It's Wednesday and I heard a little bird told me that someone's worried that we're not going to get to talk about insight because we've been talking about mental stabilization and there's not much time left, right? So I hear that bird chirping and try to touch upon insight today, but I don't know what's going to happen. And also, please be aware of how that mental stabilization and insight that I discussed, see if you can see how they're hidden in Zen practice. So again, mental stabilization. is a kind of... it's a practice that involves, in a sense, excluding something.

[01:08]

It's a kind of... it has an excluding dimension to it. It's not really so open. And insight is not exclusive and is quite open and receptive. insight practice is. But one of the funny things is that the result of being exclusive through stabilization practice is that you open up. When you realize samadhi, samadhi is very open and relaxed and buoyant and joyful. But the path to samadhi, the path to mental stabilization, which the psychophysical state into a state of openness and relaxation and receptivity, which then makes it ready for insight, the path to that is a path of excluding various kinds of involvements, particularly it's excluding anything but what you're focusing on, basically.

[02:29]

So again, I've been emphasizing two of contemplation for mental stabilization. One, the breathing, the concept, the topic, the subject of breathing, the inner image of breathing as one of the focuses of attention. One of the things you use to train your attention in such a way that mental stabilization is developed. And the other topic is in a sense an image of the very process by which the attention is trained onto the breath. namely, the attention is trained under the breath in such a way that the attention just stays with the breath without anything but the breath, with no elaboration of the concept of the breath.

[03:54]

See, the concept is the breathing of the breath, the inner image of the breath, and to not elaborate or react to or mess around with that image at all. So the second type of meditation object I'm using is not the breath, but that very way of being with the breath. You use the breath to develop a non-conceptual way of being with the concept of the breath. You use the concept of the breath to train yourself into a non-conceptual way of being with the breath. But you can also use the concept of non-conceptuality to train yourself into a non-conceptual concept. And so you're also using a concept of the way cognition is with its objects of awareness. So you're using the way the mind is, you're using an image of the way the mind is to train the mind in such a way that mental stabilization is realized.

[04:58]

So basically the same, using the breath or using the image or the idea or the notion of only one object, of only one subject. So, as I mentioned, in the Samdhi Nirmacana Sutra it says that for mental stabilization the topic of the focus of the samadhi, the focus of the mental attention, is a non-conceptual object. But another translation is a non-differentiated object. In other words, Not any differentiation. You're always looking at basically the same thing, no matter what's happening. But that's quite similar to you're always looking at the breath. There are, by the way, many other, in the Buddhist tradition, in the early Buddhist tradition, 39 other topics for mental stabilization.

[06:06]

There's a total of 40, and the method of using non-conceptualization, non-conceptuality, is not one of the 40. That's a later topic in the Mahayana for bodhisattvas. But in the early teachings, Buddha gave 40 topics. And one of the topics is the breathing. And there's 39 others. Among those 39 others, 26 of them are not appropriate for insight work. Because they are either exclusively abstractive, in other words, the exclusively exclusive types, or the reflective types.

[07:11]

And again, the abstractive type of topic means that you exclude all other phenomena, all other phenomena except the topic itself. And then actually, when you are able to exclude all of the phenomena, you finally exclude the topic, too. So you use the topic to exclude all of the phenomena but the topic. And then when you're successful, then you also exclude the topic. So you finally have no object. You just have mental stabilization. So, once that's realized, there's stability and openness. There's buoyancy, joy, and you realize the non-conceptual nature of mind, you realize the joyfulness of mind, you realize the tranquility of mind, and you're ready for practicing insight.

[08:25]

And insight... Basically, you're going to now have this course of study where you're basically going to study all phenomena. So in destabilization, all phenomena... But you're not out to study them. No matter what phenomena are occurring, you're not studying the phenomena, you are trying to look at one thing all the time, no matter what's happening. So whatever's happening other than the thing you're focusing on, you basically just let it go. Now, in insight work, when a phenomena comes, you still want that attitude of not clinging to it and not getting involved with it, but you're going to study it. You're going to examine it.

[09:31]

You're going to probe it. But still, you're not going to get involved with it or tamper with it or indulge in it or react to it, but you're going to study it. And each thing you study will eventually be understood as not different. And that will be insight. In the first case, you're not going to deal with difference. There's different things happening, but you're not dealing with the difference. In the second case, you're going to understand that there isn't any difference. The breath is a particularly good topic for many reasons, but one of the reasons is you can use the breath for mental stabilization and you can use the breath for insight work.

[10:32]

You can use the breath as a topic that you focus on and exclude everything else, and then once you have mental stabilization, then study the breath, which you had been using for stabilization. Now you've learned what it's like not to be distracted by anything, including the breath. You're not clinging to the breath, but you're open to everything and you're receptive to the breath. You're receptive to receive information about what the breath is. If you look at the breath before you can even stay with the breath, then you're studying the breath to go very deep. And that's the case, well, it's the case with other things too, of course. If you're unable to stay with something, and if the mind is unstable, and actually the mind is somewhat closed and receptive to some things than others, and picking and choosing, it's hard to study anything.

[11:43]

By using the breath, you can become open to everything and not be picking and choosing, and thereby you're in the mode of revelation about what the topic, whatever you're looking at. So you're ready, once you have mental stabilization, to have a revelation of what, for example, the breath actually is, how it actually is, how it actually is happening. Now, one thing I asked people to remind me about, but I didn't tell them when to remind me, so they probably might wait for a long time to remind me, so I'm going to remind myself, is that mental stabilization practice is not specifically or uniquely Buddhist. These topics, a lot of these topics, not all of them, because some of the topics for stabilization are, for example, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

[12:53]

But a lot of the other topics you can find in other traditions, but basically other traditions even have maybe some other topics, like in Christianity they may have the image of Christ or something, in Judaism they may have Hebrew characters or something, to practice the realization of mental stabilization. In some other traditions they have numbers. Stabilization is something that a lot of different traditions have. And also we talked about this morning, I think, that in basketball now they have mental stabilization. And in baseball they have mental stabilization. A lot of sports and other arts and sciences practice mental stabilization. So it isn't specifically Buddhist. So in this case, net stabilization is like a non-Buddhist yogic exercise that's recommended for Buddhists to kind of like loosen us up, settle us down, open us up, make us not so picky about our experience so we can study more in the sense of not be selecting what we're going to study because we tend to select usually what will uphold our current delusions.

[14:09]

so then we don't break out of our delusion bag. By practicing shamatha, by practicing you open up and things come to you that ordinarily you wouldn't let come to you, that for whatever reason are inconvenient or destabilizing to your little empire of ignorance. But when you're insecure after realizing mental stabilization, you dare to open up to different perspectives than you usually can dare to let in. So again, in practicing mental stabilization, everything's happening. Your body sensations are happening. Mental things are happening. Just concentrating on kind of pulling away from them or not getting involved in them and staying with this thing. And it seems closed and narrow, but when you actually tune into that dimension, you get more and more narrow and more and more focused.

[15:19]

When you settle that place, then it opens up wider than you almost ever have been before, except maybe in some lucky moments of your life. You really open up. Now, you're going to go back and study all things. And one more time, I wanted to mention that the stabilization practice, although it has this virtue, this virtue of the stabilization practice would also help you be a better basketball player, a better musician, a better uncle, a better cook, better almost any art or science. and even better business person or whatever, it would help you. You'd have more information about the world. You'd have more material to do your work, to be creative. But in the path of the bodhisattva, meditation is one of the items.

[16:24]

So, for the bodhisattva, the one who aspires... to achieve enlightenment in order to help all beings, one of the main ways, one of the main presentations of how they develop that intention is by the Perfections, or the Six Transcendent Exercise Programs. So one of those is giving. Another one is conscientious observation of ethical concerns. Another one is... If I ask people that are asleep to stand up. Huh? Would that be okay? So the second one is precept practice, conscientious precept practice. The third one is patience. The fourth one is enthusiasm for the previous three practices and the next two that are coming. The next one is mental stabilization.

[17:27]

And again, this practice of mental stabilization is pretty much the same as for other spiritual disciplines and other arts and sciences. The one difference is that in this case, of the stabilization is to give it up for the welfare of all beings. That's maybe the unusual aspect of that practice for the Bodhisattva. The sixth one is insight or wisdom. And that, too, is a practice which one realized, and you give that up, too, for the welfare of all beings. So those six practices. Now, if some person asked, where does this compassion come from? So that's another big topic about how the aspirations for enlightenment, for the welfare of all beings, how that arises.

[18:32]

And basically, you don't make it happen. You can't do it by yourself, and nobody can do it for you. But it does happen when you are in communion with Buddha. When you're in communion with Buddha, this compassion, and this aspiration arise in you. And then, if you want to take care of that aspiration and bring it to these eight practices. So the last two of these eight practices are the ones I'm talking about this week. Also, just to relate to other systems, in terms of the Eightfold Path, the last three parts of the Eightfold Path, depending on where you start counting, but anyway, right effort, right mind concentration, are about mental stabilization. And right thought and right intention are about insight. So that's how insight, how stabilization and insight relate to the Eightfold Path and Six Perfections.

[19:38]

Who said that? The right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration in the Eightfold Path are mental stabilization. And right thought, or right understanding, or right view, and right intention, the first two, as they're usually listed, are insight. You heard the part about the six paramitas? Yeah, okay. It means go beyond, or go to the other shore. So all these practices for the bodhisattva are practiced to the point where you go beyond, where you have no limited idea of what they are.

[20:44]

Now, the practice of insight and the traditional ways of presenting it is in the form of four foundations of mindfulness. So, once having realized... You can practice, you can study the four foundations of mindfulness before you have any mental stabilization, but again, It's a lot more fun to study them when you have mental stabilization. Do you want to tell a story about that? How that's so? Okay, go ahead. Tell one. Who wants to tell one? Did somebody say yes? Or did you think I was going to tell a story? What did you say? They meant for me to tell a story. But does anybody want to tell a story about how mental stabilization promotes the joyful practice of, what was it again?

[22:01]

Four Foundations of Mindfulness? No? OK. Well, in terms of the six perfections or the six paramitas, you're practicing mental stabilization with enthusiasm. Full of God. That's what enthusiasm means. Full of theos. Enthusiasm would maybe be full of theos. No, theos. Full of the goddess. Anyway, you're full of divinity. So with that divine inspiration, you're enthusiastically practicing mental stabilization. And in mental stabilization, you make a big sacrifice. You put aside your great imagination, which can imagine all kinds of things happening other than this.

[23:02]

You train your imagination to give up all the different times it can think of but now. You train your imagination to give up all kinds and surrender all other kinds. than, for example, your breath. You don't do any damage to your imagination. You just train it into radical simplicity. And you do that with lots of enthusiasm. And then, because of this great sacrifice and this great surrender to what's happening, with no argument, with no request for explanation about what's going on, but just dealing with what you think's going on, with no complaint, with total gratitude and enthusiasm, you settle into mental stabilization. And then, whatever happens is happening in a medium of realization and joy. So you are happy to study the four foundations of mindfulness, these boring topics.

[24:07]

Like, study your standing posture. Big deal. But not just study it, but study it like, with enthusiasm. And even if Even if you're falling asleep, you study your sleepiness with enthusiasm. You say, oh boy, I'm a lousy Zen student. I'm a sleepy Zen student. I'm a slouching Zen student. I'm a Zen student with scoliosis. I'm a late Zen student. I'm an early Zen student. I'm the best Zen student. The worst Zen student. These are images about the kind of Zen students you are. I'm not even a Zen student. I don't want to be a Zen student. These are things that you might be aware of, which you now are very enthusiastic about studying because you have realized mental stabilization is the arrival of something very interesting, like a fly on the wall. Whoa! What is this?

[25:13]

I mean, I know it's a fly, but what is it really? I mean, you can be that silly. Like, we had this little guy visiting here recently. Everybody looks at it, looks at the same. They're kind of like, everybody's interesting. So everybody's happy to see him, right? Because he looks at you like you are interesting. Did he look at you like you were interesting? Did he look at you like you were like a total riot? He's, you know, working his little paws, you know, and just really interested in him. He doesn't know who is really interesting around here and who's not. That's the way you are when you have mental stabilization. You don't say, like, oh, okay, mindfulness of body, yeah, sure. I heard that's supposed to be good, so let's do that. But actually, it's not that interesting. I got some more interesting things to think about. Like, you know, this little vendetta that I really have to get going here today.

[26:15]

Or not, maybe, maybe I won't be, I won't take vengeance on people. Mean everybody is to me. I have to think about that. Otherwise, people will run over me, right? I got to defend my turf. So Rozzy came down. The dog Rozzy came down and met the doggy. What? Naina? So Naina and Rozzy. They were, you know, fighting. And so then we had this little course for them of hanging out together. And now, you know, they've stabilized. They've mentally stabilized somewhat. So now they're like beginning to lick each other and wag their tails. But they had to be like face each other to get to this point. And when you have mental stabilization, you're willing to study whatever. And so the usual thing to start with is your body. Well, there again is your breath. So the Buddha said, you know, that the main thing you study is this six-foot body, this fathom-long body.

[27:23]

That's the main thing you study is the body because the body gives you all your sensations and the mind works through the body and with the body. So you start with this. So the first foundation of mindfulness is mindfulness of the body. So you joyfully study what is the body and what... And again, There are physical exercise programs in there and ways of working, moving your body around, moving your limbs. And there's also breath exercise, but this is not a breath exercise. It's a breath awareness. So now you start studying the breath. First you use the breath as a topic to stabilize. Now you're using breath as a topic of insight, a topic to get a glimpse of what is actually so. And you're open to what breath is. And as Roberta said, it's nice because the breath is a kind of bridge between conscious and unconscious.

[28:34]

The breath functions at a level that we're not aware of. consciousness but the breath also functions as a level that we are aware of with our conceptual consciousness but also your body posture operates at a level that you're aware of at a conceptual consciousness and your body also operates at a level that you're not aware of with your conceptual consciousness but both breath and you're aware of with your direct sense consciousness and both of them you can be aware of with your superficial dualistic conceptual consciousness. So by the breath in the conceptual realm, you get access to the breath in the non-conceptual realm. By studying the body in the conceptual realm, you gain access to the body in the non-conceptual realm. And by studying the body in this stabilized, open-minded and open-hearted, enthusiastic

[29:39]

you get access to more and more about what the body, the breath is. But you see, part of this, because you have to be enthusiastic to practice stabilization, and then when you practice stabilization, you'll get, you'll be more, as you practice stabilization, you'll get more enthusiastic about practicing stabilization, and then you'll practice stabilization more, and you'll get more enthusiastic about practicing stabilization. Until finally you realize stabilization, you'll be more enthusiastic about stabilization. And then they take that enthusiasm and that stabilization and practice insight. and use the stabilization as the basis for the practice of the insight, and use the enthusiasm, the energy to practice insight. That's an introduction to the practice of stabilization and insight.

[30:45]

The first foundation is the body, the posture, and the breathing, but also includes meditations on corpses, and it also includes meditation on your body, on other and on your body and other bodies. It includes meditation on your breath, other breaths, and your breath and other breaths. It includes meditation on corpses in various stages of decay, and it includes meditation on the repulsiveness of food. It also includes meditation on the orifices of the body, the anus, the ear, nostrils, the mouth, the urethra, the pores, the place where all the secretions come out.

[31:50]

Those are the orifices. So in case you're getting a little short on topics to meditate on. In case you're short on things to open up to, open up to the orifices. Get in there and explore those orifices. And that will help you understand something about the body. But you do this with enthusiasm and you don't get upset about exploring the orifices. And usually you don't necessarily actually get into the orifices, but you sort of think about them or kind of look at them askance. You watch people drool and you watch snot come out of their nose and stuff like that. And then you remember maybe you should say something. Well, would you like a tissue?

[32:53]

I'm sorry about that part. But pretty soon you can use mine. But I don't know if they'll let it decay. They might want to get rid of the rotting. So that'll be kind of a political problem, perhaps. Some of the students will want to keep it around for a while and watch it rot. Others will want to take it to the crematorium before it starts stinking. You have my permission to keep it around and watch it decay. I don't think you have to rush it off to the crematorium right away. But, yeah, that would be fine with me. Eventually, you know, probably, I would like it burned. And you can also do meditation at the crematorium. That's a nice place, too. I hope by the time I die we have a crematorium here at Tassajara. Huh? The burn pot, actually, you've got to get more, I think you've got to get some more wood, because otherwise it won't burn all the way.

[34:06]

You can make a little altar in front of it with a little kind of like gate and stuff, a little. But anyway, you have your breath and your body, and you have food, and you have the orifices. Yes? I just wanted to ask your opinion about whether it sounds like I'm deluding myself or not. How open of you to ask. Did you hear what she said? She wants my opinion about whether she's deluding herself or not. On some particular point, I think. All right, so I was in the practice period. I know, I saw you there. You were good.

[35:09]

And I was introduced to the shamatha, the vipassana, and I was working on it. Summer happens. Yeah. And so it's been several months that I've been working on my own. And my practice is kind of a pitfall away from that vocabulary. And so it's really interesting for me to kind of hear what I'm finding myself doing, to what did I say on track, and think that I have a much stronger shot at this practice now than I did during my practice period, despite what the lack of And I did not arrive at it by any of the ways that you talked about.

[36:11]

Or maybe I did. How did you arrive at shamatha practice? I feel like I'm going through the back door. Well, what is the back door? I feel like when I try to be mindful, when I try to focus on the breath, focus, trying, effort, Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. It's a stripping away rather than a what of focus? Or strengthening of focus. Right. Right.

[37:12]

But you did say a stripping away. And what I said earlier was that that's what shamatha is. It's a stripping away. Stripping away. So, but you... Well, you said it though, so what are you going to... You tell us... You also said, I think, what was the other word you used? Did you say surrender? Yeah, so that's what I said too. But if you have some idea of how you're going to do shamatha practice, then that's a distraction. So it sounds to me like maybe you did find your way to shamatha practice somewhat this summer, which is great. What? What? Well, what about all those situations?

[38:14]

Yeah, so that is interesting. So what is the monastery? She thought she was in a monastery. She thinks she's not in a monastery this summer, I guess. But in fact, maybe she is in a monastery now. What is a monastery? A monastery is a place... where you practice Samantan Vipassana. But this is maybe a hint about the reasons why you do not find in the traditional Zen literature much discussion of using breath as the topic of meditation. Because even breath may be too much elaborating, about how to be in this mode of surrender. So maybe the mode of surrender is more what you find in Zen practice. Namely, simply work with what's happening.

[39:16]

And if you're not aware of your breath, work with it. So you don't even require working with your breath. And sometimes you're so occupied with something else that you're just not aware of your breath and it just isn't appropriate. Back to meditate on your breath, then you're not going to be able to practice Samatha because you're overlooking what you have to deal with right here and you're using some idea of practice to distract you from what's happening here. So you destabilize yourself. Because you're, you know, you're not with what's happening. That's why I think the non-conceptual meditation, although it's harder to understand how to do it, is more widely applicable, because you don't even need to be aware of your breath or your posture.

[40:19]

But if you can be aware of your breath, in a conducive situation or not, that seems perfectly good. So I don't, you know, I want to encourage you to meditate on your breath if you can, but if you can't, if it's not appropriate to do that, still practice stabilization. And again, I said you practice stabilization, but I mean that stabilization can still be accomplished even if there isn't a you. And that's what you find out when you have insight. You realize that you are not necessary in order to realize state. And you are not necessary in order to have insight. When you have insight into what you are, you realize that you're not necessary. But if you're there, that's fine. You're not going to be excluded if that's arising. So then we sometimes have to surrender to ourselves. The fact that we're part of the deal. We have to accept that.

[41:23]

Anyway, it didn't sound to me like you were deluding yourself too much. Now, if you tell me you've reached complete shamatha, then I still wouldn't necessarily say you deluded yourself, but I would ask you some questions of this stabilization, and you could answer them, and then I could tell the level of your shamatha. But you didn't say that. You just said you feel like you have a deeper shamatha now than you did before. I don't necessarily feel like you're deluding yourself to say that. I could ask you to tell me a little bit about what your Samatha is like now, and then I could see whether it made sense to me that's the case. But usually when people say that they have more of a sense of stabilization, usually they're right. If you feel calmer, you're probably right that you do feel calmer. Sometimes people feel not calm when actually they are pretty calm. But usually when they feel calmer, they often are calmer, more calm. But sometimes they get more calm, but they're so unfamiliar with calm, they think it's being upset.

[42:31]

So I find that when people think they're calm or getting calmer, they're usually right. right when they think that they're getting more upset. Does that make sense to you? Does it make sense to you, Jeremy? In other words, sometimes people have a narrow idea of what calm is, and when they actually experience calm, it means that they're calm enough to open up to a little disturbance. And before that, they were so calm and upset that they couldn't even recognize how upset they were. And then they calmed down a little bit, enough to sort of realize, hey, I'm kind of nervous. But it's just because they calmed down that they opened up to see how nervous they are. And actually, they look more relaxed and present, but a little less, you know, phony, happy. I'm happy, I'm happy, happy, happy, happy. Don't argue with me. But then they relax a little bit and they say, you know, I do have a few problems. And they think they've degraded or degenerated, but actually they've opened up because they're more .

[43:39]

So people's devaluation is sometimes inaccurate. Their devaluation of their practice is sometimes inaccurate. And their evaluation is oftentimes accurate. Now, the same thing is not true about insight into reality, though. When people think they have a deeper insight into reality, then that usually means it's getting more superficial. Not always, but usually. Your sense of progress in understanding is usually a sense of retardation or retrogression. And growth is often destabilizing to your program. But sometimes you grow, and you don't think it's an improvement, but you simply do know more about what's going on. And you're not giving yourself all kinds of medals, but you just happen to know more. Like you know more about your body, you know more about your breath, you know more about ways that your breath can be, more about ways that your mind can be, ways that your body can be, because you're open to those.

[44:53]

And you know more about the way other people can be, because you're open to that, because you're not afraid to see than you used to see. And this is like the path of insight is to open up, open up, open up, and be receptive to more data about data. So at the beginning, it's pretty hard to, if you have a little bit of stabilization, then you can do a little bit of insight. And a little bit of insight might help your stabilization. If you have very little sense of stabilization, it's hard to use insight to get any stabilization. If you have a lot of stabilization, then you can practice insight. And in later stages of insight, you need actually quite a bit of insight to get the highest level of stabilization.

[45:56]

And all kinds of creative ways of stabilizing And the consciousness of the universe, I shouldn't say the consciousness of the universe, but the consciousness of all beings, all kinds of creative ways of that come with insight. So insight eventually helps develop the stabilization of the world. But at the beginning, they're quite different approaches. But it definitely helps insight. Insight sometimes can help stabilization. So you can jump around. I mean, it's not advisable, but you can. You can go back and forth between the two, you mean? Yes. Especially if you're lazy about your practice, mental stability. You can go back and forth in a beneficial way, and you can go back and forth in an undermining way. So that's why it's probably good to check with somebody else before you. If you're practicing one and you want to shift to the other, to some extent, it's probably good to talk it over with somebody to see if it's an impatience or if it's actually a beneficial move.

[47:03]

So is mind like a wall kind of like insight meditation? Mind like a wall is at the beginning it's stabilization and then later it can be insight. Just like breath for stabilization and then it's a topic for insight. But breath isn't an insight practice. Breath is just a topic of insight and stabilization. In the two cases, you're using the breath as a topic that you train yourself on. In one case, you use the breath to train mental attention to one object. In the next case, you use the breath to train mental attention into exploring the nature of the breath. So mind like a wall is a topic, but it's more like a topic characterizing the way you want to train your mind to be like a wall. And when the mind is trained to be like a wall, it can be used to realize stabilization, or it can be used to realize insight.

[48:11]

So mind like a wall can be for both. It can teach you how not to get entangled in phenomena and realize stabilization, and then it you how to explore phenomena without grasping them. Yes? Watch, watch, come up. There's a microphone. Watch, come up. It's a long walk. It's a long walk, but that gives people a chance to practice. Could you say something about the relationship of this practice that you've been talking about to the understanding of the Four Noble Truths, particularly the cessation of suffering? Of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, the Four Noble Truths are under the Fourth Foundation. Okay?

[49:12]

So in the Fourth Foundation are various categories of body-mind experience. And actually, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness are under the fourth category, and the Four Noble Truths are under the fourth category. So, what's your question about that? Is it a particularly important topic of insight to meditate on? Right. Okay, so the breath is a topic that you can use as a focus for stabilization. And then, when stabilized, you can inquire into the breath. What is the nature of the breath? Okay? So the breath can be a topic for stabilization and insight. Four Noble Truths. I've never heard of anybody using the Four Noble Truths as a topic for stabilization. OK? So in the process insight work, stabilization work you can use, for example, the breath to stabilize.

[50:17]

But there's other topics you could use to stabilize. But to stabilize, most people do not have a really big variety of things they use to stabilize. Does that make sense? You don't need a whole bunch of things. Actually, just choosing one, getting good at one topic is good enough. Because one topic is basically using this one topic to try to this monkey, right? If you can tame this monkey on one thing, then we can go do some insight work. Later insight work will help you deepen your Samatha practice, your stabilization practice. But insight, you might use the same, if you're using breath, you might then now, since you got breath right there, you know how to... It's going to be easy to study it now. So now you study breath. That might be the first thing you study. But on the list of things to study are the entire Buddhist canon. In the early days, you studied all the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha. Now we have all the teachings of Shakyamuni Buddha, all the teachings of India, China, Japan, Korea, and blah, blah.

[51:23]

So all the teachings of Buddha would then be studied, and you would practice insight on all of the Buddha's teachings. Four Noble Truths being one of his main teachings. You would also then practice insight into his teachings. You would practice insight into his teachings. This is another one. The loving kindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity can be used as concentration practices. Once you have concentration, then you later, in insight, you can practice insight. When you have quite a bit of insight, you can go back and practice insight on loving-kindness. But loving-kindness at the beginning of insight is not appropriate. It's a concentration practice that can take you to insight practice, but at the beginning of insight, you can use the breath You can use the body, you can use feeling, you can use the nature of consciousness, you can use the mental states which include the Four Noble Truths and the aggregates and so on, but you can't right away use loving-kindness and so on.

[52:33]

But eventually you can study, you can go back and you can study the nature of all kinds of chamatha as insight practices and find out what they're all about. So Four Noble Truths are very important, Eightfold Path, all the stuff you would study then as insight topics. When you first study, when you first go through the Eightfold Path, okay, you're thinking that you're doing the Eightfold Path. When you develop mental stabilization, then you go back into the Eightfold Path again and you deepen your understanding of right view and right intention. In other words, you purify it of the belief that a person, an individual person, is doing the practice. Then you go back through all the... But now they've become insight practices. They've been purified of the idea that somebody's doing them. Am I addressing your question at all? So what's the thing that's being not addressed?

[53:36]

Did he say that? Yeah, but then he also taught a bunch of stuff which doesn't sound like cessation and the end of suffering, but... Yeah, but, you know, that's an interpretable teaching, that statement. In other words, it's an interpretable teaching. In other words, what was he trying to do? He was trying to make you think this is an important teaching. I don't think, I wouldn't take that as a definitive statement. Do you know what I'm talking to him about? The Buddha said a number of things. some of the things he said you can interpret. So Luminous All is interpreting that statement literally, which is one of the possible interpretations is a literal interpretation. I wouldn't take it as a literal interpretation. It's as if he or she said 67 times in one book, this is the most important thing. Those are . So to say I only teach one thing, the suffering and the end of suffering, I think I would interpret that he taught more than that.

[54:53]

Maybe that's the point of it all. But he taught more than that. He taught how to help people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what if the Buddha's teachings are not interpretable teachings? Teachings about emptiness are not interpretable. They're literal. Emptiness, when the Buddha said all dharmas are empty, that's not interpretable, that's literal. Selfless, that's not interpretable, you can take that literally. Okay? Basically, emptiness is the primary thing that's not interpretable.

[55:54]

The Prajnaparamita, the Heart Sutra, is not an interpretable text. Yeah? Right. There's many interpretations about what emptiness means, but they're not interpreting that he didn't mean emptiness when he said emptiness, that he really meant something else by that. Emptiness, I guess different people... But, you know, there's actually not that much... The main discussion about what emptiness means is something that the Buddha didn't say anything about, namely whether you should take emptiness as totally negative or an affirmative negative. He didn't say anything about that, so that might be interpretable too. So actually the interpretable points about emptiness I think people are into interpreting, The Buddha didn't, but they're not interpreting whether he meant emptiness or not, as far as I can tell. But maybe you want to work that one a little bit more.

[56:57]

Do you? Yeah. Yeah. Just follow up on your answer to Luminous' question. Would non-conceptuality be a beginning insight practice? Would non-conceptuality be a beginning insight practice? Well, you're in the same way that breath can be a stabilization practice and then a beginning insight practice. Would non-conceptuality as a stabilization practice then be a beginning insight practice? I don't think so. I think that non-conceptuality or an object or an image of non-conceptuality is a stabilization practice. And the attitude that you realize by that training, you'll continue to use as you study many different topics.

[57:58]

But the insight is dealing with different topics. conceptually different topics like First Noble Truth, Second Noble Truth, Third Noble Truth, First Skanda, Second Skanda, Third Skanda. You're studying all these different things. Emptiness, form, all that stuff. You're studying these distinguished or discriminated entities. The practice using, you will continue to practice this training in non-conceptuality while you're doing this study. You keep practicing the Samatha in some way while you're doing the insight work. But the way you might study in that case would be, you would understand that what you had realized was the non-conceptual nature of consciousness. So when you realize Samatha, you realize that the nature of cognition is just like the technique you've been using. But before you were like trying to learn to train yourself to be like cognition is. Now you understand.

[58:59]

You can see and understand that cognition is non-conceptual, that it's innocent of the conceptions which it knows. You understand that. Then you can study that. Now you can study the nature of consciousness, because you have this data on consciousness. You can study that and realize what that is, and you can open up to the full sense of what conceptual consciousness means. But you'd be studying now the phenomena of it rather than the training method of it. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. Do you need to have an object or an image to study Samatha? Yeah, you need an object or an image to study Samatha. But what they sometimes say, and what I've said too, is that both in Samatha and in vipassana, or insight work, sometimes what they say is that your meditation is objectless meditation with no object.

[60:02]

But what they mean is that you're meditating on the idea of no object. You see, hear what you hear, but... You're changing the question, but before we go on to answer that, the answer to that is yes, but did you understand what I said before? So sometimes what they do, in some cases, somebody's using an object, like the breath, or... you know, a color disc, one of those abstractive techniques where you look at a color disc and you ignore everything else, or recollection of death or something like that. You use these things to attain stabilization. Then when you attain stabilization, they sometimes say, now, after attaining stability, you abandon the object you used for stability, and now you request meditation, which means that you now look at all the different...

[61:05]

topics of experience, but the way you look at them is really now an objectless meditation in the sense that you're concentrating on how you look at phenomena. And the way you look at phenomena is, like I said last night, you look at, like you're studying the body, the body posture, and so in insight work you say you observe or you contemplate the body in the body. but without turning the attention towards some train of thought associated with the body. So the body is what you're aware of, but the body is not exactly the topic of your meditation. It's just a phenomenon of your insight. You're studying this thing, but what you're focusing on, in a sense, is not an object.

[62:07]

It's a way of being with this topic. And sometimes they call that, it's sometimes called choiceless meditation, sometimes called bare attention or bare mindfulness, and could also be called objectlessness. because you get rid of the object you use for concentration and now you just study phenomena as they appear to you in the moment. So you look at your breath, which is a bodily experience, so you study the breath in the breath without attending to any trains of thought associated with the breath, connected to the breath. You study the mind or you study in the feelings without attending to any trains of thought associated with the feelings. So that, in a sense, is no object. And you used to use an object, but you let go of that object now. And with a stabilization, you study phenomena in this pure way. Does that make sense? And then for Samatha practice, you see what you see, you hear what you hear.

[63:09]

Okay? But you're always... If you're meditating, for example, on a color, you hear something, but you... exclude it and go back to the color. Or if you're meditating on the breath, you exclude it. You exclude colors and go back to the breath. It's an exclusive and abstracting. You're pulling yourself away from everything but the breath or the color or death or whatever. Just in that way, in the shamatha practice, And when this reaches its fullness, you actually can get a place where all you see is the object. So after a while, by this exclusive method, you enter into a trance where all there is is what you have to force yourself into confronting. But in that obsessive compulsive state, you open up and are very concentrated.

[64:10]

When you first start meditating on anything, there's concepts all over the place, and you exclude them. Now, at the end, you get to a place, you go into a trance where everything's gone but the thing you're concentrating on. And you actually project yourself into a state where things are like that. You can actually go into this where there aren't actually usual concepts anymore. So if you don't have an object, then... Okay. I don't understand what you mean in that last part. Well, Yes? No, I think somebody might just fall into shamatha because of, you know, well, I think, I guess anybody who fell into shamatha without using an object, I would say that they used some object in the past. Like you could be, it's possible to be like concentrating on something, I don't know what, you know, skiing or cutting vegetables or driving a car, and then not noticing that you're using that as an object.

[65:32]

But then suddenly you plunk into stabilization. That might happen. So I guess I think you wouldn't that kind of focusing as a prerequisite for stabilization. I think so. But the cause and effect relationship might be sometimes obscure. You might not notice how it happened. So would it be appropriate to use like a mantra of loving-kindness as object of stabilization? Because I thought you just said a few minutes ago. Okay. I thought you said... And then if other... You just notice them and go back to the mantra. This is not only amplifying, but it also helps record.

[66:35]

How do the practices that you're teaching relate to Shikantaza, or just sitting? I think I'll do that tomorrow, to try to tie it together with Zen. But I asked you earlier, a little bit about, do you have some sense of how it is that in the traditional teachings, the Zen records, there's very little discussion in the actual interactions between the teachers and the students, there's very little discussion of breathing, mindfulness of breathing and so on. There's very little discussion in Zen texts about the four foundations of mindfulness. All truths are almost never mentioned. What's that about? You might think about that. It's not zero, but it's close to it, relatively speaking. In Dogen's writing, he talks about four noble truths at one point, maybe two, and just a tiny little bit. He has so much to say about it. How come?

[67:42]

Is it actually there or not? And if it's not, how come? Is the same function there in some other form? So that's kind of your question, isn't it? Well, right, but I mean, Dogi taught about Shikantaza, right? And so are these teachings of stabilization insight actually there in his teachings? That's your question, right, sort of? Is just sitting something else? Yeah. And is it something else and really different from stabilization and insight? Or stabilization and insight there in the just sitting? is just sitting all of Dogen's teaching, or is perhaps just sitting part of how stabilization and insight are included in his practice, and some other aspect of Dogen includes the other part?

[68:46]

What do you think? Some of you I've already told the answer to the question to. But fortunately, you forgot. So that's what I kind of like, I guess, try to talk about tomorrow. Okay, thank you.

[69:06]

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