that at the same time, there is complete freedom and liberation right in that situation. In other words, we have an awakening to the Dharma in the middle of the karma. Or in the middle of the suffering, we see the cause of the suffering, which is this delusion. And then we see it in the delusion, we see in the middle of delusion, the end of delusion. So we realize the cessation. Then the concentration is to then be absorbed in this vision of Dharma. So now that we have this clear vision of the truth of the world of karma, namely that karma

[12:56]

is an illusion based on... is an illusion, which we believe in, which makes it a delusion, a delusion, based on the basic misunderstanding of ourself as something which could do something by itself, we see the emptiness of that story. We see the interdependence of that story, which is a story of independence. We see the interdependence of the story of independence. And we're freed from this belief in an independent self. And then in the concentration, we absorb, we become absorbed, our life becomes absorbed into this new vision, which is still the vision of karma, but now karma which has... which is the law of liberation at the same time, until we're completely steady in that. And then we're steady in this light, this light shining in the middle of the world of karma.

[14:01]

We're stable in that, and then we come around the right view again. This time right view means we can see this is suffering. This is how suffering arises. This is the end of suffering. This is the path of suffering. Now, from knowledge right here, you can understand this whole thing as not just different stages, but as one process of liberation. Indivisible, enlightened mind. You can see that, you realize it, and then you come around again, practicing this. Now practicing right thinking, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration. You're still practicing, but this time you practice them without you practicing them. They spontaneously arise from your stabilized vision. It's no longer even a personal intention, a karmic intention, to be a renunciate,

[15:07]

to be loving the kind, and to be harmless. You are harmless. You are loving. You are a renunciate. You don't have attachments. You are kind, but you no longer are that way. You're kind of like totally homogenized with everything, interdependent, and it's no longer a dualistic operation. You no longer have to refer to the program. The program just spontaneously emerges from your practice. And again, as I said today, what I'll say again, all of this is what we mean by zazen. This is just like, what do you call it, a home movie about zazen. Well, footnote to zazen. And I told people this story, but I think it's an apropos story here. It's about this wonderful story. Actually, I don't know what you call it.

[16:10]

I'm going to get a commission on this because everybody's going to want to buy the book. But anyway, there's a story about, not a story, there's a person. His name is Jacques Moussarran. Some people know him. He's a young, he's an old, now old French man. I think he's still alive. But anyway, he was blinded in the 30s in Paris. He had an accident, he got blind. After he was blind for a while, he realized that he could see. And he couldn't see like, you know, apple trees and wine bottles and stuff like that anymore. But he could see a light, a great light. And by that light, when he looked at that light, he already knew exactly what to do. Except if he got angry or scared, then the light would go away. And he was just as confused as the next guy. And he didn't say he became angry, confused, or, you know, attached.

[17:13]

But I think that would do it too. So all of us have this light all the time. It's just that we can't see it if we're angry, confused, attached, or afraid. That blocks the light. When you see this light, you don't have to figure out what's loving kindness, and what's gentleness, and what's attachment. Just everything you do and everything you say comes from the light. If it can come from that light, everything will be in accord with this path. So this path is actually to tune us back into this light, which we already all have. But which we have lost because of karma, which we don't understand. It blocks our vision. And, of course, all the negative states that karma stirs up. So we have to, like, get intimate with all these negative states so that they're no longer obstructing our vision of this light.

[18:15]

And so that's a one-week course, five-day course on the Noble Eightfold Path. Okay? We have just completed a little tour of the Eightfold Path. We are a success. Anything you'd like to bring up? Yes. Mindfulness. Once the field is clear enough so you can, like, you got a clear vision of how it works. Okay? You can see now how karma works without all these negative states kind of, like, shaking up the picture and so on. You have a basically kind of problematical situation. Namely, you have dualistic karmic bondage, right?

[19:16]

You have karma, which gives rise to pain. Pain, which we cope with by delusion. And then we try to do something about it by karma, which causes more pain. This is the scene you're starting to see, which you saw up here, which is why you wouldn't start the course in the first place. Okay? But now you can see it really clearly. Then mindfulness is, by this clear vision and this still upright presence, you start entering into the dynamics of the situation. You start to see how you cause me and I cause you. You start to see how you cause karma and the karma causes you. You start to see how there's no you without the karma. So really, there isn't some you that does the karma or some karma done by the you. And how there's no you aside from me who you do the karma to. These interactive things are, as this mindfulness starts to bring the dynamism and interdependence of this dualistic picture, starts to come out. So we have, you know, we have this, what do you call it?

[20:21]

We have one short scripture called the self-fulfilling samadhi. The concentration on self-fulfillment. And in that samadhi it says that the upright sitting is the way you enter into the samadhi, the self-fulfilling samadhi. The self-fulfilling samadhi is the mindfulness of how the self is fulfilled. The mindfulness of how all the grasses and trees and mountains and rivers and tiles and pebbles teach us and how we teach all them. This resonance back and forth between all beings you start to enter into by this right effort. So in the mindfulness stage you start to see how all things are interdependent. And this is the gate, this mindfulness of interdependence, this mindfulness of dependent co-arising is the gate that all Buddhas use. So once you see that, then you enter into a one-pointed absorption in that vision of interdependence so that it becomes stable and continuous.

[21:25]

The concentration is the absorption in this vision of interdependence. You also are somewhat concentrated here, but here you're concentrated on the field of activity, your life, which has now been cleared up. But you don't yet see at this level the interdependence, the dependent co-arising of the elements of the field. But you have a clear vision of them because by being like a wall, the disturbing negative states are not blurring your vision of what's going on. Up until this point you saw something, but you couldn't see it really clearly. Now you can see really clearly that at this phase you enter into the dynamic inner workings and you realize that all these elements are interdependent. None of them exist by themselves, including your karma, your delusion, and yourself. Now basically you can see. But your seeing is not necessarily continuous. Like we say when I was a junior Samadhi says, after basically telling you the story of this vision,

[22:29]

you read the Duryodhana Samadhi now, what's being told you there, you're being told about the mindfulness, this mindfulness. You know, you are not it, it actually is you. It's like in a Dave in the World 5S, that's complete, does not go or come or rise or stand. That's about here. You can't stand up by yourself. You can't go or come, or rise or fall. Baba Wawa. This is about here. The mindfulness in this interdependent world is the dual mere Samadhi. And it says that you can achieve continuity in this dual mere Samadhi. That's this. You can be absorbed and be continuous in this mindfulness of interdependence, which you can now see because it's clear. So you're clear and you just continuously mindful of this clear seeing and you start to see that none of the elements exist by themselves and then you develop continuity. And then you have the perfected right view. The perfected right view is Buddha's wisdom.

[23:32]

I couldn't briefly do it. It's really complicated. But if you want me to go through it not briefly, I can do it. Go ahead. Okay. There's five types of ways to respond to the situation. If you don't have this wall-like mind, or if you have this wall-like mind and then you break your consciousness, you break your presence there, then this negative stuff can come up. And the negative stuff that manifests in your meditation are derived from greed and delusion. So from greed, what arises is sensual desire. It could be sexual or just any kind of sensation. From hate comes ill will. From delusion comes dullness, drowsiness, restlessness, fidgetiness, worry, doubt.

[24:55]

So if you antidote these states once they arise to calm the field again, which I said, you might be able to go back to the practice you should have been doing, which was stopping from arising in the first place. And you just have that wall-like mind that doesn't mess with things. And maybe that's what you've done when they arise. That may be enough. They were risen into that kind of presence that would drop away. If they don't, because sometimes you set off a chain reaction and you stay present with them. They just keep coming and coming. You might not know how long they go on. You might wait for a while. Which is better to bring in some more gross antidotes than just be present. Although that might work. If the presence might work, that pure wall-like presence might work. You might want to try these antidotes. So the one-to-one antidote is, let's see if people learn today, okay? The one-to-one antidote, the one-on-one antidote is for greed is what? Meditation on impermanence or renunciation. So for greed and renunciation,

[26:01]

but to help renunciation, because you're having trouble with renunciation, you're unsuccessful right now. There is this thing going on. So to get back to renunciation, you need to meditate on impermanence. Some version of impermanence. Stop messing around, okay? And for ill will, for ill will, loving-kindness. And for drowsiness and dullness, cold water. Good posture. Sit up straight. Put more effort into your posture. What else? Your forehead. Your forehead, meditate on the spot here in your forehead. Give you a headache. What else? Exercise. Go running. Take a brisk walk. What else? Golf. Coffee maybe should be inserted in the scripture somewhere. I don't know about that. What else? No, the breath is not so good.

[27:04]

When you're drowsy, maintain the breath. Stand up. Look cross-eyed. Look cross-eyed. Anyway, these are kind of ways to stimulate yourself. Sometimes just take a nap also. Okay, then for for worry and restlessness. Yeah, meditation on breath and posture. That tends to calm that. It's something to do anyway. If you're having problems, nothing to do, so you get worried and stuff. This is a substitute. Okay, it's a non, it's a non-agitating substitute. I don't know what it's called. Still, you can do something, so I'm going to do that. Better than nothing. Then what about a doubt? Read the scriptures. Bring it up for discussion. Argue about it. Make a case for how the dharma is really a waste of time to somebody who would like to talk to you about it.

[28:05]

Without you saying yeah, yeah, yeah all the time. Maybe yeah, yeah, yeah for a while, and then nothing else. Okay, so that's it. That's the anecdotes for the one-on-one anecdotes. And what's another anecdote? Okay, looking away. Look the other way. Another one is self-respect and decorum. I didn't say much about it. We're just doing the brief one here. I know, I said I agree. We're doing the brief one now, okay? This afternoon, I didn't either. And you're not going to now. And I said, and you're not going to now. No, I might. I'm just going to go cover the ground now. If I get into that, I won't get into the other ones. I'm testing you to see what you're doing. So self-respect and decorum also, we'll use those to address these. I'll use them to address what?

[29:10]

Ill will. Attachment. Restlessness. Worry. Doubt. Dullness. And spousiness. Contract. Fight. Vote to vote. And we'll talk about more. But self-respect and decorum can be hard to go over. And Tommy already figured out quite a few examples. But anyway, I'll come back if you really want me to. What's another one? Look right at it, which is similar to, but would have stopped it from coming up in the first place. But it's different because stopping it coming up in the first place, it's not the same as after it's come up. Stopping the truck from coming in the first place is different than after it's coming at you. But sometimes the thing that stops it once it's coming at you, it just stops. It's going to look at it. That can stop it now, even though it's coming at you. But it's not the same as it was before. It's easier before. That's why it's recommended to do this one first, and you don't have to do the second one. But once you didn't do the first one, then you've got to do the second one.

[30:12]

And here comes the truck. So sit there, and sometimes sit there and just look at it. And watch very carefully. Let's see. It is a, what is it? It's a, it's a Kenworth. No, it's a Mac. You know, if you really put yourself in it, these things will not mull you over. If you sit there and really study it, and when it gets closer, instead of getting more and more scared, study more. I'm talking about you, okay? What if you looked away when the truck was coming? I mean, if it's a truck, and you're looking away. If you look away, this is not denial, I said. This is looking away in the way the truck is going by. It's not denial. It doesn't need to hit you when you look away. It doesn't need to make it worse. If you try this out, and let me know. I mean, I'm just wondering if you have to. We can argue about it. So looking at it, which is similar to this. It's a similar way of looking to the way of looking that would have prevented the unwholesome states from arising in the first place. The same attitude of a wall-like mind,

[31:14]

that just lets phenomena be what they are. Let sense phenomena be just the kind of sense phenomena it is. Let imagined things be just the imagined things. Let cognized things just be the cognized things. You just let things be what they are, and then you start cutting through this duality, just by doing it. And the last one is, you know, fascism. You suppress it. You try to control it. You tie up a knot. You put it down. And that can be used sometimes, if none of the other ones work. And it works for a while. And then maybe you can lighten up and try something. And you go back, you know, just do the basic one. So that's the, that's the, that's the medium. The medium. And hopefully you'll never have to practice it. Because you will, you will never rise. Okay, now, somebody want to talk about what you want to talk about self-respect and decorum?

[32:23]

Pardon? Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? How they would operate? The context is, for example, sleepiness. That's the context. You're sleepy. You know how to practice, how self-respect and decorum would come into sleepiness? Huh? No idea? Yeah? Well, that's because you haven't been practicing Zen. I won't say what you have been doing, but anyway. Zen people, Zen monks would know how self-respect and decorum would apply to sleepiness. It's like the, it's like one of the big agendas in Zen. Zen monks are sitting in meditation halls all over the world. Embarrassed. They're embarrassed to fall asleep. They're not like, generally, they're not proud to fall asleep. They're not kind of going. So they do sometimes fall asleep, but they're ashamed.

[33:29]

Even the Zen masters are ashamed to fall asleep, you know. Like in that movie about Suzuki Roshin, sometimes during meditation, we should keep our eyes open. And they made a movie of them sleeping one day. So Zen monks do sometimes not get much sleep, but they make it hard enough, you know. Keep myself really late at night and make us get up early in the morning, and then we're supposed to stay awake all day. So we have a hard time staying awake. Sometimes we get drowsy, you know. So we have a good excuse anyway. Sometimes we get drowsy. But we're ashamed. We're ashamed. Now, some people are not ashamed, but if they're not ashamed, that's unwholesome. If you're a Zen monk, you should be ashamed if you're asleep. If you're a Zen master, you should be ashamed if you're asleep. No problem if you're ashamed. Also, decorum. You're not supposed to sleep in the hall. The others would say, don't do that to me. Yeah. And they even sometimes used to hit people for it.

[34:32]

So monks used to be like, decorum means you're concerned with what they'll do to you if you do something. Over in Japan, the monks are still very concerned with what will be done to them if they go to sleep. That keeps them awake. Decorum. They follow the decorum of the hall, which is you don't sleep during meditation practices. And it's a strong encouragement. There's a stick called the encouragement stick, which is used to remind them that it's not decorous to snooze and be curious. That's how you use it. But you could also use it for hatred. You could also be, say, I'm hating this person. And that's really not my, that's really not up to par for me. I'm actually not happy to be hating this person. This is not cool. I'm ashamed of myself and my petty little nasty little thing I've got here. Or lust, you know, you go around and you think a monastery you're going on.

[35:34]

You know, you don't think it's that cool. You don't you don't think it's that cool. You're doing that. This is not like, this is not like Buddha. Buddha doesn't go retching around, looking under those screens at the baths. Can you imagine? Shakyamuni Buddha would go under there. He wouldn't do that, right? If you're his disciple, you don't do that. Or if you do it, you're ashamed. This is not, this is beneath me. This is low class monk's life. Also, you're afraid that they'll catch you. If those women on the other side see you doing that, they don't like it. They feel offended. Looking the other way isn't quite as bad though. But it's not that cool from the women's side either.

[36:41]

Okay. But on the list, all those things, if you think about them, if you've got self-respect, if you're like, I want to be, I'm a Buddhist child. I have, I possess Buddha nature, just like all Buddhists. I'm trying to develop that. I'm trying to realize enlightenment for the sake of all beings. These activities are not in that, they're not like that. I'm ashamed to do those. I'm caught by them, but I don't like them and I'm ashamed. I'd like to quit. And also, if other people catch me, I'm going to tell the truth. And I don't want that either. Particularly because they're going to write on me and hurt you. Which is not that pleasant. Most of the time. Some people say that. Some people say that. You've got to be careful. That's that one. Okay? One could go on. Anything else? Yes? I wanted to ask about concentration. Okay. The, brought up this, this, the, the, the speaker that,

[37:45]

the Sangha between here and Somali, talking about achieving continuity, suggests that there's really a practice of concentration. And I think, maybe for, for a number of people who do meditation practice, achieving continuity is, you say anything about that practice? The practice of continuity? Are you planning anything in particular? Any particular aspects of that? No. Okay. I have a pretty frequent experience of, of having, of making,

[38:52]

what I would call a right effort. But being distracted from, seems like, kind of left field. And then having to bring myself, what kind of left field distraction are you referring to? Some, well, you know, left field's a big place. And can be emotional states that arise. Sadness, anger. Those are, those are kind of easier though. Actually, left field, the left field ones that I'd rather ask you about are ideas. Fantasies, concerns, replaying memories of things that happened. They seem to just pop up. And I find it then difficult to return to

[40:01]

simply paying attention to what's arising as it arises. Did you say fantasies and images from the past? Yes. Yes. Okay. Or, or plans, a plan, a plan of fantasy? I think so too. Okay, so that's an example. Those are examples of the imagined. So it isn't that those distract you from right effort. Those are the things that you practice right effort. So it isn't that fantasy is the imagined. So it's not that the imagined is distracting you, or the seen is distracting you, or the heard is distracting you. It's just that when the imagined comes up, you practice right effort with that. You let the plan be a plan. You let the fantasy be a fantasy.

[41:06]

You let the image from the past be the image. Just let it be. It's not a distraction. It's a phenomenon. It is an object. But you need to let it be a self. Then, and then you can, and then you can see that perfectly clearly. This is this plan. This is this plan. It's just what it is, and you're fine. I understand. You're quite right. But the thing with the imagined is that unlike other, other sorts of things, unlike the seen or the heard, or emotional states, or even some other kinds of ideas, it seems to, it's almost like it captures, like, let the imagined be the imagined. If you, if you, if you don't let the imagined be the imagined, that's what happens.

[42:07]

You get captured by it. In other words, you react to it. In other words, your wall-like mind turns into more like, you know, I don't know what, a car object, or whatever. It gets reactive. You start coughing and sighing at the imagined. So if you're telling me that the imagined is more difficult, I think for a lot of people it is. For other people, the cognizance makes it more difficult. Objects of knowledge, opinions, things like that. For other people, maybe the sense stuff is more difficult. Anyway, we all have some difficulties with these, and we all have, to some extent, difficulties with all of them. But the practice is, in this case, I'm suggesting, is to let the imagined be the imagined. It's not a distraction. It's an object of awareness. Which, it's not a distraction. The distraction is when you react to it. That's a distraction. When you activate the mind around that object. And this is not exactly concentration practice.

[43:08]

This is actually disciplining the sensory field. This is disciplining the mind's reaction to sensitivity. And that clears the field of the emotionally conflicting, disturbing emotional reactions that blur your vision. There's some concentration all the way around here. It's not, strictly speaking, concentration practice at this point. Or you could say this is the beginning of concentration practice. It doesn't do any good to do concentration practice on the mess. First of all, to clear the mess up. Now, since this concentration here is a concentration which culminates the path of enlightenment, it's not an ordinary concentration practice. It's a concentration practice upon dharma. So here, where these phenomena of imagination, plans, blah, blah, blah happen, when you let them be what they are, the field gets clearer. You can see them very sharply. When you can see them very sharply, then you move up into studying their dependent co-arising. When you see their dependent co-arising, then you move into continuous practice.

[44:12]

So this kind of effort makes it possible for you to start to see the contents of the dual mirror samadhi. Or rather, this kind of effort starts to show you the images in the dual mirror. The dual mirror is going to have mindfulness of the dependent co-arising of the images in the mirror. Once the story of the dual mirror samadhi, or the song of the dual mirror samadhi, it's not a samadhi yet until you have continuity. So the contents of that text are telling you what the dynamic world of interdependence is like, what the world of freedom looks like. So at that point, you see what it's like. That's a sample from the world of dharma. Then if you can achieve consciousness, you can see what it's like. In other words, you can be concentrated in that field. That's when you practice concentration. However, the good news is that concentration practice here,

[45:14]

I say, is a lot easier than it is before that. Because you see the truth. The truth is working for you. So all this stuff which used to be a distraction is not a distraction anymore. All you've got to do is just enjoy this wonderful light. So you don't have the struggles that you had trying to concentrate up through here. That's something nice, all the work you do at this point. But still, you do have to practice concentration. So you have continuity in the mindfulness of the dual mirror. I'll put it another way. Here's a nice way to put it. In this stage of concentration, you expose the jewels. And you see the jewels very clearly. What are the jewels? The scene, the herd, the imagined, colors, smells, touches, tastes, all concepts, all emotions, all opinions, all objects of knowledge. Those are the jewels. In mindfulness, it becomes a dual mirror. In other words, you don't just see jewels.

[46:20]

You see them reflecting each other. You see that in each jewel, all the other jewels are there. So then, in mindfulness, it goes from being jewels to dual mirror. Before this effort, they're not really jewels. They look dirty. There's still muddiness. So here at this level, you start to tune in the jewels. Here, the interdependence back happens. The mirror happens. So the dual mirror, and then you concentrate. And then you go. Easy as pie. I don't know who was next. Who was next? Who? You were last. Yes, please. Andrea. Well, I'll give this a little bit of clarification. What you need to understand is that you don't want to act on imagination. You want to see the imagination. Then, also going to where you said, so that's where you see the types of jewels.

[47:23]

And so, I'm trying to connect this. It might take a minute for me to figure it out. Okay. I think that, and what you're saying is that when you see a big jewel, it's when you can see it as an imagination. Yeah. I think it's difficult to not act on imagination when you don't know what is imagination. I think that, in some sense, all of our realities are totally unique. All of our realities, what? Are totally unique. What I experience is exactly what I'm experiencing, right? So it's totally true. But it might not be the general consensus reality of that particular moment. No, it's not. It's just yours, right? Right, but it's also true, right? So it could be imagination, but it's also what we experience.

[48:25]

It's true that when you're imagining something, it's true that you're imagining something. But it's true that imagination happens. That is true. But we're not experiencing that as reality. Right, that's the mistake. So, um. See, it's reality that we imagine things, but our imagination is not a reality. Our imagination is the imagination. Um, so my question is, how do we relate to some of that which is reality? Well, when you can start seeing that imagination is imagination, you can start it out. Thank you. Where does that end up? Okay, um. I don't know, maybe I'm not being clear, but sometimes when I'm acting on what other people perceive as imagination, I'm acting on it because acting is reality. Most people think their imaginations are reality. That's the usual thing for people. That's what most people do all day long.

[49:32]

They have imaginations, and they think imagination is their truth. So what is the step to begin to see that imagination is reality? Which is a step? Well, there's many steps, but if you're at this stage of the dance, here, at this right effort stage, you have the ability to say, oh, that's my imagination. When you see your imagination as imagination, you're right. You're correct. And sometimes you can see your imagination as imagination. Well, once in a while you can, can't you? Yeah, so then you're right. Most of the time, when you think, oh, that's my imagination, most of the time, I guess, almost all the time, probably you're right. I mean, sometimes you say, that's my imagination. Some other people say, that's mine too, therefore you're right. They think theirs is true, so if yours is the same as theirs, then yours is reality. But you might be actually saying, oh, that's just my imagination. Oh, no, it's not, because that's the same as mine, and mine is true, so yours is true too.

[50:34]

But actually, you're somewhat enlightened there by seeing that your imagination is just that. It's a lot of the same stuff. Imagination is a lot of the same stuff. You can talk about how to see what you are, you can realize that you are a lot more than you think. So, I can see that in that. And so, yes, I mean, can you talk about it then? Can you talk about the things that you want to talk about? It looks into your whole body. See, up here, right here at the beginning, at this stage of right view, you do not see that you're interdependent. Up here, you think you're not interdependent. In other words, you admit that you're deluded. Well, that means you grew up as interdependent.

[51:35]

And in California, where it's common knowledge that we're all interdependent, in northern California, nobody's going to say that. Everybody's going to say, yeah, I'm interdependent. I'm into interconnectedness and ecology. But actually, we don't believe that. We think we are independent. We think we are separate. That's our deep human program. Right view is not saying, okay, it's all interdependent. I'm not doing any karma. No, that's bull. That's not true. We think we are independent. We think we do things on our own. And if you watch that, you do good things, and you do bad things. You do good things. I do bad things. You don't like that. That's the way we see it. That's the world we live in. But then we have all this, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm a Buddhist. It's all interdependent. Blah, blah, blah. Yes. That's not true. Buddhists don't believe that, generally speaking, any more than non-Buddhists.

[52:38]

It makes sense to us. We think it's a good idea. We heard Buddha said that. But Buddha actually saw it that way. But before Buddha saw it that way, Buddha saw it the other way. I am separate from other beings. That's the way I see it. I'm miserable. You can see that right today for yourself, and most of you have already seen it. But that way of seeing is miserable. That's the way you do see. And then if you get down here and start looking at the workings of your mind, you'll start to notice you have imaginations, and then you can notice, I believe my imaginations. Or I don't. One of my famous stories, I'm making it famous by telling it enough times. I stood in that garden over there one day, and I jumped up and down, and I thought to myself, I do not believe my imagination of what you are. I don't believe it. Actually, I did. I was telling myself, don't believe it. Because I had this imagination of what she was. I won't tell you what I thought she was, but I better not believe it, because I would get in big trouble if I believed what I thought she was. So finally,

[53:42]

when she saw me jumping up and down like that, she stopped doing anything to support my fantasies. I could draw her. Anyway, we have to learn that our fantasies are not reality. We have to see that. We have to learn to see, this is what I think you are. I think you're wonderful. I think you're gorgeous. I think you're not wonderful. I think you're not gorgeous. I think you're a lousy sentient being. I think you're a good sentient being. This is not what you are. This is my fantasy. This is fantasy, no big deal. When a fantasy is a fantasy, you start to become free. When a fantasy is a reality, you're troubled. But if you see, if you think the fantasies are true, they're not just fantasies. They're realities, and you notice you suffer. And you notice you separate yourself. And then you notice they're here and they're there.

[54:44]

And blah, blah, blah. So then, if that's the case, you start doing these practices. And until you get around here, then you have a chance to see, oh, it's a fantasy. And you're not fooled by your fantasies, but your fantasies are unique, but they're just fantasies. Now, once you learn to see fantasies, you can start to see that they don't come from nowhere. And then you start to see how they're interdependent. And then you start to become, not just see that they're fantasies, but actually that they're the truth. But not the fantasies are true, the truth is how they come to be. A fantasy, the way a fantasy happens, is no more or less, no more or less true, no more or less true than a color, a smell, or a mind object. All things are equally real in the sense that everything interdependently co-arises. That's the dharma of all things shared,

[55:45]

and if you can see what something is, you can see how it happens. But if you make something into a reality, you can't see how a reality is made, because realities don't exist. Only fantasies and ideas and sense objects exist, but they don't exist either. They interdependently co-arise. And that's what you can see about mindfulness. And you're free. You should absorb yourself in that. Anyway, Kendra, we say that we're independent, but we don't really think we are. That's our problem. And we even know for sure we are, we don't really believe, but we know for sure it's true. And we act like we don't know it all the time. Which is fine, because that makes sense that we would. This is an antidote to what we actually believe. To revolutionize our attitude by admitting that we've got it going now. No, no.

[56:49]

You finally start acting as though we're interdependent because you start actually seeing that you are. But the way you see that you're interdependent is by meditating on how you think you're separate. Get very clear. There's me. I'm doing this to him. That's what I see, and you see it really clearly. Oh, that's not true. I can't do anything to him without him doing something to me. But you start with that you think you're separate and independent. And if you look at that carefully, you realize that you're independent. You have to start with where you are. And where you are, you have to start here. And where we are is here, not there. We're stuck here being this. We have to admit that. If we admit that, we realize freedom from here. Freedom from being this. Okay? Time to stop. Time to stop. Thank you very much. Thank you.

[58:13]

I vow to end them. Farmer, against our violence. I vow to enter them. Buddha's way is unsurpassable. I vow to be humble.

[58:36]

@Text_v004
@Score_JJ