You see on the first, group three, is it? No, group three. In under group three, subset A, those are the Mahabhumika, the universal ones, remember? So there they are, those ten that are present with all states of consciousness. It's number two. And also maybe I'll mention at this point, too, that some people are thinking, well, with every state of consciousness there must also be, like I think Grace said, something about warmth.

[01:01]

Ed says something about there must be energy. If you look at, there's a category called elements, neither substantial forms nor mental functions. Fourth group. Under that group, you see 65, life, and sometimes it's defined as warmth, you know, 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 I was... These ten that we're talking about before are ten mental functions that accompany consciousness.

[02:11]

But this quality of life is... of course, is associated with consciousness, but it's not a mental factor. Also, let's see, later it will be relevant to you to know about the mental factors or the dharmas under category four, which are number sixty-six, Sixty-seven, sixty-eight, and sixty-nine. These are called dharmas, but another way this is sometimes described are the four phases of all phenomena. In other words, all phenomena have a burr, develop some stability, start to deteriorate, and then... So those aren't mental factors.

[03:26]

Those are principles which yogis have and scientists have been convinced of, which characterize all phenomena. Those are always present, too. So in that category, in that whole series there, a lot of those things are characteristic of things, of mental function, but they aren't mental functions. And actually on the page there, there are words which represent ideas, supposedly actual objects, actual phenomenons. 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. I'd like to start by reviewing that there are two paths of meditation.

[04:38]

And Sanskrit is word learning among the languages. It's a very nice language to learn. And here's another Sanskrit word for you, which means bhava, B-H-A-V-A, bhava. It means being or existence. And I didn't mean to get into this, but I just can't help but mention the Chinese word which corresponds to this, which is pronounced in Chinese, yu, and in Japanese it's pronounced, u. And it also means being or existence, but in addition it means to have.

[06:07]

And I wonder, I'm not sure if bhava in Sanskrit means to have also. But anyway, whether it does or not, the Chinese, the word that being or existence also means to have or possess. Interesting association, huh? What? In Chinese... Isn't bhava somehow? Yeah, it's been there, isn't it? It's bhava. Baba. Yes? Linguistically, there's an Indo... suppose that the Indo-European root of all Western languages, non-Oriental languages, and similarities have been found, such as have and baba. I don't know where have comes from, but it could be that it comes directly from the Indo-European... 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?

[07:11]

That in existence you have something. When there's being, you have something. And part of the problem of being, there's a size 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, right? You know what I mean? You got being and then you got the stuff you have and you think, well, okay. Now I wonder what would happen if I let go of all the stuff I have. Would I still be? Yikes. Yeah? Is that the character for the moon? Well, you know, there's a similarity. This is the 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, this is a... I didn't mean to get into that, but I did.

[08:15]

And so that's bhava. And then there's this other word. Bhava. Bhava. And then, hello, bhava. Again, bhava. And then put an N on the end. Bhava. N. And then an A, bhavana. And bhavana means to become or to come into being. And bhavana is a word that 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 center word for path is marga.

[09:22]

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, and then lokottara bhavana-marga, bhavana-marga which transcends the world. Those are the two bhavana-margas. The first bhavana-marga in a sense is number two. That's the worldly bhavana-marga. 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.

[10:26]

Does that make sense, Jill? Can you write those words, the two different kinds of meditation? In English? In English? Okay. Write the Sanskrit word in English letters. Do you mean write Romanized Sanskrit? Okay. laukika-bhavana-marga, N-A-R-G-A, laukika-bhavana-marga, and then uttara. No.

[11:30]

It's laukottara. Yeah. A loka, see, laukika, loka means world, and so you make something of the world, you say laukika instead of loka, so of the world, and loka uttara, uttara means beyond, so you put uttara together with loka, you get lokottara. So laukika bhavana marga and lokottara bhavana marga, those are the two types. lokottara bhavana-marga starts where? Three, right. In some sense, when you're training to enter three, when you start beyond just developing concentration, beyond just developing samadhi,

[12:34]

while still holding the belief in the existence of a person, while you still hold that and have samadhi, and you start to train at analysis of this belief, examining your belief in your independent existence of the person, as you start to train in examining this belief and maybe starting to question this belief and start to refute this belief and start to loosen this belief, prior to its dropping you're still doing, 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 existence of a self, satkaya drishti.

[13:43]

vristhi, the view, sak, the existence, and another word for existence, vikaya, the body, like the substantial body of the self. 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, and your 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. D-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 super mundane meditation practice, between those two is another path, the path of vision.

[14:58]

And the path of vision is super mundane. So again, super mundane. 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 . So there's just one kind of path of seeing, and it's super mundane. It is entering into three. It is the entry path. After you do that, then under three, you continue the path of meditation, which I mentioned yesterday, where you start to wash away the habits which were developed under the auspices of the misconception of an inherently existent existence.

[16:03]

Now, before I answer May's question, I just want to mention that this is a super mundane path of holiness. People become arhats under this number three, under this set up. Buddha, you know, became an arhat under this number three. So the Mahayana says that bodhisattva gives up the mundane meditation path, this mundane meditation path, and also gives up the super mundane meditation path. Hold on to either one of them. It 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. In four, yeah. May I?

[17:06]

So, darshan and marga is not a path of meditation? 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 there 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, which you developed sort of on the worldly plane of self, other, blah, blah. But it's not called the path of meditation because in some sense you're not bringing something into being, you're just clarifying the way things are. The other two are called bhavana margas and that's not called a bhavana marga, but it sets up the one kind of bhavana marga and it's based on the other kind of bhavana marga, having reached its culmination.

[18:14]

Okay? Yeah, our hearts are enlightened, definitely. Even, we have four, there's four basic stages in the Samadhi program number three. The first one is the one, the stream enterer. Stream enterer is you enter through Darsana Magga. Once you're in Darsana Magga, you're a stream enterer. You've entered the stream of the Buddhist practice. And you have changed, you know, you have 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 then the next stage is called... You have to take rebirth one more time.

[19:23]

And the next stage is called never return. It means you don't have to take rebirth again, 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 with a body who is perfectly purified personally. you know, amazing, perfectly purified person. So our hats don't come back. And our hats don't come back, and they don't want to. 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. The Lotus Sutra says that when actually 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.

[20:26]

I mean, you're going to be a Buddha. 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 on the 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. You know, they're shocked but happy. He promotes them, yeah. You promote them, say, there's more work to do, you've done a great deal, and now you get to take on the Buddha work rather than just our hard work. When you said that a being doesn't cap, doesn't that already imply that non-existence is virtual existence, assuming that a being doesn't want to cap? Well, you know, you can draw an implication and the person might not mean to infer that, right?

[21:37]

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, again, part of 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 non-existence is better than existence. 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 better. A lot of people think existence is better. Some people don't and try to commit suicide. because they think 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 they do have that preference.

[22:41]

And that's, again, part of the problem of existence is that it makes it 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, it's 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 fear. No fear. And also 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 being afraid of death is that you won't be afraid of being killed. And if you won't be afraid of being killed, then nobody can make you kill.

[23:47]

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 being killed, you won't kill. You might get killed if you're not afraid of being killed. But you won't kill. So, anyway... of existence and non-existence, I think we understand that's the Buddha's teaching. The Buddha did not have preference for the living over the dead. The Buddha was free of preference and therefore the Buddha was free. And being free, the Buddha fulfilled his dream of benefiting all beings and helping all beings become free of death by not preferring death. and become free of birth by not preferring death.

[24:54]

I think living beings don't seem to be able to help wanting to be happy. It seems like part of the deal is to 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 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.

[25:58]

Difficult. Because, you know, it's in our tissues, right? This thing about, like, wanting to inhale and exhale is very powerful. Okay, so... Any questions before we go on? Elizabeth? Does Arhat know they're in Arhat? Does Arhat know they're in Arhat? Well, a lot of times they do. Buddha knew he was in Arhat. He said, I'm content. My heart is content. I'm at peace. I've accomplished my work. Speaking conventionally, but also you could say speaking as a speaking conventionally, he knew he was free. I'm free. He said, you know, I'm free.

[27:01]

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. They might not just they have other things to do, like enjoy it, or skip along the road, or whistle a happy tune, you know, the 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 I think do not necessarily think, go around thinking that they're Buddhists. But they can think that. They just You know, they're not necessarily thinking that. Yes? When Buddha told his assembly that everybody would become a Tathagata, he meant Samadhi number four.

[28:04]

Was he what? He meant 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 things like, in that samadhi you can see, if you're a Buddha, you can see, you can actually see Vivi's future. 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. He could see that beings are heading in the particular way that they're heading for enlightenment. Yesterday during your discussions you spoke about suppression during meditation and... Attempts of suppression. Right. And the implication was that it's kind of a dangerous thing to suppress because it's sort of... That's an implication?

[29:13]

That was your implication. That's your inference? Yeah, but it wasn't my implication. 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. Dangerous to suppress things. Dangerous. Also, it's dangerous not to suppress things. Okay. Can I say something more about the suppression thing? Can I ask my question? Sure. I'm not going to suppress you. That would be dangerous. Arrest my case. You see? See how I work?

[30:14]

And then, after this freedom, she remembers her question. Didn't Buddha say that when you're having unwholesome thoughts, one of the ways is to suppress those unwholesome thoughts? He probably did. Pardon? Isn't most of our meditation unwholesome? I have recently done a survey and so far the returns are that most people's meditation is mostly unwholesome. Didn't Buddha say that we could 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 BS or it is a religious, you know, a statement of faith.

[31:27]

We don't know what Buddha said, but we have heard that people say, I have heard that And if you look in Buddhist meditation text, you will see that one of the ways with unwholesome thought forms is suppression. It's one of the ways. So unwholesome thought forms do 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.

[32:33]

Possessiveness, greediness, laziness, restlessness, worry, doubt in the teaching. These are examples. And, yes? So with those thoughts, there's no samadhi, right? They're obstructions to samadhi. They're listed as obstructions to meditation. But even though they're obstructions, it doesn't mean there isn't any meditation. It just means if you handle these obstructions in a skillful way, they're samadhi. If you cling and grasp and fight these things, fight these demons, then the samadhi is still there, but you don't see it because you're too busy fighting obstructions. Okay? So, I'm just saying that there are these obstructions or hindrances to meditation.

[33:36]

Okay? And there 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 Buddha's teaching is the technique of last resort 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 didn't say that. Maybe, 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, murdered and slaughtered.

[34:42]

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. You know, he didn't say suppress it, he just said, you know, you know, 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, he also said, drop it, drop it. Just drop, drop your insanity and wake up. And she did, pretty much. One of our acharyas, she's on the list, she became an arhat. Huh? You know, he didn't say suppress it. He just said, you know, drop out. You know, 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, he also said, drop it.

[35:47]

Drop it. Just drop it. Drop your insanity and wake up. And she did, pretty much. And she became one of our Acharya is. She's on the list. She became an arhat. Which one? Which one, folks? Patashara. Yeah. Patashara. So, but before that, there's lots of other techniques, lots of other ways of dealing with hindrances that aren't suppression. Okay? 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 leads to liberation? There's danger either way, suppression or non-suppression. And I think generally speaking, suppression is just a, you know, 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.

[36:53]

You can't suppress things. But there's lots of other techniques. Instead of suppressing ill will, practice loving-kindness. Loving-kindness doesn't have to be seen at all as suppressing anything. It's rather generating warmth and love and goodwill and good feeling for beings. That's like an antidote rather than a suppression. And for being distracted. Certain medications on serious topics snap you out of that. But you're not really suppressing the distraction. You're just turning your attention to something that, when you look at the other thing, you just ... distractedness just drops away. But one of the ways the Buddha taught, which is the way that I'm stressing because 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 you do something, then you have to stop doing that thing to enter into non-duality.

[38:06]

So I like to have as little as possible that you have to do in order to enter the samadhi. So one of the other ways of dealing with things that are coming to you is the way that I mentioned the other day. In the seen, there will be just the seen. In the heard, there will be just the 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. So, There's things called the Four Right Efforts, and Four Right Efforts are part of Samadhi practice in early Buddhism. Four Right Efforts. First Right Effort is to prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising. Not to support anything that hasn't happened yet. Prevent them from arising. How do you prevent unwholesome thoughts from arising? Pardon?

[39:10]

In the scene, there's just a scene. Yeah. In the scene, there's just a scene. When that's the way it is for you, unwholesome thoughts do not arise. And training the attention 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 non-seeking is the practice of suchness. And this is a virtually, well, very extensively subtle practice. But if you practice that way, the unwholesome thoughts won't even arise in the first place. Now, if you practice that way, they're very likely to just drop away. Now, if they don't drop away, the question is whether you're going to continue practice that way or to resort to some other method, like, for example, an antidote.

[40:15]

So if there's ill will and you just let the thought, the condition of ill will, just let the ill will be the ill will, you can really just do that, in other words, confess it very cleanly, then the next right effort is to drop or eliminate the unwholesome thoughts which have arisen. And then that's where those... The last one of which, in my opinion, is suppression. But along the list, and I put it first, is just face it. Just clearly observe. the unwholesome thought that has arisen. 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. It ceases anyway, 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.

[41:18]

The unwholesome thoughts arise because we're not clearly observing. When we're not clearly observing, unwholesome thoughts naturally crop up, 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 in. So when we slip, naturally, poof, unwholesome thoughts arise. 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. So they cease. 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. Well, make wholesome thoughts arise means... You don't have to make anything arise. Just let the seeing be the seeing and the heard be the heard and wholesome thoughts will arise more and more. Wholesome thoughts arise, protect them and maintain them.

[42:23]

How do you maintain a wholesome thought? Clearly observe it. So wholesome thoughts thrive and are maintained in clear observation and become more fluorescent and abundant in clear 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 early teachings. Okay? Do you have any techniques for fasting? Any techniques? I have plenty of techniques for grasping. But you have just as many as I do, probably, so you're going to need it from me. I do. You need some more? For non-grasping. For non-grasping. Any techniques? My main technique for non-grasping, ladies and gentlemen. Huh? Well, I didn't know I had that many.

[43:26]

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. But apparently I've got some other ones too, like clearly observing, relaxing with whatever comes. Another one is like, say welcome to everything comes. Another one is like, whatever comes, consider it the Buddhadharma. And don't try to be possessed by the Buddhadharma. Just say thank you very much and don't ask for any more. I didn't mean that to work so well. Yes? Well, I had this thought about unwholesome thoughts that... Is it an unwholesome thought about an unwholesome thought? Let me take this down. When something defined as an unwholesome thought arises, who knows where, if you're meditating on the arising of this phenomenon and clearly observing it, wouldn't it lose its category as wholesome or unwholesome by a non-dual observer just holding it as a... It doesn't know it.

[44:39]

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. But who's the creator of the thought? You don't have to get into that. That's kind of unwholesome. Unless you've been assigned that question. But some thought like that, if you clearly observe that thought, it loses its power. If you don't grasp that thought, it can't grasp you. If you fight it and you try to get rid of 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, get out of here.

[45:42]

You know, they're trying to get rid of the bad thought and get rid of themselves. And, you know, it's just 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. Well, you know, as it's growing, how can I, like, 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, okay, I'm angry. Okay, I admit it. I'm going to... Because the more you fight anger, the more it grows. Anger grows on anger. Anger does not grow... He just goes there and works on it. And another unwholesome thought, the samadhi goes there and works on it. 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.

[46:49]

And also, they require more subtlety, you know. They're more difficult, they require more subtle learning of how not to grasp. 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. That's hard not to grasp. So wholesome practices are to promote not grasping the wholesome practices. Wholesome behavior promotes grasping wholesome and promotes grasping all over the place. 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 an acceptable 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.

[47:59]

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. So 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... Yes? Yeah, I had a question about accepting evil or if I take the example of anger, if I accept my anger versus which is look after your anger or love your anger. Kind of similar. Is there a difference there? It's a difference, but it's kind of the same ballpark. Accept, befriend to the anger. Like if you have an angry child, you know, don't kill the child for being angry. It's a little guy. He's learning how to do this now.

[49:04]

Help him. Help him not hurt himself or anybody else in a loving way. Show him love. And if it's, you know, and also it's very important to show him that love is like cooler than hate. Like for me, I've told that story many times. You know, trying to be as bad as possible because unwholesome was much more popular when I was a kid than wholesome. You know, Elvis Presley is older than me, but, you know, I hit puberty when he was hitting his stardom, you know. So basically, he was not like a good guy. You know, he was kind of partly a symbol of evil. Sex. He was a bad boy, you know. So he 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.

[50:08]

He could do anything. So 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 and he said, you know, it's easy to be bad. And I knew that. It takes a little guts, but, you know, it's not that hard. 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 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 to that this thing which is cooler, which is more flexible, which has more energy, which doesn't have up-flows, which is more creative, actually. Love, you know, we're born of love, you know, not of hate. So bring love, acceptance, all that to the hate.

[51:12]

And non-attachment is the ultimate love. Because non-attachment isn't like, well, I don't care about you. Non-attachment is like, exactly with what's happening, knowing more about it, knowing as much about it as anybody could know, because you're totally devoted to this event. 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 trying to get anything. This is non-attachment. This is not grasping. It's not grasping from a distance. It's not grasping up close and specific with it. So, if it's anger, you bring that kind of clear observing where you're right there, real close, you know all about it, come up, laugh, go away, you're right there and no attachment. That's the way to deal with anger, and anger won't be harmful then. It'll just be boop, boop, boop. 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.

[52:20]

They won't hurt the person if they're really skillful. The person will feel okay. The person won't take revenge. Later, they won't feel mistreated. 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, you know, moving very strongly. 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 and they feel alive, okay, 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 Liz and who else? John, Susan, Maya, Liz. I just wanted to say that there's a video that was made at REV about right effort, a papal path that goes pretty in detail with the antidotes that you were talking about, and if people want to know more about that, they can find it.

[53:29]

It's also in the lounge. Yes. Susan, we'd like to clear them out of the bookstore. They're kind of like moss. So these little videos are to want some attention. They need some salvation. In that video, I kind of just did the straight line. you know, from the 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, that, of course, 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 poisons. Not annihilated. Nothing is annihilated. Nothing is annihilated in the Buddha Dharma.

[54:30]

We do not annihilate evil. We do not annihilate good. But evil is impermanent and good is impermanent. Evil phenomena, unwholesome phenomena, are impermanent and so are wholesome. We deal with wholesome and unwholesome 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 want to go back to in the scene, nothing, just being seen. Yes. And I think when you talked about it yesterday, you said this is on conceptual level. Yes. Perceptual level? Yes. Does that mean seeing the cup, just the cup, rather than bloom, shape?

[55:31]

Initially it means you're hearing words now, these are concepts. Buddha came into the world and started Again, in the Samadhi Nirmocana Sutra, it says, those who realize the ultimate, which is non-dual and inexpressible, designate conventional terms. So, like it used to say in the Jewel-Mir Samadhi, although it's not fabricated, it's not fabricated. So Buddha's not fabricated, but Buddha talks. because Buddha is compassion. It's unfabricated compassion, 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, and when they hear them, they hear those things and they convert them into concepts, 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.

[56:38]

Listen to me. When you hear, in what you hear now, let the heard just be the heard. In other words, don't, and that's a concept, 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. observe it. And it's a concept. And you're not conceptually 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 duality. We only can have a direct perception of the idea And you can have no, it's possible to have no conceptual mediation between the phenomena of the idea and conceptual elaboration of it.

[57:48]

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. that we move into not identifying, not locating, no here and there with the ideas. 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... It's still at that conceptual level. Then once we understand that, we might want to then enter into a meditation of even meditating on that understanding. So we understand that that understanding is also empty. Our understanding is not our concept of the understanding. You know, like somebody said, first, does arhat know they're arhat?

[58:51]

When they think, well, I'm an arhat, that's not being an arhat. That's thinking that they're an arhat. There's no such thing, really. And some arhats have not realized that. But that's what the Mahayana is about, is to realize that spiritual attainments are empty. That's why we have wisdom. 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 has given up wisdom, which doesn't grasp wisdom as a thing, which realizes the emptiness of wisdom. So even in that initial destruction, 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.

[60:00]

The direct perceptions are also happening, but we barely notice them most of the time. 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? mental elaboration um uh so but the question kind of what was um i was wondering about the last day is what is the power of the conception non-graphing how is it that those words are so powerful for us I was wondering, is it because they come close to describing how things actually already are? Well, when you say so powerful, do you mean feel so powerful or are actually so useful? Seems like it's useful. Yeah. I think the reason... If you meant... If it was the former one, I was going to say because of good karma.

[61:05]

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 unfortunate. A lot of people say non-attachment to it, they can barely hear you. 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 into the spiritual practice of becoming free of egocentric motivations. So we defile the practice of becoming free from self-clinging by our self-clinging. We find a way that, like, people get more and more, actually more and more skillful at fooling themselves. That's usually what happens. So that's why we're trying to develop a way that will catch all these, where nobody's going to be able to get by with it anymore.

[62:13]

So, like, if anybody's holding on to anything... I'm going to take this out. There we go. Attachment. Yeah, attached in five yards. Seeking first down. And so that's why I think it's so useful, because some people are really skillful at making this stuff up and getting better and stuff like that, 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 a context of a deep commitment to all beings, so it doesn't turn into indifference.

[63:24]

So you have to always keep working on compassion and understand that, for me anyway, a key aspect of compassion is practicing non-attachment, that you understand that this way of entering samadhi 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 in the six paramitas. It talks about this practice and that practice. After it describes each one of the 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. And samadhi is perfected by giving it up, by giving up the fruits. It's just a key factor.

[64:29]

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 as part of the deal. 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... So we need to probably, you know, 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... Could I take another second? Emily was asking you something about patience. You were saying, you were responding from teaching about how to be with pain. Another thing that occurred to me is one way we can really help each other in song is revealing our pain.

[65:32]

And I really appreciate that lately, the last couple of months, how I've seen that demonstrated that people are encouraging each other to reveal themselves. Like it's that teaching of showing ourselves our pain that we can help learn how to be with it. In the center and now. Yeah, I think that's right. Revealing and expressing your pain will help you practice patience with it. 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 really observe them. And speaking it, or writing it on a little sign, you know, I'm in pain. Yes? So it seems like there's this, you know, universal recommendation for non-attachment and recognition of things that don't do well.

[66:39]

parenthetical thing that's like, don't let that become indifferent. Stay compassionate for the benefit of being. It seems like there's something kind of fixed or attached to that. Fixed? I think the bodhisattva is kind of fixed on, 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, and then you love them really, really, really intensely and at the same time not grasp them. So the bodhisattva can be totally settled in compassion. 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.

[67:46]

We don't want it to be... 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 compassion 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. 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. That's one of Edward Cotton's great contributions is to call it the miracle of the Mahayana. 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.

[68:52]

And you are totally, totally devoted to that 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 teaching into being. 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, you know, and you don't have to work at it anymore. It's just for the person. They just love beings. They just really cherish beings. They just really cherish beings. They just think beings are great. And they understand that in order to serve these beings more skillfully, they're going to learn about this non-attachment thing

[69:58]

Fully realize non-attachment, so that's also effortless. It's good to understand that beings are empty. That 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. So then they're picking it up, they're learning it, and you're benefiting, or that, not you're benefiting, but that 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 weren't, but 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. Yes, right. Can you help me to see where I can distinguish those two? Well, probably it is some care. Whenever you attach to anything, you're probably at least caring for yourself.

[71:04]

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 attachment on your part. So not anything that necessarily could 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. Oh, you mean without telling me about it, you mean? Well, yeah. Right, right. Well, that's where outflows are helpful. Because when there is that kind of thing, you know, when there's attachment... there will be outflows. And outflows are kind of like the psychophysical or energetic consequence of attaching. And outflows can be observed. They're like, you know, you can feel the energy kind of like leaking out or flushing up, you know, 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.

[72:11]

You know, someplace you feel like the energy is blocking, getting stuck. in the midst of this activity, and you say, that's time to stop and look now. 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, then you know that somewhere around here there's some holding. There's some holding to my ideas, there's some holding to some feelings, or there's some holding to language, you know, there's some kind of like clinging. And you may not be able to spot what it is yet, but the energy disturbance, the energy not flowing freely, and the big gains and losses in energy around some activity. 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 make, you know,

[73:12]

feed yourself so that you have enough blood sugar level, keep your blood sugar, and then when that's taken care of, flow and go up and around as you have a tendency of gain and loss and that kind of thing in your mind. So when you don't, basically, when you don't grasp existence and non-existence or self and other or gain and loss, you know, part of the distinction between enlightenment and illusion, 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. So you confess the outflow, and the more you confess the outflow, the more you understand, and the more you understand, of course, you get the end of outflows. Yes. Oh, excuse me, I think you're next.

[74:14]

So when a thought arises, we can relinquish the thought. Second, how are we doing in air department? Okay, excuse me. So we can relinquish the thought or we can observe it clearly. Same thing. Relinquishing a thought If you clearly observe things, you relinquish them. Or in other words, it's almost like they disappear, cease, just in the clear observing. But if you... To me, it doesn't feel the same thing. It feels like when I relinquish it, I just, like, don't grasp it. Yeah, right. But when I... I need it there for a second to observe it clearly. Well, in order to relinquish it, you also need for a second to... You can't relinquish things if you don't clearly observe them. Like I said, you don't relinquish things by correspondence course.

[75:17]

You relinquish... Otherwise, you're just dreaming that you're relinquishing. Like, well, I don't care about my, you know, the girlfriend I had 27 years ago. Oh, yeah? Well, she's right here. Now I can see if I'm really relinquishing it. So actually, you have to have it there to see a little bit, right? Same with clear observing. You're clearly observing. When you clearly observe, when you actually look at this thing in a detailed, you know, you really account, you take full account of it, and that's it. Then it's released. I said when I relinquish it. I don't even, I guess I don't even let it stay up there. I just kind of like drop it or let it go. When you relinquish it, it drops. And when you clearly observe it, it's relinquished. It drops. When you relinquish it, it drops. But again, I'm saying when you relinquish it.

[76:19]

In the clear observing, there is relinquishment. But in my experiences of clear observing and things dropping was it just clear observing came and things dropped. I didn't make the clear observing happen. Like I'm in some kind of like, there's some agitation, you know, sorry, some agitation, some disturbance, and then the word comes, clearly observed. I don't say, hey, Reb, clearly observed. I'm going to clearly observe. The teaching clearly observed comes, and the thing drops away. I don't drop. But as soon as it's clear observing, it drops. And then things go calm. That's my experience. So that's relinquishment, but not by me. And it's clearly observing, but not by me. And even starting the clearly observing was not my assignment, it just came to me. Does that make sense? Some might not.

[77:25]

On the Buddha path, all thoughts require not clearly observing. But off the Buddha's path, on the Buddha's path, all thoughts require and receive clear observing. We have snack stands along the side of the Buddha's path. You can go off the Buddha's path and there you don't have to clearly observe what you're being served. However, you need to confess that you're there in order to get back in the path. On the path, there is clear observing. That is the path. And we veer off the path when we're not clearly observing. And then we confess that we're not clearly observing. And confessing we're not clearly observing, we're back in the path. That's what I said, with no attachment to them. OK? Yes? I have a question.

[78:29]

You both do. Both of you. Oh, Jesse. Oh, sorry, Jesse. Go ahead, Jesse. I think it's shifting a little bit. Well, anyway, I probably should do the first one. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah. I was just wondering from sort of the I think this is actually tied somewhere between both Tim and Mimi because I was going to say originally that I felt like I was coming almost from the opposite end of Tim's question as in doing this process of when the process of non-attachment is occurring. Yes. Like... I feel actually like I'm having trouble seeing compassion or where the compassion is coming to. It feels kind of cold, actually, to me. And somehow I feel like to Vivi's question about this sort of clearly observing and relinquishing. Now, is clearly observing, when you say clearly observing, could that be as simple as something comes up and then you're following some distracted thought and then you sort of snap out of it and say, I was distracted.

[79:40]

Is clearly observing, or is clearly observing actually, you see something kind of deeper than that as far as... It's kind of like what you said, except maybe more quiet, not even saying what you said. Right. It's more, it's like, when you see that distracted thought, there's a cognition of that distracted thought, and in that cognition there's just a distracted thought. Not necessarily some... deeper understanding of something, the process of operating, that's not necessarily . Just enough to see the thought. At that time, that's enough. But that way of being with phenomena, and again, we need to practice with the phenomena. So we care about what's happening. We care that we're upset. we're attending to that in this practice of compassion. And then the meditative part of it, the samadhi part of the way we practice compassion, clearly observing, which is we just let the cognition of this thing be what is cognized.

[80:47]

And then we enter samadhi. And it's not that the samadhi is deeper than that. It's more like that's the door to the samadhi and more things are going on. But they're not deeper. In some sense, That's very deep. That you're just letting things be is very deep. And that enters you into visions of things which you can't see when you're like messing with the surface. And it's not that the surface is, it's not something deeper than the surface, but that letting the surface be shows you. And looking for something deeper, you keep, you stay on the surface. messing with the surface, you know, elaborating the surface. You just stay on the surface. So I follow all that. So the question for me is still, sort of, how can I... I messed up with you before, but it sort of still comes up for me. How can I get closer or... OK.

[81:49]

Stop. Stop. OK. Care and compassion? Yeah, that's really what, I mean, it's not like what I'm saying. Okay, okay. Care and compassion, okay. So there's compassion. that I think we're about ready to do is the kind of care and compassion which takes the form of getting more intimate with the meditation object. And that's sort of what you're asking about. So you've been practicing relaxing with the meditation object, not cracking the meditation object, and this helps you calm down. This is stabilizing. You start to enter the samadhi. Another part of entering the samadhi is to get into more, now that you're relaxed with the phenomena, with the object, now let's like look at it. And now is there a way, can we detail what clearly observing is? And I hesitated all this time to bring it up because I want this, when you start looking, when you start examining the object, we have to be careful that we don't reactivate all our grasping again.

[82:52]

So it's like I would just stay here and forever just say, not grasping and not seeking, before I would mention any way to get more intimate with what that means. I'm still talking about not grasping and not seeking, but there's subtleties to it that I don't want to bring up if you're then going to grasp those, because these are to help you more deeply not grasp. Insight work is to help you more thoroughly not grasp than you do just in the tranquilizing work. So in the meantime, is it okay to be... That's my problem. I just feel like I just, you know, it's not quite so relaxing that I fall asleep, but it's more like I... No, it's not okay, really. You should care about that. But not by saying it's not okay. But you should clearly observe your drowsiness, which will wake you up. And maybe you should do something, you know. It just seems very potent, drowsiness. It is potent, yeah. It's particularly potent or dangerous if you try to suppress it. And it's also dangerous if you indulge in it.

[83:54]

But what's a skillful, kind response to this? This draws in... I don't want to say it's not okay. I'm just saying it needs attention. It needs love. Bring love to that sleepiness. Bring compassion to that sleepiness. It needs some attention. It's going to fall off its tricycle pretty soon if you don't take care of him. You know? You know? There's danger. You should realize that there's a danger of some injury to the meditator here. So take care of him. And then, if you can take care of him without creating a big hubbub, we're still calm now, we're still relaxed, but we're not so relaxed that we're getting complacent and sleeping. It's natural that as you start to get calm, you say, well, that's pretty good, I got calm, great. That's nice. It's almost impossible to like accomplish that without getting a little bit lax. And then the lax can start slipping deeper.

[84:57]

Then you need to take care of that without getting tense again. How are you going to, in a relaxed way, be really careful to take care of this person who's getting a little drowsy and a little lax? He's not totally... He's not scared anymore, which keeps him awake, but he's... That problem's not there, but he's getting a little... a little lax. But we don't want to beat him up, you know, and say, you shouldn't be relaxed, you shouldn't be so lax, you creep, you know, how can we, how can we like, say, hey, I got a present for you, you want to meet Buddha? But not, not, not try to get something, but just sort of like to try to take care of, so you have to do that. Then, when you work that out, then you're ready to like, start getting closer and more intimate with the object through investigation. And that's the part which I think we can start doing. So basically I'm just talking about attending to things and seeking.

[86:01]

But there's details of how to get closer that can be brought up, I hope, without distracting you from the basic non-attachment. So that's why I think maybe we can start doing that on Monday and through the Sashin work on that. And... I'm looking forward to talking about that, but I felt like I had to do all this to get you relaxed enough and courageous enough to do the most difficult thing, which is practice non-attachment. That's the hardest thing, and that's what bodhisattvas really need the courage to do. Then you can face really difficult situations, situations which you currently think are difficult Grace and Catherine, Catherine and Grace. Oh, okay. I don't know if it's right at all. The thought of clearly observing arises to you.

[87:05]

I mean, it's not you, Rev. It's not Rev saying to Rev to clearly observe. The thought arises. I'm wondering if consciousness doesn't also... We're talking about grasping a lot. Isn't it in the nature of consciousness itself? Is consciousness itself grasping? No, consciousness doesn't grasp, but there is a mechanism of grasping. And grasping is not the same as knowing. It's usually involved. So what we have to do, what is possible here is to become aware of the process of grasping and the being grasped and be aware of that and see the illusoriness of the separateness of grasping and the grasped. Now you could say, well actually knowing is grasping and what is known is what is grasped.

[88:08]

So you could say that. But it's before that. I mean, I guess I'm wondering if there isn't almost an energetic before that, like... There probably is. Probably we're acting out some aspect of the universe, you know, that the universe wanted to make living beings to, like, bring this quality of the universe into knowing. And so our minds are in some sense principles which can't know themselves except through life. So that's one reason why I think you might say the universe went to all the trouble to make living beings, is that we bring consciousness to this matter and energy. And yet we in some sense reflect, our bodies reflect energy too. We are like a drama, a matter and energy drama with consciousness. And there's reasons for everything we do and the question is how to manage all this stuff in the most skillful way.

[89:15]

Most of the unhappy things that happen in our life arise because of mechanisms that were at some point useful and are no longer, now they're mostly harmful. It's still somewhat useful but mostly harmful now and they used to be kind of promoting life forms and now they're kind of like not. Because the context has changed. Catherine? I'm not sure I know how to ask this now. But out of attachment, as a moment of attachment arises, there is turbulence. Yes. It could be that it seems attractive or trivial, it seems aversive. Yes. And it comes as trivial. Yes. It's a sign that there's a passion. Yes. Initially, that might not be expressed in the mind as, I don't like that or I like that.

[90:17]

But I guess the question was, does that have an effect? Yesterday, when we were talking about... The turbulence just entered the valley. I think with today, there's no direct perception of duality. No, there can be a direct perception of duality. I thought you said... But there's not a direct perception of duality, because duality isn't building. Right, right, yeah, yeah. I thought you said non-duality. Yeah, okay. But these things arise that come out of the body, and then you name them, like, oh, I don't like that, or, oh, I like that. At what point is that becoming something I'm making, like, I, that I don't really believe in, exist only?

[91:24]

Do you know what I mean? Yes. At what point are you using some phenomena as a basis for concocting an I? Yeah, that intellectually I... I think the moment... I think that... It's too big a question for the end of class. So the question is about how does the sense of self arise and what factors particularly contribute to that? particularly among... Which, yeah, which kinds of turbulence are particularly conducive to promoting the eye? Well, you could talk about that, but that isn't exactly... Why don't you ask your question again earlier in a class, or in the middle of a class, okay? And I wanted to say... My personal story is a story I told you already, but it's like this thing about how things come.

[92:26]

One time I was talking to somebody. I took a long walk with somebody, a very nice man. And after the walk was over, we came to the office over here. And this is about years ago this conversation occurred. And he and I continued.

[92:44]

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