You see, under group three, sub-subset A, those are the mahabhumika, the universal ones, remember? So there they are, those ten that are present with all states of consciousness. For samadhi, it's number two. And also maybe I'll mention at this point too that, you know, some people are thinking, well, with every state of consciousness there must also be like, I think Grace said, something about life, warmth, and

[01:03]

Ed said something about there must be energy. If you look at, there's a category called elements, neither substantial forms nor mental functions, which is under that group, you see 65, life. And sometimes it's defined as warmth, you know, it's a kind of energy. And that factor probably is associated with all living consciousness, okay? But it's not... See, it's not a mental function. So these ten that we're talking about before are ten mental functions that accompany consciousness.

[02:11]

But this quality of life, of course, is associated with consciousness, but it's not a mental function. Also, let's see... later it will be relevant to you to know about the mental fact the or the dharmas under category 4 which are numbered 66 67 68 and 69 these these are called dharmas and But another way to sometimes describe it is the four phases, the four phases of all phenomena. In other words, all phenomena have to birth, develop some stability, start to deteriorate, cease.

[03:21]

So those aren't mental factors. Those are principles which yogis have and scientists have been convinced of which characterize all phenomena. So those are always present, too. So in that category, in that whole series there, a lot of those things are characteristic of mental function, but they aren't mental functions. And actually on the page there, there are words which represent supposedly actual objects, actual phenomena. And I may get back to this before the practice period is over in terms of looking at how to meditate on phenomena in light of these four phases of all phenomena.

[04:25]

I'd like to start by reviewing that there are two paths of meditation. And Sanskrit is worth learning among the languages. It's a very nice language to learn and there's another Sanskrit word for you. It's bhava, which means bhava, B-H-A-V-A. Bhava, it means being or existence.

[05:33]

And I didn't mean to get into this, but I just can't help but mention that the Chinese word which corresponds to this, which is pronounced in Chinese, yu, and in Japanese, wu, And it also means being or existence, but in addition it means to have. And I wonder, I'm not sure if bhava in Sanskrit means to have also. But anyway, the word the Chinese use for being or existence also means to have or possess. Interesting association, huh? What? In Chinese, isn't it? It's Hava. Yes?

[06:46]

Linguistically, there's an Indo-European root of all Western languages, non-Oriental languages, and similarities have been found, such as Hav and Hava. I don't know where Hav comes from. Yeah, maybe if somebody wants to look up have in the dictionary, maybe it's got something to do with above or something. That would be interesting to know. But there's something about that, right? That in existence you have something. When there's being, you have something. Part of the problem of being, I mean, there's positive sides of being, right? But one of the problems of this wonderful thing called being or existence is that you have stuff. And having stuff tends to get in the way of freedom, because you've got to hold on to all this stuff, otherwise you lose your existence. You know what I mean? You've got being, and then you've got the stuff you have, and you think, well, okay.

[07:47]

Now I wonder what would happen if I let go of all the stuff I have, would I still be? Yikes! Is that the character for the moon? Is that the character for the moon? Well, you know, there's a character for moon. So, this part under here is like the character for moon. It's like a house on the moon, or it's like the moon with a little branch above it. Anyway, I didn't mean to get into that, but I did. Bhava. And then there's this other word. Bye-bye, bhava. And then, hello, bhava. Again, bhava. Bhava. Bhava. and then an A, bhavana. And bhavana means to become or to come into being.

[08:53]

And bhavana is the word also means meditation or, you know, practice, cultivation. So bhavana is to bring into being, to bring something into being. to make it exist, to bring it into existence. And then the Sanskrit word for path is amarga. So bhavana-marga is the path of meditation. And there's two paths of meditation. One is called the laukika bhavana-marga, in other words, the worldly, or path of meditation in the world, and then lokottara bhavana-marga, bhavana-marga which transcends the world.

[09:56]

Those are the two bhavana-margas. The bhavana-marga, in a sense, is Samadhi type number two. That's the world above an amarga. That's the way you practice meditation while you still hold on to something. In particular, you still hold on to the view of independent existence of the self of a person. Does that make sense? Can you write those words, the two different kinds of meditation? Write them in Sanskrit, you mean? In English? Okay. Write the Sanskrit word in English letters. You mean write Sanskrit? Yes. Could you write the pie up on the board, please?

[10:59]

Blue. bhavana-marga, m-a-r-g-a, lakika bhavana-marga, and then uttara. No. It's lakotara. Lokottara. A loka, see, laukika, loka means world, and to make something of the world, you say laukika instead of loka, so of the world, and uttara.

[12:01]

Uttara means beyond. So you put uttara together with loka, and you get lokottara. So laukika bhavanamarga and lokottara bhavanamarga. Those are the two types. lokottara bhavana marga starts where? Three, right? And again, in some sense, when you're training to enter three, when you start beyond just developing concentration, beyond just developing the body, while still holding the belief in the substantial existence of a person, while you still hold that and have samadhi, and you start to train at analysis of this belief, examining your independent existence of the person, as you start to train in examining

[13:06]

and analyzing this belief, and maybe starting to question this belief, and start to refute this belief, and start to loosen this belief, prior to its drawing, you're still in samadhi number two. You're training in three, but you're still in number two. But you're planning to leave and enter into the samadhi number three. Samadhi number three, strictly speaking, you will be entered after you finish your training in it and after you drop the view, the view of substantial existence of a self, satkaya drishti. drishti, the view, sat, the existence, and another word for existence, and kaya, the body, like belief in the body, the substantial body of the self.

[14:10]

So when you drop that, you enter, actually enter in number three. Now, once you enter there, you are, strictly speaking, on the Buddhist path. Meditation practice now is super mundane meditation practice. In between the two types of meditation practice is another path called the path of seeing, and I'll write that word too. That's darshana. A-R, S with a little slash over the top making like a S-H. Darshana, which means vision or seeing. So between the worldly meditation path and the meditation practice, between those two is another path, the path of vision. And the path of vision is super mundane. So again, super mundane.

[15:13]

The path of vision is you start to see the beginning of ultimate truth. You start to see the way you ultimately exist. Yeah, you get to see how people ultimately exist. So that's just, there's just one kind of path of seeing and it's super mundane. It's the 4-3? It is 4-3, no, it is the, it is entering into 3. And then after, it is the entry path. And then after you do that, then under 3, you continue the path of meditation, which I mentioned yesterday, where you start to wash away the habits developed under the auspices of the misconception of an inherently existing self. Okay, now, before I answer May's question, I just want to mention that this is a super mundane path of holiness.

[16:19]

People do this, number three, under this set up. Buddha, you know, became an arhat with these meditations. And so the Mahayana says the bodhisattva gives up the mundane meditation path, this mundane meditation path, and also gives up the super mundane meditation path. Doesn't hold on to either one of them. Goes beyond even the path of realizing the emptiness of the person. And goes on to realize the emptiness of other things beyond and more subtle than persons. Okay. In four. In four, yeah. May I? So, Darshan Amarga is not a path of meditation?

[17:19]

Right, it's not a path of meditation. Well, it's a path of meditation, but it's not called a path of meditation. Is it a gate? It's a path of meditation, but it's purely insight meditation. There's no kind of like... You're not working on developing samadhi in that path. You're just working on vision, just clarifying vision. Now, you have enough samadhi to do that, which you developed sort of on the worldly plane of self, other, blah, blah, it's not called the path of meditation because in some sense you don't, you know, you're not bringing something into being, you're just clarifying the way things are. So the other two are called paths of, the other two are called bhavana margas and that's not called a bhavana marga but it sets up the one and it's based on the other kind of bhavana marga having reached its culmination.

[18:25]

Okay? Is Arhat an awakened being? Yeah, arhats are enlightened, definitely. We have four basic stages in the program number three. The first one is the stream-enterer. Stream-enterer is you enter through Darsana-marga. Once you're in Darsana-marga, you're a stream-enterer. You've entered the stream of the Buddhist practice. And you have changed, you know, you've been permanently transformed into a, you know, you're a saint. Unless you're a bodhisattva, too. Bodhisattvas are sinners. For the welfare of all beings. And And then the next stage is called once-returner, means you have to take rebirth one more time.

[19:34]

And the next stage is called never-returner. But you're not an arhat yet. But you will be an arhat after you die. And the next stage is an arhat. Actually, somebody's walking around with a body who is perfectly purified personally. You know, a purified person. So our hearts don't come back. And our hearts don't come back, and they don't want to. They just go to nirvana and that's it. That's the theory of their life. Now there's some debate about whether they really get to do that. Actually, if they come to the place of perfect nirvana, the Buddha is sitting there saying, I've got an assignment for you. I know you're going to be surprised, but it's really a good deal. You are going to be a Buddha.

[20:38]

Really? Yeah. You want to know your name and what it's going to look like there? Yeah. And so he tells them their name and what kind of landscape there's going to be in this Buddha land and what his students are going to be like and what her students' names are going to be and what kind of teaching they're going to be doing. They're shocked but happy. Yeah. He promotes them, yeah. He promotes them, says, there's more work to do, you've done a great deal, and the Buddha, the Buddha work, rather than just our hard work. When it's said that a being doesn't have to come back, doesn't that already imply that non-existence is preferred to existence? Well, you can draw an implication and the person might not mean to infer that, right?

[21:49]

I mean, you can infer that, but they might not mean to imply that. So, you can make that inference and it certainly is understandable. And I think what may have happened in India after the Buddha went away is that people may have thought that that was an implication of his teaching, that non-existence is better than existence. But nonduality is not saying existence is better than existence. And it's not saying existence is better than non-existence either. Now, the thing is that, of course, when you're in existence, you tend to think existence is... A lot of people think existence is better. Some people don't and try to commit suicide. Non-existence is better. They don't know about the fact that suicide doesn't accomplish it. You have to be an arhat to actually get non-existence. So it's a mistake, but they do have that preference.

[22:56]

And that's, again, part of the problem of existence. It's hard for us to see sometimes that non-existence is not worse than existence. And again, that life is not better than death. And because of having a preference for life, we're less effective at benefiting beings who are alive. It turns out that if you don't prefer life over death, if you don't prefer it over one over the other, you're better able to care for living beings because you don't have outflows. No fear. No fear of death, no fear of life, if you don't prefer one over the other. And then you can do all kinds of wonderful things, like an aspect of not preferring one over the other is that you won't be afraid of being killed. And if you won't be afraid of being killed...

[23:59]

...make you kill. Nobody can frighten you into killing. You say, if you don't kill this person, I'm going to kill you. Okay, I'll kill him. But if you're not afraid of being killed, you won't kill. ...afraid of being killed. But you won't kill. ... So, anyway, the non-duality of existence and non-existence, I think, is what Buddha is teaching. Buddha did not have preference for the living over the dead. Buddha was free of preference, and therefore the Buddha was free. And being free, the Buddha was also able to fulfill his dream of benefiting all beings and helping all beings become free. by not preferring birth and become free of birth by not preferring death.

[25:09]

I think living beings don't seem to be able to help wanting to be happy. It seems like a built-in part of the deal is to want to be happy. And the more you understand that, the more you want everybody to be happy. And it turns out that if you want to accomplish happiness, then not preferring happiness will be very helpful. Those who are unhappy but are not unhappy about being unhappy are happy. And they can help others, and there's plenty of them who are unhappy, be happy while they're still unhappy by giving up their preference for happiness. But of course it's very difficult. This thing about wanting to inhale and exhale is very powerful. Any questions before we go on?

[26:39]

Elizabeth? Elizabeth? Doesn't Arhat know they're in Arhat? Does Arhat know they're in Arhat? Well, a lot of times they do. Like Buddha knew he was in Arhat. You know, he said, I'm totally content. My heart is content. I've accomplished my work. Speaking conventionally, but also you could say, speaking conventionally, he knew he was free. I'm free. He said, you may think, you may wonder if I'm free. Well, I am. So he knew. And if you look at the stories of other arhats, they knew. But some arhats might not, just might not know that. And Buddha might mention to them that they are. You're free. Oh, okay. It might not occur to them. They have other things to do. Enjoy it.

[27:41]

or skip along the road or whistle a happy tune. There are various things they might do. And one of them is think, oh, I'm an arhat, or I'm free. So they don't necessarily know. And Buddhas also, I think, do not necessarily think that they're Buddhas. But they can think that. They're not necessarily thinking that. Yes? Yes? When Buddha told his assembly that everybody will become a Tathagata, was he meaning that they would all get Samadhi number four? Yeah, and he was looking at them, and he was in Samadhi number four, and he was looking at them in that Samadhi, and in that Samadhi, In that samadhi you can see these amazing things, like in that samadhi you can see, if you're a Buddha, you can see, you can actually see Vivi's future.

[28:45]

You can see Vivi becoming a Buddha. And you can actually see other people becoming Buddhas. He actually can see it. So he was telling what he saw in that omniscience. Buddha could see that beings are in the particular way that they're heading for enlightenment. Yesterday, during your discussions, you spoke about suppression during meditation, and you implied that... Attempts of suppression. Right. Yes. And the implication was that it's kind of a dangerous thing to suppress, because it's sort of... That's an implication? That was your implication. That's your inference. That was my inference. Yeah, but it wasn't my implication. But you're right, it is dangerous. There's a second part to my question. Okay, let's just say that again. I would suggest that it's dangerous to try to suppress anything.

[29:49]

Dangerous to suppress things. Dangerous. Also, it's dangerous not to suppress things. Can I say something more about the suppression thing? Can I ask my question? Sure. I'm not going to surprise you. That would be dangerous. That's my case. You see? See how it works? And then, after there's freedom, she remembers... Student Buddha says that when you're having unwholesome thoughts, one of the ways is to suppress those unwholesome thoughts.

[30:54]

He probably did. Pardon? Isn't most of our meditation unwholesome anyway? I have recently done a survey and so far the returns are that most people's meditation is mostly unwholesomeness. So then Jackie's saying, that we should suppress unwholesome things? Didn't he say we should suppress them? And again, ladies and gentlemen, we do not know, we do not know what Buddha said. We do not know what Buddha said. To say you know what Buddha said is either or it is a religious, you know, a statement of faith. We don't know what Buddha said, but we have heard that people say, I have heard. And if you look in Buddhist meditation texts, you will see that one of the ways of dealing with unwholesome thought forms is suppression.

[32:03]

It's one of the ways. So unwholesome thought forms do make it more difficult to practice meditation. make it more difficult to practice worldly meditation, and spiritual meditation thrives on the difficulties of obstacles and unwholesome thoughts. But still, they're difficult. In any case, they're difficult. They're big challenges. Examples of unwholesome or unfortunate forms of thought are like ill will, like actually hoping ill for somebody, possessiveness, greediness, laziness, restlessness, worry, doubt in the teaching.

[33:06]

These are examples. So with those thoughts, there's no samadhi, right? Wrong. There are obstructions to samadhi. They're listed as obstructions to meditation. But even though there are obstructions, it doesn't mean there isn't in a meditation. It just means if you handle these obstructions in a skillful way, there's samadhi. If you cling and grasp and fight things, fight these demons, then the samadhi is still there, but you don't see it because you're too busy fighting obstructions. So I'm just saying that there are these obstructions or hindrances to meditation. Okay? And various instructions are given about what to do about them. All right? Would you like me to mention some of those? Well, I would say in some sense, some people's understanding of Buddhist teaching is the technique of lasting

[34:19]

of dealing with hindrances. The technique of last resort is suppression. So sometimes Buddha did say, suppress it! Or, suppress it! Or, I don't know what, maybe Buddha did say, suppress it, kid! There's an example of that. Buddha was walking around on the Indian subcontinent 2,500 years ago. This woman came to him who was totally insane for good reasons. You know, her whole family had been murdered and slaughtered. She was totally crazy. She came up to the Buddha, wandered up to the Buddha, nude, more or less, covered with filth, totally insane. And Buddha said, snap out of it, sister. He didn't say suppress it. Drop out.

[35:22]

Snap out of it. Regain your state of mind, your presence of mind, sister. And she did. So you could interpret that as suppress it. But he also said, drop it. Drop it. Just drop it. Drop your insanity and wake up. Pretty much. And she became one of our acharyas. She's on the list. She became an arhat. Before that, there are lots of other techniques, lots of other ways of dealing with hindrances that aren't suppression. But when you do suppression, it is dangerous. And if you don't do suppression to these things, they're dangerous. The question is which way liberation. There's danger either way, suppression or non-suppression.

[36:25]

And I think generally speaking, suppression is just a short-term damage control to get through the next few minutes. In the long run, you're not going to become free by suppressing things because it's nonsensical to suppress things. You can't suppress things. But there's lots of other techniques. Instead of suppressing anger, ill will, practice loving-kindness. Loving-kindness doesn't have to be seen at all as suppressing anything. It's rather generating love and good will and good feelings for beings. That's like an antidote rather than a suppression. And for being distracted. Certain meditations on serious topics snap you out of that. Suppressing the distraction, you're just turning your attention to something that, when you look at the other thing, the lack of attention and distractedness just drop away.

[37:32]

But one of the ways the Buddha taught, which is the way that I'm stressing, This is the one I think is the closest to doing nothing. And I like to recommend a meditation that's almost doing nothing because any meditation where you're doing something, then you have to stop doing that thing to enter into non-duality. So I like to have as little as possible that you have to do in order to do it. So one of the other ways of dealing with things that are coming to you is that simple way that I mentioned the other day. In the seen, there will be just a seen. In the heard, there will be just a heard. That's also what Buddha taught. If you deal with phenomena that come that way, the unwholesome thoughts won't even arise in the first place. there's things called the four right efforts, and four right efforts are part of samadhi practice in early Buddhism.

[38:38]

The four right efforts is to prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising. Not to suppress them, they haven't even happened yet. Prevent them from arising. How do you prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising? In the scene, there's just the scene. Yeah. In the scene, there's just the scene. When that's the way it is for you, unwholesome thoughts do not arise. They just don't arise. And training to let the scene just be the scene is the same as not grasping the scene or rejecting the scene or seeking any other scene when the scene is like this. So it's non-grasping and non-seeking. It's the practice of suchness. And this is a, well, very extensively subtle practice.

[39:45]

But if you practice that way, the unwholesome thoughts won't even arise in the first place. Now, once they arise... If you practice that way, they're very likely to just drop away. Now, if they don't, the question is whether you're going to continue to practice that way or to resort to some other method, like, for example, an antidote. So if there's ill will, and you just let the thought, the cognition of ill will, just let the ill will be the ill will, you can really just do that, in other words, confess it very clearly. then the next right effort is to drop or eliminate the unwholesome thoughts which have arisen. And then that's where those antidotes, the last one of which, in my opinion, is suppression. But along the list, but at first... is just face it. Just clearly observe the unwholesome thought that has arisen.

[40:48]

And if you clearly observe the unwholesome thought that has arisen, and you know how to do that, the unwholesome thought does cease. It does cease. But you get to see it cease. And see, oh yeah, wow, it ceased. Now it may come again, but probably won't, not right away, because you're doing a meditation which prevents it from arising. The unwholesome thought probably arises because you're not not probably. The unwholesome thoughts arise because we're not clearly observing. When we're not clearly observing, unwholesome thoughts naturally easily crop up. Not always, but often do. Because we're not vigilant, we're not diligent, we aren't loving the practice of clearly observing, of letting the seen be the seen and the heard be the heard. We slip it. So when we slip, naturally, then if we recover and do the practice, then unwholesome thoughts end. Not because the clearly observing makes them end, they naturally end. They arise and they cease.

[41:50]

Now if you continue the meditation, they won't arise again. So that's the second one. The third one is make wholesome thoughts arise. Wholesome thoughts arise means you don't have to make anything arise. Just let the seen be the seen and the heard be the heard. And wholesome thoughts will arise more and more. And then once wholesome thoughts arise, protect them and maintain them. How do you maintain a wholesome thought? Clearly observe it. thoughts thrive and are maintained in clear observation and become more fluorescent and abundant in clear meditation, clear observation, clearly observing. Unwholesome thoughts naturally end and don't reappear or don't even arise at all. So those are ways of dealing with all this stuff In the early teachings.

[42:51]

Okay? Do you have any techniques for grasping? Any techniques? I have plenty of techniques for grasping. But you have just as many as I do, probably, so you can move from me. I do. You need some more? For non-grasping. For non-grasping. Any techniques? Yes. My main technique for non-grasping, ladies and gentlemen, tell her, what is it? Huh? Non-grasping. No, I didn't know. I thought my main technique for non-grasping was not to have a technique for non-grasping. I've got nothing. That's my main technique and I'm trying to give that one up. but apparently I've got some other ones too like clearly observing with whatever comes another one is like say welcome to everything comes another one is like whatever comes consider it the Buddha Dharma and don't try to be possessed by the Buddha Dharma just say thank you very much and I'm not going to ask for any more I didn't mean that to work so well yes

[43:59]

Well, I have this thought about unwholesome thoughts that... Is it an unwholesome thought about an unwholesome thought? Somebody take this down. When something defined as an unwholesome thought arises from who knows where, if you're meditating on the arising of this... And clearly observing it, wouldn't it lose its category as wholesome or unwholesome by a non-dual observer just holding it as a... You know, like, when you kill that guy, it doesn't belong to you. No. It will still be an unwholesome thought, but it would have no power. To wish something, to think, to have a thought, I hope harm for some being, that's an unwholesome thought. Right, but who's the creator of the thought? You don't have to get into that. That's kind of unwholesome too. That's kind of unwholesome. Unless you've been assigned that question.

[45:02]

But some thought like that, if you clearly observe that thought, if you clearly see that thought, it loses its power. If you don't grasp that thought, it can't grasp you. If you fight it, which a lot of Zen students do, they have thoughts of killing people nearby. And then they go, oh no, oh no, get out of here. Get out of here. Or, I'm a terrible person. Get out of here! You know, they're trying to get rid of the bad... You know, it's just to really, like, get rid of, the practice is get rid of. Get rid of is ill will, you know. So, a lot of these students are like, have ill will, and then they don't want to have ill will, so then they have more ill will, and then they notice that, and they have more ill will towards all the ill will that's going with it. Well, you know, as it's growing, why don't you accept it? Why don't you accept it before it gets big? Because after it really gets big, you're going to have to accept it. But most people have to let it get really big before they say, OK, I'm angry.

[46:12]

OK, I admit it. At some point, you have to stop fighting it. Because the more you fight anger, the more it grows. Anger does not grow. It just goes there and works on it. And then another unwholesome thought. The samadhi goes there and works on it. Another unwholesome thought. So the samadhi can grow just as well on unwholesome thoughts as wholesome thoughts, in some ways even better because, you know, there's more of them. They require more subtlety, you know. They're more difficult, they require more subtle learning of how not to grasp. Wholesome thoughts, the nice thing about wholesome thoughts is they're easier not to grasp. The results of wholesome thoughts, however, are hard not to grasp because the results of wholesome thoughts are, you know, nice stuff, hard not to grasp. So wholesome practices promote not grasping the wholesome practices. Unwholesome behavior promotes grasping wholesome and promotes grasping all over the place.

[47:15]

But non-grasping applied to unwholesome, the unwholesome loses its power. But the unwholesome is basically what he called, I think it's Dostoevsky's term, that evil is the indestructible principality. We're not going to eliminate evil. Evil continues to be an opportunity for practice of the bodhisattva way, for non-attachment. Evil is an opportunity to clearly observe and take the power system away from the evil. But if you fight evil, or if I fight evil, evil just gets more energy. Of course, if you like evil, it also gets more energy. Like it, dislike it, it grows. Fight the devil, join the devil, it grows. But just, you know, really get the joke about the devil. The devil kind of like, what? Yes? I had a question about...

[48:18]

Accepting evil, or if I take the example of anger, if I accept my anger versus something that I read recently, which is look after your anger or love your anger. Kind of similar. Yeah, is there a difference there? It's a difference, but it's kind of the same ballpark. Befriend to the anger. But like if you have an angry child, you know, don't kill the child for being angry. Just a little guy, doesn't know any better. He's learning how to do this now. Help him. Help him not hurt himself or anybody else in a loving way. Show him. And also, it's very important to show him that love is cooler than hate. For me, I've told that story many times. I was intentionally trying to be as bad as possible because unwholesome was much more popular when I was a kid than wholesome. Elvis Presley is older than me, but I hit puberty when he was hitting his stardom.

[49:27]

So basically, he was not like a good guy. He was kind of partly a symbol of evil, wasn't he? Sex. He was a bad boy, you know? And I was 12. And I knew that in Minnesota at that time, a 12-year-old could do anything, would not be tried as an adult. You could do anything. I was going to do as bad as my conscience would let me, and I knew I'd be very popular for it in my neighborhood. And this guy sat me down, this big guy sat me down, and he said, you know, it's easy to be bad. And I knew that. It takes a little guts, but, you know. He said, what's hard is to be good. And I thought, okay, I'll try it. So you've got to show, you've got to demonstrate...

[50:29]

to the evil activity, the ill will, the ill will, not just, not a wholesome anger, but an ill will, actually wanting to hurt somebody, you've got to demonstrate this thing which is cooler, which is more flexible, which has more energy, which doesn't have outflows, which is more creative, actually. Love, you know, we're born of love, you know, not of hate. So, bring all that to the hate. And non-attachment is the ultimate love. Because non-attachment isn't like, well, I don't care about you. Non-attachment is like being right there, exactly with what's happening, knowing more about it, knowing as much about it as anybody could know. Because you're totally... You're totally devoted to the welfare of this event, to this event being beneficial to all beings. You're totally there, giving yourself completely and not attached.

[51:31]

and not trying to get anything. This is non-attachment. This is not grasping. It's not grasping from a distance. It's close and specific with it. So if it's anger, you bring that kind of clear observing where you're right there, real close, know all about it, really studying it, watching it come up, last, good way. You're right there and no attachment. That's the way to deal with anger, and anger won't be harmed. just like a really good martial artist the dangerous person comes in they can take care of that person and nobody will get hurt including the dangerous person they won't hurt the person if they're really skillful the person won't feel okay the person won't take revenge later they won't feel they'll feel well cared for and everyone will be protected but we have to like really be skillful to be that attentive and relaxed with a lot of energy that's moving very fast and strongly.

[52:32]

And anger can be like that. That's probably the reason why people like anger is because they feel alive. So when that energy comes up, how are we going to work with that? Whoa, it's hard. You've got to be relaxed. Okay? I think we're going to see Susan and Maya and Liz and who else? John, Susan, Maya. To say that there's a video that was made of Reb about right effort, a faithful path that goes pretty in detail into the different antidotes that you were talking about, and if people want to know more about that, they can find the video. It's also in the lounge. Yes, it's in the lounge. Susan, we'd like to clear them out of the bookstore. They're kind of like gathering moss.

[53:35]

So these little videos want some attention. They need some salvation. In that video, I kind of just do the straight line. from the early teachings kind of presentation of the way to deal with these hindrances. But I don't emphasize in that tape, which is what I'm emphasizing now, my prized one among them is just clearly observe the hindrance. Don't try to get rid of it. Don't try to suppress it. And that kind of loving attention, unwholesomeness, loses its poison. It's not annihilated. Nothing is annihilated in the Buddha Dharma. We do not annihilate evil. We do not annihilate good. But evil is impermanent and good is impermanent. Evil phenomena, wholesome, unwholesome phenomena are impermanent and so are wholesome.

[54:36]

and wholesome phenomena in this middle way, and then this brings peace. We believe, according to the teaching of the middle way, we believe that teaching. May I? I wanted to go back to in the scene, Mother, just be the scene. Yes. And I think when you talked about it yesterday, you said this is on a conceptual level. Yes. Yes. So, does that mean, say, seeing the cup, just the cup, bloom, shape, or shape? Initially it means, initially it means, you're hearing words now, these are concepts. Buddha came into the world and started using words. Again, in the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra it says, those who realize the ultimate, non-dual and inexpressible, designate conventional terms.

[55:46]

So, like it used to say in the Jewel-Mir Samadhi, although it's not fabricated, it's not without speech. So Buddha is not fabricated, but Buddha talks, because Buddha is compassion. It's unfabricated, and it talks. So although what it's talking about cannot be reached by concepts, Those who realize that realm, they present concepts, verbal designations, to beings. So beings can hear that. When they hear them, they hear those things, and then they know the concepts. And then the concept initially is, you hear my words. First of all, you're hearing my words, so when you hear my words, let my words just be my words. Listen to me that way. In what you hear now, let the herd just be the herd. In other words, don't conceptually elaborate on that concept. Just let it be. In other words, don't grasp it, don't judge it, don't do discursive thought around it, don't tense up around it, physically or mentally.

[56:53]

Just let it be, clearly observe it. And it's a concept. It's actually elaborating on the concept. Because it's in the conceptual realm that we do our discursive thinking. It's in the conceptual realm that we think self and other are separate. We don't have a direct perception. Nobody has a direct perception of duality. We only can have a direct perception of the idea. and it's possible to have no conceptual mediation between the phenomena of the idea and the conceptual elaboration of it. And in that separation we understand the emptiness of the idea. But starting out anyway, we have ideas, we just let the ideas be alone, leave them alone. As that starts to happen,

[57:54]

that we move into not identifying, not locating, no here and there. And no here and there means, again, starting the conceptual separation starts to drop away. And we realize the emptiness of the self and other separation. But still it's at conceptual level. Then once we understand that, we want to then enter into a meditation of even meditating on that understanding. So we understand that that understanding is also empty. So we understand that our understanding is not our concept of the understanding. You know, like somebody said, does arhat know they're an arhat? When they think, oh, I'm an arhat, that's not being an arhat. That's thinking that they're an arhat. There's no such thing, really, as being an arhat.

[58:56]

And some realize that. But that's what the Mahayana is about, is to realize that spiritual attainments are empty. That's why we have wisdom gone beyond. So another way to talk about it is that in Samadhi number three you realize wisdom and in Samadhi number four you realize wisdom which has gone beyond wisdom. Wisdom which no longer which has given up wisdom which doesn't grasp wisdom as a thing which realizes the emptiness of wisdom. Okay? So initial destruction where our attention is being directed, where our attention usually is directed, towards the conceptual and learning a new way to deal with conceptual cognitions, which is mostly what we're aware of. The direct perceptions are also happening, but we barely know.

[60:00]

But some people in this group have told me of experiences, I think, where they have dropped through the floor of conception into direct perception. Liz? Maybe the impulse of my question was a kind of mental elaboration. But the question, I was wondering about the last day, is what is the power of the conception non-grasping? How is it that those words are so powerful for us in entering this practice? They seem to... I was wondering, is it because they come close to describing how things actually already are? When you say so powerful, do you mean feel so powerful or are actually so useful? It seems like it's useful. Yeah, I think the reason, if you meant, if it was the former one, good karma.

[61:01]

In other words, if you hear the word non-grasping and it really strikes you, very powerfully, I would say the reason that it strikes you powerfully is because of your good karma. To have a word like that stop you, that's really very fortunate. A lot of people say non-attachment. But if you want to know how come it works so well, I think it works so well because it addresses the fact, the fact, the phenomena, that when we enter into spiritual practice, we drag our egocentric motivations into the spiritual practice of becoming free from self-motivations. So we defile the practice of becoming free from self-clinging by our self-clinging. We find a way that people get more and more skillful at fooling themselves as they practice more. That's usually what happens. So that's why we're trying to develop a way that will catch all these when nobody's going to be able to get by with it anymore.

[62:10]

So, like, if anybody's holding on to anything... Here we go. Attachment. Attachment. Yeah, attachment, five yards. First down. And so that's why I think it's so useful because, you know, some people are... really skillful at making this stuff up about attaining stuff, and it just turns into another thing. So it's very subtle, but I think non-attachment and non-seeking really get to the core. At the same time, this practice must be in the context of a deep commitment to the welfare of all beings.

[63:19]

It doesn't turn into indifference. So you have to always keep working on compassion and understand that this is, for me anyway, this is a key aspect of compassion is this practicing non-attachment. That you understand that this way of entering is a key element in the overall program of the six paramitas, and particularly, specifically the first five, that they should all be practiced with non-attachment. And look in the Prajna Paramita Sutras, and it goes through the discussion of all these practices, these six paramitas, talks about this practice and that practice, and then after it practices, it says, and all this, all this generosity and all this ethical diligence and all this ethical discipline and all this patience and all this enthusiasm and effort and courage and all this samadhi, all this done through non-apprehension. Perfected by giving it up, by giving up the fruits.

[64:23]

So, it's just a key factor. And also, I think, I heard one Theravadan teacher say, well, if you look over Buddhism, what's the thing you find in all the different branches in terms of the practice? What do you find in all of them? All of them have non-attachment. They're all teaching selflessness, and the practice for bringing selflessness into the world is non-attachment. But again, people can dream of non-attachment, and that's just a dream. So we need to probably live in a sangha where people can help us determine whether it's really non-attachment or if it's just kind of pretend. Did you have further? Could I take another second? When Emma was asking you to say about patience, We were responding to some teaching about how to be with pain.

[65:26]

Another thing that occurred to me is one way we can really help each other in song is revealing our pain and I really appreciate that lately the last couple months how I've seen that demonstrated that people are encouraging each other to reveal themselves. That teaching of showing ourselves our pain, that we can help learn how to be in the center and now. Yeah, I think that's right. Revealing and expressing your pain will help you practice patience with it. It helps you say, I'm in pain, that helps you practice patience with it. Sometimes you don't notice it until you say it. So it is good. In order to become free of things, it's good to express them, get them out in front, where we can clearly observe them. And speaking it, or writing it on a little sign, you know, I'm in pain.

[66:27]

Yes? So it seems like there's this, you know... universal recommendation for non-attachment and recognition of things is not this parenthetical thing that's like don't let that become indifferent stay compassionate for the benefit of beings it seems like there's something kind of fixed or attached to that fixed I think the bodhisattva is kind of fixed on compassion. They are kind of like fixed on it. But fixed on it is fixed without attachment somehow. So again, if you love somebody a lot, you just really love somebody, in a sense you're fixed on them, you care about them all the time. You care about them really, really, really intensely and at the same time not grasp them. So the bodhisattva can be totally settled in compassion.

[67:32]

And if they're not, then we are careful to tell them about this practice of non-attachment. We want the understanding of non-attachment to be joined with compassion. We don't want it to be, except it could somewhat, it can get somewhat dissociated. The non-attachment that's not joined with compassion, however, is not as deep and thorough as the non-attachment that's with the compassion. So it is kind of, it's kind of a, I don't know what, you could say it's either a paradox or a miracle. that beings that understand that there aren't any beings are totally devoted to beings. Why are they devoted to them? But among the people who are devoted to beings, these are the beings that can save beings because they have no idea of beings. That's the miracle of Mahayana.

[68:35]

That's one of Edward Kahn's great contributions is to call it the miracle is that you can care totally about other beings and not see any other beings. And that that is really helpful in caring for other beings that you don't see any. And you are totally, totally devoted to that care, but with no attachment to the beings or the care. And you work a long time to actually practice bhavana-marga in various ways to bring the care, the teaching of care about beings, to bring that to being. And once it's into being, it's like, well, like they say, it can get to be like a forest fire. And everything makes it grow, you know, rather than blow it out. It gets stronger. So at a certain point, it just takes care of itself.

[69:39]

It doesn't work at it anymore. It just takes over the person. They just love beings. They just really cherish beings. They just really cherish beings. They just think beings are great. They understand that in order to serve these beings more skillfully, they're going to learn about this non-attachment. And in order to fully realize non-attachment, so that's also effortless, it's good to understand that beings are empty. You don't have to remind yourself anymore to non-grasp. You just are devoted to beings and you don't find any place to get a hold. And you're there devoted to them and they feel your devotion. And at the same time you're transmitting this non-attachment. So then they're picking it up, they're learning it, and you're benefiting. Not you're benefiting, but the samadhi is benefiting. They're benefiting in the samadhi of non-attachment. And all these wonderful things are possible there. Okay? I suppose you probably run into people, and I assume it's probably true for myself, where someone might think of some relationship they have with someone or some being as care, but it's actually attachment.

[70:53]

Yes, right. Can you help me to see where I can distinguish those two? Probably it is some care, at least for yourself. Whenever you're attached to anything, you're probably at least caring for yourself. So there's some care, but it may be mostly for yourself. And so that's why, again, why we need Sangha. And so you'd have to show me the example, I guess, for me to see if I feel there's any kind of like attachment. So not anything that necessarily could help just as I'm going through a day-to-day experience and trying to figure out whether or not my motivation to behave in a certain way is based on care? What do you mean, without telling me about it, you mean? Well, yeah, for instance. You might be around every time I need you. Right, right. That's where outflows are helpful. Because when there is that kind of thing, when there's attachment, there will be outflows. And outflows are kind of like the psychophysical or energetic consequence of attaching.

[71:57]

And outflows can be... You can feel the energy kind of like leaking out or flushing up. It's like there's too much energy up in your face or in your elbows or in your heart or in your stomach or your knees. Some place you feel like the energy is blocking, getting stuck. This activity. And so that's time to stop and look now. Where am I holding here? When energy is really flowing freely, then you probably should come and talk to the teacher, because then you think, hey, there's no outflows. But if you can find outflows, around here there's some holding. There's some holding to my ideas, or there's some holding to some feelings, or there's some holding to language. There's some kind of clinging. And you may not be able to spot what it is yet, but the energy disturbance, the energy not flowing freely, Big gains and losses in energy around some activity is a sign.

[73:05]

And then, of course, you have to learn the intelligence between that and low blood sugar. So you need to take care of yourself and feed yourself so that you have enough blood sugar level to keep your blood sugar low. And then, when that's taken care of, you notice your energy will flow and go up and around as you have a tendency of gain and loss and that kind of thing in your mind. So basically, when you don't grasp existence and non-existence, or self and other, loss, part of the distinction between enlightenment and illusion, if you don't do those, then you won't do them in other situations. But it's hard to spot those sometimes, so maybe other situations will surface it. And then you just stop and look and see if you can tell. And sometimes you can say, oh yeah, I see how I'm thinking, and that goes with this outflow. And so you confess the outflow, and the more you confess the outflow, the more you understand, and the more you understand, the closer you get to the end of outflows.

[74:12]

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