I thought maybe today we could just sit all day, but then I thought we don't have much time, so I thought it would be better to get started looking at the practice that I wanted to do every year, actually, of course, every year, but particularly this year I'd like to be more specific to emphasize the practice of samadhi. I think some of you know that from the early days, Buddhist practice was sometimes, or Buddhist training, actually, Buddhist training was presented sometimes as having an aspect of looking at, originally, conduct. And then called the Vinaya, which means all the precepts of personal conduct plus the teaching about those practices of personal conduct, personal purification.

[01:18]

And then the next practice is the practice of samadhi, or training in awareness. And then the third is training in wisdom. the early education of Buddhism and those three training. Samadhi is, in a sense, one of those trainings, but also samadhi, as an awareness, embraces all three, of course. We only have three weeks for this particular session of training and study. And I hope to have us all get started trying to understand what samadhi is and then continue the study at least for the rest of the year in various venues.

[02:24]

But hopefully then on and on beyond understanding more and more what samadhi is and realizing it. And in particular, also, I want to bring to your attention and discuss with you what we call the Mahayana samadhi, the samadhis of the Mahayana, the samadhis of the There are also samadhis, other kinds of samadhi, besides samadhi bodhisattva, there are samadhis of the early Buddhism that, if you're speaking for saying so right off, that they're more dualistic. but they have to do more dualistic awareness.

[03:32]

Can you hear me okay? No? Those two people who are shaking their heads, there's two seats right up here in the front. What's the matter? You don't want to move? The word samadhi is used in lots of different ways and I have myself over the years found it a little bit unnerving to not be sure what people mean. And maybe during this time we can bring up some new different meanings and you'll maybe run into them in your discussions and discuss how they can be kind of made peace with each other.

[04:39]

In our noon service, most days, we'll probably be reciting what we call the Self-Receiving and Self-Employing Samadhi Namsak. We have this text which has the title, Self-Receiving and Self-Employing Samadhi. Awareness of how the self is received and how that received self is employed. And with the Madi, in the tradition of Japanese Soto Zen, of the teacher Dogen Benji, that teacher's teaching of what we call Zazen, has the criterion, or the standard, of the samadhi.

[05:57]

So, last night too I was looking out upon the assembly and seeing people sitting, everybody was sitting, and that sitting, when that sitting is sitting in the midst of the It is the sitting of the bodhisattva. It is the sitting of the Buddha. This is what you'll hear in this text that you'll recite today at noon service, that the authentic way of entering enlightenment is to, it says sit upright, but I would just say be upright in the middle of the samadhi. And then it goes on to describe what it's like in the samadhi. And basically what the samadhi is, is it an awareness of the way things are for Buddha.

[07:06]

Or for Buddha. And the way things are for Buddha is that Everything is assisting everything else in liberating everything, assisting everything else, assisting everything else to liberate, assisting everything else. The samadhi is the awareness of how everybody helping you Everybody needs everybody in your room, needs everybody on the planet, needs all the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas, how they're helping you, and how that help that comes to you from all beings and gives you life and gives you a self, how then that self resonates back that help, which then helps them, and then it resonates back and forth

[08:10]

beyond space and time. And so that awareness is what we sit in the middle of. And that samadhi, the samadhi which the teacher dug in, is kind of the main thing he wants to make sure that we're always sitting in the middle of when we practice together. And that makes our practice the same as enlightenment. There are other kinds of practices which probably some of you know about. For example, there's the practice which is the awareness of how people aren't helping you. Quite a few people are into that practice. They don't necessarily like it, but it just comes so easily that they're like, oh, that person's not helping me.

[09:18]

This person's not helping me. They're not helping me, they're not promoting my life. And also this not helping is resonating back off me back to them. I don't want to help them either. So this is another kind of samadhi. It's not as stable and serene as the former, but it is a kind of awareness. People are well established in such a samadhi. And then there's sort of in between those kind of nasty anti-Buddhist samadhi, there's also just a samadhi where you're aware perhaps of, you could be aware of your breathing. And you could see it from the point of view of, I am now going to practice being aware of my breath. And I'm somewhat successful or I'm not so successful, and now I'm going to try again, and I'm going to do this, and I'm going to do that, and I'm going to practice this wholesome thing.

[10:19]

This is another kind of samadhi, which this samadhi, I would say, is fairly wholesome and beneficial to yourself and to others. But it's not the bodhisattva samadhi. It's already getting warm up in this area. Could we open some windows? Yes. So this is one example of a mahayana or a bodhisattva samadhi is self-perceiving receiving and giving kind of awareness. Awareness of how receiving and giving is going on. Receiving, giving, receiving, giving. This is one of the bodhisattva samadhi that we'll be looking at. That's very important in this particular tradition. Repeat the samadhi.

[11:26]

It's called... The samadhi of... It was the same as before, I just said it differently. The samadhi of receiving and giving. Receiving and giving, receiving and giving. The samadhi of that resonance of receiving help and giving help, and receiving help and giving the help which you received, and then getting back the help in relationship to the help you gave. This kind of samadhi is one of the... the ones that we're looking at repeatedly. And I would recommend, you know, if you, we have a study hall that will probably happen occasionally, and you have some other time when you might have time to, like, study a text or something, and I would recommend that you memorize the text, which, you know, we'll be chanting at noon service. It's two pages long and kind of a lot to memorize, but I recommend it.

[12:28]

If you memorize it, well, it would just be wonderful that you have that text in you telling you about the way it is to be in the samadhi. You can consider this outrageous situation of this inconsistently thorough mutual assistance that's going on all the time. So that's one important Mahayana samadhi for us in the Venn School. I just mentioned a few others just in case we never have another class. Another important samadhi is the Surangama Samadhi, which we studied in August Sesshin here this year. And the way to translate that would be to translate it as the Heroic Stride Samadhi, or the Heroic March, or the Heroic Progress Samadhi.

[13:34]

the awareness of the heroic stride of the bodhisattva. It's an awareness, it's a scripture which is describing the heroic stride of the bodhisattva, describing how the bodhisattva marches through the world of all beings in this heroic fashion. It describes the fearless love of the bodhisattva, And we have a couple of copies of that in the library, which will be on reserve. And if you want to read that text, I would suggest that those of you who want to read it maybe get together, or find other people that have copies to borrow, because there's a number of copies at Green College, and get together and recite it together.

[14:38]

That's another very important, historically speaking, one of the early emergencies of a whole scripture about a bodhisattva samadhi. Another bodhisattva samadhi is the ocean seal samadhi. And that's not referring to the mammal, but the oceanic emblem or the oceanic mudra samadhi. I believe it's the samadhi that Samantabhadra is in as he acts out his life in the Avatamsaka Sutra. And there's also the jewel mirror, which is the awareness, the state of concentration, which was transmitted by yin-yang to dung-shan.

[15:52]

So a very important part of our lineage is the transmission of this jewel mirror, which we also chant sometimes in morning service. on particular dimension. Another important is called the one practice samadhi. This is a samadhi which was brought forth and emphasized by the fourth ancestor of Zen. There's some readings on that teacher's teaching of the one practice samadhi. So in one sense it's the awareness of one practice, or the awareness of the one practice that everybody's doing all the time. So we have our various different practices that we're doing, but there's also one practice that we're doing, or there's a kind of activity of all beings.

[17:02]

So the one practice samadhi is like being aware of this uniform quality of all life, I'm right now, but basically there's infinite numbers, infinite possibilities for these samadhis. The key factor in the Mahayana samadhi is that They are to be aware of and to be, the samadhi is to be aware of and immersed in the teaching of nonduality. The teaching of non-duality, I'm not saying that it wasn't present in Buddha's early teachings, because I think it's implied.

[18:19]

Somehow, it was in a thing called the Mahayana, this movement called the Mahayana, that a fuller exposition of non-duality was brought forth. It's easier for people to understand, I'm over here, you're over there. I do my practice, you do your practice. You have a good practice, I don't have such a good practice. Here's the Buddhist practicing over here, the non-Buddhists aren't practicing over there. This way of seeing the world is easy for people because people naturally are equipped to think dualistically.

[19:23]

And so, in some sense, Buddha, when Buddha first taught, Buddha just went along with people's dualistic thinking so they could understand what he was talking about. I mean, so they could, so he could say what they didn't understand. Sometimes people say that when he was first asked to talk, he just talked the way he was thinking and they didn't understand, so they changed to dualistic mode. And they understood that. How's the air now? I'm sort of like, what do you call it? I'm a little higher, but I pick the heat up faster. Do you want me to open some more windows? So another way to think of these, of all samadhis, is that they are all samadhis for the opportunity to bring a teaching into being.

[20:48]

So you may hear various teachings, dualistic teaching or non-dualistic teachings, you may hear teachings But samadhi is a way to make the teaching come into being. So, in terms of dualistic teachings, there's lots of dualistic teachings that are beneficial. For example, the teaching that, you know, if you do harmful things and if you do kind things, you're going to be happy. That's a teaching. And And you might be happy to hear that teaching. And then you might have some discussion about how does that teaching work and understand it. But still, you might not be practicing it. You need the samadhi of that teaching. There's still that teaching over there and you're life separate from it. So samadhi could be a way that you settle into and join that teaching and let that teaching join you.

[21:52]

So even a kind of dualistic expression like that, that's helpful, can be brought into the body. And the non-dual teachings, the same. And then when we become, if we can become non-duality, which is really what we already are, but fully realize that, then if we wish to help we would be fearless. We wouldn't be afraid of hanging out with the most troubled, most difficult being. Because we would be the non-duality of that being and ourself. And we would be the non-duality of blissful liberation and miserable bondage. So again, the early Buddhist teaching looks like these people were trying to get blissful, stable, total freedom for themselves.

[23:03]

And of course, anybody else, they'd like to help too. I think early Buddhists definitely wanted other people to be liberated too. But the method was get liberated and then help others. But also the method was liberation is different from bondage. That was the way it looked. It sounded like that's what Buddha was teaching. There's liberation, which is like really great. Freedom is actually possible and it is just the best thing I've ever thought of. And misery, actually you haven't even yet, you don't even yet know how bad misery is. And actually you have to practice for quite a while before you can dare to see how horrible bondage is. But I want to help you do that. And that's my end of the thing. Bondage is not miserable. Same as the early Buddha. The Bodhisattva knows how bad suffering can be and how great nirvana can be.

[24:09]

It's that the Bodhisattva understands that they're not separate. They're not dual. and Bodhisattva uses liberation, doesn't go to liberation and stay there, the Bodhisattva realizes liberation to bring intimately together with bondage, to realize that non-duality. That's why they can have this heroic stride. They're not afraid to go into misery. because they're never apart from non-duality. And they're not afraid of nirvana either, because they're never apart from non-duality. So they won't, what they call, camp out in nirvana. Because they can't, because they have this to keep moving through all states. I'll say this probably many times, but if you have heard about the early teachings of Buddhism and then seen the later teachings of Mahayana, the later teachings are different and put more emphasis on emptiness and non-duality.

[25:51]

Early teachings of Buddhism are about selflessness. They're about selflessness. They're about a lack of inherent existence. The later teachings are about selflessness, too. But the early teachings, again, because the people weren't ready for it, the early teachings were more emphasizing the selflessness of the persons. and didn't mention so much about the selflessness of all phenomena. The later teaching identifies again both the selflessness of the person and the selflessness of all phenomena. And in India, The Indian ancestors of the Buddhist tradition did a wonderful job of putting out the teaching of emptiness and the teaching of non-duality.

[27:06]

But they didn't leave us much instruction about how to bring these teachings of non-duality into our life. One of the few that... most do this, in a way, are two that are on the reading list, which you can have. Do you have a reading list here, Bert? So Bert has a reading list. So under the Indian section of the reading list, two sutras that most show us the teaching of non-duality into our lives are the Surya Rangama Samadhi Sutra and the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra. And these sutras are sutras which not too many people know about in the West. We don't know too much about them because they've just been recently translated. So this phase of the transmission of Mahayana to the West has not had the sutras available in the native languages.

[28:20]

But now we do. Now you can see descriptions of samadhis which you maybe haven't seen so much before. When Buddhism moved to China, the Chinese did lots more to create samadhi to help people bring this teaching of non-duality into their lives. So that's one of the great contributions of Chinese Buddhism is to make all these meditation practices which help us realize all these samadhis, this ultimate teaching into being And so during these three weeks, you may want to look at the Indian texts and some of the Chinese texts. And Zen is also part of this whole Chinese movement, but not the Buddhism that made up, that dreamed up, that created samadhis to help bring the teaching of emptiness into our life.

[29:29]

I was talking to someone during the December Sashin here in Green Elch, and she was talking to me about the topic that was being discussed during the Sashin, which was the merging of difference and equality. And there was a part of the poem which she particularly liked, or liked, I don't know if she liked it, maybe she doesn't like it anymore, but it was the part where it says, right in light there is darkness, right in darkness there is light, but don't try to get it as light. Know that part? She liked that part very much. And then she said, but I was wondering how I can understand it. She said, my tendency... usually to try to understand something is to try to analyze it. And so she said, so how should I go about understanding that teaching and also maybe other teachings in that particular text?

[30:55]

And I What came to my mind is something which, again, I will tell you about. It's a process of understanding that's laid out in actually one of the scriptures that we mentioned just a moment ago. It's laid out in the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra, the process by which you come to learn in the Buddhist learning process. But I didn't say that to her. I said something else, which was a story which I think some of you have heard already. And it's a story about, it's from a book called Kindness or Reverence Towards All Life. And in this book, this man, the author of this book, spent time with Native Americans, I believe, in either New Mexico or Arizona, I think Navajo. And one of the things about these people, I guess about the young men of the Navajo nation that he particularly appreciated was the way they could ride ponies bareback.

[32:14]

So I thought, when she asked, how can Well, Chinese text, Chinese Buddhist text. I thought of that example after skipping over the traditional Buddhist answer about how you understand something. The traditional Buddhist answer is a little more elaborate, and this is more succinct. So anyway, he was watching the riders riding his ponies And he was watching them, sitting next to the chief of the group, who he was a friend with. And he said, how did these people learn how to ride these ponies? And they were sitting next to each other, I think, and the chiefs didn't answer for two hours, I believe.

[33:20]

Two hours after asking that question. How did these bodhisattvas practice the samadhi, these samadhis? How can they practice these samadhis so that they, like, can heroically be of service to all beings. It's just incredible what they supposedly are able to do for people and other animals and plants. How can they practically model? So then the person you ask sits there for two hours. And then the chief said, that's a good question. And that was that. And then I think a year or a couple years later, they were together again, he and the chief. And the chief said, I think it's a good question.

[34:21]

And he said, first of all, I think he said this, first of all, you'll never be able to ride these ponies. You have to grow up with them. You have to play with them. You have to groom them. You have to clean up their excrement. And then, after you grow up with them, There comes a time when you can start writing. And maybe I can't really say, I can't describe how to do this for you, but maybe I can show you with my hand. So he took his hand and put it together, joined the palms, and interlaced the fingers. And then the two index fingers came up together and joined.

[35:27]

And then the joined index fingers made a circle. So that's how we learned how to ride the ponies. And thinking about that answer, I think that that's also how you learn Buddhism. So I see in that presentation that you come to meet the material. You come to meet the objects that study. It can be text, it can be your body, it can be breath, it can be another person. You come to meet whatever it is that you study. And you settle into that meeting. And then, the next step is, you analyze. You analyze, you break apart and examine the different parts and become even more intimate through that examination.

[36:31]

And now you're, now the unexamined and the examined relationship are both very close. And from that emerges the enactment of whatever the teaching is. And it's no longer you or the teaching that's being expressed, it's the non-duality of you and the teaching that's being expressed. Originally, you and the teaching's non-duality were somewhat separate. And you have to use that separation, actually, to get together. And you have to sort of, in some way, work on that preparation and become intimate with all the aspects of that preparation in order to realize the non-duality. And the non-duality expresses itself as the bodhisattva samadhi or riding ponies without saddle or bridle. In the writing, the ponies, it isn't exactly the young man.

[37:39]

The ponies carrying the young man. They have this rapport such that you don't need, one side doesn't need to be controlling the other side. Which is... very intimate. And I also heard another description of how to, a Western description of how to ride horses, and I didn't read the whole book, but I read a little bit, and it said, you know, an adult horse already knows, you know, everything it knows how to do, basically. They, you know, a healthy adult horse can walk, can stand, can trot, can canter, can gallop, Any other strides that they do that I missed? They can already do that. You don't teach them to gallop.

[38:44]

You don't teach them to canter. What you do is you learn how to tell them which of the things they already know how to do you would like them to do. And you basically tell them with your butt, your legs, and your... I guess you can talk too, but it's mostly with your hands and your legs and your butt, according to this book. So, it's like you have to be able to convey, give that clear message. If you give unclear messages through your hands and your legs and your butt about what you want, you know, of course, just do the best you can with unclear messages. And even if you give clear messages, if you've given some other messages that the horse doesn't like, the horse might not want to do what you ask. But I guess if you've given certain messages to the horse that the horse likes, which maybe don't have so much to do with what you should do, but just basically something about the way you feel about the horse.

[39:44]

I don't really know what horses like to hear from us. But I've heard that one of the main things they like is they like the message of, I'm just sitting on you. So that's the message of, you're actually sitting on me. They kind of realize that that's pretty much it. You're there with them. This is not a, you're not better, you're not worse, you're just sitting the horse. And that's one of the main messages you send the horse. And then these other messages about, well, let's walk now. They may be willing to go along with that with you once you've made the decision of, you know, we're just here together. And I think this kind of feeling of great respect for the horse, I think horses like to be respected and loved. I think they do, I don't know. Once they get that message, if you ask them to do these other things, in an unclear way, they still don't know what you're asking for. You still have to learn how to tell them what you want, even if they would be happy to do whatever you want.

[40:47]

And I think there's a possibility even in that way of looking at the horse riding, which can approach this other way. So it isn't so much you controlling the horse, like you sitting the horse, and you're telling the horse what you like, and the horse does what you like, because they want to do what you like. Maybe not out of fear, but out of cooperation. What time do we usually stop this class? 10.30? One more thing I thought I might mention is as a basic thing to do while learning about these samadhis and samadhis is partly learning the method for entering the samadhi, but also part of learning about these samadhis is learning about the teaching which these samadhis are intended to realize.

[41:54]

So we will both be learning about the teachings of non-duality, the yogic exercises for bringing non-duality into your body and mind. So you may not yet have enough material even to bring anything into realization, so you can start working and preparing yourself for entering into the samadhi before you even hear much about what the samadhi is like. And the basic way to sort of prepare and get ready to enter the samadhi is to The basic way of getting ready to enter the samadhi is body and mind dropping off.

[42:56]

The way of entering the samadhi is dropping off body and mind. Or the dropping off body and mind is the way of entering the samadhi. So this dropping off body and mind, I don't want to say the thing for you to do now is to drop off body and mind, but rather that the way to get ready to enter the samadhi is body and mind dropping away. So this body and mind dropping away fortunately is available to you now. There is a body dropping away right now. You don't have to go find one. Or you don't have to make the body you've got drop away. Because again, you making the body drop away would be holding your mind, holding your view, dropping your body.

[44:02]

But giving up, the giving up of that view and giving up the body. This is the way to enter the samadhi. And again, that's a verbal expression which is coming out of the mouth now, and you're hearing. And how can that also be let in, met, analyzed, and joined ways to encourage this intimacy with the teaching of body and mind dropping off. Body and mind dropping off, or dropping off body and mind, if not the whole of the Bodhisattva Samadhi, is more like the way of entering it. if body and mind were not dropping off.

[45:08]

So this dropping off body and mind is available to us, exhale by exhale. And the activation of body and mind is available to us, inhale by inhale. So every exhale you can join this body and mind dropping off. And every inhale you can notice, didn't move that much, Still got a body-mind? No problem. So I guess maybe I could find this one being dropped off too. So there's a basic practice of entering the samadhi we practice. Just not grasping anything. Not grasping physically, not grasping mentally. And so moment by moment you're given physical data and mental data, right?

[46:10]

Plenty of that's happening in this practice period, before this practice period, after this practice period. You've got lots of stuff being given to you. Now can you just not grasp it? And not grasping whatever comes is body mind dropping away. And again, I say that already there is a not grasping of the physical and mental experience of non-grasping of them. And that already non-grasping of them is entering samadhi already. Your job is to join this program of the samadhi which is already going on by being willing to not grasp not graph physical and mental data, but not graph the idea. Oh, that's a really great person there.

[47:12]

Oh, this person is like low quality. There's somebody there, there's somebody who's really helping this practice period, making it go along really well. This person's resisting. Those are some thoughts that might occur to somebody. Or my body hurts, and my body doesn't. And my leg doesn't know what to do. My leg does know what to do. So these are information that comes to us. The way to enter the samadhi is not to grasp any of those things. Grasping them is more or less more or less Misery. Sometimes it's like a little bit of misery, and sometimes it's tremendously terrible what we do when we grasp these things.

[48:14]

For example, when we grasp the thought, these people are not helping this person. These people are interfering with the good. We have such thoughts. I'm not saying those thoughts are wrong or right. I'm just saying that to enter the samadhi, we have to not grasp those thoughts. So you can start practicing that. Very simple. We'll start that right now. That will help you, I think. Get ready for the samadhi. It will also help you understand all the teachings about the samadhis. It will also help you actually find that there is some interest in studying these samadhis. There's a body and mind. If you want to study the samadhis, that body and mind will appear someday. if you let go of the body and mind that's not so interested in studying the samadhis. And also, if you have a body and mind which is interested in studying the samadhis and is not grasping at that, that also promotes interest in studying the samadhis.

[49:17]

That will be the world you will enter. So maybe that's enough for starters. So there's a reading list. And I'm not encouraging you to read all the books on the list. Of course, there's too many books for almost anything, even if we could get them all. But they're there if you'd like to look at some of them during study hall. I'll refer to them sometimes. And I'm studying the text with people in small groups now, and I will continue during the practice period. And if I have time to study the text during the practice period, we can let Mayan know, and we can make some other small study groups. And I guess that's enough for starters. Do you have any comments? Okay.

[50:25]

Questions or comments? I'm not sure I know when I grab and when I lock. Oh. Well, have you ever thought you were right about talking? Well, not necessarily. You should have thought I'm right. Did you have a thought that I'm right? I tried to have a thought. I said, actually, not grasping, but I got to act like I was not thinking. So if you're trying to pick yourself up and you don't get it, then you might not be grasping the thought you didn't get. But when that thought that you're seeking appears, like a likely candidate for grasping, you really got what you were seeking. Bring it to the same effect. That's exactly what you do. It might not stay in your head, but people who didn't agree with you. Rather than, you know, like, yeah, I could be like, well, I finally got, I finally got something that I think is true.

[51:35]

You know, if I really think it's true, this would be good. There it is around. This is not a beautiful road. I think it's a different road. And it's true. I understand. It's true. I've been thinking about it, now I understand it'd be true to get rid of this rug and just have a nice, not even another rug, it'd be nice to have a wood floor here. I might have that idea and think it was true. Okay? And I might say, I might, you know, go to the greenhouse and say, I have a suggestion that we get rid of this rug and put the wood floor. It still doesn't say that I'm drafting the idea, however. When they say no, if they say no, and they even say, you know, we think about it, And then I feel insulted. Then I find probably another drafting. Also, if I were, if I had, if I by any chance had the good fortune of not drafting, of just sitting, you know, in a state of observing what's happening and not drafting, then if I did start drafting, I would notice that my mind would become very agitated.

[52:49]

And I would notice... I think something is true, like those glasses are not very flattering to me. I might think that. That's my fault. ...meant that I was sort of speaking in my thing, it suddenly might have become your thing. Because maybe you chose your glasses. I'm pretty cute with them on. And then someone said, you know, they're not actually... And then you start being... And then it's not that you put the glasses on your face, thinking that they were kind of like cute. but had more passion to the idea. You thought they were cute, and you thought that was true, and you held that, and you put the glasses on with that, and when somebody says they're not very attractive, you notice a lot of energies flowing all around there.

[53:59]

Saying it to you, again, If you say any of that, you know, well, actually you're totally wrong. They're actually about the cutest possible glasses I've ever seen. Then I listen to that, you know, and it doesn't really disturb you. I just say, wow, we have different opinions. If you think, you know, that those are not very attractive glasses, I might think, well, maybe you should be asked to leave Greenhalgh. You get into that kind of stuff. Because you get so upset. You get so upset, you think, you know, I was okay, and then this person came by and was upset, so I want to eliminate the person. You know, since the glass is the door of the person, let's get rid of the person. You can get into that kind of stuff. And if you ever get into that kind of stuff, you're probably, and you have all this heat and agitation, you're probably attached to it. But if you have a opinion like so-and-so is really a jerk, and you just see that as a thought running through your mind, something like, such thoughts can still occur here?

[55:09]

That's amazing. I'm like an ordinary person. I can think like, you know, amazing. And then the person comes up to me and says, would you give me your finger? I say, well, I'll consider it. And I really might, you know, because it's because I'm not attached to my idea. This person is not as valuable or precious to me as some other person. I may have that idea because I think they're a jerk, right? But if I don't attach to that, I could consider really being devoted to this person who I have this idea about that they're not really that cool. But if I hold to that idea, it interferes with my relationship with the person. But you can have a good relationship with the person while having such ideas. Similarly, you can have an idea that this person is great and attach to that, and that can interfere. This is my most special, most precious person. You hold to that, that will interfere, because what if they change? Try to get them back to being the way they were.

[56:14]

They want to move on, you know. So any kind of attachment to what you think of people, you start to notice that there's an attachment there. When things start changing and you don't go with it, you start fighting it, or you have energy problems and agitation around it. And with physical things, you know, like, for example, if I get up off, you know, when I get up off, when I sit cross-legged, when I first get up off the pond to walk, my right leg has pretty much forgotten how to walk after being sitting for 40 minutes. So actually, the first couple steps are really hard to take because it's just, I don't know what's going to happen. It feels like it could kick in. Then once I start moving along, you know, it starts to flow. But there's actually, there's grafting in my leg now. And I'm not in control about this because it's grafting and holding at my leg, trying to learn, you know, when to tense up and when not to tense up.

[57:20]

It's called walking. I'm limited by the grasping which I sense going on in the learning about the grasping, the necessary and unnecessary grasping. When you're sitting, you may be able to notice, is there any gripping any place in your body, in your back, in your face, in your hand, in your groin, in your knee, any gripping, any place? So any place you find any gripping, just try to stay up there, detect the gripping, and be willing anyway to let it drop away. So you start with your body, just try to let the body join, discover, be willing to join the body that's dropping away moment by moment. If you find it clinging, that's fine, don't get upset about it, just say, there's some clinging, and that attitude itself is not really drastic. Okay. So probably more examples of this will come up to you as you consider not grasping and not seeking.

[58:26]

And another way I put it, which seems to be helpful, is whatever comes, whoever comes, how anything comes to you, meet everything with complete relaxation. And of course that isn't something you just a possibility that's always there. Meet whatever comes with complete relaxation. When you're sitting in the meditation hall, when you're walking in the meditation hall, when you're eating, when you're walking out, when you're working, whatever it is, meet it with complete relaxation. These are examples of ways to bring nonduality into your life, to open to the teaching of non-duality. May I? So if you notice, I think the first is jerk, then why? Yeah, that's a very common one, very, very common one among Zen students is that they feel that some people, they feel that other Zen students are jerks.

[59:34]

And they know that they're supposed to be like, right? And respecting all beings and practicing loving kindness and, you know, being devoted to all beings. But actually they think that these people, a lot of these people here are just like, like I said, you know, below average. And they, but they feel terrible. They don't like the people, but they really feel bad about not liking them. Because they know that that's not what they come here for. They don't come here to be with people they don't like and then also be with them and then also not like them all the time. It's going on all day. I don't like it. They hate it. So more than trying to get rid of the jerks, they're trying to stop their own mind disparaging people. That's what people are really upset about. So the most difficult thing to accept for a lot of people at Zen Center is how judgmental they are of the other people. This is what people are really upset about. But that too, you should accept that you think, you should accept if you think practicing with are not top-notch bodhisattvas.

[60:46]

Part of the samadhi is that some of these people who appear as not top-notch bodhisattvas are actually bodhisattvas in disguise as not top-notch bodhisattvas. They're here to help us relax, to test our relaxation. And then some of your own states, some of your own petty states are actually bodhisattvas in disguise. Well, can you relax with this one? Can you have this thought and not grasp it? And not punish yourself for it? Can you? And if you can, well, how about this one? And sometimes you get a break. You know, or like all the thoughts are like, easy to not seek anything else, and easy not to grasp. And then you're very calm. And that helps you when those, during those break times, that helps you the next time you grasp, because you can see, where did this agitation come from?

[61:51]

Oh, it's because I'm holding it, or seeking it. So, it's very common to have a different state of mind, a less judgmental state of mind, of course a more calm state of mind. And again, in early Buddhism, I'm not saying the Buddha meant this, but some people thought the Buddha meant you're supposed to get rid of the distraction and you did a whole of the concentration. Meditation was. It never was. That was never Buddha's meditation. He learned that that was a mistake. But that's what a lot of people think meditation is. They come to Zen Center, they go to the meditation retreat, and then they say, well, I had a really terrible meditation and I was distracted the whole time. So they were distracted. In other words, they had the thought, I'm distracted. And then you say, well, I was.

[62:53]

In fact, that is true that I was distracted. Okay, fine. I feel terrible. You're right about being distracted though, right? Yes, I am right. You're not happy about being right. But you are unhappy about what you're right about, right? Yes. I was distracted and I'm really miserable about it. And I can't get myself to be not distracted. I'd like to get myself to be concentrated and calm. I want to get calm as soon as possible. A lot of people practice that way for many years. And I think, actually again, it looks like even Buddhist texts are saying to practice like that. Like, be getting calm to read. And be really mean about all your states of distraction. If you distract it, like crush it. And one time I said to a guy, quite recently, I said it various times, but most of the time I said, but a lot of times people, what they think meditation is, is like, I'm going to direct my mind onto that.

[64:07]

And if my mind's on that, fine, I'm concentrated, I'm a good Buddhist. And then if I'm not thinking of that, I'm in trouble. And I should feel bad about myself. That's a lot of people approach meditation that way. Have you ever heard about that? maybe none of you, but I've heard it from other people, that's what they think meditation is. And then they say, so I'm trying to focus on that, my breath, or my mantra, or some teaching, or my body. And then I get distracted, I go off. And I said to this guy, why don't you be there? Why don't you be where you are? Which is called being off. He said, yeah. Usually people go, but then I'll be distracted. Yeah, but if you're there with your distraction, you're just there in what you call distraction. I don't like to be distracted. I'd rather be over there with concentration. Well, fine, wouldn't that happen?

[65:08]

It's okay to be concentrated. But if you're concentrated and you're attached to it, it's nice that you're concentrated, but it's not nice that you're attached to it. are concentrated, they are actually quite concentrated, and they are attached to it, and this is called Zen sickness. It's being attached to being concentrated. They are concentrated, though. But the perfection of meditation, the perfection of concentration, it's all of the concentration. If you've got some concentration... Good, fine. Now if you want to perfect it, let go of it. Now it's a greeting. Nobody can touch it. It's unshakable when you let go of it. If you don't have any concentration, and you let go of not having any, you can concentrate. And if you don't have any concentration, and you fight it, you get, generally speaking, you'll get more agitated.

[66:10]

Now, it might be possible you won't get more agitated because you're already fighting it so much that pretty much you can't, you're, what do you call it, topped out on agitation. If you actually would fight it more, you might get the joke, you know. Do you know what I mean? If you would like really go, I'm here. But in some sense to fully exert your resistance. is kind of relaxing into your resistance. So if you're resisting and you... Again, a lot of people say, well, I'm resisting the meditation, you know. But they're kind of half-heartedly resisting. Yeah, I'm resisting. I sit here. Rather than, I'm totally resisting being here. And there's some relaxation in that. In other words, you're so fully resisting, you're not grasping it anymore.

[67:15]

And you're not seeking. You're so fully resisting, you're not seeking being an unresistable. So the relaxation, the dropping away body-mind, is always sort of right at the tip of your mind. It's always right with you. You don't have to go far to find this body dropping off. You're already in it. and you're already in the samadhi, you appreciate this dropping-off body and mind, and you realize how you've entered the samadhi. And this relaxation and non-grasping and non-seeking, that basically of conducting yourself through the day, you can start that right now, and that will help you Again, not tense up when you hear these teachings, which sometimes maybe rather seem rather overwhelmingly, wonderfully impossible that you would ever attain. But it's not really, you know, it's the point that we can enter the samadhi.

[68:22]

We can receive this help. we are receiving this help. We can give back this help we're receiving. It is possible. It's already going on. So gradually we can immerse ourselves in this samadhi and become more and more servants of it, vehicles of it, students of it, teachers of it, benefactors of it, beneficiaries of it, all that. Any other questions or comments? Elizabeth? What do you mean it's already going on? If I'm aware that I want to hold on to life, but I want my body to let go of life, is that already going on? Would you say it again, smart girl? I'm trying to understand what it means that it's already going on and dropping away. If I wanted to stay alive, hold on to life, but my body isn't, then I'm going to die.

[69:28]

But my body is already a little bit off-weight, and my mind wants to hold on to that, to that equivalent. I don't know. Is that equivalent? Let's take the example. It might be that your body is ready to die, and your mind is not. Like for a dying person, it needs... And then right now, I'm holding on to things, but there's a whole part of me that... Yeah. Okay, so we've got a body that's dying or a body that's changing, a body that's ready to cease. So we have a body that's ready to cease, and we have a mind which is not ready for that body to cease. But I also suggest we have a body that's not ready to cease, too. So we have not being ready to cease arises in dependence or in relationship with a body that's not ready to cease. So we have a gripping body that goes with a gripping mind.

[70:32]

And we also have a releasing, dying, changing body and a releasing, changing mind. At the same time. It's part of the non-duality. is that the clinging and the release are non-dual too. So being in samadhi, one who has entered the samadhi can see beings who are clinging and see that the beings are clinging, that they're clinging to something which was given to them and which is then given away. And at the same time, what's given is a sense that they're holding on to this and don't want to lose it even though it has just gone. And of course, we know someone, we cling to the person, they die, they change, and they so-called literally conventionally die. and they're not alive anymore, in the sense we usually call alive, we're still holding on to their life, even though it's not there anymore.

[71:38]

And this often makes us upset. And if we can go through grieving, we can accord with the fact that this person has died. We relax with the fact that they've died. Same with our own body. If we can relax with this body changing, relax mentally and physically with this body changing. Some people in their head, they're willing to relax with their body changing, but their body's not going along with that. So that's one way to look at it. The other way to look at it also is that we're resisting and clinging. That's also part of the process by which we are being helped and helping. But when we're clinging, we can't see that. Sometimes we can't even see how someone being relaxed is .

[72:39]

But when we're totally relaxed, we are given vision of how our own tension is also given to us and can be used to benefit others. Every event has its selfless quality and it can be whatever is beneficial and is. If it were a fixed thing, it would be all over. There would be no point to have practice because everything would just be totally deterministic. But it's not that things aren't fixed, it's just that things are empty. and therefore there is freedom, etc. So we're already in it, but it doesn't yet fully illuminate our awareness. When it illuminates our awareness, the samadhi has been realized, and that facilitates the awareness further.

[73:47]

But it isn't that it isn't already going on, it's just that we want to make it We want to make it more thorough so the Buddha sees within the samadhi, sees how everybody's working together, but sees how some people get it and wants people to get it. And he sees the reason why they don't get it is because of attachment and misconceptions. So if they would just let go of the misconceptions and also the other conceptions, the correct and incorrect people would let go of them, then they could also appreciate the samadhi of the Buddha. is in and is elucidated. Anything else you want to bring up to tell you, John? Samadhi seems identical to Zazen. Samadhi seems identical to Zazen? That's fine. When the teacher Dogen uses the word Zazen, he means Zazen of the Buddha.

[74:51]

And sometimes he or some of the disciples mention that there's other kinds of zazen. Zazen simply means sitting meditation or sitting trance. But some sitting meditation practices are not his zazen. The zazen he's espousing. The zazen he's espousing is in this particular bodhisattva samadhi. This samadhi is the criterion for the kind of sitting meditation or standing meditation or walking meditation that the bodhisattva tradition that Dogen represents is talking about. But to be sitting cross-legged and grasping and seeking and it's not that the samadhi isn't there, it's just that you exile yourself from that samadhi by your grasping.

[75:55]

So being exiled from the samadhi is not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to be totally integrated with the samadhi. And then the fullness of the Ajahn is realized. In the meantime, to sit Zazen and to be grasping and clinging, you're still doing Zazen. It's just that you don't, it's just that you exode yourself. But that's great that you're, you know, performing that service. The whole universe is supporting you, exiling yourself from Zazen. The whole universe is letting you pout, pout in your meditation practice. You know, to a certain extent you will be allowed to pout. Set your seat. Yes, Patty. So is letting go healthy? Is letting go healthy?

[76:56]

Yeah. If you were pouting, say, well, I don't know, I would say, oh, what a cute little powder. That might be too much. But it's almost okay. Just sort of like see how lovely it is, just how lovely pouting is. Pouting really is beautiful when you see how... the trees and the plants and the ocean and the sky and all the Buddhas are coming together to support you to pout. When you see that, you see the beauty of the pout. That's kind of like just leaving it alone. Or if you just leave the pout alone, you see how beautiful it is. But somehow, when you said that, I thought, yeah, you just let it be. You open up to how beautiful everything is, including pouting. Yes, Patty?

[77:59]

Yeah, if you were pouting and you just say, well, I don't know, I would say, oh, what a cute little powder. That might be too much. But it's almost okay. Just sort of like see how lovely it is. how lovely pouting is. Pouting really is beautiful. When you see how, you know, the trees and the plants and the ocean and the sky and all the Buddhas are coming together to support your pout, when you see that, you see the beauty of the pout, you know, that's kind of like... Or if you just leave the pout alone, you see how beautiful it is. But somehow, when you said that, I thought, yeah, you just... As soon as you let it be, you open up to how beautiful everything is, including pouting. I wasn't pouting exactly, but I was feeling a little sorry for myself.

[79:04]

A little bit I was going, going, oh, poor, poor boy. And you're feeling sorry for yourself. Yeah, I'm sorry. I mean, I'm not that bad. So, you know, you're doing these various things, and there's a little bit of difficulty here, and a little difficulty there, and a little pain here, and a little pain there, and a little loneliness, but I'm wasting my time, blah, blah, blah, to come to your mind. Oh, poor, poor, I'm wasting my time. Oh, poor baby. Some kind of soothing, loving, kind of like leaving home. Not just like later on. It's more like, oh, okay, okay.

[80:08]

You're going to pout now for this moment, okay? Yeah, I'm going to pout, okay. They're kind of like... So it's a little bit different response to pout than to like... I'm really sitting really well, you know. Yeah. I'm not pouting. I'm finally realized. Yeah. That feels pretty good, doesn't it? Yeah. Just let that be, you know? It's okay. Such a thing can happen. Such a feeling can arise. It's not a terrible thing. Unless you grasp it. If you grasp it, then, you know, the people next to you are kind of like, woo. Maybe you should have... You don't have to read any of the books, but if you want to, there's a reading list. And tomorrow I thought maybe I would talk a little bit about the different meanings that samadhi has over the history of the Buddhist tradition and the relationship between the different types of samadhis so that you understand the different ways the word has been used in different contexts.

[81:45]

Is that enough for today? Thank you very much. You're welcome. Amen.

[81:57]

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