For some time, we have been coughing, but we have some cough drops in our sleeve. And, we have been discussing the classical presentation of the yogic program for a Bodhisattva program of meditation for Bodhisattvas. Is anyone here not familiar with the meaning of the term Bodhisattva?

[01:02]

Bodhisattva is a word that was originally used in the Buddhist tradition. Does anybody know the first use of the word Bodhisattva in the Buddhist tradition? Yes, but also referring to the life of the Buddha prior to being, to achieving Buddhahood. Even in his last life, he was called the Bodhisattva Uptel. They say the Bodhisattva went and sat under the bow tree. So, that word was used for the Buddha, for the Buddha, all the time the Buddha was moving towards Buddhahood. And, from the first time that the Buddha thought of unsurpassed perfect enlightenment and wished to realize it for the welfare of the world,

[02:11]

from that time the Buddha became a Bodhisattva. And, from that point, a very long time from that point until about 2500 years ago in India, this person fulfilled that vow, that whole time that was a Bodhisattva career. And then, you know, around four or five hundred years after the Buddha Shakyamuni entered Nirvana, entered Parinirvana, there became this movement in India where some number of people found within them the desire and the vow to also be Bodhisattvas, to enter the path of realizing Buddhahood. Previously, lots of Buddhists were hoping to realize personal liberation,

[03:19]

but not necessarily the unsurpassed complete and authentic awakening of a Buddha. So, Bodhisattvas are those who want to be Buddhas. Does that make sense? So, we've been talking about the classical scriptural presentation, and also we, of course, talk about the, in some sense, non-scriptural Zen presentation of the Bodhisattva yoga course. We often talk about that at Zen Center. But for some time we've been looking at the sort of the central or the common picture that all the different forms of the Bodhisattva path sort of, in some sense, understand as the scriptural source.

[04:24]

So, these beings, these Bodhisattvas, part of their course, the essence of their course is to develop a state of non-dual one-pointedness in which they're immersed, they're ensconced and immersed and flowing in the actual liberation process, the liberating process of enlightenment, where they actually live in the river, the resonant river of all beings helping all beings, or the resonant winds of all Buddhas helping all beings and all beings resonating back to all Buddhas and all Buddhas and all beings working together to receive a body and mind

[05:47]

This is the Samadhis or the awarenesses that these Bodhisattvas are trying to yogically realize. These, in the Zen school, we have this kind of inappropriate term called Zazen, which we use to refer to this Samadhi. It's inappropriate because it says sitting Zen, which doesn't convey the dynamism of this enlightening process, but we've been talking about this. And also recently we've been starting to look at the process of wisdom that lives and develops in this awakening state,

[06:58]

this state of awakening. And the wisdom process is traditionally presented in the form of three kinds of wisdom. The first kind of wisdom is called the wisdom that arises through hearing. And some of you are hearing right now, and some wisdom may arise in you any moment. You may have some wisdom or some understanding about the Bodhisattva yogic exercise program. Maybe you already have some understanding of the yogic exercise program. But it might get deeper through hearing. Has that happened to anybody so far? Oh, good.

[07:59]

Two, three, four. Great. Now, if any of you who just didn't happen to were happy to see that it happened to some other people, that's part of the yogic exercise program too, to be happy that some people are catching on to the program. Like when you see someone you love becoming more skillful, you're happy. And that's when you're happy that they're becoming more skillful, then you're becoming more skillful. Now, if they're becoming less skillful or just sort of staying at their present level of skillfulness and not developing, we don't exactly get happy that they're not developing. We just are happy that they're there to love. And then, being happy that they're there to love, we become more skillful.

[09:03]

The next kind of wisdom is the wisdom that arises through investigation, through thinking, through pondering, through reflecting, through analyzing. So after you learn something, some teaching, or you learn something about the nature of things, the nature of objects of awareness, after you understand something about that, then you analyze more deeply and deeply what you've learned. You've learned it, so you've got it. So wherever you go, you know it. So then you can sit and think about it, or stand and think about it, or walk and think about it, because you're thinking about what you've learned. And through this pondering or reflecting on what you previously learned,

[10:12]

or pondering or reflecting on the wisdom you already have through hearing, it becomes deeper and deeper, through the process of thinking. And the third type of wisdom is wisdom which arises through meditation. Now, of course, the previous two are meditation too, but specifically, the third type of wisdom which arises from meditation, we mean meditation where the previous wisdom which arose through analysis is gradually brought together. The previous wisdom which comes through pondering, that type of meditation,

[11:13]

is joined with a meditation for stabilizing and tranquilizing and calming the mind. So the next type of wisdom requires that we develop calm, and once we develop calm, now we go back to the work we just did in analysis, and then we do that work again, and then we join that work with the calming work. So first we do the analysis of what we learned, then we do the calm, then we go back and do the analysis again, having realized calm, and then we join the analysis and the calm, or rather, the analysis and calm become united, and this is the course, this then gives rise to the wisdom of meditation. So in another setting, like Wednesday nights here, and over in Berkeley,

[12:25]

I will be going into the first two types of wisdom in the next few weeks, and beyond. The third type of wisdom which arises through meditation, now I would like to look at one aspect of the meditation that's the source of this wisdom, and that aspect of calming. And it's usually recommended, actually, usually recommended for this developing calm that we have solitude. And there's some, maybe some debate about the literal or interpretable meaning of solitude.

[13:39]

This is kind of complicated to mention, but in the type of meditation, in the type of work, or the type of pondering that's involved in the second type of wisdom, part of what you learn there is the principles by which you can analyze whether a teaching is definitive or interpretable. And if it's interpretable, guess what? It can be interpreted. On the other hand, if it's definitive, you can't interpret it. It is literally so. So the teaching, for example, the teaching, there's a teaching that when you practice mental stabilization, one of the first things you do is get yourself some solitude. And then they list a number of requirements for solitude,

[14:57]

but I just might mention to you that that list of things for solitude is interpretable. It's not an ultimate truth. So they sometimes say, get away from, you know, intense market activity. Go to some forested area. Satisfy the requirements for physical support. Find a quiet place. Get a comfortable black cushion. Now even, you know, most people when they hear about getting a comfortable black cushion, they think, that must be interpretable. It must be okay if it's like dark green or tan. Now I can see it probably shouldn't be red, but, you know, maybe even for some people red's a good color.

[16:03]

Who knows? The cushioning aspect of the solitude is, I would say, clearly interpretable. Some people actually have sat on diamonds. But that's interpretable. So anyway, I'm just saying that what, like for some people might think, aside from me making all this noise, this day is a day of solitude. So this is a good day, some people might say, for practicing mental stabilization, calm. Because we're in solitude here. We're sitting together alone. But some people would say, no, I'm still not alone. I'm still thinking about my stocks and bonds. I'm still worried about, you know, what I'm going to cook for dinner. You know, I'm not really in solitude yet. And in fact, if the person feels that way, they're right.

[17:08]

They're still running around in their mind, thinking of these things. So they haven't really got solitude yet. But if they would just put those things aside and say, I don't have to think about them until at least until six o'clock. And even then I don't have to because I could just go eat here. So I don't have to think until about seven o'clock, you know, or 630 or something. I can wait and put aside all discursive thought for the rest of the day. And if you felt like that, then maybe you're starting to accept solitude. Because my interpretation would be that solitude is always available, but most people need a little kind of like training wheels to get a feeling for it. So here we have a situation like this, which I hope is enough for you to get a feeling for being alone, giving up market activity.

[18:14]

The central gesture of calming down is basically like very similar to like enjoy the day. So like if I heard the weather that it was going to rain today, I thought, oh good, nice rainy day, so the people can sit and be undistracted by the nice weather. They can just sit and listen to the rain and say, hey, I'm just in the right place, I can't go anywhere or do anything today anyway, so I'll just like be here and enjoy my mind. And the weather isn't distracting me from enjoying my mind or enjoying the mind. So it's nice that we have kind of like rainy cold weather because then everybody like just sits and enjoys their mind, right? Now if the weather is really good, then I would say, well, enjoy the weather,

[19:23]

because that's your mind. In other words, enjoy your mind. Enjoy your mind means enjoy your mind. And in a sense, enjoy your mind rather than the objects of mind. Now it doesn't mean you like hate the objects of mind, like the people you're sitting with, or the lighting here, or the floor, or the wall. It just means you don't indulge in it. It just means that you turn the light around from being involved in objects, because being involved in objects is our usual way of being. And that's the way of mental destabilization, is to be involved with objects. Running around in our computer chasing the objects.

[20:24]

That's the usual unstable mind. So in calm abiding, we turn the light around and shine it back on the mind. But not the mind as an object. Don't make the mind into another object. That would just kind of burn the back of your eyes. But look at the nature of mind. Like right now, turn the light around and look at the nature of mind. What's the nature of mind? Well, it's ungraspable. It's light. It's joy. It's peaceful. Even if some of us are still running around doing market activity right now,

[21:35]

still, without messing with that at all, without messing with that hectic scene, there's just a gesture of turning around right in the middle of all that noise and shining the light back on the peacefulness of the mind, which is aware of this hectic activity. No matter how hectic the activity is, the mind which knows that hecticness is light, is radiant. Now this isn't the radiance which is an object, which you see with your eyes or even see with your mind. It is the radiance of the mind which is involved in seeing. Do you see?

[22:51]

Like the Zen teacher Yun Man said, you all have light. You all have the light of your mind. But if you look for it, things become dark. So turning the light around and shining it back on the light itself, we do that without looking for the light. So right now, without doing anything fancy with your eyeballs, just look at the light. Matter of fact, you know, like, when I hear myself say, look at the light, there's some tendency to use the eyes to look for it. But it really means to relax your eyes. To give up using them.

[23:59]

This is an instruction to the calming and the calm mind. It's not an instruction to me or you. You don't get involved in this, and neither do I. Getting involved in it, if I get involved in looking at it, then what I'm doing is I'm looking at the objects again. So, see if we can turn the light around and give up being involved with objects. So if my eyes are looking at you, I'm looking, in a sense, part of my mind is looking at objects. And it's a little bit difficult to look, actually be looking at objects like people's faces,

[25:15]

and simultaneously looking inward. Not at objects, but at the mind which is looking at the objects. To turn the light around and look at the mind which knows the objects not the objects, even right while I'm looking at the objects. So sometimes it's easier to look down, because when we look at people's faces, we get so excited or depressed that it's hard for, you know, because we really hook onto the objects, like, oh, there's an excellent student, or, oh, there's a terrible student. Rather than,

[26:19]

what about the mind that knows these good and terrible students, what about that? Sometimes they say, direct, train the attention to the uninterrupted mind. In other words, moment by moment, in a sense, there's a direct train of attention and there's a mind that's always there. Just the knowing of the mind itself is uninterrupted. And that's pretty good instruction, but it's interpretable.

[27:20]

I have a little bit of a problem with it, because it's like there is a mind there that's uninterrupted. I kind of prefer the nature of mind rather than the mind itself, because you cannot see this thing. You're not actually going to be able to see the nature of mind. You're not actually going to be able to see this uninterrupted mind. You're not going to be able to see this light. But being willing to direct your attention towards something you can't see, giving up paying attention to what you can see, even while you're still seeing it, is the common gesture. And, for example, or giving up what you can hear for

[28:25]

and training the attention towards what you can't hear, which is the mind which knows the hearing. This is the common way. Meditating minds also, as I just mentioned, are involved in the other side of meditation, which is to look at phenomena and use the teachings and the analysis of the teachings to understand what things actually are, how they actually are. So that side of meditation looks at many things, studies many teachings, studies many phenomena, all phenomena,

[29:30]

and penetrates them and understands them. But through all these different meditations on all these different objects, there is simultaneously the nature of mind, which is always the same. For example, it's always radiant. So when we are doing the sort of insight meditation, which is analyzing objects, it's joined with sort of the other eye of meditation, which is keeping in touch with the mind, which is always the same, no matter what we're studying. That's... maybe that's enough.

[30:35]

Have any questions? Michael? I wanted to ask you the third way of using the calm mind to look back on what we've been doing and what we've understood analytically. Is that different from the earlier samadhi? He said the third way of using the calm mind to look back at what? At what we understood in your analysis. It isn't so much that you exactly use the calm mind to look back at what you understood, but rather that you join what you understood, or rather, you look at what you understood now. So first you understood without maybe

[31:37]

having developed much calm. You analyzed and understood more deeply something that you learned through study and hearing. Then you analyzed more deeply using the mind. Then after calming the mind, you go back to that same type of work of analyzing, or you go back to the understanding which arose from your analysis. And you look at what you learned before, but now with a calm mind. And now when you look at it with a calm mind, or realizing the calmness of mind, and then this deeper analysis and deeper penetration, which is based on the calm, is then joined with the calm. And then it goes deeper still,

[32:39]

not necessarily deeper into the object, but the depth of the penetration becomes one with the body of the meditator. So then the whole process becomes homogenized and natural. Yes? Then when I tried to look at it with joy, it was much harder for me to grasp that. It was much harder for you to grasp it? Yes, not in the way that you used to,

[33:41]

to have understanding about it. Well, yeah, so the first time you actually didn't grasp it at all. With the pain, you asked the question, who is it that feels pain? And in that question you didn't grasp who felt it. And because you didn't grasp it, the pain is inaccessible to anybody, because we don't have anybody around to grasp it. So these ungrasped pains are pretty useless. But you don't mind, do you? Useless pain you don't mind? Pain you can't grasp is okay with you? It is. It's okay with you. But when it's joy, and you say, who is feeling the joy, you can't grasp that either, really. And you may think you can, and if you think you can, huh? It's not joy then, right, it's not joy then.

[34:45]

Then you're all sort of clogged up and concerned with like getting control of this joy. So in the case of pain, you know, if we ask, you know, who is feeling the pain, and we can't, and then we lose kind of like the ability to find somebody to feel it, and we lose the ability to hold on to the pain, we feel good. But if we do the same with joy, we may feel like, wait a minute, I lost some joy here. But actually it's a greater joy to comfortably lose the joy. Like when the room gets darker, because we just gave away the light, and now we get more light. But if the light goes away, and then you say, oh darn, I lost the light, it gets darker, and darker. Where is my light? Where is that nice day? Well, okay, a little drama here, fine.

[35:52]

Yes? I have more questions to the three states of wisdom. I mean, when you analyze, then there is a lot of thought movement involved probably. When you analyze, there's a lot of thought movement? A lot of thoughts going back and forth. Yes. Does that mean when you're here, and in the state of your calm mind, there's no thoughts at all? Does it mean that when you're calm, there's no thoughts at all? No, it doesn't mean that. It just means, when you say thoughts, you mean like objects of knowledge? Objects of thoughts? Things you know? Discursive thinking. I mean, for the second state, it's clear to me that I need to use thoughts to ponder about what I heard. To ponder. But you're wondering, in the calm state,

[36:56]

do you need to use thoughts to ponder? Well, you keep jumping. One is, no thoughts at all. The other is using the thoughts. But there's another possibility, okay? And that is, not using the thoughts. But, for a lot of people, it's like, no thoughts? Okay, I won't use those. But when there are thoughts, I'm going to use them. Or, no objects? Okay, fine. Then I can't use them. But when there are objects, then I'm probably going to try to use them. No diamonds? Okay, I have no attachments. When there's diamonds, okay, I've got to, like, make a pile. The calm is while there's diamonds,

[37:56]

or while there's these objects or thoughts. I think the way you're using thoughts is like things you know. In other words, they're objects. They're really objects of thoughts, which are sometimes called thoughts. So, when you're doing analysis, you actually are being somewhat active, in the sense that you're, like, splitting the diamonds into little piles and organizing them and understanding them. That's part of the work. Analysis, or pondering, or investigation. What kind of diamonds are these? How many big ones? How many little ones? Now, the little ones, what are they actually? Are these really diamonds, or is this interpretable? Actually, this is an interpretable diamond, and so on. This diamond has no self, and so on. This diamond is impermanent, and so on. So that's kind of active. Analysis. Penetration. Going deeper.

[38:58]

But the calm, it's not that there's nothing there. It's not that there's no objects. It's just that there's no movement among them. There's no involvement with them. So things are arising and ceasing. This object, then that object. But you're not moving from this object to that object. It's just this object, and [...] this object. But what I'm training the attention towards is not moving among the objects. I'm training the attention towards, for example, the way the mind is just radiant and unguided. Ungraspable. I'm enjoying the nature of the mind while the objects of mind are coming and going. Sometimes they come and go in a rather mild way. That's why sometimes it's easier

[40:00]

to come in a situation where it's not so hectic, so you can see, actually, that even when it's not so hectic, it can still be hectic. That it's not by controlling the objects that you get them to calm down, but rather it's by looking at the nature of mind that you realize calmness in the midst of the objects. Once you're calm, you're ready to use the teaching which you heard earlier, maybe, the teaching you heard earlier, for example, was that, actually, you know, these objects arise and cease. So now you can calmly look at their arising and ceasing. So the teaching, and also the teaching that objects arise and cease, by the way, you also learned, was an interpretable teaching, not an ultimate teaching.

[41:04]

And so you see, conventionally it's true, they seem to arise and cease. And you calmly watch that. But while you're watching it, you're just watching the arising and ceasing, you're not concerned about which ones are arising and ceasing, because you're calm, because you trained your mind away from being concerned about, ooh, pains are arising, monsters are arising, stupidities are arising. You don't, like, move among those different things, you're kind of like, okay, [...] or welcome, [...] thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. No matter what happens, you don't move among them, you don't try to avoid them, so you're calming. Now, when these things arise, you can study the teaching, the conventional teaching, that things arise and cease, while understanding also that that was a conventional teaching or an interpretable teaching. And then you can also take a non-interpretable teaching, for example, these objects do not arise and cease, so you can look at that too. But it helps to look at that

[42:11]

or penetrate that after having, you're not all balled up and tangled up in what you're looking at to see what the nature of it is. But if we're moving among the objects, it's pretty hard for us to see what they are, because we're mostly like picking and choosing and running around in circles, bumping into them. We give that up when we calm down. Once we give it up, then we can re-enter the realm of objects and we can study them dispassionately, and now the penetration, the vision goes deeper. But there is a certain amount of activity in the studying of the objects, in observing to what they are. So the penetration of the insight is to observe the object, the calming is to not observe the object, but just see it and look back, withdraw from the object into the nature of mind and calm down. And when calm,

[43:11]

go back and study the things which you had studied before in this kind of discursive way you mentioned. And when you study them again, there will still be a little discursiveness, but you're calm enough to not get caught by the discursiveness. So you can actually go through the same operations that were originally discursive without getting fooled by the illusion of discursiveness. Discursiveness is really an illusion, but a useful delusion. You can build rockets with it, plan dinner with it, choose preschools with it, figure out how to get to Green Gulch with it. So discursive thought is useful and it can even be used to penetrate deeply into the nature of objects. And then you understand something which is not discursive, it's just an understanding which comes to you by discursive thought, which you did and you got the understanding. Now, you calm down

[44:13]

because you're getting ready to go deeper, deeper wisdom, wisdom of meditation, so you calm down. Now when you're calm, then you go back and take your understanding and you look at it based on that calm and then you get a deeper understanding. And then you join that deep understanding. So you're just coming with the same type of analysis but there's almost no being caught by the discursiveness of it because you're so calm. You see, the discursiveness is an illusion, it's a revelatory process that seems like running around like a crazy scientist, but really the scientist is totally still. It's really an unfolding, penetrating process rather than but it looks like you're going to this part of the laboratory and that part of the laboratory and you're checking this and you're going to the computer and you're firing your staff and so on. You're competing with

[45:17]

the other group of scientists but it's really hectic, you know. It looks like that but you're not fooled anymore because you gave up that kind of sense of things but there was a time when you had to do it that way with some sense of calm. So you have enough calm to go deeper and you take the depth and now you go at it again with calm and then you go deeper and then you take the deeper understanding and then rejoin it again. In other words, give it up. Go beyond that too. Give the whole thing up. But it's now a fruit. You have a fruit of understanding. There's no more need to go deeper than this definitive understanding with great peace and then the whole body becomes permeated

[46:18]

or pickled in perfection. When you're calm your perfect understanding can pickle you, can penetrate you completely and then you reemerge into the world with this integrated, harmonized body. You're a Buddha. But I'm emphasizing this morning the calming side. The giving up of the mind moving among the objects. So if you can see your mind moving among objects if you see that apparent moving among the objects which is discursive thought which means discursive thought means running back and forth using the objects without trying to get rid of the object let the objects be. Just give up the running among them. Give up the running among them.

[47:23]

Give up the running among them. Yes? It seems like everything you've described this morning is the interpretable stuff. Yes, this is all interpretable. And I'm giving you some examples of interpretation. But the system itself seems to be uninterpretable. No, the whole system is interpretable. The only thing that's not interpretable is that the whole system is empty. But the whole system is empty is very similar to the whole system is interpretable. So all these teachings of the Buddha are interpretable is very similar to there's really no inherent nature to all the teachings of Buddhism. And even the teaching of emptiness or even the teaching of interpretableness is interpretable. But emptiness itself or ultimate truth itself is not interpretable. That you can take literally.

[48:25]

That's definitive. And when we see that well, hallelujah. When we see that then the entire system is purified. But we're trying to like learn how to see the ultimate, the final, the definitive truth. And we have all these interpretable teachings about guiding us into a mode of vision and tranquility so we can actually face and calmly see and understand the ultimate. And that's not interpretable. But the system, the whole system, this wonderful system of Buddhist teaching it's all interpretable and its emptiness is part of the reason why we feel comfortable interpreting it. Because it's empty we can use it any way we want. Whatever way will help people be able to see the truth

[49:27]

then fine. If that's helpful to you let's just call the whole thing off. Anything that will help beings see we can do because there's no solid inherent nature to this teaching. Yes? You're saying that the only definitive thing is emptiness? Yes. That's the only thing that's really the way things are. Everything else is well, interpretable and some of the stuff is really good. Some of the other ways of talking are very very helpful but they're still interpretable and they're interpretable because they're empty so they're not fixed so we're not to be rigid about them but all other teachings there's an argument about

[50:30]

whether there's rebirth or not and how that all works whether we should believe it literally or not. Well, the teachings that people are reborn and that there's reincarnation that's interpretable teachings but some people who understand very well that it's interpretable still say please believe it literally because if you don't believe it literally it won't work for you. So somehow some people are trying to get us to take interpretable teachings literally even while we understand that they're interpretable because, you know, the medicine works better that way. So it's possible to literally take something to take something literally even though you're going to get a teaching that it's interpretable and that's part of the three wisdoms too is taking things literally at different levels and then not taking them literally at another level and then taking them literally again and also the process of

[51:34]

this phase take it literally this phase don't take it literally this phase take it literally that teaching also is interpretable and then depending on which level you're looking at that you say well take that literally or don't take that literally and you hear these teachings and you think well I don't know if I want to do this program but anyway you try it and maybe you find wow it works and the way it works is interpretable and the way I interpret it is I like the way it works I feel this is coming along very nicely and then someone says well that's fine but that's interpretable for example I interpret it that you're not coming along so nicely and you say well according to my understanding it was interpretable so it's okay if you interpret it differently so we can get along here there's no problem of you having a different interpretation of my work my meditation practice that's okay and I have some interpretations

[52:36]

about what you just said too because what you said is interpretable too isn't it? So we can discuss we can interact we can deepen this is analysis we're not mutually editing each other's interpretations this is a natural part of the process which is the same as you pondering yourself and your own understanding constantly pondering when we learn something when we learn some teaching we often feel pretty good because we feel good when understanding happens it feels good you're changing you're evolving and you feel like you're losing what you learned but losing what you learned is part of going deeper so then you need to say well this is a natural part of the process that you learned a little bit and now you moved another level and you're now in a realm that's deeper so you don't know this realm yet or higher

[53:36]

but this is actually part of growth that what you thought was true before has actually just been superseded but you haven't quite got the new superseded state yet so keep working and when you get that then you're happy again and then say well can I talk to you about what you understood now and are you ready to take the next step to go higher or deeper and you might say well no I want to stay at this stage for a little while okay that may be skillful not to push too soon one time I went to Suzuki Roshi and I said I was worried because the practice was kind of easy in other words it had been hard for a long time

[54:39]

and I was getting I thought that I felt good about the hardness because I felt really challenged and growing physically challenged and intellectually challenged by the teachings by his teachings and by the teachings of the scriptures and the teachings of the environment of the practice and teachings of my body I felt very challenged and for a while there it got really easy everything was flowing nicely I thought I was in denial or something so I told him I said it's getting easy and he took a piece of paper and he folded it and he said sometimes we fold the paper it's like an origami we fold the paper but before we fold the second time we just press on it for a while because just pressing on it although it's already folded just pressing on it longer the fold holds a little better so you just hold it for a while sometimes it's easy you did the fold

[55:41]

sometimes it's not so hard was there somebody back there? a whole bunch of people over there what's happening over there? there's a rhythm to the group yes? yes? yeah, go ahead I just wanted to say a little bit more about how you how you give up running around he wants to say a little bit more about how you give up running around among the different objects he wanted me to say a little more about how you give up running around the different objects so that attitude of wanting to get a little bit more okay that's running around among objects okay so that's your current opportunity to give up trying to get more give up trying to get more information

[56:47]

about how to stop trying to get more information can you feel that? what that's like? kind of like, oh it's kind of like okay, I hear about this practice and I want to go over there and get more about this practice can you feel that? can you feel that? then you hear back well that's what you're supposed to give up and you feel stopped do you feel a little bit stopped? that's feeling of being stopped or that you're stopping running over there to get more that's what it's like so you did get more what you got more is don't try to get more don't try to get more about this but anyway, still let's see if we got another guy who's trying to run over here and get more yeah? let's say you're daydreaming, yeah?

[57:50]

which is very similar to fantasizing I guess fantasizing in the daytime is is daydreaming and fantasizing at night is nightdreaming yes? all of a sudden there's like an awareness of what's going on is that the mind that knows daydreams instead of the mind that's running around daydreams so you're daydreaming you feel like you're daydreaming and suddenly there is a what again? like oh there's like an oh? I don't know how to put it into a word well that was pretty good there was like an oh? or kind of like a surprise about oh I'm daydreaming yeah right so it seems like we're daydreaming and suddenly we go oh I'm daydreaming and you want to know what that is? what do you mean? hold that thought

[58:57]

okay so it seems suddenly he assumes he's been daydreaming you know because suddenly he sees oh I'm daydreaming and it's kind of a surprise to see that you're daydreaming you assume maybe that before you noticed it you probably were doing the same thing you kind of vaguely think oh yeah I was kind of daydreaming but now I actually see it I'm daydreaming that's sort of like just seeing a thought okay and at the moment of stopping there it's like that's in some sense what it's like to just stop because at that moment you're not running from that thought to the next thought you're just like oh now the training that was given to you though right it was just a surprising gift like hey Paul here take a little

[60:01]

take a little peek at what you're doing you know stop first and somehow like if you were sitting in meditation right daydreaming and somebody came over and whispered in your ear hey Paul take a little look you might go oh wow you know but that moment you stopped this running around in your head for a moment and you notice oh I was running around in my head but you actually kind of stopped for a second there but you didn't try to stop you got this little blessing called take a peek and that stimulated you to stop running around and then when you stopped running around you felt more like oh and you felt kind of good too probably like oh I'm here like I'm not running around I'm here wow

[61:01]

oh stopped okay and that's what that's what calm is like you're just like here like here here here oh wow stopped but not trying to do that but if somehow your mind is being trained that way and sometimes it can be trained by somebody like poking you or saying take a peek or what are you doing but if you try or I try to stop that's part of the art of it then you're your the mind is moving from what you're doing over to over to this other thing called stopping or calming but when you just go oh and then oh and oh [...] and that's that that way of being with things your mind's you're not moving among the objects you see you're not moving it's kind of like just object object object

[62:03]

rather than object now what's the next object so her thing what next and often you think that so you get this nice little gift of a moment of stopping a moment of peace like oh I'm here like I'm I'm in the room I'm sitting at the seat that's the way it always is wow and then well what do I do now what next should we try to do that again this is beginning you're back in now they say oh now I'm back now I'm back in running around again but if I'm just here with the running around it's like oh again so that surprise is just a moment of a moment of just being there that's a moment of not running around the objects the funny thing is that every moment we're not going anyplace but we feel like we are so even though you're here in this room you're racing all over the place

[63:05]

and then suddenly in the middle of racing all over the place you go oh I'm not going I'm actually like I'm not going anyplace wow oh wow oh wow and then turn up the wall and just like and then various tricky objects start coming like you're wasting your time this is really good you should do more of this how much longer can you be like this this is excellent but you're going to lose it any second these objects come and again if you just go oh [...] here's it now are you ready for this temptation oh that kind of like childlike innocence no matter how sleazy and tricky the anti-meditation presentation is you like

[64:07]

you just you just kind of go oh oh ah wah gee wah I don't know what to do with you yes but you can can you remember what you used to do with me oh yeah feel better now yeah now I don't have to worry about this meditation thing get the picture innocent innocent oh [...] wow that takes care of everything it doesn't really take care of everything it just takes care of calming down you still have to like

[65:08]

penetrate deeply into the ultimate truth but but this is this is how to calm down just oh oh with that but you know not repeating it just every time a fresh oh a fresh surprise a fresh wow and what and it's a you know it's a response to like daydreaming it's a response to pleasure it's a response to pain it's a response to all kinds of like comments like how much longer is this period going to be this is a nice day whatever infinite objects but you don't move among them you just handle one after another and you're not into the movement which means you're not trying to get to the next one or remember what the last one was or get rid of this one or get a better set of ones coming or go over and check on that one

[66:08]

you're just right here stopped oh oh oh wow the question is about how the self plays into all this and whether these the thinking that you're doing the reflection on the act of calming is involving the self or is the self an object of mind that you don't want to get involved in the at this in this kind of meditation the self is when you're aware of the self when I should say when there's awareness of self when there's awareness of self when there's awareness of self in this phase of in the phase of calming when there's

[67:09]

awareness of self then self in that case must be an object of thought okay so in this phase of meditation when self arises you say oh when self arises you say wow in other words you you don't do what you're doing right now I'm looking trying to find out what I'm trying to say you just go oh if you get the self involved you know you're not just going oh but there's another phase of meditation where you after you calm down and you notice the self you look at the self and we actually do some analysis of it so you first you first you use you get teachings about how to analyze and you also you get teachings

[68:09]

about the self and you get teachings about how to analyze the self you get teachings about how to ask questions about the self like for example is the self the same as the five aggregates in other words is the self a feeling is the self an emotion is the self a concept is the self a consciousness is the self a color a taste So you analyze to see if you can find if the self is any of those. You learn that meditation and you actually try it maybe, and you actually maybe can find to some extent, I actually can't find the self. Whatever I think, whenever I think about a self, it's actually like an emotional disposition, or it's a habitual way to modulate my level of excitation, or it's an identity which is an image. So actually I don't find anything that's the self other than the five aggregates. Now also you might say, well does the self like this?

[69:13]

So that we don't find the self is in the five aggregates, is the self something other than the five aggregates? So we try that one. So you learn these methods of analyzing the self that's part of the education program, that's part of the penetration. And then you develop some understanding that way. First of all you can get it by hearing, then you can get it by pondering, and these teachings are interpretable teachings, so you can actually do quite a bit of interpretation. So you can get quite deep understanding that way. Then you've calmed down, but when you're calming you're no longer like analyzing any objects. You're just like trying to give up getting involved in them. But when you first start studying things, it's hard to penetrate them and understand them without some discursive thought, without getting somewhat involved. That's what Angelica's question was. Okay? That's the first phase of wisdom, is you actually like, you do get kind of involved.

[70:14]

You go to school, you learn these analysis, you penetrate these things, you learn about all the teachings about the self, and then you ponder it, go deeper. Then you're ready to like develop calm. You might have been practicing calm already, but anyway, now you're going to practice calm, and you're going to get set to be calm, and then you're going to take what you've learned about the self and look at it again, based on the calm, and then you're going to go deeper into what the self is. But in the calming phase, you kind of like just put yourself aside, because your self is just another object. It doesn't mean you push it out of the way, it just means you don't run back and forth between self and other things. You don't get involved with, I'm doing that meditation. So I'm, me, that's one object, then I run over to the other object, the meditation I'm doing,

[71:15]

then I run over to the other object, what the meditation is looking at, then I go back to the self. This kind of running around, this discursive thought, we give up. And even if it's still going on, we just go, oh, I'm still like trying to run this show. And as long as that's going on, or as long as somebody else is doing that, I relate to it like, oh, then I calm down. But there's still a place for going back and looking at the self. But the deepening, the deepest and deepening of the insight into the nature of our existence requires some part of us giving up our usual discursive thought. Giving up discursive thought, we naturally leap into the actual vital, the vitality, the life of wisdom. Wisdom before there's calm is somewhat penetrating, but it lacks life, it lacks flow, it lacks

[72:21]

juice. It's still a little bit stuck in the intellect. But the intellect does need to be trained, so that's where you start. Train the intellect for wisdom. Train the intellect. Now, if you're not developing wisdom, if you're developing calm, you don't have to train the intellect too much. As a matter of fact, the instruction is, give up the intellect. So various smart questions that people have, I say, well, that's part of what you give up. So the calming's not really intellectual. It's innocent of intellectual. It's very simple. And smart people have a hard time calming down because they have so many interesting diversions so many interesting ways of keeping discursive thought going, that it's hard to, like, get them to really believe it's so simple as just to keep saying, hmm, oh. Or just to keep looking at the mind, which goes, oh, oh. And that's what the mind's doing all the time, it's like, oh, oh, oh Paul, oh Lee, oh Gary,

[73:26]

oh Amanda, oh Paula. That's sort of, you know, but the mind doesn't do that, you know, it just goes, oh, oh, oh. It does that all day long. Oh, oh, oh. Of course, it does other things too, like, well, how can we use this and how can we get rid of this? In other words, it also has discursive capacities. But if you give up the discursive capacities, you're practicing calm. And just saying, oh, to everything, you're giving up discursive thought. Discursive thought may be still going on, but you keep going, oh. Not even, oh, this is still going on, it's just like, oh. A little bit, oh, I can't believe that I'm hung up by my discursive thought, I'm really not giving it up. But the original, oh, that little bit of a shock of what a lousy meditator you are. But you're not really a lousy meditator, you're just lousy at calm. You're probably good at insight, because you're like, you're inciting away, you're using your

[74:28]

discursive thought to go deeper and deeper and getting more and more knowledge and analyzing your problems more and more, you know. That's good. That's part of meditation. Insights coming down the tube fast. But calming is part of making that insight go deeper, and calming is to give up how smart you are. But don't trash it, because you'll need it later. It's good that you're smart. It's good that you can analyze, it's good that you can penetrate, it's good that you can run back and forth with all these scenarios and all these questions and figure these things out. That's all good. It's good just because that's our nature, is to have a discursive mind, but we have to protect ourselves from that by giving it up. We have to give up this good thing, and when we give up discursive thought, Pali is like a deep mind that runs under you all the time.

[75:41]

So training your mind to that deep place that's always running through, that's not really a place, but a deep nature of mind, the deep place which is kind of like, oh, oh, oh, oh. Try that during lunch, you know, all this beautiful stuff coming and, you know, limited amounts of seconds, oh, [...] it's there all the time, just tune into it, just direct your attention to this deep river of innocence that's running underneath everything, it's always there. Just go down there, get that resource and bring it up, let it flow among all this variety,

[76:48]

and then, when that's happening, then we can really start to penetrate all the different types of things with wisdom, does that make sense? And so if you want to learn more about the analysis, come Wednesday night, it's going to be like Wednesday night's analysis night for a few weeks, going to get into the four schools of Buddhism, the different levels of epistemological, the gradual methods of epistemological transcendence that the different schools provide, and if you don't want to be involved in any analysis for a while, fine, just do this calming practice for a long time until you get really good at, oh, really settled and stable in this deep way of attending

[77:50]

to the nature, the non-discursive nature of mind. So mind has a non-discursive nature and it also has discursive capacities, but deeper than, you know, you can take away all discursive thought, the mind is still there, kind of like, oh, very deep, you don't lose that, but it's deep, you know, like I was just telling Mick that I heard about this guy, this timpani player, you know, he said the timpani is very low, you know, it's the lowest part, has the lowest tones in the orchestra, so people tend to overlook it, it's not, you know, you hear the violins, you hear them, timpani is still there but you don't hear it, it's the heartbeat, you know, they call the timpani the second conductor of the orchestra, because it's the heartbeat of the orchestra, and it's a basic

[79:00]

tone too, it's the rhythm and it's the basic tone, and also the second bass, those two. So the Samatha is like the timpani or the second bass, the heartbeat of the mind, deep down there, but it's hard to hear when discursive thought is going on, but even when discursive thought is going on, it's still there, just got to, if you want to calm down, just direct attention back to this deep place, to this uninterrupted nature of mind, okay? If you want to, if you want to develop calm, I just thought you might want to today, because we don't actually need you to do much discursive thought. Or maybe the servers have to do a little discursive thought, like how do I get to the other side of the Zendo?

[79:59]

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