During this retreat, you've been listening to teachings about wisdom, and you've been developing some insight or some wisdom based on listening to the teachings of wisdom. You all have your own particular level of insight that's developed. I think practically speaking, most of you have still more work to do before you understand through hearing. Stricta literally means hearing. It's related to the word shabla, which means sound. So it means hearing. But it's often also translated as through listening. It's also often translated as through learning. You're actually learning these teachings, these wisdom teachings. You're learning that, for example, Dogen tells you that when you go around carrying yourself and then holding the self, you live your life.

[01:09]

That's delusion. But when you witness all things coming forth and then you're self-born in that advent, And act from there. That's enlightenment. This is a wisdom teaching. But you may not understand that well enough, yet you may have to think about it more and actually even discuss it more with somebody and read about it more. So some of you are not yet ready to take these wisdom teachings sort of into your sitting meditation. That may be the case. In which case, and some of the signs that you're not ready is that if you sit in meditation and you can't remember clearly what the teaching is, or you start to get somewhat agitated and feel frustrated and so on and so forth, then maybe you should study the wisdom teachings in another venue besides the sitting. Maybe go back and study it. in discussion with a teacher, in classes and discussions, form study groups to study these teachings, read the scriptures which teach wisdom, and so on and so forth.

[02:14]

Keep working on studying through hearing. In the meantime, continue to practice calm in your sitting. And in calm again, calm practice, you're giving up discursive thought. But then in another venue, your study venue, And you can use your discursive thought to listen to the teaching, to learn the teaching, to memorize the teaching, to discuss the teaching, to express your understanding and get feedback. This is a normal part of developing wisdom. Okay, and that's what you've been doing during this retreat. Some of you have also been trying to apply the wisdom teachings during the sitting, which is fine, and eventually you're going to want to do that. But it may be too early for some of you, so you just have to like wait until you're better grounded and understand better the wisdom teachings. In other words, until you have insight before you try to do it in your sitting. And that's something which I guess you'll have to sort of judge for yourself and or talk to your friends and teachers about whether you're ready to do that.

[03:29]

Anyway, in the usual way of developing, You start by listening, which also includes reading. In other words, you start by taking in the teachings from outside and clarifying the terms and expressing your understanding and getting feedback until you actually experience a change. You actually, like, go from not understanding to understanding, which you can actually feel, like you kind of go, oh, you change. You don't get it or you get it one way and then you get it another way sometimes like a really different and you feel that shift and Sometimes that shift is a shift from one misunderstanding to another That's why you need to check it out with a teacher to say I used to not understand at all and now I get it This is what I get the teacher says right a teacher says not quite It's more like this and you go, huh? And then you get it, and you say, it's like that. And he says, right. And you agree, and it makes sense to you.

[04:33]

And you say, right. So you understand, and there's more than one aspect to the wisdom teachings, but you get one aspect, and you've experienced, actually, that you shifted from either not understanding or a certain understanding to a new understanding, and it usually feels pretty good when you shift, actually. It feels good. It feels good to learn something. Like, you learn it. Kind of like, I think I learned it. And then you get feedback that you did learn it. Like swimming, you know, you still know how to swim and you can swim. And you say, I think I know how to swim. And the coach said, no, you still don't know how to swim. Try this. And you try it. And you say, no, no, no. You try it. No, no, no, no. And you try it. And you get it. He says, is that it? Yeah, you got it. You know what that feeling? It can happen even at a somewhat advanced age. Where did he go? Oh, there it is. That's through the wisdom which comes through study. Okay? The next level is wisdom that comes through thinking.

[05:35]

You're using your thinking in the first one, too. You know, you're using your discursive thought to hear a whole sentence from one to end, or a paragraph, or even a page. You're using your discursive thought to receive and think about the teaching, and you understand mostly from the outside. But you actually come to understand the teaching that you first got through your ears or your eyes usually. You can also get, I guess, teachings through touch. Sometimes somebody adjusts your posture and says, try this one. Try this posture. You go, this one? No. This one? Yeah. Okay. Try it. And then you sit there and say, you get adjustment again because you didn't quite get it. So you can get it through your hands, and you can even probably understand through smell and touch. But mostly we get it, these teachings we get, through words. So it mostly comes through your eye and your ear. And you do learn things this way, and this is the first level of wisdom that comes in that form. Learning in that form in some ways is not compatible with tranquility meditation where you're giving up discursive thought.

[06:43]

At that point they're not really compatible. However, if you're already calm as a result of practicing giving up discursive thought, then could you study these teachings of wisdom? Yeah. Matter of fact, you'd be easier to study them because you're calm and alert and flexible. So that's why some teachers first teach you to calm. And when you're calm, then they have you do the wisdom teachings because once you're calm, It's easier because wisdom teachings are somewhat, have the potential to agitate you because they're tampering with your sense of reality. And if you're calm, you can stand, as somebody said, you can stand your cage getting rattled, you know, or tipped upside down even. Like, oh, upside down, fine. Oh, now I'm on my back. I'm still calm. So being calm and relaxed and flexible helps you hear teachings which are insult to your intelligence.

[07:48]

I mean, you know, in other words, that tell you that you're stupid. To believe what you think. But you're relaxed, so you can handle that. If you get too upset, go back and get relaxed again. That's why if you're doing these wisdom practices and start getting frazzled and depressed, give them up. They can be depressing or scary or discouraging or challenging or whatever. Go back and do your tranquility practice. Okay? And when you're ready, go back and study. Once you have actual insight and you checked your insight with the books and with the teachers and with your friends, then you can, like, think about what you learned. Then you can meditate or think about and reflect on what you already understand. And this is not coming from the outside. This is like you can do it in your own head. You can walk around and apply it to your daily life.

[08:52]

Or you can even sit in meditation, if you feel ready, and think about how your insight applies to what's happening. And this is a reflective process where you actually make the next step. And you will observe there too a shift in your understanding which will go even deeper. In that book, the Sambhinirmacana Sutra, which again, as I said, through Tim you'll be able to get a book, a reading list on that sutra and the commentaries. In that sutra they give a fairly detailed discussion of the difference between these three types of wisdom. And you can hear about these differences, And that's somewhat helpful, but the important point is that someday you would actually have the experiences to check to see that your experience correspond to what they tell you the difference is.

[09:57]

So for example, one difference is that this, the first level of insight is that it depends on words, right? Depends on words, and you understand the literal meaning, but you don't understand the intent. The second one, also depends on words, but you understand not just the literal meaning, and you start to understand the intent. The third level depends on words and doesn't depend on words. Both. And you don't just understand the literal meaning, and you do understand the intent. Each one of these is conducive to enlightenment. The first one is conducive to enlightenment. The second one's very conducive to enlightenment. The third one's completely, it's not enlightenment. The first one's conducive to liberation. The second one's very conducive to liberation. The third one's completely conducive to liberation.

[10:58]

Could you repeat the meditation when I was writing it down? It didn't depend on words. The first type of insight depends on words. And you have a literal understanding. But you have to start with the literal understanding. And you don't understand the intent of the teachings. The second one is not, it also depends on words, but you also, you don't just understand it literally. You also, and you start to understand the intent. And it's more, it's getting more conducive to liberation. And there's some other differences too. And we can read about it in that. But I can actually maybe suggest to you to think about how if you had an insight about a teaching about wisdom, or rather if you had an insight about a teaching, in other words, a wisdom about teaching through hearing, you understand it, but you're not yet thinking about, well, what guy keeps that for? After you understand the teaching, then you can think, you have to understand the teaching first a little bit before you can think about effectively what the person's intention of teaching was.

[12:09]

If you don't understand the teaching, It's pretty hard to figure out, to meditate on what would be the intention of teaching this, because you'd be looking for the intention about a teaching which you don't understand. Now, I think you do know, however, that when you receive a teaching, that the teaching is coming because of the intention of whoever sent the message. In this case, it's the Buddha sent the message, and the Buddha's disciples are carrying the message to you. So the intention of the Buddha and the Buddha's disciples you know there must be some intention, but when you're first starting to learn the teaching, you don't, it's not really like in scale to try to figure out the intention at first. First you have to get the teaching straight. Once you got the teaching straight, literally, then you can be not so literal about it. And you can say, well, maybe actually they said it, it's possible that they said a teaching which is sort of like not really what they really meant, because if they said what they really meant, that might not be appropriate for me.

[13:10]

This is the kind of interpretations you can start making. In other words, when you get to the second phase of wisdom, you can start being creative. You can start playing with the teaching a little bit and realizing that they didn't necessarily mean it literally. That's a possibility, right? But you can't do that at the beginning, otherwise you won't understand. At the beginning, you have to take it literally. And that will cause, after some study, a transformation in your understanding of the teaching. Then you can say, after you get it literally, that maybe they didn't mean it literally, even though it means something when you take it literally. And the reason why they didn't mean it that way is because they had this intention. And that's another part of the sutra is it points out, in a way, that the Buddha sometimes doesn't teach the ultimate truth because the ultimate truth to an uneducated audience might undermine their compassion practice. So sometimes the Buddha backpedals a little bit on the truth so that they get part of the truth, but not the whole thing, because the whole thing would maybe destroy their sense of the importance of precepts.

[14:23]

And then later, he gives them a more advanced teaching, if they're ready for it. And then later, even beyond that, he tells them why he didn't tell them that teaching earlier. That's part of what the sutra talks about. Because the name of the sutra is unraveling the thought or revealing the thought. In other words, in this sutra, the Buddha is asked, you know, what were you thinking of when you taught this? He says, well, I taught this, I taught X, but I was actually thinking of X, Y, and Z. I didn't tell you about the other stuff at that time, but now I think you can handle it, so now I'm giving it to you. And also earlier, I didn't need to teach X, I taught A, because if I taught X, I was afraid that the disciples would like, again, lose their commitment to compassion. So that's that part of what the sutra talks about. But anyway, when you get into the second level of wisdom, you start to become interpretive and creative and critical. You start to criticize the teaching.

[15:25]

First you learn, at the first, when you first learn them, you can be very critical. Sorry. You can't really argue at the beginning. You don't have to take it on faith, though. But you can take it in and then see if it works for you. And if it works for you, it works for you. If it doesn't, then it doesn't. But you can't really reject it and give it a chance to work. But after it works for you a little bit, then you can be critical. So the second phase of teaching is you start to analyze it, take it apart. chop it up in little pieces, compost it, be creative with it, tip it upside down, ask questions, doubt it, not exactly doubt it, but be critical of it, etymologize it, you know, whatever. And then you get the next level of wisdom. And those first two levels, you're using your brain in a way called thinking. The other type of meditation, you're using your brain in a way called letting go of your thinking. Your thinking's going on, but you're training yourself to let go of

[16:28]

And you get calm and get to be blissfully relieved of your thinking. You get a break. It's good. Take a break from your thinking is good. We do plenty of it. And taking breaks from it is good. And sitting quietly is a good time to take a break because when you're sitting quietly, you can believe that it's not necessary for you to be talking to yourself. And you can even ask your friends, would it be all right with you if I actually sat over there and didn't think about anything for a little while? And they might say yes. Sometimes they would say no, like if you're in the middle of a battle, they might say no, not now. We want you to think, but sometimes say, yeah, just go sit there and be quiet. This last space is sort of non-thinking, non-thinking, what's referred to as non-thinking. The last one? Yes. Actually, non-thinking is... these first two phases. And thinking of not thinking is also these first two phases.

[17:39]

The first two phases are non-thinking, thinking, and non-thinking. All that stuff that's in there is in the first two phases. The third phase is after you develop wisdom in the first two phases, you have become this new person who is doubly, well, you could say doubly wise, two levels of wise, okay? Then what you do when you've completed that course, you have become transformed by the first two levels of study of wisdom. Then what you do is this person who you've become sits down and enters into tranquility meditation. Then you give up your discursive thought. again, and you enter into calm. But it's a new person that's in this calm. And then this wisdom in the environment of the calm blossoms into a new kind of wisdom, and the new kind of wisdom is the ultimate wisdom, the deepest wisdom, because this word bhavana, the wisdom arises from bhavana.

[18:50]

Bhavana is sometimes translated as wisdom, I mean as meditation. But it literally means, bhava means being, and bhavana means to become. So in the third level of wisdom, you become your understanding. In other words, your understanding isn't something that you have. It's more like something that has you. It sinks into you. You cook yourself in it. And that happens in the environment of tranquility. Because in tranquility, you you're in a state that enhances your take on everything. So it's like you become completely intimate with the knowledge which arrives through your thinking. But the first two levels of wisdom involve thinking. The third one is the fruit of your thinking

[19:52]

Your understanding is not thinking. Wisdom is not thinking. Wisdom is the fruit of thinking in a certain way. Wisdom is the fruit of thinking about the truth in a certain way. Ignorance is the fruit of thinking about the truth in another way. You can think about the truth in the form of ignoring it, and then you get ignorance. You can think about phenomena in the sense of imagining them to exist in a way they don't, and that's ignorance. But you can also learn to think about what's happening with the aid of the teachings, such that you start to think about them in a way that's in accord with the way they are, until finally you actually do think of them that way. It supersedes your habitual, innate tendency to misimagine things, and now you start thinking about them Accurately. It's like you have a friend or let's say you have an enemy.

[21:02]

You know somebody who thinks an enemy and you listen to teachings for a long time about how this person is your friend until finally you think they're your friend. You're convinced that they're your friend. And then once you're convinced, you enter into tranquility And then that understanding really settles into you, and it washes away your misconception that they're your enemy. So the third level of wisdom arises in a situation which is basically non-conceptual, where you're letting go of your conceptual consciousness, and you're very calm, and the wisdom blossoms in a new way under those circumstances. So I was talking to somebody today about, you know, actually a couple of people talked to me about martial arts, you know, and Buddhism in some sense is a martial art in the sense that it's a way of responding to all the difficulties of life in a way that's so skillful that nobody gets hurt.

[22:12]

And when you're learning martial arts, at first you At first you learn from the teacher, and the teacher shows you with words, and they show you with the body. And you learn and you learn, and finally you get something. And then after you get it, and the teacher says, right, and you do it right, like in judo, you do these throws, and also not only do you do them, but they also tell you whether the form is right. It isn't just that you throw the person to the ground, but there's certain, if the form's too sloppy, you don't get full credit. You know what I mean? So there's various throws. You go like this and pull the person over like that or something, or you keep the person up to something like that or something. But even if you throw them to the ground, if the form isn't clear, you only get a half a point. And one of the things I liked about Judo was Japanese has counters. We used to have them in English, too, but we don't have so many anymore. You mean like abacus?

[23:16]

No, like counters is like, for example, cylindrical objects, okay? So they have numbers like ichi, ni, san, okay? Ichi is one, ni is two, san is three. Those are just what are called numerals. And they also have ordinals, like first, second, and third, like in Spanish. I guess we have that in English, too. We have one, two, and three, and we have first, second, and third, right? In Italian, they have one, two, and three, and they have primero, right? Segundo, right? Those are ordinals, right? But they have also counters for things like one cylindrical object is e, for ichi, or one, e, and the counter for cylindrical objects is hone, right? So one bottle of beer is , but they actually say , and two bottles of beer is , and three bottles of beer is , and four bottles of beer is , and five bottles of beer is .

[24:31]

Does that make sense? So is the counter. for cylindrical objects. For flat things, like pieces of paper, the counter is . So one piece of paper is . Two pieces of paper is . Three pieces of paper is . Make sense? Take the one, you put it with the counter. We used to have that in English, too. But we lost it. So one cylindrical object is . And a throw in judo, a properly executed throw, is counted by hones. Throws are hones. Maybe because the human body is a cylindrical. You know, it's a cylinder on legs or something. So one throw, or one point, one complete throw is called i-pon. So I remember the first time I was in a judo match, And I saw somebody get thrown, or threw somebody, when they hit the mat.

[25:32]

The referee says, boom! Boom, boom! Very nice. Boom! So anyway, one time, I'm doing this because one time I was playing with my coach, my teacher, who was, you know, my teacher. And he was playing with all the students, right? So the students get up. In judo, you call it play. The students get up and play with the teacher, and the teacher throws the student, throws that student, throws that student. So the teacher came my turn, and the teacher was throwing me, but something happened, and I threw the teacher. And then I went, boom! I didn't think I was going to throw the teacher. I don't know how it happened. I still don't. And the teacher didn't know how it happened either. And he didn't like it that much either. And I was a little embarrassed, but it did happen. I learned this sport, and I was out there playing, and I didn't think of doing it, but it happened.

[26:38]

That's more like the third level of wisdom. You're not thinking of it anymore. It's just you start acting like you're wise. The previous ones you're acting like you're wise too, but you're still thinking a little bit. The third level, it's just spontaneous, because you just cooked your wisdom in the samadhi, in the calm. And then you just like, this wisdom stuff happens, which means also that compassion happens, perfectly purified of misunderstanding. So all the hindrances have been removed. of, you know, thinking dualistically and so on. So at first you receive the teachings which help you understand the falseness of duality, the falseness of that you exist separate from the conditions that give rise to you, which is what we usually think. And you think about that and think about it until you get it straight. But again, Five days is not very long. The Green Gulch have been studying this stuff for a long time.

[27:40]

Some of the priests even in these classes still don't understand anything about this. And they just barely can stay awake in these classes. So you people are doing really well compared to some of the priests at Zen Center who just sit there and say, I don't understand anything. They just barely keep their eyes open. So I have to ask them questions now and then just to embarrass them to wake them up. Wisdom teachings are generally harder than compassion teachings because they require you to think differently. You can learn compassion practices without changing your attitude about the world. You can just go according to your present understanding, you can still get pretty good at compassion. The full release of compassion will not come until you eliminate all duality in your consciousness. but you can go a long ways there. Wisdom practices are hard, but I'm teaching them to you so you know something about the scale of Buddhism. This is part of the course.

[28:42]

But also part of the course is to be compassionate with yourself and be patient. And don't push yourself too hard to learn these things, but put them on the menu. Put them on the course. This is part of your study. But for a lot of you, probably you should still mostly in your sitting meditation continue to do tranquility meditation. And the venue for your wisdom study may be more like should be in classes. So maybe you could start having classes here where you start studying the sutra together and help each other. And maybe, for example, it might be possible for you to like also get in touch with Green Gops and get some of the tapes from some of the classes we've been doing. Like Catherine's at Tassajara. She's listening to tapes of classes because she's not She doesn't have classes at Tassajara on this topic much, right? No. Only when you're there. So she and some other people at Tassajara are listening to tapes from the classes that were happening up at Green Gulch.

[29:44]

We sent them down. And then she's studying the sutra with these tapes. So maybe you could do something like that if some of you wanted to go ahead and continue to study this teaching. start going through the sutra and get into commentaries and the tapes. In this way you can help each other go more into this teaching if you want to. But that's probably what it takes, because that's what it takes at Green Gulch too. People are not able to apply this teaching without help, because it's hard, actually. The sutra is very difficult, actually. And that's why it hasn't been translated until 1994. Who translated it? There's three translations. And I, you know, excuse me for saying this, but I'm really proud of Berkeley. All three translations of this magnificent sutra were done in Berkeley. You know? Tom Cleary lived in Berkeley when he did it.

[30:46]

And I don't know where John Powers did one. Tom Cleary did one. And John Keenan did another. So all three are translated in Berkeley. And... But the reason why I think it's translated so late was because it's so difficult. Almost nobody, the only people who are buying this book that I know of are people at Zen Center. Because, you know, I'm offering classes on it. So they buy the book and start studying it. But it's a hard book. Yes? Oh, there's at least one copy of Buddhist Yoga, the clear version, in Pittsburgh. I can tell you that. Somebody in the soccer house, I've seen it. No, it's not in our library, but it's okay. If you want to study together, different people could buy different copies. So you'd have all three copies. I think it sometimes helps to triangulate translations. One translation is from Tibetan, two are from Chinese. They are different, so the three sometimes help each other. So we study the three together, plus the original. We have the Chinese original and Tibetan original.

[31:50]

Some of the people in our study group can read Tibetan. And I can read Chinese a little bit. So we check the original sometimes to see what the original word is. Like I was reading Dogen this morning, I'm going to look up to see if that word is conditioned or could also be translated as story, this kind of thing. So this kind of study is a level of hearing, learning the text. discussing it with your friends, looking at the sutra, checking out, making sure you've got the words straight, get the literal meaning straight, until you go through this experience called understanding. And that understanding is not thinking. It's just right now. You don't have to think about what you think this room is. You understand this room to be a room. You don't have to think about anything to figure out that it's a room. Or you thought about it really fast and figured it out. But now that you've figured it out, you got it. It's a room. Okay? This isn't a boat. It's not a car.

[32:51]

It's a room in a building, right? You understand that. And after you leave here and I say, well, where did I see you last? You don't have to think about that much. You just understand. It was in that room. So understanding is not thinking. Understanding is the fruit of thinking, and some type of thinking produces false understanding, and some kind of thinking produces correct understanding. So I'm kind of wondering now, do you have a sense of how to proceed in your wisdom practice, and when to practice it and when not to? And that when you don't practice wisdom, you have other practices to work on. And when you don't practice those, you have wisdom practice to work on. And part of wisdom is to read and listen to the teachings, because you can't make up the Buddhist teachings. You have to listen to them. And the Buddha didn't make them up either. The Buddha had teachers, he said. But in this world system, in this cycle of history, the Buddha was the first one to teach the Four Noble Truths.

[33:58]

He was the first one in history to carefully analyze the psychology of perception. He was the first one in history to describe the psychological processes of yogic development. He was the first one to describe the process of becoming calm. in a detailed way, and so on. And the way he described it was in terms of his understanding, of course, namely that, for example, the psychology of perception precedes independence through dependent co-horizon. That was his teaching also, which there wasn't even any other description before anyway. So the first description was one which is delivered in terms of dependent co-horizon. So he taught in a middle way how psychological processes go, and he taught in a middle way how yogic processes go. And now we have this tradition, plus his disciples for 2,500 years have produced considerably more material, much more than he did. So you have this huge ocean about the huge ocean.

[35:01]

So that's why you have to, like, relax. You have to relax and be calm. and kind to yourself because you've got an ocean to learn. But that's something which, if you're calm, you feel like, well, great, I'm so great, so wonderful, I can study for eons. How wonderful to have such a great resource as this tradition. You're not impatient to get it all down. You're not going to get it all down. But you can enjoy whatever amount you can get every step of the way But that's why you have to be compassionate to yourself while you're studying. And you have to be compassionate and patient with your friends, too, and your students, because sometimes they're slow. We've got this long course to play, this huge, huge oceanic golf course to the clubhouse of Buddhahood.

[36:05]

Yes. I have two questions. The first one is, while you're out playing and you feel that maybe more so moving into the thinking level, is there a recommendation that you would give, besides talking to your meditation teacher, about how that would look? Is there a certain amount of time, let's say a 30-minute daily practice? which a certain amount of time you might do the hearing practice and a certain amount of time you could do the tranquility and then going to the insight meditation? Hearing, the phase of developing wisdom through hearing is insight meditation. So part of insight meditation is to learn the teachings of how to do insight meditation. For example, insight meditation I guess if you go to a Vipassana center in the United States, they teach you the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, don't they? Do you know about this?

[37:14]

I taught you the Four Foundations of Mindfulness a little bit. Remember? I guess not too many of you have been to Vipassana centers, is that right? Have any of you been there? You have? Do you remember the teaching of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness? Yes. Yeah. That's a standard fare at Vipassana centers is Four Foundations of Mindfulness. So part of learning to do their practice is to learn from a book or through a teacher verbally the four foundations of mindfulness. And then they teach you how to... Then the Buddha actually teaches you in the sutra, there's a sutra called the Four Foundations, called the Foundations of Mindfulness. Okay? And then they teach you the first one. They say that mindfulness... based on the body. So then they say, when the monk or the yogi is practicing mindfulness of the body, when they're standing they're aware, I am standing. When they're sitting they're aware, I'm sitting. When they're walking they're aware, they're walking.

[38:17]

When they're lying down they're aware. So it tells you how to do that. At that level of learning, this is a vipassana or insight meditation, at that level you are learning, you're learning. Okay? After reading that, When you understand, you would be able to then practice it. So then you would understand how to do that practice. Then you walk around practicing being mindful of that. Okay? Or if it's a teaching not so much about how to be mindful, now you've learned how to be mindful, okay? Because you heard the teaching, you understood it, and then you could practice it. So now you're practicing mindfulness. Then the The fourth foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of dharma, which is teachings about the nature of experience, teachings about the objects of awareness. Okay, now, so then, like, what's an example of an object that you might be aware of?

[39:19]

Your body, yeah. Anything else? You hear those bells? Yeah, those bells. Those are objects. Objects are things that are known by subjects. Subjects know objects. Subjects and objects go together, right? So you're a subject, which means you're a consciousness, who knows objects like sounds, like smells, like touch. you know, like the touch of your skin here or something like that. So these are objects. So then you hear teachings about those objects. For example, you hear the teaching that these objects dependently co-arise. Or you hear teachings about how the body arises by the twelvefold. So you listen to those teachings, and you listen to those teachings. And then when you understand those teachings, you have understanding of that teaching and how that teaching applies to, for example, a sound or your body. So you've achieved that first level through listening and discussing that teaching until you get it.

[40:30]

So then you can apply that Dharma teaching to your mindfulness of your body. So that's the level so far of hearing. The next level, and so you could do that while you're sitting perhaps. You could do that meditation now. of the dependent core rising, you might be able to apply it to your body while you're sitting, if you understood it through reading and discussing. And that would be the second level? No, it's the first level still. Still at the first level. You're just enjoying in your sitting that you have that understanding and you're just doing that way. Now, you could move on to the second level in your sitting, actually, if you wanted to. Namely, in your sitting you could start analyzing and examining how this teaching applies and think about it. And this time you don't have a teacher there with you. You're not getting any input of teaching.

[41:33]

You're just doing it inside yourself. You're using your own creative abilities to play with your previous understanding. And then you'd be training leading up to, but not yet attaining, this new level of insight. And the new level of insight is based on the previous level of insight. So the wisdom based on thinking is based on thinking about the wisdom that arose from hearing. So each of those, the first ones, the wisdom which arises from hearing is based on hearing on the teaching which you hear or see. The wisdom that arises from thinking is based on thinking about the wisdom that arose from thinking. And the wisdom that arises from meditation is the wisdom that arises based on the wisdom that arose from thinking in the meditational context. So in one context, you're listening to the teaching, and the wisdom arises from the listening.

[42:37]

And it's based not on wisdom. You don't have any wisdom yet, at least not about this topic that you're learning. Now you've got some wisdom. You think about the wisdom, and you think about the wisdom, what you learned, and then a new kind of wisdom arises from thinking about the previous wisdom. Third wisdom, you enter into samadhi, and based on the previous wisdom, that second wisdom becomes a third wisdom. And again, when you're doing wisdom meditations, even just thinking about it, in a sense, even listening to the teachings, even listening to the teachings in a class or reading a book, like reading a suit of scripture about wisdom teachings, if you start to get depressed and confused and think you're like a Buddhist retard or something, and you should quit practice, you know, because this wisdom teaching is too hard for you and you're never going to get it, close the book

[43:39]

And go practice, you know, go give somebody a present or something. Or go, you know, just work on your precepts. Or practice patience with the pain of being such a retard. You know, and be diligent about practicing patience with your current level of understanding, which is not much at all. And remember, you're supposed to be patient and kind to yourself and everybody else. So just give up the wisdom practice for a while and go back to the compassion until you feel good. till you feel relaxed and enthusiastic again. And like, yeah, I'm not too good, but I'm going to go back and study that stuff some more. I'm like the slowest person in the neighborhood. The dumbest kid on the block when it comes to like this wisdom stuff, but I'm still going to go practice it. You have to go through the beginning phase. Some people go through really fast, some people don't. Doesn't matter. This gives you more chances to be kind and learn more patience.

[44:42]

Some people, man, that's their problem. They learn so fast they can't practice any patience. It's no good. You must practice patience in order to be a Buddha. So if you don't have any problems, you know, you better get some. Most people don't have that problem, but some people do, actually. So I'm trying to give you a sense of how to manage your previous practice with this opening into the wisdom practice, which I think it is new for many of you. And so don't forget about the practice you used to do and don't be afraid to go back and enjoy that before you overextend yourself into this new realm. And forget about that you had a... A more tranquility practice prior to this, at least you're trying to practice tranquility.

[45:44]

Yes? I just wondered if you had any advice or if you could give a take on this. Like even like, I would say the Heart Sutra seems sort of like they're saying the same thing over and over again, but they're using different words. Yes? Yes. I'm trying to read not Arjuna's 70 stanzas. Yes. And it just seems like it's sort of saying the same thing over and over again. Yes. And kind of the same words. Yes. I don't understand it, or it's just like hard to keep reading this same thing over and over and over again. And is that like lack of understanding? Are there any things like... He would say, oh, bad sutras. That's it. Usually, in the Buddhist tradition, if we find a bad sutra, we say, it's not Buddhist. This isn't really a Buddhist sutra, is it?

[46:50]

To tell you the truth, I have not, although I do sometimes hit some difficult spots. When I hit the difficult spots, you know, I don't, I don't, I'm not sure whether it's that the sutra's actually off or whether I just don't understand. And those are some of the places where I learn the most. When I can't tell whether it's like bad translation, you know, that's times when, that's when it's nice to have more than one translation because it's kind of, like this here, this word said, beyond conditions, that doesn't make sense to me. There aren't There aren't really worlds beyond conditions. That's my understanding. But I'm going to go back and look at that, see? So if you ran into a scripture and had a lot of stuff like that where this doesn't make sense, that doesn't make sense, there would be a time to either put it aside for a while and or find somebody who knows about that material. So I can tell you that I think that the Seventy Spaniards is a very good work.

[47:53]

But I'd have to go over with you to tell you how to work with that difficult stuff. Nagarjuna is difficult. But that's another study group you could have, and we have tapes on that too. about how to go through Nagarjuna's material. He's commenting on the Heart Sutra and the other sutras, right? So this is just my approach, okay? Again, this is not Buddhism. Like I said to you, this is just my approach, okay? My approach has been in two areas that I want to mention to you. In the area of sitting, I never really push myself too hard. Therefore, I'm still sitting after 36 whatever number of years. I never pushed myself to such an extreme that I felt like Buddhism's too hard. It's not that Buddhism's too hard. Some people push themselves too hard. They push themselves so hard that they quit because they set a standard for themselves so high that they become... they come to dread sushis because they...

[49:07]

It's so painful. But the reason why it's so painful is because they didn't dare to wimp out. You know? So sometimes we have to back off and take it easy. Be gentle. Don't push so hard. So I sat a lot of sesshins, but whenever that got too much from me, I would move. People think I never moved, but I did move. Just in a kind of sneaky way. You know? Which actually I recommend in a sneaky way. Because it doesn't disturb the other people and it makes them work hard. They think, God, nobody's moving here. I better not move either. But I'm telling you, don't push yourself too hard. Some of you, this session has been a lot of sittings, so it's been hard for you. I think all of you have worked hard enough. Maybe some of you worked too hard. I don't think any of you have been too easy. on yourselves.

[50:11]

Maybe, if anything, some of you have been too hard on yourself, pushed yourself a little bit too much. Don't push yourself too much. I'd rather have you sit a thousand sesshins than have this be the last one. And if you do this sesshin in a way you enjoy, you're going to want to do another one. And if you do that too hard, you're going to quit. Maybe not, but pretty soon you'll quit because you have to realize, I don't like to sit that much. So do it in a way you enjoy, and then you'll do it again and again. And if you keep doing them, you're going to get better at it. You're going to get more skillful. You're going to learn the tricks of the trade. And you're going to learn a way to sit a lot. You're going to learn how to do it. But it's going to take you a lot of sitting to learn that. And you're not going to do a lot of sitting if you push yourself too hard. So don't push yourself too hard. And of course, if you don't push yourself hard enough, you're going to feel bad about that too. But that's easily remedied. Just try harder.

[51:12]

But if you try too hard, in some ways that's harder to remedy because you might quit. Usually you don't quit from not trying hard enough. You just think, well, that wasn't, I should try, I should make bigger effort. You see you do and then you feel, oh, that was just right. That wasn't, you know. So sometimes you go too easy and then you don't feel good about that. And sometimes you go too hard and you don't feel good about that. But the problem with too hard is you might quit. So be careful of too hard. I think more people quit from too hard than too easy. Too easy is kind of like, well, I can do better than that. Too hard is like, I don't want to do this anymore. I mean, I couldn't do any harder. I did it as hard as I could. And I don't like that practice. I don't want to do that. And yet you think that's the only way to do it. So you kind of box yourself, paint yourself into a corner, as they say, if you push too hard. Whereas too easy, you're not painted into a corner because you can always be more diligent.

[52:14]

And the same with scriptures. From the early days of my study, I heard about good scriptures, about the great scriptures. I opened some of them. I read them, and I said, I don't like this, and I closed it. And I opened another one. That's supposed to be great. I don't like it. I closed it. And I opened another one. I don't like it. I closed it. Okay? And then I read something I did like. Opened it and read it. Mm-hmm. And then you keep practicing because you're not reading one thing after another you don't like. You check this stuff out. It doesn't kill you to open the book and find out you don't like it and close it. It doesn't take that long to say, you can push yourself a little further. I don't want that. I don't like this, all these bodhisattvas. Close it. Go read something you do like. Enjoy Buddhism. Enjoy the Buddhist teachings. There's something you like probably somewhere. Really, somebody's written something you'd enjoy.

[53:18]

And then read that. But then if you keep practicing, then six months later, a year later, go back and look at that sutra that's supposed to be so great. Go back and look at it again. Still don't like it. Then a year later, look at it again. Still don't like it. A year later, it's like, where have you been all my life, sweetheart? You know? How could I have missed you? You know? And you were patiently waiting for me all this time to come home. You know, and it's like, it's like, not love at first sight, love at sixth sight. You know, but it's really, you thought, and you just, the time is right, and you just, it's just like, it's just like the most wonderful thing. You know? And you can't put it down. It's just like, and it's all you want to do is read this scripture. And then after that, you always love it. But it takes a while sometimes.

[54:20]

I had that experience with the Iliad and the Odyssey, too. You know, in high school, read it. College, read it. But when I was 40 years old, one morning at Tassajara, I opened the Iliad, you know, and it was like, that the room was filled with golden chariots, you know? Which were, there are golden chariots in there, flying through the sky, you know? It was like, I was like right on this, I was on the scene, you know? It was like the time had come. I was there, you know? It was, and then I was like, I was enraptured by this world. And I actually, I read that thing and I realized, this is the Western male mind. You know, this is where Hollywood comes from, is this book. You know? It's so stupid, but this is our culture, you know? This is what makes America great, is this adolescent male trip. But it's spectacular, you know?

[55:22]

Achilles running across the field with his golden armor on. It's just like, it's enchanting. It's totally enthralling, right? Totally thrilling once you find the vein. The same with the sutras. But don't force yourself. to do the practices. Just, if it doesn't move you, just gently put it aside and then find something that does. And little by little, over the centuries, you will embrace the entire field and you will become, you will enter all those dharma gates. Dharma gates, all those gates, all those openings to the dharma, they're inexhaustible. But sometimes you open and yuck. You just keep coming back because you're going to enter them all. Over the long haul, you're going to enter them all. But don't force yourself because then you're going to tense up. And when you're tensed up, you can't learn.

[56:24]

So then relax. Put it down or put it down and relax. Go back to practice tranquility. And when you're tranquil, go try to read it again. If you tense up, close it. Because you don't learn when you're tense. You learn when you're relaxed and playful. You've got to play Buddhism. It's like you've got to play martial arts. Then you can learn. Again, in martial arts, if you're tense, you know, like in judo, some people would like, you know, they get up and, you know, the big strong guy, you know, he'd try to move and he wouldn't let you move him, you know. Those people never learn anything. They were still big and strong, but they didn't learn any judo. The people learned judo, people let you pull them all over the place, let you throw them all over the room. They learned. Matter of fact, while my teacher was throwing me, I threw him, right? I wasn't afraid of him throwing me. I expected him to. I just wondered how he was going to do it. And so while he was throwing me, he got thrown.

[57:27]

So that's how you learn is when you're relaxed. So you've got to keep yourself... relaxed and at ease and enjoying the practice. That's your job, to be kind to yourself. Then you're going to start wanting to do this hard stuff of reading these sutras which are teaching you wisdom. Some teachers, some tutors teach you samadhi, teach you tranquility just by reading them. You know, just reading them you start to relax. But if you're not relaxing, don't push yourself. So that's my kind of like sense of how you will enjoy the practice, even though it involves sometimes finding aspects of it that you're not interested in. That's part of the deal. Just like some teachers, you're just not interested, today anyway. But then five years later, you might be interested in it. Don't force yourself. But don't quit just because, you know, this thing isn't interesting.

[58:33]

Go find something else. There's so much variety in the teaching. You definitely can find something you'd like, I'm sure. Yes? Well, that's, again, if you get too excited, go practice calm. but I mean, how do you choose which one? When you're calm and flexible, you're not too worried about which one to choose. Because, you know, whichever, you just go, you go. And since you're so relaxed and calm, you know, it's like everything you open, it's like, wow. Yes. But another way to do it, which I did, you know, sometimes I do, is I... Also, when I first started practicing, there were almost no books in English on Buddhism, very few, especially on Soto Zen, very few books.

[59:38]

And so these young, this new, the 60s generation of Zen students were like, you know, it's like whenever a new book came out, it was like a new Beatles record or something like that. A few years before, I was like, we're waiting for the Beatles records. Now we're waiting for the Buddhist texts. So most of us would spend our money on buying these new Buddhist texts. So after a while, I had quite a few texts. They started to be produced. And by the time I'd been practicing for about five years, I was going to be head monk at Tassajara. So I actually thought about, you know, what should I study when I'm going to be head, during the time I'm head monk? So what I did was, I thought, well, what areas of Buddhism do I know the least about? So then I looked at my books, and I took all the books that I knew the least about, or, you know, the fourth of my books that I knew the least about, and put them aside.

[60:42]

And then I took those books, and I put them in order about when I was going to read them. And then I just kept, and I put them that way in my, in my room at the monastery that I already selected the books, and I spent some time doing that. I selected the books and I put them in order, so then I didn't have to spend any more time deciding what to read. Because sometimes if you don't organize your program for yourself, you can go look at your books and you can sit there and spend half an hour, 45 minutes trying to decide which one of your books to read. If you only have one book, it's not that difficult. But if you have six books or ten books, you can just sit there and say, hmm, yeah, this one, you can look in the table of contents again. You can spend your time never reading any of your books. So it's good to actually spend quite a while deciding which books you're going to read and make yourself a program. Or just go like this and just take them. But don't spend a lot of time wondering which book to read.

[61:43]

Except if you might maybe spend an hour or two planning like three months of study. That's OK, I think. And then after that, just sort of stick to your program pretty much so you don't have to spend a lot of time basically running around in your head making yourself nervous. Like, which one is the best? No, forget that. Just do that. Like once a year, do that. And then every six months, get organized about what books you're going to read. You might not read them, but at least you're not spending a lot of time trying to decide And even then, once you start reading, don't force yourself to read. Remember, Buddhism is not... This practice is not... It's very important. This practice is not something you should do or ought to do. This is what you want to do. These precepts are not what you ought to do or should do. This is your real life. You've got to switch from that thing, I have to do this, to this is what I want to do.

[62:47]

That's why I asked you at the beginning, what's most important? When you get that clear and you see the practice that goes with that, then that's the practice that goes with what you want most. So then you're not doing it because you ought to. You're doing it because it goes with what you want in life. Then it's not like, it's your life. Then that's when faith is working. Not faith like it's supposed to be good. But you can see, this goes with what I love, with what's most important. Then you're not pushing yourself. And if you're pushing yourself, then either you should check and see, is this in alignment with what I want or not? And sometimes the answer is yes, but sometimes it's just too hard and you've just got to relax because you're just going to stress yourself. Even though it's good, you're going to stress yourself if you push yourself. So even then you take a break sometimes. And I said this to some of you, and I'll say it again, that a key ingredient in diligence

[63:55]

key ingredient of being joyful and enthusiastic about the practice is resting. Resting is part of being enthusiastic. That's another thing I do. I rest. I don't push myself so hard that I have no energy left for the practice. So you should rest. Overwork doesn't go with diligence. Neither does underwear. But rest is not under work. You should rest as a practice. You should rest in order to be able to come back to the practice with vigor and enjoyment and attraction and appreciation. But if you don't rest, if you keep even doing a good thing, if you do it too long, you're going to burn out. Got to rest when it's time to rest. You've got to put aside even a good practice sometimes, otherwise you'll quit, not just for a rest period but for a long time.

[65:05]

Yes? Well, I have a little question and a big question. Okay. The little one is just about the use of the word samadhi. It sounds as if you're using it as equivalent to tranquility and shamatha and calm I'm not sure about how vipassana fits in. I mean, I thought samadhi included both kinds of concentration. That's the little question. I think samadhi, the way some people use samadhi, the way samadhi is sometimes used, is a combination of samatha and vipassana. And that's the way it is in that sutra. That's the way I was understanding it. Is that samadhi is the union of insight and tranquility. But another meaning of samadhi is just being collected, calm. So it's used

[66:15]

It's used in a number of ways, and actually I have that chart which shows the different ways it's used. The concentric circles. Yeah, and I'll leave that with you. It's actually from last year. Oh, you had it last year? Yeah. So those are different meanings of samadhi. Sometimes samadhi is used as just a mental factor, characterizing consciousness as being one-pointed. Sometimes it's used as the realization of this one-pointed nature of mind, which is calming. And sometimes, like in that sutra, of the Samadhi-mrchana Sutra, it's used as samadhi and a meaning of tranquility and insight united in the realization of mind only, actually. So it's another meaning. And that would be the meaning of the samadhi in the outer circles. Whereas in those samadhi, samadhi three and four, is where the tranquility and insight are united.

[67:23]

So in this conversation, when you talk about... When I put samadhi, I didn't write it actually, but if I put samadhi over here, I would mean samadhi as a tranquility practice. But the other meaning of samadhi would be samadhi down here, where samadhi is the union of the tranquility practice and the insight developed. It's not a meeting of samadhi. Would both of you beg on a little bit? No, not with my... I mean, I'm not sure about begging a little bit. The question that has more conversation about it is in the... Some of the things that you said today and... Also, earlier, when the question came up about bowing, for example, and the chanting that we've added in occasionally, and also the turning to the texts from Dogen that we chant in California, this question has been coming in for me about sangha and practicing of forms as ways of studying wisdom, not just in the study group, but the forms themselves, the chanting of Dogen.

[68:36]

many of the words of those texts are kind of deep in our bodies because we say them every day, which is a form of hearing study, and then becomes a form of thinking study, and sometimes comes up in meditation. Yes. And I'm just aware that people hear from many different practices or places, at least some songs are more fully developed than ours and the one here. I just wonder if you have some... something to say to us about how sangha works for this practice together, especially these songs about teachers and the use of forms in relation to them? Well, one thing that comes to my mind is that I have just a vague history of the history of this still point group. And my vague history is that before I came here, the main teacher that you were studying with was Shohako Okamura.

[69:44]

Is that right? And before that, was there some other teacher? Not really. Not really. A few other visitors. A few other teachers. But he was the main teacher who you were working with. He came twice a year, yeah. And he comes from a tradition of his. a temple in Japan called Antai-ji. And Antai-ji, at that temple, they had very little recitation, very little forms and very little recitation. They did service very little or not at all. So he... What? So he... The way he taught you guys was mostly by sitting and Dharma talks, right? So... So when I came here, mostly what I did with you was sitting in Dharma talks. And little by little I just suggested maybe it might be good to do a little chanting. So that's part of the history of this group is that I guess you'd have to carefully see how people would feel about bringing in liturgy of reciting scriptures on a regular basis.

[70:52]

So there are advantages to reciting things together because you do that together, plus you learn these teachings. You memorize them, and they're like running through your head. So then it's easy to like, then when you're sitting, these teachings, you know, you may not have insight on them yet, but at least they're like buzzing around in your head. So without even trying to think of them, they just happen to be there, and sometimes you understand them while you're sitting. It can happen, right? That happens at Zen Center to a lot of people. They know these scriptures, and without even trying, little insights pop in their head. And also they hear talks about these scriptures, too. They go to lectures about them. But then not only do they hear the talk about them, but they also know the scripture by heart. So insight just naturally pops up sometimes while they're sitting, sometimes of the hearing level and sometimes the thinking level. and sometimes a deeper level. That can happen. So I guess it's part for this community to consider is whether generally or when I come or whether you want to have more liturgy.

[72:04]

We have liturgy every Sunday. Every Sunday, yeah. So that would be something for you to consider. I don't have myself... a fixed idea about it. Part of the reason why I like to travel is to see different ways that people are practicing and relate to different manifestations of the way that practice can happen. So I don't think that the way Zen Center is to necessarily be the way this group is. But I just thought, given some of the things we were talking about, it might be good to do some stuff. Plus Tim also asked to do the Pali, so we're doing it. But we can do more of that when I come, or you could do more of it when I'm not here. And so that'd be something for you to talk about. I don't want to impose anything. I'm not sure what's best. Generally what I think is best is that you do something that you all feel good about and that you can support each other on. You don't want to move forward, you know, in such a way as to create disharmony because some people want to do this and other people don't and so on. You basically have plenty of good stuff to do together.

[73:09]

If you can do new things, then I think it should be something that you're all... on the same page about, yes?

[73:15]

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