Some people are starting to get sick, but still I think it's been fortunate. Zen has been quiet, it still is pretty quiet. I was thinking maybe, tomorrow morning, not having required sitting. They want to get a lot of extra rest tomorrow, before session starts. And also, I have this little photo album of the last days of Suzuki Roshi's life. I put it in the library, on the table. You can look there as well if you want to look at it.

[01:05]

I wanted to draw your attention to that question of Maitreya to the Buddha. It says in chapter 8... I wasn't going to say this, but this translation, where it talks about when you're practicing, attending to an image without any conceptual elaboration. But you haven't yet attained physical and mental pliancy. What is that? And the Buddha said that's not samatha.

[02:22]

It resembles intensified effort concordant with samatha. And another translation is, it is a reflection concomitant with the commitment to quietude. Another translation is, it is an attention involved in application to quiet, to tranquility. Another translation is, it is practicing with trust, with the trust guiding one to tranquility. And so, sometimes that's what we're doing. We're practicing in a way that reflects commitment to practicing tranquility, but we haven't yet attained tranquility. And then, the same would be the case if you haven't attained this prashradhi,

[03:39]

and you're contemplating an image together with images for reflection on that image, but you haven't attained prashradhi. What is that called? That's not vipassana, but it is this practicing with trust, with the trust that will guide you to that practice. And then the next part, which we didn't discuss too much, we just read it, is how the paths of samatha and the path of vipassana are the same or different. And then the Buddha says they're neither different nor non-different. And they're not non-different because one is contemplating an image without accompanying other images for reflection on the image,

[04:45]

and the other one is accompanied by images for reflection on the image. That's why they're not non-different. But they're not different because they both contemplate mind. So, in practicing tranquility, one is contemplating, training in contemplating mind. And people sometimes think, I'm concentrating on my breath, I'm concentrating on my breathing. But this says you're contemplating mind when you're training in tranquility. So you're not actually contemplating a physical phenomena when you're practicing tranquility. We say the breath, and we let it go at that for 99.9% of the people who are practicing samatha.

[05:56]

We say concentrating on the breath, and they think they're concentrating on the breath, but actually, if they're training in tranquility, they're actually contemplating the mind. It's not to say you can't be aware of your breath, experience your breath in direct awareness of the physical phenomena. It's just that you don't train your attention to the direct physical awareness, the awareness of the physicality. That's not where you train in tranquility. As a matter of fact, I proposed to you that research has demonstrated that if you actually try to look at a physical phenomena, focus on it, you can only do so for about three seconds maximum. Some people say ten seconds. If you're actually looking, if you're actually trying to focus on it, on sense data,

[07:01]

you can't stay focused on sense data. For a very long time. However, you can meditate on mental images. You can learn to do it for a really long time, steadily. And the mental image is quite stable. The physical image is changing very rapidly. The mental image, for example, the mental image, or samatha, is letting go of discursive thought. And letting go of discursive thought doesn't change. It's always the same thing. It's letting go of discursive thought. The discursive thought you're letting go of, of course, varies endlessly. The imaginations which you're not getting involved in, there's no end to the imaginations,

[08:07]

but the not getting involved is always not getting involved. So you're focusing on not getting involved. So the object is, it's possible to actually watch it, steadily. It's not jumping all over the place. And the same with vipassana, you're not really focused on vipassana. Because you're using discursive thought there. You're using it, so you're actually moving around when you're practicing vipassana. And when you're practicing wisdom, you're thinking about things. However, you're in a state of tranquility, which has arisen from not thinking about things. Now, by virtue of Mahi's question yesterday,

[09:10]

we're ready to look at something which I mentioned before we might look at, and that is that rather difficult paragraph where it says, having attained physical and mental pliancy, they abide only in that. Having abandoned certain aspects of mind, they analyze. I'll just stop there. Having attained samatha, physical and mental pliancy, they abide in that, in that state. Does that make sense? Any questions about that? And then it says, another having,

[10:21]

having abandoned aspects of mind, having entered this monastery, having followed the precepts, having served the community, you are now ready to practice. You have certain aspects of mind, but don't go to the marketplace yet. You're ready to abandon certain aspects of mind. And what aspects of mind are you now abandoning? Discuss it. What? A little louder, please. I take it back. You're abandoning what?

[11:22]

Non-discursivity. Yeah, you're abandoning non-discursive silence. You abandon that non-discursivity, that aspect of mind. The non-discursive aspect of mind, you abandon. You get back on the thinking wagon. When you're on the wagon, you're not drinking anymore, right? But when you're off the wagon, which wagon is it? Anyway, abiding in tranquility, having attained tranquility, you abide only in that. In other words, you're not going to do the tranquility practice anymore, you're just going to abide in the state which you've realized, and then you abandon those things you were doing before, those practices you were doing before, which launched you into this state. And then it says, it says,

[12:27]

they analyzed, huh? 151? And then it says, now that you're in this state and you've abandoned the shamata practice, you analyze, analyze, and inwardly consider, analyze, consider, those very doctrines in the way that they have been contemplated, in the way that you've been studying them before, now as images which are the focus of this state of tranquility. Any questions about that? Would you repeat that last sentence? Any questions about that? What? I didn't understand the last sentence. You're now going to contemplate, you're going to analyze,

[13:35]

you've heard some teachings and you've been contemplating them? In the past, like for example, this big teaching about, well, for example, these teachings about Vipassana, this one itself, and also teachings about, that occurred in the previous seven chapters, those teachings, and others that you've heard and contemplated. Now you're going to take some of those teachings and you're going to analyze them, and you're going to analyze them in the way that they were contemplated, but now as images of your state of concentration. Before you were studying them, but they weren't looked at in the medium of concentration. When you look at something when you're not concentrated, it looks one way. When you look at it in concentration, it looks another way. Sometimes when you look at something and you're not concentrated,

[14:37]

the thing looks like it's kind of saying, I'm what I appear to be and that's all I am, and leave me alone. And you feel like that too, when you're not concentrated. When you're concentrated, the things you're looking at are kind of saying, go ahead, analyze me. Go ahead, take me apart. Analyze me, examine me. And you feel like that too. So, you're vulnerable to consideration and examination when you're relaxed and concentrated, but the world looks like that too. You know, leaves on the trees, and you seem to whisper Louise, everything's, you know, everything starts opening up, you know. Things become more porous, and your sensuous relationship with the world

[15:45]

starts to become more... starts to act, wake up. So, you analyze, you inwardly consider these doctrines, but now in the realm of samadhi. And then it says, the differentiation, the thorough differentiation, the thorough investigation, the thorough analysis, forbearance, interest, discrimination, view, investigation of the objects that are known with respect to the images, that are the focus of samadhi, is vipassana. And I said, I related this to the Mahi's question because the examination, let's see, the first one, the discrimination, and the thorough discrimination,

[16:45]

yeah, the differentiation and the thorough differentiation, is vichara and parivichara. So, remember, we're talking about these mental factors. First you use them to develop concentration. First you use them to develop samatha, and then you use them, actually, when you push them all, when you push them to their limit, you enter into these jhanas. Okay? Vichara and parivichara. Do you remember that? Applied thought or sustained thought. Then when you're in a state, but you're using them, you're applying them to a non-discursive object, or a non-discursiveness. Okay? Once you're tranquil, you stop applying them to non-discursiveness,

[17:47]

and now you look at the object in terms of ways to reflect on the object, and you use the same mental factors, now you're reactivating. That's why I say that if you're in too deep a state of concentration, you can't start shant vipassana, because vipassana, you see, when you start to analyze the phenomena, you're actually going to use the factors which you have exhausted, or almost exhausted before, or that you were using on a different object. So you're going to actually use the discursive thought. See, it says right here, in this paragraph, that you're going to reactivate discursive thought, vichara. You're going to use it now. And then it says parivichara, exhausted, thorough, pushing vichara really thoroughly, using your discursive thought energetically on the object. And then it says, yeah, so, vichara, parivichara,

[18:48]

differentiation, thorough differentiation, and then it says, and then you get, somehow I lost my notes here, but the, I think thorough investigation is parivitarka, and thorough analysis, I forgot what that was, but anyway, you use these same mental factors which you used for concentration, you now use them for insight. So the, this paragraph is a, is a clear demonstration that you're really starting to think again, after attaining tranquility. And another thing I thought, I was talking to someone, another point I would like to make is that another characteristic of developing tranquility

[19:50]

in the sense of getting more appliant is that when you're not tranquil, your body and mind are a little tough. Like Suzuki Roshi says, zazen is a tenderizer. And as you practice, particularly as you practice shamatha, and you become more tender, you become more tender. And so, something that, that, that's irritating, under ordinary circumstances, if you experience in a state of tranquility, in a way, it's more irritating. Because you're more, you're more sensitive, and more tender.

[20:52]

Just one second, okay? That's why often, when people leave retreats, they often say that it's hard for them to go out into the traffic and so on, because that situation is sometimes very harsh, very stimulating. Anyway, if you're tough on yourself, you can go out in the street, you know, and get from one place to the other, somehow, but you have to toughen yourself sometimes, so you don't feel the irritation too much. But when you're in tranquility, you're not, you're more vulnerable. So, the funny thing is that as you become more tranquil, things hurt more, so then, even though you're tranquil in an environment that, a milder environment, when you go back into an environment which, ordinarily, you can get through without, without a freak-out,

[21:57]

now you maybe freak out because your tranquility isn't deep enough. It's deep enough to make you more sensitive, but not deep enough to handle the increased pain of stimulation. Now, if you then can be patient with that stimulation, you become more calm, so then you're calm with that stimulation, but then you're more sensitive to that stimulation, the same stimulation, so then it even hurts you more. So, you never can get calm enough not to hurt. That's why you need the passion of two. Because the reason why it basically hurts is because you think it's not you. So, the more calm you get, the more sensitive you are to the fact that, that not understanding that the objects of awareness are really cognition only, the more, because of not understanding that, the more calm you get, the more bugged you are by not understanding that. So, you have to practice

[22:57]

understanding the emptiness of the separation between mind and objects, or between self and other. So, it's somewhat difficult. There's a difficulty, sort of a lack of danger on the path is becoming more and more sensitive as you become more and more calm. But you need the calm in order to let the teaching which will cure you of this fundamental problem in. If you keep protecting yourself, the teaching can't get in. The teaching which will eventually, someday, cure you of being irritated by other people. There are other people, but they're not separate from you. You think they are, and because you think other people are separate, you have, I have, we have, people have people problems like that. Okay? April? Well, I have two questions, and

[24:00]

the second one pertains to what you were just talking about, and the first one is about what you said before. You said that if you're in too deep of a state of concentration, you can't practice Vipassana. You can't, you can't get started on Vipassana. Okay, well, so, so what is the... Okay, I want to clarify that. It's not that you can't practice... Well, I'd still like you to say too deep. You have to sort of surface somewhat in order to start practicing Vipassana. Either you have to surface somewhat, or you have to stop when you're concentrated enough. To start practicing Shaman Vipassana, you have to be able to contemplate a teaching. And, as it says here, when you start analyzing a teaching, you're going to be using thinking. Excuse me. You've got to breathe with me, okay?

[25:02]

I'm breathing, and you're to take turns. So, you're switching from giving up discursive thought, now you're using discursive thought. Now, if you have no discursive thought, there's no discursive thought in the deep trances, you won't be able to analyze. Once you finish analyzing, and you actually have insight, then, you can get rid of discursive thought again. And then you can actually deepen your insight without using any more discursive thought. Yeah. And then what? Then what? Then just keep doing that. But if you're working on... Hypothetically, if you are working on increasingly deepening your concentration, is there another aim besides Vipassana?

[26:02]

I mean, if you... No. If your whole practice is Shanta, and you're so advanced in that that you can't practice Vipassana, you don't practice Vipassana, is there... Can you say that again, please? If you're whole... If you just continue with Shanta, and you don't turn to Vipassana, is there a benefit in that? Where does it take you? Or is it not a good thing to do? Is there a benefit in it? I would say so, yeah. You get more and more skillful at Shanta, and you get... And the benefit is that you... It's a worldly benefit, but you get more and more intense and wonderful states of bliss. But you don't get more wise? You might, but when you get more wise it's because you've flipped out of Samatha into Vipassana. But it is...

[27:07]

To develop the skill is very beneficial, and also it's quite pleasant to be in the states that the skill gives rise to. Well, well... Well, this is the other... This relates to my second question. Can we spend more time on your first question? Well... Pardon? Yeah. We can. But my second question relates to my first question. Would you like to ask it before I talk more about your first question? Sure. You would? Yeah. Okay. My second question was... Actually, you asked a third question in the middle between your first question and your second question that I wanted to answer while you're trying to find your second question. Okay. That was something about the goal? Yeah. The purpose? In this chapter, anyway,

[28:11]

the purpose of this Samatha Vipassana, the purpose of it is to attain enlightenment and teach the Dharma. That's the point of these two meditations is so you can teach Dharma to people. Okay. That's how you help them. My second question was... First, you said, and this is more... Well, we have different experiences, but anyway, one thing that can happen when you deepen your concentration, your tranquility is that you say things can be more irritating, and that is not so much my experience, because I think of being irritated as being reactive, but it seems to me that things can be

[29:14]

more painful, and that you can feel more sadness, I don't really see it as irritation, and then relating that to what you said before about further deepening your concentration and you experience a lot of bliss, but wouldn't that be while you were meditating you would be in a state of bliss, but then when you came out of it and you stopped meditating, you're still in a state of tranquility, but you're not completely concentrated, would you then be in a state of bliss, or would you be that much more vulnerable and things would be more painful? Fortunately, your question has been taped,

[30:18]

because I think in your question you showed some of the ways of using the word meditating and so on. People use meditating to sometimes be the things you do to become concentrated. When you're actually concentrated, you do not need to meditate. When you're concentrated, when you're concentrated, you don't need to practice concentration meditation anymore. Yeah. Well, I meant more that I wasn't using the word meditate, right? I meant more when you're in a state of concentration. You used it that way, and that's the way people a lot of times use meditation, is they use meditation for what you're doing when you're not concentrated to be concentrated, and then sometimes they don't understand that when you are concentrated, you don't have to meditate anymore, so concentration

[31:22]

is both used to get concentrated and to be concentrated. And when you are concentrated, you can use the concentration to do things. So once you're concentrated, you can talk in a concentrated way, you can walk in a concentrated way. But when you're training in concentration, sometimes you're not yet concentrated, so even though you're training correctly in concentration, you're not concentrated. And you can't respond in a concentrated way to things because you're not yet concentrated. So there's some confusion there that keeps wafting in and out of the situation. I think when you're concentrated, you feel more deeply. So it isn't that things are more irritating, but you're more deeply touched by things. And if you're in a state of training your mind away from dispersive thought,

[32:25]

and you're actually in that mode and then some painful thing comes, you're actually in a mode of training such that you will give up any stories you have around that painful experience. So if somebody comes up to you and spits in your face, you're training yourself not to think about that. So that training will actually in some sense might protect you from a story about them, about the person spitting in your face, which might be useful. It might be helpful to help you not be reactive. And if you're calm and then they spit in your face, it'll maybe penetrate you even more. The spit will go deeper into you. And so in some sense it will hurt you more in a way. Not hurt you, but you'll feel it more deeply. And you'll feel all that the sensuousness of that,

[33:26]

more of the sensuousness of the spittle. But you're not going to be as reactive. Like I said in the first example, when you drop a rock in a saline lake, it has a response, but it's not reactive, it's just the natural response. It isn't like the lake blows up. It just makes a splash and the splash goes out. It's just a natural causal relationship and it's actually, it's like, wow! They spit in my face and it's just rolling down my cheek. Wow! This is great! So you're still happy even though people are spitting on you. You don't like to spit or don't like to spit. It isn't that you like the feeling of it, it's that you, what you like is the fact that the spit just makes a splash

[34:27]

and makes these beautiful rings around it. It's just beautiful, you know? But it hurts and it hurts more than usual. So you might be surprised by that. So anyway, this is part of the landscape of concentration work. And if you're in a situation where you're actually able to give up discursive thought, those are usually situations where also you're not getting stimulated so much. For example, most people are not talking when they're giving up discursive thought because it's hard to talk and give up the mental factors which make the talk possible. It's not impossible, but it's hard to use discursive thought while you're giving it up. So if you're in conversation and normal situations and moving around, it's a little harder to be training in tranquility. That's a fact. And I often tell the story of early days of Zen center.

[35:27]

People would be working in the office trying to follow their breathing or even worse, trying to count their breaths and so the people who called had sort of, you know, there was a difficulty there. And the practitioners who had not yet attained tranquility were quite irritable that these people were bothering them and not being patient for them to finish their exhales. It was rough. So then we hired a bunch of people who weren't trying to practice shamatha and everything worked out. So what are we training then? I'm just kidding. I'm going to use the taboo word goal because I know there's no real goal. There is a goal. The goal is

[36:31]

supreme, perfect enlightenment and teaching the Dharma to people to really set them free. That's the goal. Okay, then if that's the goal then this is one step. A mini goal. A mini goal. And it seems like the higher goal or beyond this step would be to recognize our pure awareness and the openness. So is this leading us there? Yes. Okay, so this is like probably the last step before that one. What you're talking about could be seen as understanding that the object of concentration is cognition only. That's kind of pure awareness when you understand that. And then you can use that pure awareness to then practice with people for a long time. Dhyana. The practice of dhyana.

[37:34]

Not necessarily the practice of dhyana, yes, but also the practice of giving, precepts, patience and diligence, working in the kitchen, working in the office, but in a state of pure awareness where you've purified your mind of any belief that mind and object are separate. So that pure awareness or that awareness of suction, as it says here, once you actually have that awareness of suction, of understanding this teaching, then you just keep using that, you keep tapping back into that meditation on suction while you practice all these Bodhisattva practices, while you praise the Buddhas and while you assist beings, while you practice the precepts, while you teach the Dharma, while you study the Dharma, while you practice confession, while you work in the kitchen, while you work in the garden, while you answer the telephone, while you donate this and donate that, while you receive this and give that,

[38:34]

all the many Bodhisattva practices. You do them, but now you're doing them together with this wisdom, and then it just deepens and deepens and deepens and you evolve in that way, endlessly, to the big goal. And again, it's not the perfect enlightenment of yours, but it's the enlightenment of all of us together, and all of us together teaching the Dharma and learning the Dharma. That's the goal. But to accomplish that, there is this big step where you actually start to see the truth, the truth that the objects of cognition are only cognition. And that's a huge step, and then we use that step as the basis to keep putting our foot back on that step as we do all the other practices. Does that make sense?

[39:36]

Jeremy? What about no steps and stages? Well, sometimes people say no steps and stages, but in the conversation that, I think it wasn't it, Sagan had with... Nanyue? Sagan had it with somebody. It's how do you avoid falling into steps and stages. It's not no steps and stages. If there were no steps and stages, they wouldn't have brought it up. There are steps and stages, but how do we not fall into them? So that was a guy's question, and the person said, what have you been practicing? He said, I haven't even been practicing the Four Noble Truths. Studying the Four Noble Truths That's really the... Not in traditional presentations. That's the actual initiation in the early teaching which is comparable to the initiation in this chapter into Vijnapti Mahatma's city.

[40:39]

Seeing this nature of mind and objects is a parallel initiation to initiation in the Four Noble Truths. The guy says, I haven't even done that yet. So he says, well, what stage have you fallen into? And he says, if I haven't even practiced the Four Noble Truths, how could I fall into any stage? So he asked, how can I avoid it? But then, in the dialogue, it appears that he hasn't fallen into steps and stages. And then if you would continue that way of practicing, even when you attain the Four Noble Truths, then you wouldn't get stuck in them. So we don't want to get stuck. And also, step ladder Zen, as Suzuki Roshi said, we don't practice step ladder Zen. And step ladder Zen also means not just steps and stages, but also means the various stages of jhana. And, in fact,

[41:41]

you don't find too many Zen people practicing the stages of jhana. But, I think it might be OK if some of your people practice the jhanas. But, I think you should talk to a Zen teacher about it before you launch on that path. Gil Fronadel is a Zen student, but he also teaches Vipassana. And in the Vipassana groups, somebody said, do the Zen people practice concentration? He said, yeah they do, but they can't have it. So, as long as you don't possess this wonderful stage, it's OK to practice them. And the same with stages of insight, as long as you don't get stuck. If you're going to get stuck, it's better to get stuck down low. It's easy for people to help you,

[42:43]

because, you know, they don't like you when you're stuck low. But if you're stuck high, some people say, what can I say? She's so great, how can I criticize? So you can get stuck up high more easily than you can get stuck down low. Although it's hard to get up high. It's worse when you get stuck. Let's see, Okidoki Tova? So, you said when you're concentrated, you feel more deeply, and you're more deeply touched by things. Actually, excuse me, I said that, but it isn't that you're more deeply touched, it's that you feel more deeply touched, you're more deeply aware of being touched. So, and you said, if someone, you talk about someone spitting on you, and that you notice all the qualities

[43:44]

that also might feel the hurt, but I'm wondering, what if someone spits on someone else, or instead of using spit on, say insults or threatens someone else, and you notice it, and you feel pain about it, what is an appropriate response? An appropriate response? Appropriate, apropos to what? Appropriate means to the point. What's the point? Tell me the point. That someone is hurting someone else. Is that the point? Well, then the response, if the point is that someone's hurting someone else, the point has already been realized. So no response is necessary. I don't understand that. That is the point? I think you got the point, but you don't know you got it.

[44:45]

I asked you what's the point, and you said the point is a person has been hurt. So if that's the point, then the appropriate thing to the point is just what's happened. Maybe the point is that I noticed that somebody hurt someone else. Well, that's also been accomplished. My goal, my goal is to do it. You know what, I think there's a danger in that because I wouldn't feel comfortable just watching it and not responding. Well, you will respond. Don't worry about that. You will respond no matter what happens. You will have a response. But you said what's the appropriate response, and sometimes your response might not be appropriate, might not be appropriate to what? Appropriate means to something. If you want to be mean to people and somebody is being mean to someone,

[45:49]

then the appropriate thing to do would be to join in the fun and be mean to them with the person. If you say appropriate, that means to the point. So you tell me what the point is. You ask me what's the appropriate response. So then I want to know what's the point. You tell me the point and I'll tell you the appropriate response. I think appropriate is not the right word here. It's a very good word, but you're not used to using it. What's the compassionate response? What's the compassionate response? So, the compassionate response would be that you feel that you like everybody involved to be free from suffering. That would be a compassionate response, that you have that desire. That would be a compassionate response, that you have that desire.

[46:49]

You'd feel that way. And then, having that feeling, maybe some action would... Having that feeling, some action will occur. Some action will follow. And what it will be? You know, like, like some of the microbes that are out in the air, you know, they have no trouble hitting that ball. Because it's like, to them it's like the whole, it's like the whole ballpark. But to us it looks kind of small sometimes. When you're concentrated it gets very big. So juggling and tightrope walking and skiing on a ledge on a mountain, these are situations where you realize that the problem is if you think about anything other than what you're doing, it really has consequences. So it's nice,

[47:54]

in tea ceremony too sometimes, it's that way, put yourself in a situation where if you think of something else, you'll get immediate feedback. Something will go, you know, off. But in, in Zen practice sometimes we're in a situation where you do not get immediate feedback. We let you, we're allowed to find that place without something hitting us right away. But in some temples, in some Zen temples, they, as soon as you veer off, they hit you. Or as soon as they veer off, as soon as they see you veer off, they hit you. So after a while you stop veering off. So they, they, they get the monks to be quite concentrated in that way by hitting them with a stick. If they, you know, you can kind of tell when somebody's thinking.

[48:57]

You know, the eyes move in a certain way, like my eyes move in a certain way when I'm thinking. If I'm talking to certain people, they say, what are you thinking of? My eyes start moving faster when they're talking to me, and I'm like this. And then they see the eyes, the eyes start batting, they say, what are you thinking of? And I'm like, right, I'm usually taking notes for a lecture or something. And I'm like, oh, that's a good example of such-and-such. So then if that person had a stick and they were trying to present it to me, they would hit me. But wouldn't you then associate pain with, you'd associate pain with thinking, right? It's old-fashioned biofeedback. And I did that myself, on myself,

[50:01]

in early days of meditation. I would threaten to punish myself if I veered away from my meditation object. And then I would do the punishment, if I did. And then I would up the ante on the punishment. And then I got to a place where I was not veering away from the meditation object, because I was going to hurt myself so much if I did. And I was successful at not veering away from the meditation object. Would you recommend that? Huh? Would you recommend that for us? No, I wouldn't. And I quit. I stopped that, because when I got into meditation, that way, because of that coercion, I wasn't, I wasn't happy with that state, because it had this coercive neighborhood. It was too harsh. So I was successful, but I, that wasn't what I was really trying to get. So I was, I wasn't veering away, but I wasn't, it wasn't, it wasn't shamatha,

[51:01]

because I think the, there was still this big discursiveness of the punishment that I was going to get. So I still wasn't, I wasn't veering away from what I thought was the breath, my meditation object, and counting one to ten. And I had ways of checking to see that I was actually counting one to ten, not just dreaming of counting one to ten. And, and I was successful at not, at not veering away at all from counting for, you know, whole periods. But, it wasn't producing shamatha, because I was still being discursive. So I wouldn't encourage that. That's why I think actually our practice in some ways is better than tightrope walking and juggling and things like that, because it's actually, there's no pressure on you to do this on the outside. Actually, this is an inner thing,

[52:02]

which you do because you're enthusiastic about it and you want to do it. And it's in accord with your values. And you're, what do you call it, you're a responsible person. You're an adult. You're not a little kid. But someone might say, well, for kids it's different, you know. Like I know this guy, he's a very nice guy. And he's got grandsons. And they came to his, to his zendo in Wales. And somehow the idea of meditating came up. And they wanted to meditate for a while, but they didn't want to meditate for very long. So he paid them to meditate for sitting five minutes. He said, for five minutes I'll give you, you know, 50p, which is half a pound, more than 50 cents. So he paid them to meditate and it worked pretty well. Can we start that practice here? We do have a practice.

[53:04]

John, please don't get paid. We have that practice here. Please don't get paid as much as those kids. What did you do after you gave up counting your breath? I think I just, I just sat and, and just gave up discursive thought. I mean, tried to. Without, and sometimes I would count my breath. It isn't that I wouldn't count my breath, it's just I stopped coercing myself. I stopped threatening myself with consequences if I wasn't successful. I took away the stick. But I still sometimes, even today, pay attention to my breath and enjoy it. Right now, as a matter of fact, I just inhaled and it was really swell. The object

[54:07]

that became the observation of the arising of discursive thought, would you then say you shifted from your breath, in other words, to a kind of non-condition in which you were watching for the incipient thoughts? Yeah, and watching for it but also letting go of it. Because sometimes it's not, it doesn't stay incipient, sometimes it gets residential. And then, and then not get involved with it. Like that other example of, what is it, Zicker, she said, when thoughts come, when guests come, when thoughts come, just serve them tea, but don't give them cake. And then that story got retold in other ways, like serving tea and cake, but blah, blah.

[55:08]

Anyway, he said, so Mother's version is, when they come, don't serve them tea. Just let them come, but don't give them tea. But that relates, I think, to that story of Janjo. And one comes and says, what's the meaning of Buddhadharma? He says, tell them to have a cup of tea and leave. So either, so let them, but anyway, let the guest in. If it's knocking on the door, just say, okay, welcome. That's it. Don't get more involved in that. And then let it go. That became my practice. And still is. Part of it, anyway. Yes? This goes back to something, a comment you made sort of offhand. You said that you had a way of checking whether you had counted one thing. Oh, you want to go again? The biggest problem, I had to take the juggling example. If I were to be juggling and give up discursive thought, which I actually can do really regularly, then immediately my brain wants to check whether or not I did it.

[56:11]

It thinks, you know, it tries to look and see, am I thinking? Which of course means, yes, I'm thinking, because I was thinking that. You see what I'm saying? So I get, I can't stay away from discursive thought for more than a fraction of a second because I immediately try to check whether or not I was successful. Staying away from discursive thought is discursive thought. You know, again, in the chakras it's kind of vibrating around the object. So checking is discursive thought, but also staying away from checking is another vibration. So what do you do after? Well, when there's that vibration, I think Astrid talked about this buzzing, that you don't just relax with it, don't get involved with it. Or somebody else said, I like, Susan said, I like no. So if you can say no without pushing away, if you push away, as soon as you start pushing away

[57:12]

there's discursive thought. This pushing away motion, there's discourse there. Discourse. So pushing away, or staying away, or backing away, or come back. People say, I come back to my breath. If you say come back it's a little discursive. So I sometimes say if you go away from your breath, rather than pull yourself back, which is discursive, when you go away, just be there, be away from your breath, if that's where you are. And then if you go away from being away, from your breath, and come back to your breath, if that happens, that's discursive thought. Going away from your breath is discursive thought, coming back to your breath is discursive thought. But if you've already gone away, then don't pull yourself back because you just added to it. If you go away, just be there. And then if you come back, just be back. So the discursive thought can still occur, but if you're giving it up, you're just riding it back and forth

[58:13]

without being involved. You're detached, you're letting go, you're not trying to stop it. They sometimes say stop discursive thought. But I don't think you have to just stop it. Because again, if you stop it, you can't flip over into vipassana, if you actually would suppress it. But again, suppressing it is a special kind of discursive thought. So this is the skill, there's a skill here, in terms of ways of working with discursive thoughts such that you just don't get caught by it. And not getting caught by it is sufficient to train yourself not using, not reflecting, like away from something, not reflecting on that away, coming back, not reflecting on coming back, not using anything

[59:14]

to reflect on what's going on. And if you notice a phenomenon which seems to be called reflecting what's going on, don't reflect on that. At some level stop reflecting. Stop checking, stop gauging, stop measuring. Like it says in the Bhagavad Gita, give up all gauging of thoughts and views, all measurements. It does require some skill to do that, basically. Well, you can say it requires a skill or you can say by working in this way you develop the skill of not getting caught by thinking. And again, if you try to stop thinking, thinking's got you. Like they say the devil comes up and says and you say gotcha. Any kind of thing that you that you get discursive with basically temporarily has got you. And also

[60:18]

I'm not going to say much about this right now, but practicing the precepts is a big part of what will allow you to feel okay about relaxing with discursive thought. Hear that? Practicing with the precepts makes you feel more comfortable and feel okay about you know, giving up your thinking, particularly if you're thinking I should do this and I should do that you know, I need to do this and I need to do that and I can't not think about this because you know, I did that and I have to not do this. So, yes? I don't know who's next. Yes? I notice when I'm trying this practice of giving up discursive thought, normally there's no no or give it up or discursive thought kind of comes in. I just notice that the next breath is gone and maybe the next breath another thought comes in but I'm not sure how to I'm not sure

[61:19]

if I'm if that disappearing is me trying to give it up or if it's just noticing it is allowing it to drop away. So what am I saying? I'm not sure what the difference is between giving up discursive thought and trying to get rid of discursive thought. Yeah, I think trying to get rid of them at least if it's happening and at that moment you're trying to get rid of them that's different from just letting go of them. I don't know what I'm doing personally. Oh, okay. Well, that sounds pretty good. But anyway, when something appears there letting go is I think different from trying to get rid of it. Letting go doesn't require anything. If it stays if you let go of it and it stays that goes with it. If it leaves that goes with it. If it doubles its size

[62:20]

that goes with it. So whatever it does however it functions is in accord with letting go of it. But pushing it away or trying to get rid of it that seems like that's a discourse. I don't I can't ever remember a time of noticing a thought or noticing that there's thinking going on without that thinking stopping. You there? You can't remember noticing a thought without what? Without the thought stopping. Like as soon as as soon as when I'm sitting in meditation as soon as the awareness is kind of Noticing a thought or noticing discursive thought? Discursive thought. Yeah. As soon as I notice discursive thought going on it stops. Are you noticing it now? I wasn't, no. Are you noticing it now? No. As soon as you ask the question are you noticing it now? Then the looking in itself

[63:21]

makes that's the awareness is the looking and then Right, well I'm asking you and if you look at it and there'd be discursive thought there and then if you look at it then you won't be able to answer me when I ask you the next question because you'll be gone. Yeah. So I think I think you're trying to apply discursive thought to to letting go of discursive thought. See what it sounds like? You're using discursive thought applying to looking at discursive thought and saying that when you do look at discursive thought it stops that's discursive thought. Yeah. Which is fine. And then let go of that. Which would be fine too. Does that make sense? Did you get that part? Yeah. That was quite nice. We'll ask the question now. Well basically so that you get enlightened like you just did. Get a little bit of enlightenment there. Yes? This is a qualitative question.

[64:23]

Is it better to do an activity that has some time urgency around it and just do it even if you're not tranquil? Or is it better to not get an activity done but be tranquil? If if some work needs to be done and people are asking you to do some work and it's good work and you're not tranquil and you feel you could do the work to benefit them and that if you were tranquil you might even be more effective at it you might say to the people I think if you let me enter into a state of tranquility I'll be able to do this work better in about half an hour

[65:26]

than I can do it now. But if you're not going to do the work at all you might say to the people or the situation I can't do this work at all because I have to go do tranquility work now. And then I'd say you know we prefer for you to do it less effectively in your state of not tranquility. And you say no I don't want to I want to go practice tranquility. If you notice some you know some greed in you for tranquility then probably you wouldn't be very successful at it anyway. So it might be better just to go ahead and do the work. Select your village with full support to practice tranquility but sometimes you can say to somebody you know you want me to do this work and I feel kind of agitated I think if I sit down for a little while and meditate I'll be able to come back to the work and do it more effectively so of course pointing the work to put yourself into a better state to do the work I think that's fine and people do that all the time. It's like can I sit here for a little while before we start this entering a better state of mind you know more flexible

[66:27]

and tender and tranquil state of mind and then start the work. So you're postponing it but it isn't necessarily better to try to practice tranquility which may never be achieved than to do some other wholesome work and help people. But sometimes you do want to do the work you have no problem doing the work you think it's good work but you don't feel in a good condition to do it and you tell yourself or whoever that you want to put yourself in the best possible practically best possible state that you can arrive at before it becomes that you can't do the work at all. So like if somebody needs some medical procedure done on them and you're hysterical you might say I'm not ready to do that to calm down first and then they might say ok I'm going to calm down

[67:29]

and then you do it. So in that case it would be a good idea to calm down first because you might not be able to do it skillfully if you didn't. Does that make sense? Ok? So I'm calling on people who haven't been called on yet. So Patty Yes? So sometimes there's the experience of thinking that I'm uninvolved in and my question... Sometimes you feel you're not involved in discursive thought? Yes, sometimes there's an experience of thinking that is non-discursive. It's some... I don't know... No, I think I think I would like to work with that vocabulary. Thinking is discursive. But you can be aware there can be awarenesses that aren't discursive. Matter of fact there's always non-discursive awareness. And thinking is common but not always there. But thinking in

[68:30]

discursive thought I would use as synonymous. In other words there's some movement here. There's some movement there but it's not... there's no... kind of involvement with it. Kind of a clinging... So there is discursive thought but there's no involvement with it. So my question is what is that? What is that? Well, that's training. That's the kind of working with discursive thought which will come to produce tranquility. And once you're tranquil you might not be involved in discursive thought then too. So if you're tranquil and then discursive thought arises and you continue not to be involved in it then actually you're continuing to train in tranquility. Because sometimes it lasts. It's not like it just goes away. It's just there's an involvement and it finishes and something else arises. So at first you might train yourself to give up involvement in discursive thought.

[69:31]

Then you give it up for a while continuously. Then you become calm and you might just continue to not be involved in any further discursive thought arising. But at that point maybe you're not even training yourself anymore. You just don't... you just find it's effortless. Okay? And that can happen. And sometimes you enter this state of tranquility and the discursive thought seems to almost... it gets more and more attenuated. It gets more and more quiet. So then after giving up discursive thought and becoming calm sometimes it's almost like there isn't any. So when there isn't any of course then too you don't have a problem of getting involved. There isn't any. However if there wasn't any then you can't train in tranquility if there isn't any. So like in direct sense perception there isn't discursive thought. There's not discursive thought. Okay? But then you can't train in tranquility. But when there is discursive thought you can train in it

[70:32]

by giving up involvement and then you might come to a place where you're not even trying to not get involved but you don't. And I think we all have a taste of that. Like sometimes you hear some people chattering over in the neighborhood nearby. You think, why would I do that? But you're just not involved. Like, traveling in foreign countries is nice that way because you hear these lovely sounds and you don't get very involved. So you're walking down the street hearing Spanish or something and you're listening to the Spanish but you're not speaking English to yourself. So you're giving up your discursive thought but you're hearing other people's discursive thought but you don't even know what they're saying and you're not involved and you don't care. And you just think, fine. Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine. And you get, as you walk like that and you get quite tranquil. And of course you're doing it with the scenery too. You're not getting involved in the discourse of the visual images that are going by. However, if you don't switch back to getting involved then you're just

[71:33]

practicing tranquility which is fine but when you switch back and get involved and it switches out again then you switch to if you've attained that non-involvement that spontaneous non-involvement that ease and relaxation and buoyancy and compliancy with all the discursive thought or with the no discursive thought that's been suppressed and dropped away from time to time yet that's a state of shamanism. And so people are in that way sometimes. Okay? Barbara? I would like to go back to your conversation with Matt and your instructions. It seemed very compassionate to me to invite your discursive thought in for tea but no more. And I was wondering we haven't really talked about the compassionate piece but are we also developing our compassion as we develop

[72:33]

the shamatha of compassion? Shamatha is a compassion practice. So the instructions are also about learning to be compassionate with ourselves? Yes. Well, if people want to say how can you be compassionate with yourself and others? One of the responses is practice shamatha. Shamatha is a compassion practice. Strictly speaking vipassana is not a compassion practice. But it purifies your compassion of duality eventually. So some people are practicing giving, precepts, patience, diligence, and tranquility which are all compassion practices. All good ways to take care of yourself and all ways to take care of your relationship with others. But there still could be some dualism in it because you haven't yet realized that all these people

[73:36]

that you're being compassionate towards and all the things you know you haven't realized that they are cognition only. So there's still some there's still stress in the system because of lack of wisdom. So in a sense wisdom is different from compassion but it actually is what purifies the compassion of dualistic consciousness. Compassion can thrive a lot while still under the auspices of dualistic compassion but when it is under the auspices of non-dual cognition it starts to become purified of all kinds of obstructions. Let's see who's next. If you're a second time guy this is a first time person. Oh! Elizabeth. Huh? I haven't said anything yet. I only said one thing. I wasn't going to comment. But just so you know I don't know if I said one thing. Comments, comments, questions.

[74:36]

Okay. Is that for the whole period or just today? It's for it's just for it's just for this one little time right now. Did you have something to say? I was just wondering about the word forbearance. Oh, you want to know what that is? Yeah, with the thorough differentiation thorough differentiation and forbearance is one of them in that list. I just wondered if you could maybe just explain the forbearance part of it. I will I will eventually. Okay. Can I weigh in on that? I can weigh in. I've got lots of patience. Is that it? Is that it? Is that it? Is that forbearance? In this case Okay. In this case forbearance does not forbearance does not mean patience. No, I didn't mean that. Yeah. No, in this case in this case it doesn't mean patience. It says it says kshanti but kshanti doesn't just mean

[75:37]

patience. It also means in this case a cognitive capacity is developed. So in this case it means a kind of knowledge that develops in this process. It doesn't mean patience in the sense of forbearance. So I did it. I didn't want to but we can do more later. Let's see Elizabeth. Um I said some big stuff about when it's my turn and that was just a perfect example of it. So and that came up a bit with April about being with me. So I feel a few things will a pin will drop and I'll explode in some way and one would be over um hearing the word reactive don't be reactive makes me extremely reactive. Um not to so how to work how to work with that and then

[76:37]

the idea when it when it's my turn same kind of thing to um and the questions past those were uh so there's a difference between noticing a thought and discursive thought. Thoughts just arise having getting involved is discursive thought so it's not about getting with thoughts it's awareness of thoughts without reflecting on them. Yeah thoughts or giving up reflecting on them. Thoughts sometimes means just a concept that appears. Okay. So that's blue. I'm not trying to drop that. No. Blue. Pain. Pleasure. Bell. Sound. You know. Smell. Polenta. Whatever you know. And then there's no and then the the vichara you know the buzzing around it the vibrating around it there is there might be some vichara some discursive

[77:38]

vibration around the color the smell like burnt smells Pleasant sound. Unpleasant sound. Okay. Those things happen but also discursive thoughts can the vichara the mental factor of vichara can be there that vibrating around everything. You can notice that. And you could notice it and noticing that where you could like you know now that you know vichara you're Abhidharma people right? You say oh there's the mental factor nothing to say you say maybe just say vichara but you don't have to say vichara you just sort of kind of this buzzing vibrating I could also use the image of vitarka is like when the bee lands on the flower and vichara is when the bee is hovering above it. So sometimes you notice this this hovering around the blue or hovering around the yellow or hovering around the burnt okay?

[78:39]

So you just but you don't get involved in it. You don't identify with it. You just let it be you let that be so you don't let that vibrating get associated with the blue or the blue get associated with the vibrating. So you don't you don't get involved in activating your mind around things. So the mental factor of getting activated around things you just don't get involved in that. Or if you do get involved you just let it be you don't get involved in getting involved. At some level you just kind of like relax and let it go. Would the paschal work then that you would get involved? Yes. That's what it says here you know. When I describe vipassana the first it starts you do the differentiation you bring in you bring in the vichara the vibrating is like here then here here then here [...] there here there here there you start vibrating with them you bring back in vichara and start exercising

[79:41]

it when you start vipassana and then it says vichara and then it says parivichara pari means completer you know really working the vichara working the discursive thought. So that would be mental pliancy? No, when you're in mental pliancy So that's the big question mental and physical pliancy? If you're in mental physical pliancy then if you get involved in discursive thought it's insight. Could you say more about mental and physical pliancy? Say more about it? Sure. It's when you feel flexible at ease soft tender buoyant like your body just wants to like you feel like you're inflated on your cushion your body just wants to sit up straight you don't have to force it up it's like this is

[80:41]

like yeah gravity is like my friend and also when the bell rings and they ask you to stop practicing sitting you're happy to get up and go even though sometimes I'm sitting I feel like I can sit forever but when the bell rings I get up so you're not you're enjoying the sitting but you're happy to go do walking or go talk to somebody or serve lunch or whatever you're happy to move to do some other wholesome activity you're enjoying this wholesome activity let's do another one okay and you're alert and you're ready to do any good thing you're happy to do it you're also willing to continue to do this and if you decide to do this you can

[83:32]

you know and go to the physical physical part you know the physical you physically put your body get it up out of the bed somehow move it into the room get it down there it's like can't we like when we get old not have the physical part just think about zen together and that's one thing that attracted me to zen I thought here's a practice I can do maybe until I die and the example is of the old people the old practitioners who are like you know that's why people love Lou Hartman because he's 90 and he still goes to the zen so you can keep doing you can keep doing the physical part even when you're old and you have to do the physical part you can't be wise with your body like not involved so the yoga part this is this chapter is the yoga part it's physical

[84:33]

and mental is in this chapter and this all this fancy insight work has to be based on this physical softness and mental softness physically your body is willing to like change and accept new teachings mentally too but like I say some some of us have sometimes more and more events on one side than the other so the samatha isn't really balanced yet I think I think Carl's next why don't you Carl it seems like practicing samatha is if it so happens that one falls into some sort of non-discursive self that deepens and continues

[85:33]

to deepen it seems like the self is in large part constructed of this discourse and that if you're dropping the discourses the self also drops away so my question is that through that practice the and that simply leads to the realization of cognition because it wouldn't be a self an object it would just be the awareness happening well what when you're as you become more calm and then you and then you experience mindfulness in object relationships that interaction and seeing that interaction can you just understand

[86:34]

this teaching that the object that the mind is relating to is cognition only but the sense of the sense of the attenuation of of the sense of self or the sense of the attenuation of the sense of separation okay that that isn't the same as being convinced that even when the sense of separation is there when it's not attenuated that you actually realize that actually that experience of separation that you know it's not you can see even when it appears it's actually you're sure that it's actually an illusion if it attenuates and you can't see it anymore that's of course quite pleasant that's the way it is Ushamato

[87:35]

the sense of self or the separation is attenuated because you're not wamping up the images so much so this this this is the attenuation is part of the process of getting over believing the thing that's attenuated the sense of separation but what we need to be able to do is when the sense of separation is very clear that we actually can say I don't believe it that it can come up and slap you in the face and you say well can I ask a question you know you're not caught by that sense of separation even when it's quite clear and you know you're confident that although people can be caught and you're not and you're not confident that you'll never be caught but although you know that people can be caught and you know that people do believe it you do not believe it anymore you know for sure it's an illusion and you can know that nobody can actually

[88:36]

verify this thing this separation and and this way you verify that there isn't a separation but the attenuation of the separation the actual feeling of that attenuation then can be combined with the with the certainty that this thing is an illusion so the feeling of attenuation goes more with the tranquility and the feeling of that experience of attenuation that there isn't a separation to bring that together with the understanding that and the certainty and the knowledge that there isn't a separation so the feeling that there isn't isn't the same as the understanding that there isn't a lot of people sometimes feel it that there's no separation you know they feel like you're my brother and I give my life to you no problem you know no matter what you do I'm always with you this is a you know a feeling you can have but still if suddenly the the specter

[89:36]

the impression of separation arose would you know that that was an illusion would you have refuted that would you have verified that that's an illusion you have to work with the illusion to verify that it's an illusion so I think that they work together those feelings the feeling goes together with the feeling of the state which is like that goes together very nicely with the understanding and in the end they should be joined because when they're joined I would say that then you can let go of the means the images by which you came to understand and verify that there's no separation then you can drop the signs or the images of that and you're supported by the actual state which is like that so this is you know a very subtle process but okay and now now yes do you think that

[90:38]

most people what you were just talking about is partly why Zen sometimes is accused of being just a shamatha practice particularly by Tibetans maybe because it actually looks like and is described as a kind of calming give up discursive thought practice and the inside instructions aren't so obvious but but because the the shamatha and the vipassana can look almost the same it's just with it's just combined with this understanding or conviction that it actually the shamatha becomes vipassana yes and another reason why I think it may be difficult for some people to see that Zen uses wisdom work is that our wisdom instructions often come in the form of stories and in Vajrayana you don't see

[91:39]

quite as much storytelling as as you know there isn't so much analysis of you know philological and etymological analysis of stories of course in Zen there is some of that but we the Zen tradition is to use the examples of the stories as the templates for for the insight work so there is a lot of studying of the stories which is our traditional mode of insight work and other traditions both Theravada and Vajrayana aren't used to using stories as the object of insight work as much as in Zen they use more analysis well analysis of sutra teachings and commentaries so they they study sutras like this and commentaries on these sutras and then and then do this do this kind of vichara vitaka thing on all this stuff and work with that

[92:39]

and this language is very familiar to them as the language of the sutra and other sutras and other commentaries which talk about how to practice vipassana so it sounds very similar to Indian Buddhism whereas Zen sounds somewhat different from Indian Buddhism but also there's very little there's some nature imagery but not as much so you'd be surprised maybe not so common to hear in Vajrayana and Theravada instructions like you know eastern mountains moving over the water so that's particular characteristic of Zen too is that the dialogues between teachers and students became more important than than the traditional scriptures so people would attain tranquility and then turn their tranquil minds to these stories of dialogues stories of menju

[93:39]

but these stories of menju are narrative versions of what put technically in Indian language is so the teachings in this chapter 8 in narrative form are what the Zen tradition often studies but I'm proposing to you also that this teaching coming out into Indian language and written down in these Indian texts in Sanskrit and Pali particularly the Sanskrit text is emerging from a relationship between human beings and Buddhas that the relationship leads them leads to this type of speech so in Zen instead of instead of the kind of speech that emerges from the relationship is the speech is about the relationship

[94:41]

between the humans and the Buddhas or between the human beings and nature

[94:48]

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