The sixth ancestor, Zen, asked the monk, Nanyue, what is it that thus comes? And then I picture that I worked with the sixth ancestor for seven years, practicing together. After seven years, Nanyue realized what it is that thus comes and said, to say it's this misses the point. I don't know what the great ancestor and Nanue were doing those seven years together, practicing.

[01:22]

There's no mention that they practiced Samatha together. And there's no sign that the sixth ancestor trained him in the nine stages of Samatha. six powers and four kinds of mental engagement and taught him how to avoid the faults of Samatha by the Eight Antidotes. But I picture them working closely and I feel that probably shamatha was realized between them but how i don't know it doesn't say there is a story about the sixth ancestor that when he was

[02:37]

fairly young apparently living in the area of Canton in southern China he was walking through the marketplace selling wood which he collected and he walked by a I think a fortune telling booth where the fortune teller was reciting the Diamond Sutra and when he heard the Diamond Sutra he was deeply transformed. So I wonder, what was his condition such that when he heard the sutra, it penetrated and transformed his being? I think he must have been in a state of shamatha.

[03:49]

So that the teaching that a bodhisattva should produce a thought which doesn't depend on anything. When you heard those words, section 10c of the Diamond Sutra, it penetrated him and he understood the mind which doesn't abide or attach to anything. Now, it seems fairly unlikely was being trained in certain step-wise practices of Samatha. It seems unlikely that he was being trained in the six powers, the four mental engagements, the five faults, the eight antidotes, and the practices to avoid the five... going up the nine stages of Samatha.

[05:03]

And yet, somehow, there he was. Now, someone might say, well, in a past life, he actually did have that... that systematic training in Samatha. And it just didn't need to do it again in his present life as a woodcutter. But whether or not he had that training, my feeling is that if he did have that training, whoever has that training needs to receive that training, that the retraining It doesn't turn into a contrivance. So how can the training in Samatha be brought up in whatever form it's brought up? In a current fashion or in some other way, how can it be brought up so that we don't defile the practice

[06:09]

by turning it into something external. Because Samatha is to not be distracted. But how can we hear the instruction of not being distracted by externals without being distracted by that instruction? And turning that instruction into another external, which we get excited about. This is what I think the sixth ancestor had realized a way to be that he hadn't externalized. So he was walking rather nakedly through the marketplace to enter him. And I mentioned yesterday that

[07:10]

One could be concentrating on something like the breath. One could be intentionally following one's breath. In other words, one could be focusing on the concept of the breath. Maybe a breath that's associated with the concept of this body and the concept of this chest and abdomen and heart and nose and lungs and diaphragm. that you're working with and paying attention to the concept of the process of breathing. One could be doing that and that's generally speaking a salutary thing to pay attention to. Please enjoy your breath. It's good to enjoy your breath. It's not going to hurt you. But for it to be a Samatha practice, one needs to understand that what we're working with and then one needs to understand the non-conceptual way of working with the concept.

[08:33]

When one Except non-conceptually, one is sitting or resting in one's mind nature. The light has turned around and one is resting in the non-conceptual nature of the mind. One is in the mind, the attention engaged with the mind itself. Even though there is a concept of breath, the meditation is not The Samatha meditation is not on the object, not on the concept of the breath. The Samatha meditation is on non-conceptuality. The focus of the attention is on non-conceptuality. is the non-conceptual way of relating, the non-conceptual way of observing the concept.

[09:48]

Because consciousness non-conceptually is non-conceptual of concepts. Consciousness, mind, is non-conceptually aware of concepts. Consciousness doesn't have ways of relating to concepts. Consciousness needs concepts. It's bereft of concepts in itself. Consciousness is innocent. Mind is innocent of concepts. Therefore, it is innocent of concepts, and because it's innocent of concepts, it's vulnerable to concepts. Because mind, because consciousness is innocent of concepts, in other words, not hurt by concepts,

[11:04]

It yearns for concepts. It never arises without them, and it yearns for them. It needs them to be complete. Consciousness isn't fulfilling itself unless it is aware of concepts. But it doesn't have a conceptual way of relating or being aware. It is just aware of concepts. It wants to be hurt by concepts. It wants to know them. And it does. But it knows them non-conceptually. And concepts, going a bit far, I know, but concepts want to hurt consciousness. They want to be known.

[12:10]

When concepts are known, consciousness is hurt. But consciousness wants it, and concepts want it. When consciousness non-conceptually knows concepts, actually, this is a happy situation called tranquility. But if the attention, mental attention, which is not consciousness, And it's not concept. The effect of mind that arises with concepts and with consciousness, if mental attention, manasikara, doesn't attend to this wonderful concert, this wonderful, strange interaction between consciousness and its concept, doesn't turn around and attend to that and engage itself with that, it's like... a loose cannon on deck. It just causes trouble, because the attention is looking around for like, well, how can we do something with the way consciousness is relating to this?

[13:19]

Let's have some concepts about how consciousness can relate to concepts. Consciousness can't do that. It just creates hubbub and confusion, or that is confusion. When the mental attention turns around and engages with is simply aware of the concept we have. The concept is fixed in its proper relationship with consciousness, namely it's known. Consciousness is aware of it. This is tranquility. So the meditation is paying attention to the non-conceptual way that consciousness is relating to concepts or The attention is resting in the non-conceptual attitude towards concepts. Or the attention is paying attention to the way consciousness does.

[14:22]

Namely, non-conceptually. Namely, you don't know what to do with it other than just be aware. You don't elaborate the concept at all. The concept is fixed in it being the way it is. A contrivance? I hope not. I hope it's as natural as walking through the marketplace. So, Doksan hasn't started, but somebody got a question in. The question was, if you were watching your breath, but actually attending inwardly at the same time, to the non-conceptual way of relating to the breath, wouldn't you then stop being aware of the breath? So if the concept of breath was arising, but you paid attention to the non-conceptual way that mind was relating to it, wouldn't you like lose track of the concept of breath?

[15:39]

necessarily you might stop paying attention to the breath because why would you pay attention anymore once you're like doing shamatha once you're aware of the basic mode of the mind as a non-conceptual that's arising why focus on the breath you might not it's true but you might continue But the reason the continuing of paying attention to the breath would not be as a shamatha practice. It would be for some other reason. Here's some other reasons that I gave this. It's like when you're swimming, if you're doing the crawl, and you put your face in the water, and you can't keep your face in the water indefinitely unless you have a snorkel. So when you put your face in the water, you have to take your face out of the water and get breath. So in order to swim, you keep track of your breath.

[16:41]

So you watch, you keep track, and so you exhale in the water, and then you lift your face out of the water and inhale. And then you turn the face back, exhale, and turn the face out of the water and inhale. So you're actually, you're breathing. Okay? And you might, Even if you're practicing Samatha in the water while you're swimming, you might still continue to be aware of your breath. But it wouldn't be Samatha unless you are non-conceptually relating to the process of breathing. And, ladies and gentlemen, being in the water and swimming and practicing Samatha is possible. And it's also possible to be in the water, paying attention to your breathing, and practice Samatha, to be in the water, and paying attention to your breathing, and not practicing Samatha.

[17:45]

The difference being that in one case you're attending to the process of breathing non-conceptually. You're resting in the non-conceptual nature of the mind. In the other case, you're looking at the concept of the breathing process. which works pretty well, but you're basically not calm because you're elaborating on the concept of the breathing process. You're elaborating on it. You're elaborating on it because the mind is not attending to the non-elaboration of the process. So you're not calm in the water. You're just dead in the water. Another example is you could be doing, I like kin-hin. When I do kin-hin, the walking follows my breathing. So I basically, I just sort of like locked in to my walking being tied to my breathing.

[18:50]

But paying attention, synchronizing my breathing and my walking is not shamatha. What makes it shamatha, Tend to this process of the concepts of feet, legs, balance, breath, movement, all those concepts flying around, but to relating to that process from resting in the non-conceptual attitude towards all these concepts. Then it turns into Samatha. Or another example, you could be doing calligraphy. You've got a brush in your hand, there's ink on it, there's paper in front of you, you're aware of these concepts, and even though you turn back, turn the light, even though the light and you're aware of the objects, of the concepts, in a non-conceptual way, so that there's just hand

[19:57]

brush ink paper and your orientation is not the hand brush ink paper. Your orientation is no elaboration of these concepts. Sometimes when I'm doing calligraphy my mind starts to look at the hand and the ink and the brush, and sometimes not even paper, sometimes silk. And then I get scared. Then I get upset. Because we got this black silk. What's going to happen now? Yikes. Is this going to be OK, what's going to happen here? Is this ugly character going to be OK in this world? Is it going to be happy on this silk? So what I do in calligraphy is I cry into the process.

[21:03]

I cry into the process. I literally cry. I cry into just the concepts. I cry until there's just hand, ink, brush, arm. Everything else just cries away. All the conceptual elaboration like, what's going to happen now? Is this going to be okay? What character is this anyway? What am I doing writing Chinese? My wife thinks I, you know, this is crazy. All this stuff, I just cry away. Just cries away. Then I enter into a non-conceptual way of relating to these concepts. But it isn't that the brush drops out of my hand. or that I leave the calligraphy. The conceptions are still arising and ceasing, arising and ceasing, arising and ceasing, concepts coming up, zillions of concepts to make this complex thing called not just brush, but zillions of concepts about to make the brush the brush it is.

[22:16]

Many, many concepts are arising extremely fast. It goes on. But the shamatha is there's no that each image is just what it is. So it isn't that the attention to the breathing would stop, but it might. It might stop. You just might say, well, I'm not going to follow my breathing anymore. But then the sound of the krik arises. Or then somebody puts a brush in your hand. Or then somebody hands you a carrot. Something happens. It doesn't have to be a carrot or a knife or a brush or breathing. But sometimes it is breathing because you're in a situation where somehow that just causes the conditions to come in together. So there you are. Sometimes you're sitting in samatha.

[23:19]

you are you're practicing shamatha what are you doing you're just inwardly attending to the non-conceptual nature of mind while a wall the image of a wall arises the concept of a person arises the concept of lunch arises and then suddenly the concept of breath arises the concept of the process it arises and it arises and it arises and it arises the causes of conditions are such that you're just inundated with awareness of the concept of breathing, and it just keeps being that way for like two minutes, six minutes, eight and a half minutes, 40 minutes, without you even intending to follow your breathing, just like somebody tuned in breath, and the concept of breath comes sweeping through your life, and then somebody tunes in concept of barking dog, and the barking dog sweeps through your life, or coughing throat, The conceptual stream is not the shamatha.

[24:23]

It's the attitude towards it. It is the engagement, the mental engagement, the training of the attention in this non-conceptual way. So, the sixth sense is somehow conducting his life such that when he heard the teaching, it penetrated him. When you're in this conceptual training program and when it takes effect, when you hear the Dharma, it penetrates you. It penetrates you. You're not, you're not, you're not nature of mind. You're not like disturbing this conceptually innocent nature of mind. So concepts penetrate and touch, touch and are known. deep and superficial. In all ways they're known, they're known. So the sixth ancestor was that way, so he could hear and be touched by the teaching.

[25:33]

So then somebody tells him, hey, you know, knows how to work this diamond sutra, and he can touch you really more and more with this. So you might wanna go study with him. He's called the fifth ancestor of Zen. He lives up north. So the little baby sixth ancestor, who's not the sixth ancestor yet, he's called Workman Lu. His name is Mr. Lu. He says, okay, I'm going to go see this teacher and learn more about this wonderful diamond sutra. This diamond of perfect wisdom. I want to go hear more about this. I'll take my little shamatha body up north. So he starts walking up north. And many wonderful things happen on the way. That's all right. And just get him up there. And now you meet the sixth ancestor, and the fifth ancestor, and the sixth ancestor, you know, the fifth ancestor says to Workman Lu something about, where are you from? And Workman Lu says, you know, I'm from Canton.

[26:36]

And I think the fifth ancestor says, there's no Buddha nature in Canton. And Workman Lu says, well, when it comes to Buddha nature, there's no Canton and not Canton. And the fifth ancestor said, oh, yeah, well, go to the rice pounding area. He didn't want anybody to know what he had there, so he hid them away in the rice pounding area. So then he went there, and for eight months, he worked in the rice. You know, where they take the rice. They had brown rice. And they were taking the hulls off the brown rice. These stupid Zen monks. They were innocent of macrobiotics. Actually, they weren't innocent of macrobiotics. They were conceptually elaborate.

[27:40]

You know? And they were like taking those beautiful little brown rice things and they were pounding them. Our ancestor pounded those brown rices and knocked those hulls off. All those vitamins and minerals and all that roughage, they were grinding off the rice. Our boy did that. For eight months, he went ahead and destroyed this perfectly good food and made it into white rice. This is our defiled lineage. So after working, he says he worked day and night, you know, putting that rice and that into the mortar and pounding it, pounding it, pounding it, knocking those hulls off. Anyway, the fifth ancestor, I don't know what was happening. I think he maybe had a heart attack.

[28:42]

And he realized it was time to pass the teaching on. So he said, OK, we're going to have an essay contest. So please write an essay about why you should be my . And so they had this big community. And the head monk was a really well-educated person. I imagine he knew something about shamatha. So he wrote it, and he wrote it. So everyone thought, well, he's going to write it, so he's the only one who even tried. So he wrote his little poem, essay poem, put it on a pillar. Everybody went and read it and thought, well, yep, that's a great poem. And the fifth ancestor looked at it and said, well, he actually looked at it and said, too bad. This boy needs work. He knew who it was. He told everyone else it was very good and they should memorize it.

[29:43]

guy who was in the rice pounding area who really did have this shamatha practice well established and he was like he was like doing this bad thing you know just pound [...] like hand and mortar and pestle and boom boom boom that was it just innocently, non-conceptually working away there. And he happened to walk by and he couldn't read it because he was a workman, not an educated monk. He asked someone to read it to him and he thought, oh, that's not too good. And the guy laughed at him. He said, who do you think you are? I said, well, could I write one? He said, yeah, sure. He wrote his on there. And the ancestor somehow saw it and knew who wrote it.

[30:46]

He knew who wrote it. It was that guy who was non-conceptually relating to the concept, the conceptual process of rice hulling. He knew. So in the middle of the night, he went to the rice hulling area. Now you might think, what does it mean he worked day and night? Well, he was practicing shamatha, so it doesn't matter, you know. So he was happy to practice even, you know, overtime on the shamatha thing he was doing. So there he was in the rice pounding area. The ancestor came and said, is the rice white yet? And he said, working loose at... When fully attained, he is dropping off body and mind. So this training the attention to be with the skeptic in this non-conceptual way. Training the attention to be with each other in this non-conceptual way.

[31:52]

Training the attention to be with your orgyoki bowls.

[31:56]

@Transcribed_v005
@Text_v005
@Score_88.86