I thought it would be good to have another class to make sure that it's clear about how to develop Samatha and Samadhi. This word Samatha means what? Mm-hmm. that the word Samatha really means that the state or the kind of awareness that is calm and focused and awake. And it's one of its main criterions is a Sanskrit word is used prashrabdhi. And prashrabdhi means to be flexible, malleable, workable, body and mind.

[01:10]

That's one of the main qualities of this tranquil abiding. and, you know, seem to be undistracted, even you might say fixated on something, but you're not flexible and soft, then it's not really what we mean by shamatha. And we use shamatha sometimes for the practice of developing shamatha. So you can say, shamatha practice the kind of cultivation that comes to fruit as tranquility. And when fully developed, it realizes one's pointedness of thought, so it becomes samadhi. And again, that samadhi can be the basis for developing the jhanas, and it can be the basis for developing bodhisattva.

[02:19]

which is the same as Buddha samadhis. When we use or when we practice in samadhi to develop the bodhisattva samadhis, we are combining shamatha with vipassana, then we start practicing insight within the samadhi. There's a couple poems written by ancestors in this lineage, and both of them are called zazen shin, which means sort of acupuncture needle of zazen. One's written by the grand uncle of Dogen's teacher in China.

[03:25]

His name was Hongzhi, Tiantong Hongzhi. He was abbot of the same monastery that Dogen's teacher was abbot. Tendong Rujing, Tendong Yojo. Tendong is the name of a monastery. And then a couple of generations before Dogen's teacher, the abbot of that temple, wrote a poem called Zazen Shin. At the end of the poem, he wrote something like, in Chinese, of course, The sky is clear. all the way to the horizon. A bird is far, far away. The water is clear all the way to the bottom.

[04:31]

Fish swim lazily along. This is a metaphor for shamatha. and Vipassana. Dogen wrote a slightly different poem, which is, The sky is clear into the heavens. Birds fly like birds. The water is clear straight to the earth. Fish swim like fish. So the bird flying in the sky is like the insight working in samadhi. And the fish swimming in the clear water, again, could be seen as an image of

[05:36]

insight work in a concentrated awareness. You know, I can picture a fish, you know, swimming in the clear water. You know, they just have, they're alive, right? And they do their thing. They do quite a bit of investigation in the water. I was into stuff, taste things, smell things. But this fish in this story is very clear water. And being flexible, but the water allows flexibility.

[06:43]

The fish can go wherever it wants. Wherever it wants to go, it can go, and it can go there as long as it wants to go there. Any kind of activity you want in the samadhi, focus on sewing, you can focus on sewing. And when you're done focusing on sewing, you can focus on something else. So that's an image of how they work. And another image that for a Zen person is a vigorously jumping fish. They don't usually mention that the fish is vigorously jumping in clear water. Fish can jump underwater too.

[07:47]

But sometimes they jump right out of the water. That kind of energy that's coming in samadhi ...of a Zen practitioner when they are functioning in Samadhi. Also in this Samadhi, Men and women sing and dance, but even stone women can dance and wooden men sing. Calm, flexible awareness. I think Yuki asked a question yesterday and mentioned something about some contemporary Zen priests do not talk about counting breath, but just... They don't talk about shamatha.

[09:22]

Zen priests usually do not use the word shamatha. It's not Again, we use the word, Zen priests more often use the word stillness or silence. And again, that character up there, it's like the German word stillen. Is it stillen? Stillen. which means both still and silent. So that character, which is the character that is in the self-fulfilling samadhi, that character means still and quiet and calm. So in this calm, which is the calm of samadhi, mind and object enter realization and go beyond enlightenment.

[10:30]

But one, I'll just say who said it, Shohako Okamura, looking over the teachings in various places, he mentioned that his teacher, Uchiyama Kosho, and his teacher, Sawaki Kodo, that they didn't teach counting the breath. They just taught, I guess, just sitting. And he said, but Suzuki Roshi said, taught counting the breath. And Suzuki Roshi did teach counting the breath and following the breath. He taught counting the breath and he taught following the breath. And he also taught just sitting. And the great Chinese teacher, Tentai Jiri, taught, as I said, those three ways of relating to the breath, following it, and then it says stopping with it, or resting with it, or just being with it, or just sitting with it.

[12:14]

And then after that he goes into contemplation. In other words, he goes into vipassana. So there is, in a sense, a progression from counting, following, and just being with the breathing. And then once you're one-pointed, then you're ready to contemplate. Yes? Again, the process of developing the clear, concentrated mind is to attend to a non-conceptual object.

[13:17]

to look at something which isn't associated with any images. You could even look at an image that's not associated with an image. Maybe that would help you. Because objects, sometimes we think object must be an image. So you could look at an image where there's no association with other images. that's a non-conceptual image or a non-conceptual object, which means you're giving up all the associations, all the thinking, all the discourse around it. That practice comes to fruit as tranquility. Then, based on that tranquility, then you can give up that tranquility development program. Okay? Once you're tranquil, then you can give up the exercise you've been doing, the trance program.

[14:21]

So in the Samyuddinamacchana Sutra it says, once you have realized this, it gives you the criterion for samadhi, for samatha, it says, then you abandon the things you've been doing, which is you've been attending to a non-conceptual object, you've been looking at something giving up discursive thought, now that you're calm. Then you start looking at discourse again, like the fish nibbling here, going over there. What's this? What's that? If you happen to be looking at your breath and you come to mental one-pointedness with it, at that point the breath is a non-conceptual object. and you're calm. Now you might say, what is . How does it function?

[15:23]

How does it arise? How does it cease? So to question or inquire now from this calm place is the contemplation process. Or you could be studying a teaching. You could have actually and be focusing on a teaching and looking at a teaching, giving up discursive thought about the teaching. For example, you could be meditating on the word emptiness, or the word form, or the word what. and give up all your thinking about it, and give up all your thinking about it, and give up all your thinking about it, until you come to a state of calm one-pointedness of thought with, for example, that word representing a teaching. Then you can start talking to it. Then you can have a discourse.

[16:25]

The vipassana is, again, using your thinking. And again, I talk about going back and forth in that chapter in the third turning. Then as you work on, if you work on investigation or contemplation in a certain way, you might say in the appropriate way, as you inquire, you're trying So then you're actually practicing the two together. So first you develop the tranquility, and based on the tranquility you inquire. As you inquire, the tranquility then can actually start to develop along with the inquiry. And then you're practicing them together. So first the tranquility, and then it's a partner. Then it's a partner in the inquiry.

[17:27]

And so I sometimes say to people, if you're calm, and you feel calm and flexible and alert and undistracted, now you can inquire into a teaching if you want to. And then I say, if you inquire and as you inquire it disturbs the water, if the fish starts swimming around, to use the image, if the fish swims around in a certain way, the fish may stir up muck and the water gets . I would say, then the fish maybe should stop moving and let things calm down. So this story, I haven't seen somebody do this before, but in this story, if the fish moves properly in the clear water, the water gets clearer. And the moving in the water is the contemplation. But if you're moving in the water of calm, and the calm seems to be lost, then I would suggest you stop moving, stop inquiring, stop contemplating, and go back to giving up discursive thought.

[18:39]

Come again? Okay, everybody okay? Ready? Now let's look at this again. And looking at it, and again, sometimes you feel like you're looking at it and you're not losing your composure, even though you're now maybe working with words again And if you start to notice the cloudiness coming back or tension coming back, like some word coming up, and you start working with it and you feel your body getting tense or your mind getting stiff, you may have run out of shamatha. So refresh, reestablish the samadhi. And when the samadhi is reestablished, do the contemplation again. And even sometimes you may find that as you inquire, the environment gets clearer rather than being disturbed.

[19:44]

This is the best kind of inquiry. So now the samadhi is getting deeper while the insight's getting deeper. They're getting deeper together. And finally they are unified. Yes and yes. I have three questions, and it may be a mixing images, but the dragons don't live in clear water. I just wonder if clear water, it seems to me, can there be a catchment to the Is there any risk or danger of attachment to this buoyant, clear... Yeah, so that's one question about the draconism. Can we deal with that first? Yeah. So are we talking about in samadhi, is there any possibility of attachment to samadhi?

[20:50]

Yes. Yes? And I would say, if the attachments, well, let's just, I won't say, I'll just say, when in samadhi, before even talking about doing, practicing wisdom with the samadhi, there should just be a sense of deepening the samadhi by simply continuing to just keep giving it away. In the Prajnaparamita it says that the samadhi is perfected by relinquishing or renouncing or giving up the wonderful feeling of samadhi. So that's just an ongoing thing. You might not even be thinking about it, but you can think about it once you're calm, because the thinking about giving up the calm is compatible with any kind of contemplation you're doing.

[21:58]

What just pops in my mind was that Suzuki Roshi died during a sashin. And, you know, he was my dear teacher, but after we took him to the, after he was taken to the mortuary, I didn't want to give up my meditation and go look at him in the in the mortuary. I just wanted to continue to stay and be calm. There was a little stickiness there that just popped in my mind. I just thought that at that time I was holding on to doing the sesshin, which of course he wanted me to do with everybody else. But there was a little lack of flexibility there that I just saw. So giving up the samadhi deepens it. Giving up samadhi before you have it. So before you have samadhi, you just give up whatever kind of thinking you're doing, and then samadhi comes, samadhi comes, samadhi is coming.

[23:12]

As I mentioned a while ago, it is coming. is coming to the valley of Green Gulch. And when it comes, don't grab it. Just say, welcome, and offer some tea and let it go. And then it'll get deeper. So it is possible to try to attach to samadhi. It does happen that we get a little And I also tell that story again about Suzuki Roshi said, sometimes when I'm sitting I feel like I can sit forever. When people are in samadhi they feel like they can sit forever. Before you're in samadhi, I don't know, I haven't had enough of this. When's this going to be over? And when you're in samadhi it's like you're not thinking about when it's going to be over or even that it's going to go on, but you feel like you could go on like this.

[24:13]

He said, sometimes I feel like that. And he said, but when the bell rings, I get up and do kini. So watch out for that. That's your first point? I think the first and second point was muddy water, clear water, and that's when I think it rolled into one. The last thing is, on the diagram there, would the kasana, would there be a line down? bodhisattva samadhis to the customer? Yeah. Yeah, you could, it would be maybe the vipassana going over and connecting to the samadhi. Draw a diagonal from the vipassana over to the samadhi. Bodhisattva samadhi. Some samadhis, it is possible to be in samadhi, but without instruction, you might not notice, you might not realize that in this samadhi, mind and object are one.

[25:20]

Vipassana doesn't go straight with the dhyana? Vipassana goes... Maybe I could go like this. First of all, vipassana comes from samatha. If you don't have samatha, it's not vipassana. Or vipassana comes from samadhi. If you have insight, and without this, we can have insights without samatha. But if you use the word vipassana, that's a technical term. It's used for an insight that's accompanied by shamatha and especially by a high level of shamatha, samadhi. So these two states of mind feed into the vipassana.

[26:27]

Then when the vipassana feeds back into the samadhi, then you go over to bodhisattva samadhis. Is it possible that a pashana which comes from samadhi could go over to jhana? Yes, it is. But some jhanas, you cannot do certain bodhisattva practices because there's nobody there. So, in a sense, it's a special kind of limited area of work. But if there's going to be vipassana, vipassana can come and connect with dhyana. A lay person can go through this? A lay person can, yes. Lay people have gone through this. In the early teaching, there are lay arhats.

[27:30]

And of course, in the bodhisattva vehicle, it's especially so for lay people. She said, is there no difference between lay people and priest in terms of bodhisattva samadhi? I would say, for now, no difference. And although I say that, I also mention that just — I'll say it this way — just because you're a lay person, just because you're a lay bodhisattva doesn't mean you have to work any — just because you're a lay bodhisattva doesn't mean you don't have to work as hard as a priest bodhisattva. Lay bodhisattvas have to work just as hard as priests. It isn't that being a lay person you get a free pass.

[28:33]

You have to have discursive thought and study the teachings. You have to work just as hard. Okay, Linda, you had one more? No, that was it. That was it. And Eleanor? Okay, just a second. Eleanor, Tracy, Dina, and Karen. Hmm? Hmm? Peter and John. Yes? Two-part question, first part's kind of technical. Do you sort of decide before sitting that you're going, that if you ever get to sit in the ball, do you meditate on, you know, set the passion or something like that? Or is it kind of like that ball where you shake it and something comes up? You could decide, this period I'm going to meditate on a phrase from the Heart Sutra, or this period I'm going to meditate on a phrase from the Jyomir Samadhi.

[29:44]

You could do that. But also it could be that you're just sitting in, tranquilly and openly, flexible body and mind, and earlier in the day you chant, When even for a moment you express the Buddha mind seal in your three actions, the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha seal and the entire sky turns to enlightenment. That thought could arise in your mind while you're sitting. Like last night, that thought arose in your mind while you were sitting. Did you notice? Did you notice? Well, I said it. Did it arise in your mind when I said it? Yeah, so somebody could just, you could be sitting silently and nobody's talking and that sentence can arise in your mind. Or a shorter version, you know, express the Buddha mind seal could arise in your mind and you could contemplate that and think about it like, is this

[31:01]

Is this the expression of the Buddha mind here? Is it true that the whole phenomenal world becomes the Buddha mind when this sitting is expressing it? You could contemplate that. That might just spontaneously arise, but you could beforehand that you're working on it. So when people are in a kind of koan training, they actually go into sit with the intention of meditating on a certain teaching. And Dogen says, once you've settled into a steady immobile sitting position, think not thinking. Thinking, non-thinking. So he's assigning you a koan to think about when you're sitting. And he assigns that to lay people and priests. That's a universal assignment of something to think about once you're in samadhi. Dogen really liked that story. He thought that great teaching of that Yaoshan teaching there.

[32:06]

And so he assigns it as a basic teaching to contemplate. Once you have settled into a steady immobile sitting position, Anything that comes up could then be something which you would contemplate and then you'd be doing in samadhi. Anything that comes up, if you contemplate it, then that could spontaneously be insight work. Beforehand, you can say, yeah, I just, I really feel this wonderful thing. Samadhi has come. Samadhi is here. and I'm not attached to it. And so I'm going to get up now and do Kini. And then now Kini's happening and Samadhi's coming and I'm not attached to it and now Kini's over and I'm going to sit and I think I'll contemplate this such and such teaching during this period.

[33:13]

It can be like that. And Dogen, he over and over says, contemplate that. But I think he means contemplate it. He says quietly contemplate this. Contemplate this in stillness. Doesn't mean just sit there and think. In samadhi, think. When you think in samadhi, it's insight work. And Dogen himself, you know, he was sitting maybe in samadhi, in China, and his teacher was walking around the zendo admonishing the monks to be able to wake up. And he said, you know, you people should just drop all body and mind. And when Dogen heard that, in samadhi I would say, insight occurred.

[34:18]

...to the teacher about this dropping off body and mind, which he understood. But you can also hear things when you're sitting and think you understand, and maybe you do, and then you hear them again in samadhi and you understand them in a different And with maybe not changing the meaning, just a different, totally different view of it, understanding of it. Next was maybe Tracy? Difference between bodhisattva samadhi is vow to several beings? Yeah. That would be a very good way to see what the difference is. Some people are in samadhi, but they do not, the bodhisattva vow has not arisen. Like, not to say anything about it, but for example, a carpenter training, a traditional carpenter particularly, training for months just sharpening blades, you know, and then training for months planing.

[35:41]

So my Dharma brother, Paul Disko, wrote me a letter from Japan when he was going through training as a Buddhist temple carpenter, and he was doing, he was planing, you know, and he wrote me this, I could tell, you know, that he was in Samadhi, the way he talked about coming off the end of his plane, you know, these silken curls, you know, and how happy he was just to be planing for six months. So he was in samadhi. And of course he's a bodhisattva like all of you. But if a vow, just because you're a bodhisattva doesn't mean it's a bodhisattva vow. Just because you're in samadhi doesn't mean that the samadhi is a bodhisattva samadhi. It's a bodhisattva samadhi when there's a vow to save all beings. surrounding the samadhi.

[36:43]

And then, when there's the samadhi plus the vow, then the vow is to do insight work. What's the difference between samadhi and jnana? Jnana is based on samadhi, you can then do special exercises. And because you're in samadhi, you can do them quite efficiently because you're not distracted. And so, for example, you can do exercises where you have discursive thought, but you actually focus in such a way as you actually give up the mental factors which make discursive thought possible. So you actually give up investigative thinking and thought. These are technical terms. You give them up. You're told what to look for.

[37:45]

Look for these two phenomena and let them drop. And when they drop, you actually cannot hear or speak. You can't hear language, you can't understand language, and you can't speak language. What? It's not been a transcendental position that you get in? Not yet. This is the first jhana. In the first jhana when you actually given up the mental factors which make possible language. And it's a special kind of concentration. And then there's still some rapture from being focused on and some bliss of being focused on the object. So then you move into giving up the rapture.

[38:47]

You work the rapture in such a way that you let go of it. And then all there is left is sukha, or pleasure. And then you work the sukha in such a way as you give up the pleasure, equanimity. So it's like a postgraduate course in developing concentration, once you have concentration. And it has certain benefits, which the Buddha recommends. So in the story of a bodhisattva's life, like the first bodhisattva that we have in this historical period, Shakyamuni Buddha, You can have the meditative process which gives rise to liberation. But it might be that someone would say to you, would you please go up into those mountains and find a good place for a monastery?

[39:51]

And you might go on this special trip, which not everybody has to do, but find a good place for a monastery. Somebody wants to say, would you please develop clairvoyant powers and the ability to understand other people's minds? We'd like somebody in our temple, in our community, to know how to do that. So would you practice these jhanas in order to do that? So there's certain powers that come with these concentrations that it might be useful to have at some point, so you can do that. But they're not necessary for liberation. However, in the total course of Buddhahood, you probably should pick them up. But they're different. They're not necessary to enter into Samadhi. You don't have to do these jhanas. So Dogen says, this is not the jhana practice. However, it is the concentration. This practice, this zazen, is a concentration which is the basis for the jhana practice.

[40:59]

But And literally it says, learning jhana, and there's a section of Buddhist literature where it actually explains how to learn these jhanas. So in the Buddhist literature there is instructions about how to do it. Is rapture then not part of samadhi? Samadhi, those curls for all, is there rapture in that or is that just... Yeah. There is rapture, and there is rapture, and there can be language, and there is pleasure. And to specifically work in certain ways in samadhi would be the course, would be the jhana course. Okay? Is that clear? But usually in the Zen, in most Mahayana, not all, in Samadhi Nirmacana there is some description of the jhana practices, even in that Mahayana scripture.

[42:07]

So in some Mahayana scriptures there is description of jhana practice. but you don't have to go through the jhanas in order to do these bodhisattva samadhis. But you do need the concentration upon which these jhanas are based. Yes, Peter? So to begin, we need to Samantha practice. And I'm a little curious about the non-conceptual object, conceptual object. There's two more that I can't remember. I'm thinking a conceptual object, would that be like counting the breath? Two, three. Counting the breath seems like a conceptual object, doesn't it? Yeah.

[43:08]

Like breath. There's breath and all kinds of, there's all kinds of images associated with breath. Right? Or there could be. You meditate on breath more and more, more and more wholeheartedly, you might come to a place, even though you're looking at this thing which originally was an image which is associated with other images, a place where all the associations drop away. Now the breath has become a non-conceptual object. Originally it was like maybe in order to find it, to work on it, the only kind of objects you know about when you're looking for objects is objects associated with lots of other images. So now, as you work with it more and more intimately, the discursive, the running back and forth between the object and other images, which is the discursive thought, drops away.

[44:11]

Is it making sense to you? Almost? So if I just follow the breath, watching it go out, watching it come in, That would be non-conceptual or that would still be conceptual? I don't know. The mind is attending to something. The thing that produces tranquility is attending to a non-conceptual object. And if something is non-conceptual, it doesn't mean it's nothing. It just means the conceptual network, the going back and forth between the thing and the associated images, that conceptual running around, that thinking, is dropping away. So it's an object.

[45:13]

So another thing that comes to my mind was one time I skied out of Tassajara. I didn't have to, but I said I would. There was a conference, and I was going to speak here at a conference, and so I was going to go to it. But the road was covered in snow, and we tried to get the four-wheel drive vehicles out, and they couldn't get through the snow. We really tried and we gave up. And then around sunset somebody said to me, what size shoe do you wear? And I said, nine and a half. He said, I have some skis. And he had two. And so we skied out of Tussauds. We skied up the mountain and we skied on top of the mountain and we skied down the mountain. But when we were on the top, in the snow, it was so, it was, you know, and it was sunny.

[46:18]

I mean, it was sunny. You can imagine the sunset on the mountains in the snow. I kind of wanted to look at it. But I couldn't afford to. Because if I looked, I would fall off the mountain. So I actually got into all the things associated with the skiing had to drop away. So I kind of gave up discursive thought. I gave up thinking about how beautiful it was, looking at how beautiful it was, listening to how beautiful it was. Even the shh, shh, shh, I had to give that up too. So you just become intimate with, for example, the breath, and then in intimacy, what you're looking at, you've given up all the associated images.

[47:33]

It has no images associated with it anymore. In other words, you've given up wandering back and forth between the object and other things. Of course, the breath's going on all the time anyway. Now you're paying attention to it. When you first pay attention to it, there may be lots of associations. And some of the associations may even feel like major distractions from it. All associations are kind of like not, even though they contribute to it and are related to it, they're kind of, distracting you from the non-conceptual nature of this image. So the more you focus on it, the more you get discursive thought around it. And there's not even like, even a thought identifying it as a breath anymore. And that's sort of when it's shamatha. Does that make a little bit more sense?

[48:37]

More will be revealed. Yeah. I see Al and then Karen. Huh? Or Dina? So, what I'm hearing is that Samadha is a door to Vipassana or a portal is what I'm imagining. But is there anything that both of them combine leads to, or is that the state that we are looking to be in? Yeah, in the sutra I quoted, it says there's four things that bodhisattvas meditate on when they're practicing tranquility and insight. One is in non-conceptual objects, one is conceptual objects, one is the range of all phenomena, and the other is the of the point of the practice.

[49:43]

In other words, the complete perfect enlightenment. The contemplation of complete perfect enlightenment is both Samatha and Vipassana are focusing on that. And contemplating the work of all beings, both of them are focused on that. but their particular, their unique area of endeavor is one's developed and focuses on non-conceptual images, the other one focuses on conceptual images. Insight deals with breath, including all of its associations. So insight isn't like, when I'm in samadhi, I all of a sudden understand Yeah, it is kind of like that. You all of a sudden understand. But you understand in a different way than you might have understood the day before when you heard a teaching or when you heard somebody say hello.

[50:56]

You understood it. You said hello. Kind of understood. And now you hear hello, and now you understand what it means. And when one is in samadhi, you're talking about letting it go and not trying to hold on to it. When you realize that, how do you not hold on to it? Because that realization is that all the time people say, oh, I'm in samadhi. Well, that realization is just like a discursive thought. That's not samadhi. That's just a thought. But if you're in samadhi, you could be like, you're in samadhi, and then the thought arises, I'm in samadhi. And then the insight arises, I'm in samadhi. Like yesterday, or you could be in samadhi and the thought could arise, I'm not in samadhi.

[51:58]

Do you understand? When you're in samadhi, pretty much any thought can arise. A wholesome thought can arise, and the wholesome thought could be, I'm in samadhi. And it's about this wholesome thought is in samadhi, and open up to its associations, and then realize what it means. because the meaning comes in the associations with the other words. You could also think, I'm not in samadhi, and that could equally be an opportunity for insight. Or you could, you know, today you could think, I don't want to hurt anybody. And then in samadhi you could think, I don't want to hurt anybody. And in samadhi you understand. of insight.

[53:03]

So any thoughts can arise in samadhi, and then when you look at them and open up to all their associations, a whole new set of meanings can come other than the ones before when you also looked at it with all its associations. Because the meaning of words is other words. But when you're developing samadhi, you're kind of like, what's the word, giving up meaning for a while. You're not trying to get meaning. You're trying to develop this composure by giving up trying to get meaning out of all the stuff that's coming. Because when something comes, you get meaning by discoursing around it. And so it's discourse because it means give up, give a little break from getting meaning out of what's happening.

[54:06]

So somebody says hello and you just are still with it. If you're still with it, you don't get any meaning. By everything that comes to you, Everybody that you meet, you're still with, means everybody you meet, you don't know who they are. And you're okay with that for a while. You're not going to do this forever, just until you calm down. Once you're calm, then you can look and say, well, who is that? And have a whole new take on who that is. after you didn't interpret them for a while, you didn't interpret yourself, you didn't interpret the breath, you just related to it as a non-conceptual object, and you tolerate meaning for a while. And now you're calm, and now you realize you're not going to try to get meaning,

[55:07]

you're just going to look at things and you're going to open to their associations and meaning will come and you will see what it is. Karen? In a concentrated one-pointed state, it seems to me like subjects and objects merge. They don't exactly merge. It's not like water and earth turn to mud. It's that water and earth, they're one point. I guess I'm thinking about the kind of experience where there's no moon, there's just moon, or there's no moon, there's just me. I'm calling that one point. Yeah, but that's not merging. Yeah, it says mind and object merge in realization.

[56:14]

Yeah, the word, I wouldn't use the word merge. It says mind and object enter. The word is enter, but it's not that they enter each other. In stillness, mind and object are one point. And the one-pointedness enters realization and goes beyond enlightenment. The character is very clearly the character for over the doorways in Asia. Enter. It's a mistranslation. Well, I don't know if mistranslation in any way. Its character means enter. In some places they do say enter. It's enter and depart. and mind and object one-pointedly enter. But what you're talking about, Karen, is kind of like when we say, when you see sights and hear sounds with your whole body and mind, it's not like reflections in a mirror.

[57:19]

When one side is illuminated, the other is dark. So there there's no merging. It's just if you look at one, you don't see the other. If they were merged, if you looked at one, you would see the other. But before you try to see one or the other, they're one point. But if you look at one, if you illuminate one side, the other side's going to be the dark. But I wouldn't call that merging, I would just call that in one-pointedness, you're not illuminating one side or the other. But we do illuminate. So if you illuminate one side, if you illuminate the knower, that's all there is. If you illuminate the known, there's no knower. But I wouldn't call that merging. In that situation, in order to have to jack out of it a little bit, does it give you the subject?

[58:24]

No, you don't. She said, in order to do vipassana, you have to back out of it so you have a subject to do it. Fortunately, no, you don't have to back out. So we have a samadhi situation. Okay? Now, there can be contemplation of conceptual objects. You don't have to have somebody doing the contemplation. But you could contemplate the somebody that's in the consciousness. So now you've got to... Samadhi has come to consciousness. Now, okay, now there can be the teaching comes, now there can be contemplation of whatever comes as a conceptual object.

[59:35]

In other words, now there can be vipassana work. In that consciousness, but the self doesn't have to say, now I'm going to do it. You don't have to do that. But you could, and then you say, oh, there's something to contemplate now. This idea that the self is going to be doing the contemplation, that's a object of contemplation, a self that's doing the contemplation. Turn the light around again and look at that self. In calmness, look at the self that seems to be doing the work here. Rather than, there is, where there's a self, there's some work. Does the self do the work? Does the self own the work? The sense of owning the work is the self The sense of owning the work is the self. But that sense of owning is an illusion.

[60:36]

The self doesn't own what's going on. The sense of owning something going on is in consciousness. So if there's activity in consciousness, there usually is a sense of somebody owns the activities, that's the self. But that sense of ownership is an illusion. Nothing in the consciousness owns the activities. So there can be contemplation without saying that the contemplation is done by the owner of everything that's going on here. But you can notice, I should say, in contemplation that there's some sense that somebody owns this contemplation. And then that can be contemplated. Sometimes in contemplating breath there's a sense of I'm contemplating the breath.

[61:56]

And then there's sometimes a situation where but there's not a sense of I'm contemplating breathing or I'm breathing. Yeah. Well, that sounds a little bit like When you contemplate breath with your whole body and mind, it's things reflected in the mirror. In other words, it's not like I'm reflected in the breath or the breath is reflected in me or I'm breathing. It's like they're just breathing. Or there's breathing and there's just me. But there's not me in my body or me when it's wholehearted. But it might, but if you're going to illuminate anything, it might look, hey, there's breath and that's it. Or, hey, there's a sense of ownership.

[62:59]

What's going on here in consciousness is a big fat sense of ownership. And then there's like how sickening and so on. or a big sense of dishonorship. That can be . I think I'll be right with you. And yes, do you think you were next? I have the experience like All of a sudden, the word, the name, didn't speak to me. I looked at the stool, the white stool, didn't tell me. So I looked at the stool, didn't know what it is. Just for a short moment.

[64:02]

Afterwards, I thought, wow. Wow. Is it what you're talking about? Yeah, it's related. Yeah. Yeah, so objects, knowable objects, the way we extract meaning from them is with words. But sometimes we maybe don't use the word to get any meaning from it. We just look at the thing and it has no meaning. And we tolerate that. We could, but we don't use the word to get some meaning out of it. And if you do that over and over, you become more and more calmed. Once you're calm, then you can go back and look at the object and say, that object has a name. And you can watch the relationship between the name, the object, and meaning. But now, from a from having taken a break from fiction to always get meaning from objects, now we just look at the object, we look at the word, we see the meaning, we see the dependent co-arising.

[65:10]

So when you shift from, in that teaching of counting, following, stopping, and then contemplating, contemplating is now you watch the dependent co-arising of the breath. or the dependent co-arising of the meaning of an object. That's the first part of the contemplation. So that is related, yes. In the moment my thoughts get in and say, wow, look! So my question is like, in samadhi, is thought possible? Excuse me, I didn't hear. The question is, in samadhi what? Is thought possible in samadhi? Yes. And is the same thought then my ordinary

[66:13]

It can, any thought can arise, any thought can arise in samadhi. Without interruption? Without, well, I don't know, I don't know, maybe some thoughts might interrupt samadhi, but it is possible in samadhi for almost any thought to arise and the samadhi just, you know, like any fish can be in the water, and the water, and the fish, What is samadhi? It is a calm, open, undistracted cognition, state of mind. And things are arising in mind all the time, but usually when things arise, they're disturbing. And usually when things arise, they They're unclear.

[67:15]

And usually when things arise, they're distracting. It's not the non-thinking. It's not the non-thinking. So he says, once you've settled into a steady, immobile position, think not thinking, and so on. This is the essential art of zazen. The essential of zazen is to settle into stillness and then think not thinking. How do you think? Not thinking, non-thinking. This is the essential art of zazen. The samadhi, however, is the first step. Now, once you're calm, you can, in other words, contemplate this teaching. contemplating this teaching or other teachings like that. These are bodhisattva teachings. Here's another teaching. Once you've settled into a steady immobile sitting position, give life to a mind that can abide in anything.

[68:21]

So that's taking a teaching from the Diamond Sutra. Now you're calm, meditate on the Diamond Sutra. Or, now you're calm, clearly see that all five aggregates are empty. This is the essential art of satsang. You contemplate the Mahayana teachings in samadhi. And again, if you start contemplating, if by chance you contemplate the Mahayana teachings in samadhi and the samadhi gets disturbed, which can happen but doesn't have to, put the Mahayana teachings on the table, and return to samadhi, and then try again. And we, every morning we contemplate the Mahayana teachings. Every noon we contemplate the Mahayana teachings. We listen to these teachings, and it would be nice if we were in samadhi when we were listening to them.

[69:29]

And if we're not, we still listen to them, and they have effect on us, so that because we do them, they can come up in our mind any time of day or night. We can dream about these teachings in the night. We can dream about them in the daytime, walking around. If we're in samadhi, then dreaming is insight work. So you can wake up, you can be in samadhi when you're sleeping and hear the teaching and wake up while you're asleep. But don't try that at home. So I thought all the time entering the state of non-thinking is samadhi. Entering the state of not. It is kind of, it's not entering the state of not thinking. It is giving up thinking. When you give up thinking, you enter samadhi.

[70:30]

But it doesn't mean there's no thinking in samadhi. How can I think in samadhi? Giving up thinking is samadhi. Okay, so that is a vipassana question. Okay. And so you can ask that question. And looking at that question when you're in samadhi is insight work. But when you're trying to enter samadhi, the question, how can I think in samadhi, that's something to just put it aside. If you keep playing with that question, you're not going to enter samadhi. That's what I know. But when you give up that question and any question, so you end up in samadhi by asking questions. So there are Zen stories about very wonderful bodhisattvas asking questions and the teacher just says, go sit still. Because they're not in samadhi yet.

[71:33]

The same question, a few days later, the teacher talks to the person. But their question, which sounds like a Zen question, is actually they're just being distracting themselves from doing their homework of samadhi. So then they put aside the question and they come back and they ask the teacher again. And now they're in samadhi, then now the teacher talks to them about the question. How can they be thinking in samadhi? And then the teacher says, how is it now? And the person says, oh, I see, thank you. Yes. Dora Lee. Lately, it's been my experience that something will arise in my practice, and then my situation will call for a particular response in my environment. Yes. And then I sit after that action, and that's when it's like this spontaneous realization of how that action .

[72:39]

incredible gratitude for the insight, but it was after the action. Well, it was after that action, but it was in the presence of another action, which is a kind of reenactment. It's a reappearance of a story about that thing that happened before, but now the story about this thing that happened before is occurring in your practice, as you say, or in samadhi. So now you see the thing which you couldn't understand before because you weren't aware of this. And then you're very happy. You're happy to see this thing which you couldn't understand in a context in which you could understand. It's not the same thing. It's a new thing, which depends on the old thing. But the new thing is perfectly to have insight. And then the insight with the new thing saves the old thing.

[73:48]

This is like, you know, what we call recovering lost time. So, and because we're not in samadhi, it seems like there are a waste of time. Then we enter samadhi, and then a memory of that thing arises, and now we understand it, and then the thing which seemed like a waste of time is not a waste of time anymore. And we're very… This is the art, this is part of the essential art of satsang. I see. Let's see. Joel and Kyunghee. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay. Here we go. Joel. Okay, my question is really what you're talking about, you said that it's possible in samadhi, as I heard you, it's possible in samadhi to have the thought, I am now in samadhi.

[74:56]

And somewhere along the line I got the idea that if you have the thought, I am in samadhi, that would imply that at that moment you're not in samadhi. Yeah, I don't agree. With that thought? Yeah, I don't agree with that comment. Okay. Also the thought, I'm not in samadhi, that can occur in samadhi. When I'm in samadhi, the thought, I'm Joel, can occur. In samadhi? Yeah. I'm Joel. And also I can think, I'm not Joel. And I can also think, that's Joel. All these can occur. Anything can occur in samadhi. However, in samadhi there's a good chance of understanding. No. By investigating it and understanding what it is. So anything. Samadhi is open. Samadhi is open. It's open. It's not selecting what to pay attention to.

[75:57]

That's somebody else's job. And in this samadhi, you can watch the magic of somebody selecting what to pay attention to. You can notice, oh, somebody seems to want to pay attention to that rather than that. And you can be very, very clear. But anything can occur in samadhi, and no thought cannot be understood in samadhi. In other words, any thought can be understood. Yeah, that's, it's great. Like, because it was, well, I was thinking, oh, yeah, well, okay, my understanding of your saying to the current samadhi, is that that thought is not then followed by another thought, and that's the nature of the thoughts that arise in samadhi. But then I understood you to say that's not it either, a thought having arisen you could then in samadhi investigate that thought.

[76:59]

I assume other thoughts. Yes, that's insight work. And that's in samadhi. That's where insight work operates. The worksite of insight work, this kind of higher insight, in the workplace is samadhi. But you don't get into samadhi by engaging in that work. You have to put that work aside in order to enter. Once you've entered, then you put aside putting aside. You put aside the gesture which creates samadhi. Once you're in samadhi, you just take that gesture and set it over here. And you bring up another gesture, which is investigate whatever comes up now. Stuff has been coming up all along, but there's been just letting it all go. Now stuff comes up, and now we're in samadhi, now we can, well, let's just see what everything is.

[78:04]

And anything, any monsters, goblins, demons, they all can be investigated now, fruitfully, in other words, liberatingly. How in any particular moment of meditation I don't like the expression, but would you know that at this moment of meditation, I will just let that go? Or at this moment of meditation, I'm in a place where it will be fruitful and remain in silence. Is that me? Yeah. How would you know? Well, you don't have to know. You can just think, you know, I think maybe Samadhi has come. You can just think that. Has gone? Come. Has come. People do sometimes come and tell me they think Samadhi has come. I look at them and I think, you know, I think you're right. And then sometimes they say, and then sometimes I talk to them and I said, I don't think so.

[79:09]

I don't think samadhi has come. So I would recommend you just go and sit quietly and still and let go of your discursive thought. Whichever method you want to use. Which method are you going to use? And they tell me, and I say, that sounds good. And then they go and practice it. Then they come back and tell me samadhi has come. And they tell me, and I say, no, I think this is samadhi. They say, now can I do insight work? And I said, Are you doing it right now? And they say, yes. That question, do you do insight work? In samadhi, that's insight work. Whatever you're doing in insight work, any questions you arise once you're in samadhi is insight. But some people ask the very same question, and I feel like it really disturbs them to ask the question. It agitates them. They're getting upset. It's intensifying their anxiety to ask the question. Right. We need some samadhi here. Go do this exercise. When samadhi comes, we can deal with that question once you are tranquil.

[80:14]

And if you're not sure, you don't have to be. I think Samadhi has come, so now I'm going to start investigating the thoughts that arise." And then if you investigate them and you keep feeling that Samadhi is still there, continue. And you can go check with your teacher and say, I thought . And so I started to contemplate, and that seems to be going well. And the teacher may say, yeah, it does very good. Continue straight ahead. You know, it's like what you were saying, that sometimes you might, you know, go into contemplation, and the words get mucky, and then you say, ah, no, go back to Samadhi. Other times, you could go into investigation, and Samadhi gets deeper. Yeah, yeah. And so you don't, if you feel... and you start doing contemplation, and you're wrong, samadhi hasn't come, it's not the end of the world.

[81:28]

So you don't have to be absolutely sure. But if you think it's time, go ahead. If you want to check with a teacher beforehand, fine. But if you have to wait too long, go ahead. It's all right. And then you'll know when it's gotten murkier. Well, hopefully. If not, somebody probably will help you. Oh, that's a good point. Linda? Can you please help me with how Shikantaza is part of this? Shikantaza is bodhisattva samadhi. Shikantaza is samadhi and it is contemplating, for example, the sitting. It's like looking at the sitting So when it says, this is the essential art of satsang, would you be describing those two, sit quietly, then investigate?

[82:34]

That would be Shikantaza. Yeah, Shikantaza is settle into a mobile sitting position and just sit. And body and mind drop away. That's Shikantaza. But also there is it says, from the first time you meet a teacher. So you've been initiated this just sitting and dropping off thought in mind, which could take the form of think not thinking. How? Non-thinking. What's non-thinking? Could be let go, yeah. So to investigate that phrase in samadhi, that is the essential art of satsang, that is shikantasa. Is that as opposed to other teachings?

[83:37]

No, not, no. That cult story, so Dogen is saying, once you've settled into a steady immobile sitting position, and you've met a teacher, contemplate the teachings the teacher has given you. And the teacher might give you the teaching, just sit. So you just sit. And the teacher's taught you how to work with that in samadhi. Or the teacher gives you think not thinking. Or the teacher gives you give rise to a mind that abides in nothing. Who are you?" Or you might give the teacher, how do I meditate? And the teacher might say, yes, in samadhi. And you met the teacher, you said, how do I meditate?

[84:37]

The teacher says, yes, you have met the teacher, now you've been instructed. And the instruction comes from a response to your question. But it could be a response to somebody else's question because that teaching, think, not thinking, is a response to a question of a monk to his teacher. The monk asks, what in the thinking are you doing? And the teacher says, thinking, not thinking. And the monk says, how? non-thinking. And Dogen says, this is how to practice. Enter samadhi. So the teacher, and also in that story, the teacher is in samadhi. Completely still and calm. The student says, in that calm, in that samadhi, the student says to the teacher, the student sees the teacher in samadhi, in that samadhi, what kind of thinking is going on? He could have said, is thinking going on? But he didn't say. He said, what kind is going on?

[85:37]

And the teacher says, thinking not. In that meeting, that was that teacher's instruction to this student. It doesn't say whether the monk was in samadhi. But now we're in samadhi receiving this teaching. What kind of thinking is going on in samadhi? And in samadhi, there is thinking going on. Well, how is it? It's thinking, not thinking. How is it not thinking? How is it thinking, not thinking? It's not how is it not thinking, it's how is it thinking, not thinking, non-thinking. Any interaction between student and teacher could be used as the thing to meditate on. And using that thing is just sitting. It says, from the first time you meet a master, just sit. And what are you meditating on? You're just sitting in samadhi with the meeting.

[86:39]

You're meditating on the meeting, whatever it was. Good morning. Good morning. Just sit. Good morning. Where have you been? Just sit. Good morning. Where are you from? Whatever the interaction is, that's the teaching. But the teacher could also quote a sutra. Good morning. Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. Just sit. But the teacher, he doesn't give that instruction, think not thinking, if the student isn't in samadhi. The teacher probably says, give up discursive thought. Go sit and give up discursive thought. Then you come back in samadhi, then the teacher says, how to enter the bodhisattva samadhi.

[87:44]

And it could be anything. And again, you might bring the teacher what the teacher is going to give you. So you bring the question, and then the teacher seems to give you the question, your meditation. But the teacher might also say, what the teacher might give you is, do not meditate on that question. Now go sit. Does that make sense? Kyunghee? I think I have a bunch of questions around the characteristics of the proper samadhi. Do you say what the characteristics of what? Of the proper samadhi? Yeah. Yeah. There are basic material, yes. One is calm. So you're calm.

[88:47]

But also, some people are calm and also distracted. So it's a calm where you're not distracted. So you're calm and then something else happens. It's not a distraction. And you're open. It's not like — and that quite frequently happens that people are calm, but they're not open. You know, like we used to say in the 60s, people used to say, whatever man. And then if you come away from whatever man, they would not do it. You know. So when a person seems to be calm, but then you say, would you go work in the kitchen? And they say, you know, then that's not samadhi. So flexibility, physical flexibility and mental flexibility.

[89:52]

So, I mean, when we're like this, physically, that's not samadhi. Samadhi is, and I probably will, maybe next class I'll bring, in the doksan room there's a picture which I put on the wall because I love it. It's a picture of Bodhidharma sitting in his cave, facing the wall, and around him is this very kind of ...very warm halo outlining his body. I just feel that it's a picture of this very soft, compact and open, compact, open and soft body and mind. And if you don't... So it's like immovable as a mountain and soft. not a hard mountain, a mountain that's open to being not a mountain. These kinds of things are required.

[90:56]

Many people think just being , but that's samadhi. It isn't unless you have this softness of body and mind. And also, if you're not open to moving. It's a stillness that's open to moving, yes? awareness, for some reason, might have these confusing thoughts about, as long as there's something that is whatever, that is aware of some other thing, then that's a thoughtful, proper thing. So almost like trying to get rid of whatever is aware, or what that awareness is. From the conversations before, again, there's not a large scale subject and object. So the sense of awareness is still there and that's okay. Samadhi is a type of awareness. Can there be awareness?

[92:01]

Yes. And actually the sense of awareness is one of the things to meditate on in order to develop samadhi. The sense of awareness, according to some schools, is another way of talking about the uninterrupted mind of awareness. And so, then the distinction, because you also mentioned that in some jhana states when there's nothing going on anymore, this is not what most of you are trying to do. Correct. Although at some point, like I said, you may be sent on an assignment, please go into those states. We need you to do that for a while and come back. Don't stay there. So people sometimes do do that. It's a possible journey.

[93:04]

but it's not necessary to go on the jhana journey prior to entering bodhisattva samadhis. Well, I think the other people first. Who is... and Deirdre? It sounds to me that... Maybe people are getting sleepy or whatever, you can stand up. It sounds to me that it's not necessary to be thinking, I'm in samadhi, I'm not in samadhi. It's time to practice vipassana now. I don't think it's necessary to ever think, I'm in samadhi. And I don't think it's necessary to ever think, I'm not in samadhi. Those two thoughts are not required for the welfare of the world. But those thoughts do occur quite a bit. It's not necessary to ever think, I'm Devon. Thank you.

[94:07]

I'm glad somebody's doing it. But there isn't a thing called samadhi that you're suddenly in it, or you're not in it. We're just talking about a concept, but it's a useful concept for our purposes. Yeah, we're talking about a concept, yeah. But there also is samadhi, which is not a concept. But I'm talking about it, it doesn't go anywhere, it doesn't reach it. Talking about it doesn't reach it, no. Talking about anything doesn't reach anything. It's a general thing. Talking about things do not reach the things. It's not really necessarily helpful to have a conceptual idea that we are or aren't Samadhi or enlightened.

[95:11]

Not necessarily helpful, but it might be helpful to have a conceptual idea about how to develop samadhi. Because samadhi is a great resource for humans. With samadhi we can do all kinds, all the good things we want to do, we can need samadhi to be done fully. But to think about the concepts is not necessary, but we need these concepts in order So I might think, this seems to be samadhi, and that thought will influence my practice, and the practice might change. It might contemplate a teaching. It might, but also it might not change your practice at all. The thought, I'm in samadhi, might occur, and basically it's Tuesday. No more effect than that. It might be another thought. This really isn't samadhi. Maybe I should be letting go of things right now. Yeah, and that thought might have, in samadhi, that thought might have very little consequence because you just leave it alone.

[96:19]

Samadhi can handle these things and be undisturbed by them, and then each one of those things could be dharma doors. Because samadhi is open to use everything that appears as an opportunity for insight. Yes? A couple of clarifications. In our discussion today, mostly it sounds like samadhi is equal to shamatha. almost equal except that samadhi is a fully developed shamatha. You can be, there can be, in a sense, or you could say fully developed shamatha is samadhi, because fully developed shamatha is mental one-pointedness. And then, is it a relationship to a thought

[97:22]

which arises in samadhi, what makes samadhi, thought arising in samadhi? You have a certain relationship to that thought or a certain practice for that thought. When a thought arises in samadhi and there's a... and the samadhi's not disturbed and the samadhi's open to it and the samadhi is flexible with it then that's samadhi. Like they say, when the moon hits your eye like a big piece of s***, that's samadhi. So when whatever arises, there's openness, relaxation, undisturbedness, undistractedness, when that's the way of relating to whatever arises, that's samadhi. And then is non-abiding Samadhi?

[98:32]

Is that the way of referencing Samadhi, non-abiding? The instruction of non-abiding, then one in Samadhi, when that thought arises, you would say the same as any other thought. But you can now wonder about what is non-abiding? You could, now in samadhi, you could actually start interact, there could be an interaction with teachings. Like a bodhisattva does not abide in anything. That thought could arise in samadhi. You would relate to the thought a bodhisattva develops a mind which does not abide. You could relate to that teaching just like you would relate to the thought this is a terrible day. You could analyze this is a terrible day and analyze what non-abiding is. And would analyzing what non-abiding is be abiding or non-abiding? That's part of what the fish would be nibbling at. Is there any abiding in this investigation of the teaching of non-abiding?

[99:36]

And the fish could turn around and say, I think there was. Let's try it another way. I feel like the samadhi is now actually helping me understand this teaching. But also samadhi is helping me understand various other comments that I have never seen before in any scriptures that I think that nobody ever thought before. Those can also be investigated. And people do sometimes have insights into these things which have never been said before. And those insights are on a par with people having insights in what has been said before. But the actual analysis and the swimming in the samadhi with what's going on, that's the insight work. And that realizes non-abiding. So the fish is in the samadhi, but the fish isn't sitting still, the fish is moving vigorously.

[100:42]

And that vigorous movement is the insight work, is the wisdom work. That sounds like the touching and not touching and not doing those things. Yeah. To see if you can swim without touching, to see if you can swim without turning away, Without getting excited, samadhi supports interacting more and more intimately, which is the wisdom work. It's getting late, but there's more questions, so I don't know what we should do. Any guidance from the Sangha? Would you say it again louder? I'm just wondering if you could put a time limit on it. I'm sorry, but somebody started laughing.

[101:44]

Be quiet now. When you're saying it again, yes? I'm wondering if it would simplify it to say, if that happened to you for three minutes, that's samadhi, but if it's ten seconds, then it isn't. Samadhi is always just one moment. That's really helpful. Yes. Glenda. Samatha and samadhi are openness and flexibility. And so I've been working with that in the flexibility of the body.

[102:53]

And so how does... In working with the pains and the tenseness that comes up in sitting and allowing that to work through my body, how does that relate with developing? I think the developing, when there's pain in the body, Developing shamatha would be to let go of any thinking about the pain. A pain arises in some place in the body and there could be thinking about it. Let go of the thinking. Then the pain arises. The thinking arises about it or about other things.

[103:55]

What some people do actually, they're in pain and they start to try to maybe distract them from the pain. Well, that's common. Then let go of the thinking which is trying to distract you from the pain. Let go of the thinking which is trying to figure out the pain. Let go of the thinking that's making comments on the pain. Let go of the thinking which is whatever kind of thinking is arising in relationship to the pain or just sort of in association with it because it's in the same consciousness. Just let go of those. That will develop tranquility while you have pain. We don't have to get over pain. We can be calm before the pain goes away. Or rather, while the pain is coming and going, we can develop tranquility. While you're taking care of your pain.

[104:58]

Yes. When you're in a deep sorrow and you try to contemplate that, it arrives in a physical way. When you breathe into it, you let go. But the sorrow is still there, deep down there. Yeah. So you try again and again, and you let go. But physical, it always comes back. Because the soul is so deep. So what I was asking, you told us about Suzuki Roshi. He passed away. And you went and meditated. So, beginning of meditation.

[106:02]

How is what? Your beginning of meditation, if you remember. Like I know you sat and you sat down in the proper posture and you're trying not thinking of this beautiful dying. But how was the beginning of it? How did you enter this stage of of appreciating what just has happened and your continuation here? As I remember, I think the word appreciation is appropriate, that I just felt, even in his dying, I just felt such appreciation for practicing with him. even in appreciation for the sorrow about his passing.

[107:04]

So appreciation really was a big, I was definitely appreciating, but then my appreciating actually was a little bit hindered when I thought about going out in the traffic and going to a funeral home. But I knew that that was strange, so I did go. But I think appreciation of what's happening is very much related to developing Samatha. It isn't that you appreciate some things, you appreciate everything. In other words, you don't get involved, let the thinking mind, which is making judgments, you just appreciate it and let it go. It's like, again, have some tea and go. Sorrow, welcome sorrow. Welcome sorrow and let it go. Welcome sorrow and let it go. And the more that we welcome it and let it go, the more we enter samadhi.

[108:05]

We're not trying to get rid of the sorrow when we're developing samadhi. We're trying to be in the good state of mind with the sorrow. the state of mind called shamatha or samadhi. We're trying to be mentally one-pointed with the sorrow. We're trying to be intimate with the sorrow. When we're intimate with the sorrow, then we can say, and the sorrow can tell us, But if we ask the sorrow before we have entered samadhi with the sorrow, before we realize even if the sorrow tells us who she is, we don't understand as deeply as we'll understand when we ask the same question in samadhi.

[109:12]

Sorrow is, yeah, it's a dope. It's a door to the Buddha mind. But we need to be in samadhi with the sorrow to walk through the door. Is that enough for now?

[109:33]

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