We could talk a little more about the second meaning or second use of the word samadhi that I drew in the circle, second circle. Center circle is how I thought maybe we could say samadhi, the fact of samadhi, moment by moment. The fact that that's the way the mind is, is that it's samadhi. It has that quality. Cognitions have the quality of samadhi all the time. unwholesome states of mind, open states of mind, awakened states of mind, have this samadhi quality.

[01:04]

The second circle is sort of the situation where samadhi is So although in all faiths and minds the fact of samadhi is so, there is samadhi, it's not really what we ordinarily call the situation when we feel very distracted. When we feel very strongly that what we're aware of is separate from the awareness, when we feel very anxious and afraid, then the fact of samadhi is we don't believe it. It doesn't seem to mean anything much. In the second circle, the situation, the state of affairs, is samadhi. That's part of the meaning of the word state.

[02:12]

A state is like the actual condition of the circumstances. So the mind is absorbed in samadhi, in the second kind of samadhi. It's not just a factor. We're absorbed in that factor. And so the second kind of samadhi, which you can also call jnana, And jhana has the nature of samadhi. Its primary quality is samadhi. It's often translated as absorption or trance. So it's like we're entranced with samadhi. Now we can be entranced with other things and if we're entranced with other things we don't call this

[03:19]

The mind can be absorbed in many things, but when it's absorbed on samadhi, we call it samadhi. Perhaps then we can just look at this kind of samadhi today. And a lot of exercises in meditation are designed or intended to support and develop

[04:56]

For example, the famous practice of following the breath or counting the breath. Counting the breath itself is not strictly speaking samadhi. In the process of counting the breath, people sometimes fall into being absorbed in one-pointedness. even if they're not thinking of the word one-pointedness, they become absorbed in the one-pointedness of the consciousness and the object called the breath. But the mind being on the breath, turning the mind towards the breath, in a sense is antithetical to samadhi, because it's as though the mind and the breath were separate.

[06:14]

So what really samadhi is, is actually that the mind and the breath are never separate. So how can we give ourselves to the realization of this already available one-pointedness of thought? And we've got to be careful not to do too much, because if we do too much to avail ourselves or give ourselves to this one point of this thought, we get into acting out a sense of lack of confidence in it. Yes? Listening to...

[07:19]

different samadhis that you were describing. I'm wondering if, with reference to the second one, it sounds like we could take up this practice of breathing and developing, focusing your attention on the breath and developing the samadhi. Is that something that you're recommending, or is it just for... I mean, I understand that might not be the main message or the main goal of what you're doing, but I think we should be focusing on... So, are you asking me if I'm recommending that you should focus on focusing on your breath? That we take up the practice of focusing on the breath in order to develop... Am I recommending that? No.

[08:22]

I'm just telling you that the intention of offering that kind of meditation, the Buddha offering the meditation of counting the breath, and Buddha's disciples offering the meditation of counting the breath, the intention I think that they have in offering that is to promote samadhi. I'm telling you that. But I'm not necessarily suggesting that you also adopt that type of samadhi practice, that type of exercise in order to realize samadhi, in order to realize samadhi. I'm just telling you that that could be a possible practice. But I'm immediately cautioning you because if you would like to follow your breathing or count your breath, in order to encourage the realization of absorption in one-pointedness of thought, samadhi, be careful because you may start with an attitude which is actually undermining the fact of samadhi.

[09:40]

by thinking that you or somebody or the mind is going to be directed or direct itself onto some object. Because that attitude is like saying, my mind isn't on the object, so I'm going to direct my mind onto the object of my breath. And then if my mind is on some other object, I'm going to direct it away from that object over onto the breath. But directing the mind away from this object over onto the breath might miss the opportunity of realizing that there's samadhi already in the moment of consciousness where you're paying attention to something other than the breath. Now, if you want to follow your breath, if you're interested in your breath, I would say, fine. But if you're interested in following your breath and then you change your mind and follow your something else, What I would recommend is that you avail yourself to appreciate the samadhi in both states of mind.

[10:52]

In other words, that there's one point in this where you're looking at what you said you wanted to look at and why you're looking at something other than what you said. But some people feel like, well, people aren't, you know, People are too deluded to practice like that. So just tell them to follow their breathing. And then gradually wean them of this idea that they're going to get some... by putting their breath onto some topic rather than other topics. But in fact, as I said yesterday, one of the advantages of forcing... of the illusion of forcing your mind onto some object. If that object is wholesome, one of the advantages of deludedly forcing your mind onto wholesome objects is that by that coercive program of wholesomeness, you gradually wean yourself from coercing yourself into wholesomeness and just practice wholesomeness because you find it enjoyable.

[12:01]

So you're actually just paying attention to it because you're interested rather than you're forcing yourself to be good. But still, forcing yourself to be good tends to promote you eventually being good without forcing yourself. So that's why it's called good. That's why it's called wholesome as opposed to unwholesome. But what I recommend actually, more than following your breath, is that, because breath is just one of the things, one of the techniques that people use to encourage people to realize finally that the self does not direct the mind all over the place, that the self is actually a mind product. One of the ways to wean ourselves from misconceptions of the self is to start by practicing samadhi in a more spontaneous way. That's what I actually recommend.

[13:04]

That's why I say more, just meet all objects the same way. So, meet your breath the same as not your breath. And if you meet your breath the same as not your breath, you're training yourself onto the way the mind treats everything the same. And then if you are paying attention to your breath, fine. And you may find that sometimes you're paying a lot of attention to your breath. And if your mind moves to something else, you're treating that something else the same way you treat your breath, namely, you're not grasping it.

[14:04]

You're not seeking anything other than it. which means you're giving, put it in terms of, I don't know, in terms of giving something up. In other words, usually the way we treat things is that we do grasp them and we do seek something other than them and we do tense up around them. And so to treat everything the same would sometimes be what we would usually do, but a lot of times it would be giving up the way we usually relate to things. And that would be unusual. And some of our sense of self is tied up in the way we relate to things. or a great deal of what our self is, is the way we relate to things.

[15:09]

So if we start relating to everything the same, then our sense of self will start to shift too. So that's part of what makes it hard to make a shift into samadhi, because our identity is challenged, threatened, reoriented, disoriented, because we're not we're not relating to things in different ways anymore. We're the pattern of the way we usually relate to things in different ways. And we even think, you know, it's dangerous to do that. So that's why we have a meditation retreat where it might be okay to treat wholesome things, to respond to wholesome things and unwholesome things, to respond to kindness and cruelty the same way. Whereas out in the street you might feel like, I can't respond to kindness and cruelty the same way.

[16:12]

That would be dangerous. Actually, it would be samadhi. I mean, it would introduce you into a samadhi in that situation where things are kind one moment and cruel the next. And then the samadhi would be, there would be absorption into samadhi to deal with this changing world. But maybe in meditation hall, if there's some cruelty happening and some kindness happening, maybe you could just say, well, the Eno can treat those things differently. The person in charge in meditation hall, they can discriminate between cruelty and kindness, and I'll just treat them the same. Namely, I'll just like, I won't grasp kindness and I won't grasp cruelty. I'll relax with both of them. Because it will be safe. I'll try that.

[17:12]

A little bit scary still, but maybe okay for just for part of a period sometime to like treat everything the same. So if enlightenment comes, kind of like Relax. Delusion comes. I mean, severe delusion comes. Relax. If something really, really, really dangerous comes, relax. Yeah, try it. If something really, really safe comes, relax. Grab it and hold it forever. Safety. If peace comes, if war comes, whatever comes, welcome it. This is what I'd recommend as a way to enter samadhi. In other words, this is also called think not thinking.

[18:29]

So at this level, think not thinking is a practice of entering samadhi. Think not thinking means just give up your thinking. And we use thinking to determine, this is bad, this is a bad situation, this is a dangerous situation, this is harmful, this is not good. We use thinking to figure that out. A lot of the times, anyway. Sometimes someone else figures out it's a bad situation, and they tell us, and then we use thinking to verify whether they're kidding or not. And if we think that they're not kidding and it's true, they're reliable sources, then we think also this is dangerous. Okay, fine. So just let go of that thought. Let go of the thought that you are being insulted. Let go of the thought that you are being praised.

[19:31]

Let go of the thought that your meditation is going really well. Let go of the thought that your meditation is going really badly. Let go of the thought This is a breath. And letting go of the thought that this is a breath, you enter the samadhi, which is being absorbed in the oneness of your awareness and the breath. But if you hold on to, if you grasp and you tense around the breath, over there, and although you're with the breath, you're still not really calm because you think like you and the breath, or the awareness and the breath are two. But when you relax with the breath, the samadhi asserts itself. When you relax your grip on the breath, it asserts itself. So, in fact, following your breath, counting your breath, through the give and take, through the bump and grind, through the struggle and confusion,

[20:32]

of a life of intimacy with your breath, you finally stop treating it that way, as an object, with the breath, and you stop grasping it, you stop rejecting it, you stop possessing it, and again you start then not to grasp the breath, and then the samadhi asserts itself. So, hanging out with your breath, eventually you'll become one-pointed with it. Yes? Who is it that relaxes? It's not really the who that relaxes, it's that the grasping that can, so you can have, you can have what you call it, consciousness, object, okay, and you can have grasping. So it isn't that the consciousness makes the grasping drop away. It isn't that the object makes the grasping drop away. It is that the dropping away arises, or the dropping away is realized, through the dropping away, really.

[21:44]

And there's conditions for dropping away, like somebody saying to you over and over again, body and mind drops off, good news. Give up grasping, give up clinging, you hear this stuff. Somehow, if you're in a situation to hear these words, and sometimes these words stimulate the body-mind situation and the conditions for the dropping away of the but actually the grasping is ceasing moment by moment and arising again moment by moment. So somehow your attention can be turned towards appreciating that there's no grasping. The grasping has ceased. And then, oh, it ceased. And this is what it's like when it ceased. This is what it's like for the object to be known by the subject without any grasping in conjunction with this knowing. It's very closely dropped off and nobody did it. Buddha didn't do it.

[22:48]

I didn't do it. You didn't do it. The mind didn't do it. The object didn't do it. The subject didn't do it, the self didn't do it, the other didn't do it, but dropping off does happen, and it happens. So we're trying to develop this art of somehow joining this dropping off, which is already going on. It is our life, actually. But, like that story I've told so many times of the guy who goes to the psychiatrist, my brother thinks he's a chicken. And he says, well, why don't you tell him he's not a chicken? He says, I need the eggs. So we think we can grasp, you know, so why don't we stop? Because we need to grasp. Grasping is, fortunately or unfortunately, and we need to grasp during this practice period. how useful grasping is to our mind, but basically there is a use in grasping.

[23:49]

It is useful to our life, to our biology. It's a powerful device of our mind, this grasping. It helps us get information. So to give it up is not easy. but it is actually an illusion. We actually are not chickens, we're ducks. Yes? I mean, I wonder, and watching people die, I don't know. by how much the body claims to life. It really does. That is the job of the orchestra, and that seems to be the job of everybody around to help that being claim to life. So I'm wondering if it's rooted, if the brass thing is rooted in survival itself. I think... And also there are subtle renditions of grasping that human beings have developed, and actually other animals too, which in addition are tied in.

[24:55]

Part of our survival is how we get an information. So the basic grasping to life is there. Plus there's derivative graspings, which are also useful, but those graspings can be dispensed with while the body maybe continues to grasp life. And those, some of the things which are kind of byproducts or offspring of the basic grasping, those are very useful to us in certain phases of our life and then later in other phases they're very unhelpful and they can be used at the right time and then given up when they're not useful anymore. So part of what the teaching's about and part of the teaching of the Samdi Nirmacana Sutra is, and Samdi Nirmacana, the full name of the sutra is Gambhira Artha Samdi Nirmacana, and Gambhira Artha, Gambhira means profound, meaning or object, and Samdi Nirmacana means to untie the deep meaning

[26:10]

And the way to untie the deep meaning is to pull away the grasping around the of our life. And we use grasping originally to get meaning from things. We use grasping to get meaning out of objects. Objects can be known without meaning. But we have the ability, our minds have the ability, in a sense, excuse the expression, but to suck meaning out of objects. And we use grasping to pull the meaning out and bring it into our awareness. But then, because we use something to get the meaning, we don't get the meaning. So the grasping is useful to get meaning, but then the grasping intercedes between our life, our awareness, and the meaning. So then we have to get rid of the grasping.

[27:13]

And part of the... So it's a kind of a wound that's created in this relationship in order to promote meaning of the relationship. So it's like you have this relationship and everything's going fine, you know, there's awareness, but then the possibility of getting meaning out of this relationship arises in order to get meaning there has to be grasping. So then we get meaning. But then this wound is created and this unity. So then we have to get rid of the thing by which we got the meaning. Yeah, get rid of, let go of the thing by which we got the meaning so that now we have the meaning, but now we have unity and the meaning. Yeah? The meaning is extra to begin with. The meaning is extra to begin with, right. So you're already in a cycle, a delusional cycle. It's extra in the meaning, but we need it. We need meaning now. So in some sense you have to be willing to give up meaning too, besides the grasping.

[28:18]

But the thing is, you won't lose the grasping. You just let go of both. You still have both, but they're not interfering anymore. They don't cause suffering. So we get to be beings who have evolved beyond a previous level. And so the story that also I've told many times of the Greek myth of Amor, when Amor, or Eros, got together with Psyche, or the mind, when they originally got together, and that was a happy situation, but Psyche didn't know what love was. But it was still like, it was love, you know. A consciousness was united with love, but the consciousness didn't know who or what love was. So it was tempted to bring light to know. And then when it brought light to the situation, and when it knew what love was, and it turns out love was before knowing, and then afterwards it was, it was like, it was better than I hoped for, or whatever, you know, it was great.

[29:27]

But, that knowledge separated the psyche, the consciousness, from what it knew. In order to get the meaning, separation is set up. So it's useful and a kind of unavoidable temptation which we have succumbed to. And now the question is how to recover from this separation which we set up for good reason. And part of the process is then to, like, let go of the grasping. As much, you know, let go of the grasping, enter into the letting go of the grasping at whatever. And then as we settle into that, we start to enter into the second samadhi and then from there we move on to like removing or eliminating various levels of grasping, not just by letting them go, but actually like permanently understanding such that they don't adhere anymore.

[30:31]

So now while they still kind of stick, we need to admit and confess that they're sticking, confess and confess and confess until we see that they're dropping. And then in that state of calm and concentration, we then can start looking at these things and understanding what they really are. And then that understanding never gets… it doesn't understand that way, that greedy way anymore. Yes? So I can imagine the helpfulness of the awareness and letting go of this grasping and doing activities. But when I think of something like, say you're a lifeguard and you... ...living lives, and there's an event of, you know, like a child that's drowning or something, and there's a chemical reaction in the lifeguard's body, and an intense drive to perform certain actions to save this person.

[31:34]

And I can't... It seems like grasping might come up in a way that... I can't imagine how it wouldn't come up, partly because of our chemistry. Do you think her question picked up on the machine by any chance? Yeah, I do. You think so? I think it picked up on yours and not this one. Okay. So that's an example I said of something dangerous and we think, how can I relax with something dangerous? Or another way to put the question is, if somebody doesn't relax and saves the drowning person, wasn't that lack of relaxation good? And I would say... Well, it was kind of okay that the person got up, you know, and helped the person. The upset wasn't that bad because they helped the person, okay? But they could have helped the person without getting upset. So, let's imagine a big bodhisattva, a big bodhisattva, okay? Somebody who's not just saving one person, you know, but saving innumerable people every morning.

[32:39]

They can't afford to get upset for each one. So there's no attachment to saving this person? Exactly. There's no attachment to saving the person because they don't think there is another person. They're saving person after person without thinking that there's some other person. If you think there's some other person, you can save one or six people each morning, probably, if you're healthy, from drowning. and still think they're other. And you get each one, each one you save is going to tire you out because you think they're other. And if you lose one, then the next one that drowns, you're going to be totally because you lost one and you're not going to be able to go out and help the next one because you're totally upset that you lost this last one. If you lost them, you lost them. somebody else needs you now come on so if you get upset and you go all through this big chemical reaction in order to help helping them is good but the chemical reaction tires you but the chemical reaction is uh involuntary it's involuntary yeah it's involuntary but uh for some people it's not involuntary for some people because they because they have this job of saving so many people every morning they can

[34:00]

Involuntary reactions, so they train themselves out of it. Or maybe they don't respond, maybe they respond to it a certain way. They respond to it in a certain way. The way they respond is they don't grasp and they just take a hold of the person without grasping them. You know, they enter the water but there's no outflow. So that's the thing, this is called outflow, is when you lose energy or gain energy around objects. and that tires you or inflates you and tires you and wears you down so that it's not the end of the world. In Buddhism, we get another chance to try again, but to really smoothly work to help people, we need to find a way to do that where there's gain or loss involved. So the situation, you see someone needs help and you go into the water but that someone you're helping is not other than you and therefore you don't lose a lot of energy through the view that or through the view of who you think you are.

[35:02]

Like you think, well, I'm a lifeguard and I can save people and then if I don't save people, I'm not a lifeguard anymore, so what am I? You don't get into that. You have a certain skill level and you can use it as well as you can use it. You use it to its optimal level. Some people may be a more skilled person, can wear herself out, and a less skilled person, although they're not as skillful, if they understand properly, each step isn't as skillful, but they don't get tired out. by getting emotional about this other person who's separate from them because they're in samadhi. So a samadhi person over the long haul is more helpful than a really smart person who really doesn't believe in the samadhi because they get tired by the interactions. They're still somewhat useful, but they're eroding their usefulness. by tensing up around their activity, that extensional tension, you don't need it.

[36:05]

And you say, well, what about like a mother lifting a car off her kid, you know, would she be able to do that without that adrenaline hit? Okay. Yeah. And I would say, I don't, I really, in fact, in fact, it might be the case, it might be the case that that particular kid, you know, under the car would not get saved by the mother because she couldn't lift the car up, okay? So she might lose that kid. But then the next kid and the next kid and the next kid and the next kid, if she would... Because not every kid needs a car lift often. So you might lose one who requires some superhuman effort that you can only do once a week. And you might be able to help ten others. That didn't require that superhuman effort. You don't need the full adrenaline every single time. Not to mention the fact that right after you lift the car, then a few days later, you're face, right? After the endorphins wear off and everything, then you collapse. And then somebody else has to take care of the other kids that are in trouble.

[37:09]

So, in fact, we might be built for taking care of a small number of people. Because usually that's the number you have to take. rather than have a life where you're taking care of person after person after person after person. We're built in some ways, and a lot of our habits are around total effort. Generally speaking, when it comes to making a big effort, we overdo. We use more muscles and more energy just to make sure. We do overkill. We learn that from our body. And when we're relaxed, we underkill. So we swing back and forth. So to bring just the right amount of energy to each situation and use just the right muscles, that's the way that you can do consistently. And consistently means moment by moment by moment with everybody. That's the way the Buddha is teaching.

[38:10]

It's more like how can we find a consistent way So it isn't that you have insight and then you fall back into laziness and stupidity. A steady, reliable meditation practice eventually. And you can do your best. But maybe certain superhuman feats you couldn't do, maybe sometimes. But we don't know for sure. You might be able to, instead of lifting the car yourself, you might be able to get somebody to lift the car for you. Or it might get three people to lift the car. Other kinds of possibilities arise there, other than that superhuman animal adrenaline thing, which has been very useful in many situations for the survival of some people. But there's other ways. And attitude then pervades situations that aren't life and death situations. The attitude that we can't relax. But again, you know, I often use this example too.

[39:14]

I was in the airport of Tokyo one time in Narita and I watched this mother follow her son. And he went. She didn't strap him down to a chair. She didn't try to control him, and she also didn't just let him run around the airport. She was with him wherever he went. She kind of bent her knees and had a sort of a wide stance and just sort of shuttled behind him, a little bit like a crab, moving with him wherever he went. She was ready to catch him if he fell, if he was going to fall and hit his head on something. And he was too little to hurt anybody else. But he could get hurt, but she was with him wherever he went. And he just did what he wanted. He knew she was there. And she was really there, but somehow she did it in such a way that she didn't get super excited, but she could be steady and be with him. She wasn't like, ha! Or, you know, oh! She was just steady and attentive and consistent. It was a very nice samadhi, in a way, that I saw.

[40:15]

It was lovely. He was cared for. She was enjoying it. She wasn't like really stressed out, I felt. But anyway, there's a possibility that we can be that way with things. Okay, so it was a bunch of hands. Yes? So I can imagine somebody in that situation thinking, gee, she should just relax. Why doesn't she just sit down and let the kid wander around? I mean, that's not... She obviously looked pretty tight around following that kid one step behind him everywhere. Somebody might have thought that, yeah. And I guess I'm saying that kind of as an example. I think that it feels like there's a kind of a pitfall that I don't hear discussed much, and I'm not disagreeing with any... I think before you go on, some other people might have thought that she shouldn't run around so much. Right, right. Okay, okay. So what's the pitfall in your opinion? Well, it'd be kind of like, you know, somebody was maybe like, you know, a little bodhisattva saving like one to six people a day or something, but was like kind of getting burned out by it or something like that. And then they kind of heard a relaxed message, sort of maybe, you know, like whatever.

[41:24]

And so they kind of just, like they found themselves in kind of a heavenly realm and just kind of went with it. Whatever. Yes. And didn't really, like, find themselves in a situation where one of these people even really seemed to need saving. And it just kind of, you know, stayed very easy to be very relaxed in this very easy heavenly path of life. Yeah, that could happen. Does that seem like a little bit of a pitfall? It's a big pitfall. It's a bigger pitfall than the other one. The other one's less of a pitfall. ...help people, of being a lifeguard and saving one person or six people and doing it with outflows, that pitfall is a better situation than sitting there and saying whatever. And the reason why it's better, I would say, is that if you're trying to help people and then you in this way where you're not in samadhi, it hurts you

[42:25]

Then when you reach the limit of your energy and notice that you can't help the next person, that hurts you. You want to help these people and you notice that you're becoming ineffective because you're in a less than samadhi way. So that pushes you to find a more and more efficient samadhi. So that's a better pitfall than the one where you just sit there and say whatever. That one, however, you're not really practicing samadhi because if you actually say whatever and you relax with that, you won't stay in that state. You won't stay in the whatever. The relaxation around that will let that go and you'll let other states come, like being concerned for these people. Now, you may relax with them, but you may relax and enter into getting up and acting to help if you want to. But if you're helping not because you want to, but because you think you should, that still may be, again, that still may be a better pitfall to act because you think you should rather than you want to.

[43:35]

That may be a better pitfall than to not act and not help because you don't want to. That may be better, but they're both pitfalls. How do you distinguish between the feeling of whatever versus the feeling of like, this is like kind of legitimate realization around the issue? You know what I'm saying? Yes. It seems like that's maybe could be sometimes kind of hard to distinguish. Well, one of the ways I think is to, you know, have a sangha. Have other people who are also trying to distinguish, who see that dynamic, that balancing thing of where they realize, you know, that there's pitfalls on both sides. Somehow, we can be slack on either side. We can be, like, negligent on either side of the balanced place. And we need people to give us a sense of, you know, I think you're too relaxed, you know? And then you might have a kind of relaxed reaction to that, and they might say, you know, I don't mind that you were relaxed when I told you you were too relaxed.

[44:40]

Now, in simple terms, Would you please come with us now and come over here and help us with this? And you might in a relaxed way say, you know, I'm not going to. And I say, well, what's the reason? And you tell me, the reason why I'm not going to help you is because of such and such and so and so. And I say, wow, amazing, that's right, we shouldn't do this. And you actually maybe, you relaxed. And because you were relaxed, they could criticize you. And you were relaxed with their criticism. And because you were relaxed with their criticism, then they could ask you to do something because they felt like you were listening to them. And then they asked you to do something, but in your relaxation, you could tell them it's not going to be beneficial what they were doing. And you were relaxed, so you could tell them, you know, I don't think it's helpful. It isn't that you said whatever and went along with them. Because now they're asking you to do something, you know, to do some work. It isn't that you're relaxed, you say, whatever. You said, no, they're not going to do it. It's not helpful. And they listen to you because you're relaxed. And you're not like, well, I'm not going to do it. So out of that relaxation, you say, no, I'm not going to do it.

[45:43]

And then you tell them why, and then they don't do it. Or the other one would be, you know, you're relaxed. They're criticizing you. They ask you to help them. You look at the situation. You see it's good, and you do it. You're happy to do it. Now, it's kind of a circle between relaxation and enthusiasm about doing good things. Samadhi sort of is predicated or supported by enthusiasm for doing good things. And also from samadhi comes enthusiasm for doing good things. So part of this realization of this state of total relaxation, this state of One-pointedness and calm and absorption in the one-pointedness is that you do naturally, as Grace said, your body cares about survival. But you care about the survival of everything.

[46:32]

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