Tonight I'd like to start looking at this scripture on the four foundations of mindfulness. But before doing so, I want to read you another scripture, which I told you about last week, about the acrobat and his apprentice. Remember? Were the people here, weren't here, do you remember? No? Great. So I first heard this story in an abbreviated form from Thich Nhat Hanh, and I really liked it. The way I heard him say it was something like, one time there was an acrobat and his daughter. They worked as a team. And the daughter was standing on his shoulders, and he said to his daughter, now, you be careful up there. And she said, no, father.

[01:01]

You be careful down there. You be careful and take care of yourself up there. I don't want you to get hurt." He said, no, you take care of yourself. That's what will take care of me. And I've been looking for that scripture a long time, and I found it. And it's in the connected verses or the connected sayings pertaining to the four foundations of mindfulness. So here's the story, and I believe that the story goes like this. I think the title of it's called Mindful, but I subtitled it The Acrobats. At Sarvakti, a monk should dwell mindful and clearly comprehending. This is our instruction to you.

[02:02]

That's the royal we of the Buddha. And how, monks, is a monk mindful? Here, monks, a monk dwells contemplating the body as a body. And then it just says this thing which we've said quite a few times, OK? You know that phrase? Contemplating the body as a body. Right. And then contemplating... Right. Okay. So then the mind and then the dharmas or... or the mind objects. Oh, read the wrong citra, sorry.

[03:08]

But that's a good citra too, don't you think? OK, where did you guys go? There they are. So the name of this is Sedaka. On one occasion, the Blessed One was dwelling among the Sumbas, where there was a town of the Sumbas named Sedaka. There, the Blessed One addressed the monks thus. Monks, once upon a time, in the past an acrobat set up a bamboo pole and addressed his apprentice and uh... the names of the pre-apprentice is mataka talika which means frying pan he addressed his apprentice frying pan thus come dear frying pan

[04:30]

Climb the bamboo pole and stand on my shoulders. So there's two ways that I think this has been envisioned. One is that they have a bamboo pole. He climbs up on top of the bamboo pole, and then she climbs up in the bamboo pole and stands on his shoulders. That's one feat. The other way to envision it is he puts a bamboo pole on his head, and she climbs on his shoulders. and then climbs up the bamboo pole and bounces on the top. So he either holds it on his head or his forehead. I guess he should do it on the forehead, right? So either way, it's something of a feat. You can choose whichever way you think is most interesting. But he sets up this pole either on the ground or on his head and tells her to stand on his shoulders. and so on. Having replied, yes, teacher, the apprentice frying pan climbed the bamboo pole and stood on her teacher's shoulders.

[05:34]

So this one, this interpretation is that teacher's up there too. The acrobat then said to his apprenticed frying pan, you protect me dear frying pan and i'll protect you thus guarded by one another protecting one another we'll display our skills collect our fee and get down safely from the bamboo pole when this was said the apprentice frying pans replied that's not the way to do it teacher You protect yourself, teacher, and I'll protect myself. Thus, each self-guarded and self-protected will display our skill, collect our fee, and get down safely from the bamboo pole. Then the Buddha says, that's the method here in this Buddha way.

[06:43]

It's just as the apprentice frying pan said to her teacher, I'll protect myself, monks. Thus should the establishment of mindfulness be practiced. I'll protect others, monks. Thus should the establishment of mindfulness be practiced. Protecting oneself, monks, one protects others. Protecting others, one protects oneself. how does it and how is it monks that by protecting oneself one protects others by pursuit development and cultivation of the four foundations of mindfulness it is in such a way that one by protecting oneself protects others and how is it monks that by protecting others one protects oneself.

[07:48]

By patience, harmlessness, loving-kindness and sympathy. It is in such a way that by protecting others one protects oneself. I will protect myself, monks, this I mean, excuse me, thus should the establishment of mindfulness be practiced. I will protect others, monks. Thus should the establishment of mindfulness be practiced. Protecting oneself, monks, one protects others. Protecting others, one protects oneself. That's a really great little sutra. But there's a difference between the two approaches. So the monk, the Buddhist suggests, first of all, protect yourself, then protect others.

[08:51]

Like on the airplane. First of all, put your own oxygen mask on, then take care of people who need assistance. Don't initially try to get the thing on them. You know. First get it on yourself, then you're in a good position to help them so it's the same kind of like this first practice the foundations of mindfulness then you can help others and by protecting yourself you can protect others but then it also says how about protecting others and thereby protecting yourself well there he doesn't say to protect others initially by practicing four foundations of mindfulness. He says, protecting others, how do you do that? By patience, harmlessness, loving-kindness, sympathy, or friendship and love and compassion.

[10:02]

Taking care of others that way takes care of you. Protecting others that way protects you. But he doesn't recommend starting relating to others that way if you haven't already been practicing taking care of yourself. So if you take care of yourself, you take care of others. Plus, if you take care of yourself, you can take care of others, and taking care of others will take care of yourself. So there's a difference. In other words, if you don't practice the four foundations of mindfulness, you might not be very successful at practicing patience, harmlessness, loving-kindness, and compassion. If you skip over paying attention to what's going on with you, just like the acrobat, if he's not, you know, if he's not taking care of himself and he tries to watch out for her, she says no don't do that i need you to be very well grounded in awareness mindfulness of your body and your breath don't be looking at me yet start with yourself and then take then you'll be taking care of me start with yourself and then look up there once you're grounded and mindful of your body part mindful alert putting aside you know like

[11:31]

what if the audience likes me or something put aside all that stuff then you can be patient with your apprentice harmless sympathetic and all that and that will help you so you help yourself you can help others helping others that way helps you so so anyway i thought that was really interesting because we you at first it's kind of shocking you know like Don't take care of others. Take care of yourself first. Well, that's why they had that thing on the airplane. Because people want to take care of their kids first, which is great. But you've got to be taking care of yourself before you're qualified to take care of others. Wanting to take care of them, no problem. but first of all practice the foundations of mindfulness and that will take care of them and then how will you take care of them?

[12:33]

that way and that will take care of you there's a way to take care of yourself directly and there's a way to take care of yourself indirectly the direct way of taking care of yourself is the four foundations it's the direct path as it says in the sutra this is the direct path to freedom from suffering and so on. The indirect path is caring for others. Take care of them, that really takes care of you. But in order to take care of them, Buddha is saying, at this point in his teaching, first of all, practice these four foundations. Do you have any problems about that or questions about that teaching in that scripture? Well, that's kind of what I like about this scripture.

[13:51]

This is an early scripture. This is not a scripture from what we call the Mahayana, but it's about taking care of others. It's really about taking care of others. But how do you take care of others? By taking care of yourself. So in the Mahayana, the root of the Mahayana is compassion. So you feel compassion for I don't know who, maybe yourself, maybe others, but anyway, you work on extending the compassion in any case to include all beings. So when you feed, and that extending compassion means you actually wish the welfare of the world and you wish to work for the welfare of the world. Well, how do you work for the welfare of the world, though? By practicing giving, precepts, patience, diligence, concentration, and wisdom.

[14:55]

The way you actually work to help people is by doing those practices. And those practices are what we're studying here under the 37 Wings of Enlightenment. That's what these practices are. Except that the prerequisites for these practices are more like included under the precepts, under training in virtue. So the way you actually work for the welfare of the world is by practicing giving. ethical or discipline, which underlies virtue, patience, and so on. But I said that's a prerequisite for these practices. So these practices assume all those other practices. So it's really in harmony. It's just that there's some tendency. So this is Buddha's teaching, which I read you. This is not a teaching about just liberating yourself. It's a teaching about how to help other people. It's a teaching about how to put oxygen masks on those who need help. It's a teaching about how to liberate beings in trouble.

[15:57]

That's what it's about. It's a practice meditation if you want to help people. Now, this is early teaching. Now, you could interpret this, which some people did, as, well, this sounds like a good teaching for me to work on to liberate myself. If that's your perspective, then that's the perspective of someone who's emphasizing at this point their own personal liberation. The Mahayana is, I'm primarily concerned with liberating the world, and in order to liberate the world, I want to realize awakening. So then I'm going to practice, for example, the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, or any kind, all the different practices which are conducive to awakening. So this little scripture really is a scripture that a bodhisattva or someone in Mahayana could be completely comfortable with. But somebody who wasn't interested in taking on this universal liberation could still read this book and follow its instruction and benefit by it.

[17:03]

At the end of this practice, you're basically in the same position that the Mahayana wants to be in. You're awake. When you're awake, of course you wish to help all beings. But it may be that some people don't start out that way on their path to enlightenment with the objective of, helping others first. We want to help others first, but in order to help others first, we have to help ourselves be in a position to help others first. Yes, Barry? How we understand mind? I think it's a good idea to sort of just go through the text in a linear way. So when we get to that section, can we talk about it then? So I thought tonight we'd talk about the body.

[18:06]

And then we'll talk about the mind. But one thing I would like to say before we get into that is that in this Four Foundations of Mindfulness, I think it's sometimes helpful to realize that the first three form a group and the last one is a kind of different quality than the first three. They're all objects of meditation, but the first three are really just three categories of given experience, whereas the last group, the mental qualities, they're mental qualities which you meditate on in order to either abandon them or develop them. Whereas in the case of the body, you're not meditating on it in order to abandon it or develop it. And in the case of feelings, you're not trying to abandon them or develop them.

[19:11]

in the case of mind you're not trying to abandon it or develop it you actually just you're just focusing you're using the body the mind and the feelings as a frame of reference or a context in which to meditate and then the the fourth category are things which you need to abandon if they're there in some cases so that you can look so that you can meditate on the first three groups or you need to develop things in the fourth category in order to work with the first three categories in an awakened way so the fourth group is different in other words when you're sitting right now it isn't the case that if you look you just naturally see the five aggregates You have to train yourself, you have to develop your vision in order to see them. So the five aggregates are actually a set of mental qualities, or another way to put it, in order to understand the five aggregates teaching there, you have to develop mental qualities in order to understand that.

[20:24]

And when you do, then the five aggregates will appear to you. Also, the Eightfold Path is not something where you just walk down the street and you sort of say, oh, Eightfold Path. It's like a medium-sized Eightfold Path or a long Eightfold Path or a short Eightfold Path or a salty Eightfold Path. Eightfold Path doesn't just pop up in your face unless you train yourself. Now, if you train yourself, train your mind, you will start seeing the Eightfold Path, you know, in trunks of cars and you know in closets and in people's faces but this is something you have to develop you don't have to abandon the Eightfold Path you have to develop it whereas the hindrances also the hindrances are things which are maybe going on with you but you may not be noticing them and these are hindrances to the meditation practice so they're taught under the fourth group for you to look at and learn about them and be able to spot them. So some of them, if you can spot them, then you develop ways of dropping them, abandoning them.

[21:30]

And then they promote you being able to go back to the instruction which you just have pretty much memorized, namely that you're mindful of your body in and of itself, ardent, alert, and mindful giving up uh... greed or covetousness and distress and displeasure about the world you're with the body and you can be with the body and you can be consistently with the body you can stay focused with the body you can do that because you've abandoned the hindrances which are listed under the fourth category and if you have trouble doing these practices then we go look at the hindrances and we start doing various practices with those hindrances so that we can go back to the first category, if that's what you're working on. Or if you're practicing mindfulness of feelings, then you would go back and, if you're having trouble, you'd go back and look at the fourth category, first part of the fourth category.

[22:34]

There's also other headings under the fourth category which I excised. One of them was the thing about the repulsiveness of the body, and that meditation If you want to know about it, you can see it, but that meditation is particularly for people who are having heavy cases of spring fever. So if you have trouble meditating on your body because you're thinking so much about somebody else's body, but not in a meditative way, then that part of the fourth category is for you. but you might find it too nauseating and repulsive and you might start practicing without practicing. But it's basically a way to sort of snap yourself out of being distracted from your meditation by thinking about somebody else's attractive body. There's nothing wrong with attractive bodies. It's just that if you think about them too much, you can't pay attention to your own.

[23:40]

And if you don't pay attention to your own, then you may have trouble putting the oxygen mask on somebody. You know what I mean? Can you imagine a nurse in a hospital who was like looking at some other nurse that she thought was really cute and put the oxygen mask on somebody's candle or something by mistake? Something could happen like that. People can get distracted from their helping activity because they're so greedy about the world. So that's the difference between the fourth category, which I think Bob asked about last time, did you? And the first three. The first three are just categories of what's offered to you by moment by moment experience. You're offered bodily experiences, which you may be focused on, or feelings, which you may be focusing on, or mental states, which you may be focusing on. and while I'm at it I just might say that when you if you pick one of those foundations like the body I like the analogy of like it's like holding a cup in your hand and while you're hoping while you're holding the cup in your hand things may happen to your hand people may bump your hand or people may come and talk to you about your cup

[25:12]

or you may have feelings may arise you know all kinds of things may occur but you don't put the cup down and take the other thing so while you're concentrating on your body feelings may arise but you relate the feelings to the body. Or mental states, like a distracted state or a contracted state or an open state, these different states of mind may arise. But you don't give up the thing you're being mindful of and switch to the other one for the time being. You just hold that for the time being and see how these other states which are arising relate to it, or how it relates to them. So we can go into more detail about that a little later. drink this tea because it's warm yes why don't you hold hold the internal and external for a second okay so the sense that the senses are part of the body yes and that will be

[26:28]

When you first start looking at the body at the beginning of the practice, when you first start looking at the body, you're going to be dealing with the body not so much as the sense capacities. Actually the body is, according to the way it's taught under the fourth heading, the way they teach the body, the way they teach about the body is that the body is actually the sense capacities. sense of touch of sight and so on the body that you're being taught about in the beginning though is more like your image of the body or your idea of your body like your idea of a body that body is like five foot six and weighs a certain amount and has arms and legs that body the body that has postures but really the body is the experience of the body is actually a thing that's composed with the aid of the senses.

[27:32]

That's the basis for the idea of the body. Excuse me, but you said that those concepts, it was the second class you said, those concepts, like how to weigh, whether you were male or female, those concepts were not what was being asked. You were being asked to look at the body. well what i meant was uh how much you weigh relative to the world like whether you weigh an amount that people would find attractive or would like uh find you unattractive whether you get hired because you're fat or skinny in relationship to the world but the body does have a certain shape so the body in and of itself means the body not relative to gain and loss relative, not relative to other bodies. So you're not much thinking, you're not like thinking about how's my body compared to his body? Or how's my body compared to the body I used to have?

[28:35]

So it's a good question to clarify this. Are you getting it yet? The point? I'm understanding you to say that senses are not what's being suggested as another force. You could do it, but I don't think you're ready to meditate on your senses, actually. I think you have to get more concentrated to actually start meditating on the senses as they're listed under the aggregates. My question is more like, you're looking out, and you see something. Yes. How does this relate? How does that, or you hear something, or you touch something, how does that relate to this meditation? Well, it could relate to it in the sense that if you're practicing mindfulness as a body, for example, bodily posture, you could see someone else's posture. You could see it, right? So it would relate in the sense of meditating externally, doing this thing externally, looking at other people's posture or other people's breathing.

[29:44]

That would be a visual thing to you. However, the person you see is actually, you're seeing an image of the person. You don't actually, like, see, you know, in terms of sensory information, you don't see, like, people shaped like people necessarily. You see colors and shapes and shadows is what you're seeing. And you could put that together into, like, a woman or a man or a tall person, short person. So I think you're getting, I would suggest, that meditating on the senses is actually not the way you start. You start, in terms of mindfulness of the body, you're meditating on kind of your idea of your body and your idea of your breath. The actuality I want to say the relatively deeper actuality of body and breath is as they're described under the fourth category, which is as they're described as the four aggregates and the six bases.

[31:02]

So if you look at the six bases, there you're describing the organs and their fields, okay, under the bases. like the eye organ and its field, the field of the eye organ is light. So your question relates to this practice, but you're actually going over to an area where you would have to do quite a bit of study to develop your understanding of what the six sense bases are in order to actually be able to develop them to the point that you could actually see them and work with them. But so now I see something, like I see fear, then I work with me. If I could get to it, what objective is in mind, I deal with the feeling. I deal with the feeling? No, no. Start with yourself. Start with your own body.

[32:03]

I'm looking outward, and I can't always be having my eyes closed. You can have your eyes closed, but what I'm saying to you is meditate on your own body first. It says mindful of your own body, your own breath. And if you see something else, just like I said before, if you're holding this cup and you have a feeling, relate the feeling to the cup. Don't put the cup down and start getting over into your feelings. But that may take quite a bit of training before you can actually stay with your body without sort of losing track of it. That's a hindrance. So you're trying to be mindful of your body, but you can't do it because you're too excited. And you start thinking about your feelings, and you start thinking about your mind states, like do I understand what he's talking about or something like that. You're getting off into other things. You're losing your mindfulness of the body.

[33:04]

So you may actually have, I think you might be demonstrating here some difficulty in being mindful of the body in and of itself and also putting aside displeasure or distress about the world. So when you start meditating on the first one of trying to be mindful of your body, you may notice that you still have some distress about the world. For example, you might feel like, I don't know how to do this meditation. If you feel somewhat freaked out while you're trying to do this meditation, then you're not doing the last line of the meditation. Or if you're not ardent, or you're not alert, or if you're not meditating on the body in and of itself. Now, it could be partly that you don't understand the instructions, so try to clarify that, which I just did, tried to clarify it. but in fact you're meditating on your body it says like when standing you know you're standing when sitting you know you're sitting but that's like a image of your body as a sitting or standing thing that's not the image of your body as for example eye organ and and light or ear and sound that's that's a way of seeing your body which is more profound and requires development

[34:27]

And that development would be achieved once you're more concentrated. And you get more concentrated by doing this mindfulness practice of your body and breath. So seeing how my body is affected by what you see in your body could be a relationship problem. That would be kind of like meditating, like it says here, that would be kind of like... That might be like abiding, contemplating the body as the body both internally and externally. Watching how your body is affected by your... your sense of your body is affected by your sense of other people's body. seeing how the feeling that you have when you look at someone else affects your body would be like mindfulness of the body and seeing how the body is affected by other things.

[35:36]

But for starters, it's probably not good at the beginning to get too much into the interaction between your feelings that you have about your body and about other bodies how that causally relates to your sense of your body. So I wasn't going to say this, but maybe now would be a good time to go on to the next paragraph because this is sort of implied here. so the first paragraph is just to be mindful of your body in and of itself in this nice way and if you were successful at that if you were successful at that if you were successful at that to such an extent that you actually were able to stay with it and get quite concentrated then it says or else he abides contemplating the body

[36:39]

contemplating in the body its arising factors or he abides contemplating in the body its vanishing factors. Or he abides contemplating in the body both its arising and vanishing factors. That little thing right there is the next step in the meditation. So the first step in the meditation is the basic exercise which is called sattipatthana or the foundation of mindfulness the first phase which you were just talking about that is establishing the foundation of the mindfulness and it's quite a feat to establish it and one way of understanding it is that you just you basically just establish it the other way would be that you establish it to such an extent that you also get concentrated i would say myself

[37:42]

that there's three versions that I hear in the tradition. One is you're concentrated and then you get established in this mindfulness. So you're concentrated and mindful of the body. The other is you get established in the mindfulness to the extent that you get concentrated. And the other is you get established in the mindfulness and then later you get concentrated later do concentration practice but before you move into the next phase which is just simply noted in the sutra as or else he abides contemplating the body in its arising would you like to follow that if you want to read it do you want to follow along with this you don't have a copy You could also look at this if you want to, but that's maybe easier.

[38:47]

So the first phase in the practice is the one which we've been talking about, namely, you establish yourself in mindfulness of the body in and of itself, of the body as the body, with these nice qualities. And if you keep practicing that way, you actually can enter into deep, fairly deep concentration. The next phase, which is not just called the foundation of mindfulness or the establishment of mindfulness, but is called the development of the establishment of mindfulness, in that phase you now start to meditate on the causal relationships of, for example, the body. You start to see the causal factors and how they determine the particular type of body you have. So you're aware of your predispositions of your mind. You're aware of the physical conditions and so on. So now you enter into a deeper understanding of the body.

[39:55]

And then the final state is the one that's the next sentence. final phase or else mindfulness that there is a body is simply established in him to the extent necessary of bare knowledge and mindfulness and he abides independent not clinging to anything in the world so that's the third phase of this practice and that is a short little statement about a very profound attainment where you actually are aware of the body free of any clinging to it, that you actually have achieved a kind of understanding which opens the door to liberation. So there it is right there in that paragraph, but I think what I was thinking of doing was doing the first step, the second step, and the third step. But there it is.

[40:57]

Those three steps are there. But tonight, I thought we'd go into a bit more detail about the first step. And it may require quite a bit of time to understand the first step. Has anybody been practicing the first one this week? You have? Any reports that you'd like to give of how it went? . A sense of being in touch with your body.

[42:11]

Also, he said the word exertion. In this formula, in the translation we're working with, the place where it says ardent, that's pointing to the exertion side of things. And the next group of things are exertion factors. So that one is like focusing on the ardent part of the practice. So yes. I have a sense sometimes, like, I don't know, there's another encouragement that I have to go through a statement, kind of like a chant. I have, I don't know, a sense sometimes of trying to actualize its jargon.

[43:17]

Going through them, sort of minding what are, I seem to kind of, Right. Yeah. And coming back to it is part of the ardentness. That's the exertion or the effort to come back. Mindfulness is to remember what it is that you're actually paying attention to. The alertness, the alertness factor or the, in this translation, the clearly, is it aware, fully aware? So the fully aware part or the alert part is that you're alert to, you're on the alert.

[44:23]

What are you on the alert for? What are you on the alert for? John? What did you say? Body, yeah. You're on the alert for the body. Any particular body that you're on the alert for? Your own? Any particular own, your own body that you're on the alert for? What? What did you say? What? Yeah, the right now. You're on alert for the right now. You're not on alert for the general one or your old one or the one you had when you were cute. You're on alert. The cute one you used to have, thinking about that one, that's called covetousness with regard to the world. You wish you still had that cute body that you used to have. Or the thin body, or the fat body, whatever. Wishing for some body you used to have is slipping back into your body with regard to the world. Or being concerned with a body you might have, a healthier body.

[45:27]

That's not it. The alertness, the full awareness is what body is it now? So hardened is like, hey, I'm going to go to work again on this mindfulness. Mindfulness is to remember what it is you're going to be mindful of. And hardened is to choose among the zillions of versions of whatever topic it is, the body, for example, or the feeling. You're not thinking about feelings in general. You're wondering, what is the feeling that's happening now? Oh, I'm in pain. Oh, it's pleasure. So those three. And then again, That last line is a guide to the, I think, actually the full awareness one. It tells you that you shouldn't be into the versions of your body that relate to gain and loss in the world or past and future bodies. Not past and future bodies, which, as you may have heard, a lot of people are into past and future bodies, right?

[46:35]

and not so much alert to what's the present the present body which is like what can you do with the present body other than just pay attention to it you know but that's the point it's the present body that's the alertness factor putting aside covetousness and distress is to like if you get into those other bodies there will be covetousness and distress with regard to them so that gives you a hint about kind of bodies that you should be like abandoning not the kind of bodies but the kind of attitude or attention should be abandoned so and saying these paper the class or reading the instruction or having the instruction in your head and you're saying it to yourself you're listening you're learning you're seeing you're taking this in you're taking it in until it's in you Then you take it in. Then it's starting to get established when it's in you.

[47:39]

But you probably, most people need to say it because it's not like a popular tune that you just happen to pick up. It might be good to put it to music to help you memorize it. But the idea is that it's like either it's in you, like just the body is just being given to you right now right now right now but the instruction is more in the category of the fourth heading of something you have to develop you have to develop the instructions so that it's like almost becomes given because you think about it so much it's like you got a body and the body seems to come with the instruction every time because you've developed the instruction the teaching which uh you know and the teaching about mindfulness is under the fourth heading, isn't it?

[48:42]

Must be in there. Where is it? Where could it be? Oh, there it is, under factors of enlightenment. Oh, there it is, under the Four Noble Truths. Do you see it, under the Four Noble Truths? Do you know where it is under the Four Noble Truths? Pick a guess, Bernard. No question. Moving on. Okay, so are you following what I'm saying? You're meditating on, you're practicing the foundation of mindfulness of the body. You're trying to be mindful of the body. You're trying to remember that you're being mindful, that you're trying to remember the body. You're being ardent about it. You're coming back to it. And you're dealing with the present body. body just Bob the experiences are just given to you you don't like take they're being given to you but under the fourth category of mindfulness the fourth foundation there's teachings there which are teachings about paying attention to your body so the fourth category has teachings in there has things mental qualities that need to be developed in order to accomplish

[50:02]

mindfulness of the body and what under the fourth category are the mental qualities that need to be developed in order to accomplish mindfulness of the body do you see him there what are they well they're hit that's why you can't see them they're hidden that's why you can't see them they're hidden under The fourth truth. The fourth truth, which is the path. And what's the path? Well, it's right mindfulness. it's right mindfulness it's right mindfulness it's right exertion it's right concentration so it's it's listed under the four four truths also the eight the eight limbs of the seven things of enlightenment are near it's listed under there mindfulness is under there exertions under there so the things you need to do the things you need to develop to accomplish the first

[51:10]

to accomplish mindfulness of the first category are listed under the fourth category. We need to develop those mental qualities listed under the fourth category in order to accomplish mindfulness of the first category. See how they work now, a little bit? Yeah, it's the fourth category. What does it say? The foundation of mindfulness of dhammas. Or, it says literally Dhamma, but it means those things, those mental qualities, like right view, right exertion, right speech, right mindfulness, those things need to be developed in order to practice the instruction which is being given on mindfulness of the body. And if you, like John, like he told us, it sounded like a success story to me, that he was actually able to remember this teaching, and remembering the teaching is part of putting the teaching to practice, because the teaching is saying, remember the teaching.

[52:21]

The teaching says, mindfulness of the body is to be mindful of the body, so he remembered the body. Now, he didn't tell us if he was also alert, He didn't mention whether he was actually saying, but he actually did say it. He said he actually felt he was in touch with his body, and maybe the subtitle is, I was in touch with the body that was actually happening in the present moment. He didn't say that, but maybe that's the body he was talking about. he was and he said he was ardent so he was actually thinking of this teaching about being ardent being alert and being mindful thinking about that teaching and he was also like realizing it because he was remembering he was ardent and he was actually getting in touch with the actual body that was happening and he didn't mention it but maybe he was also like applying the part of the teaching which is to put aside concern with the bodies he used to have, which didn't have knee problems. But anyway, any questions about this?

[53:27]

Yes. I also just had one on you. Yeah. And it was in the back of my mind, should I also be paying All the instructions about the breath. The breath is under number one. It's the first one. Okay. Yeah, that's right. It's in the script right here. Yes, you should, that's, not should, but it, there it is. It's the breath. That's the mindfulness of the body. Yes. There it is. And that, when I tried to do that with the ballpark, knowing whether it was short or long, actually my question is, how important is it to, I mean, do you reckon following this particular statistic, should you work with that? Do I what? Recommend these instructions? I recommend this, yeah.

[54:29]

That's why I said it. That's why I gave it to you. Because I recommend it. That's why I said it during meditation. Did you hear me? I said it during meditation. I do recommend it, yes? My interpretation of that passage was when it says... Reading long, I notice I breathe long. It's not saying I should breathe long, but just observing as it is. And if it's long, observing that it's long. Correct. If it's short, observing that it's short. But I think people, when they... Not just observing it. sometimes misinterpret and think, oh, I should be breathing long, because he's mentioning breathing long, therefore I should be breathing long. Or finding long breaths. Yeah, you should go on a hunt now, see if you can find any long breaths. Also, don't forget the medium-sized ones.

[55:32]

Yeah, it's just saying, it's... It actually says understands, too. When breathing long, he understands he's breathing long. This does not tell you you should breathe long. However, there are instructions like that, but that's not what's going on here. Here it's saying, breathing long, you understand you're breathing long. Breathing short, you understand you're breathing short. Down below, though, it does say something a little different. Then it says, you train yourself thus. You say, and down below it's different. First part, when you're doing something, in other words, with your breath, you understand that you're doing that thing. Down below it says, you train yourself thus, I shall breathe out experiencing the whole body of breath. So that's more like an encouragement to actually say to yourself, as I breathe out, I experience the whole body of the breath. Another translation might be,

[56:36]

which I think is equally potentially helpful, is as I breathe out, I shall experience the breath with my whole body, with the whole body. So either experience the, I shall experience the breath with my whole body, or I shall experience the whole body of the breath. I think those two go quite nicely together. That's a training, which is somewhat different from the earlier training, which is simply to remember that you're going to pay attention to the breath, and you're going to understand what kind of breath you've got, but you're not trying to make your breath a certain way. So yes, that is part, that is a recommended thing, which I'm recommending in this class, that you read this scripture and practice every word in it. But you may have some questions about it, so that's what the class is for. Otherwise, you can just take it. We need a class. So did you want to say something about your experience with this, Reed?

[57:42]

No, but I just had a question. As you were talking, it's like the term long-shorted quality. It's sort of a judgment or a measurement. Should we just look at it as a practice? If I breathe out long, If he breathes out long, he understands that he's thinking that he breathes out long. Not telling you to think it's long, but if you think it's long, understand that that's what you think. That's a good question. Not telling you to do that or telling you you should think that, but if you do think that, understand that that's what you think. Because what I call a long breath might not be what you call a long breath, and vice versa. So it's that when you are thinking that it's a long breath, when you're already thinking, then that would be that. But if you don't want to do that, then you say, well, I'll just be meditating on the breath.

[58:47]

But at this point in the practice, if you meditate on the breath, what you're going to be meditating on is, at this point in the practice, you're going to be meditating on your idea of the breath. You do not yet have access to the breath that's non-conceptual at this point in the practice. Some of you may be able to, like, meditate in the non-conceptual breath, but then you're, like, really advanced in your meditation that you're actually, like, able to, like, do non-conceptual meditation at this point. Most of us, like, are still, like, have an idea of what the breath is, you know, and we could take a test on it and say, that was the breath and that was not the breath. And you're, like, dealing with, you're using concepts to do that. So the beginning of the practice, you're just working with your ordinary conceptual mind, which has an idea of breath and an idea of feeling, and that's what you're working with. and that's the first part and try to remember that and as many meditators know that's not so easy to do so then that will give us recourse to look under the fourth category to see what kind of problems that they told us one might have in being able to pay attention to this practice and also what problems would one have if one wish to train oneself when breathing out to breathe out

[60:16]

and experience the breath with your whole body. Or breathing out, exhaling, experience the whole body of the breath. That you heard this instruction and what problems might you have with practicing that instruction? Any problems you think you might have with it? This is actually a question. Actually, I want to answer this. This could be part of it. But I was just thinking... Yeah, it could be, non-conceptually, after all. The thought of the long breath would be under the mind realm, so therefore it would be kind of getting out of the thought of the Internet itself. Good point. Did I answer your question? No, I'm talking about So I could go back to the earlier one, but I took the later one, where you're doing the training part of the instruction.

[61:25]

The first part is just to be aware of what you think the breath is. In fact, when you're breathing, you do have some ideas about it. I don't know what it is. Nice breath, mean breath, long breath, short breath. Whatever ideas you have of the breath, you understand what ideas you have of your breath. all that's what he suggested you do that's a short list long short it could be smooth rough even uneven in some scriptures there's a whole section in this book about the breathing thing lots of stuff about breathing you could have zillions of descriptions of your breath but whatever way you see your breath this is a training which is saying in this practice of being mindful of the body under the heading of mindfulness of breath you are aware of whatever you think the breath is at this phase in the practice what the breath is for you is what you think of it you are thinking about it and so check that out and the same with other things like your posture but then the next phase of it is that you train yourself with respect to the breath so you're aware of your breath and you know what you're thinking you understand what you think about it you're aware

[62:39]

i think this was a rough breath i understand that's what i think it was okay now and now that i'm and get get grounded in that first okay somebody i would say get grounded in that before you move on to the next one does that make sense so when you feel well grounded and being able to note clearly and understand what you think is going on with your breathing and then turn and see if you can say to yourself and train yourself, thus, I shall, when breathing out, experience the whole body of the breath. So what problems might one have doing that training? And actually, I would just suggest to you that the problems you have doing that might be related to problems you might have doing the earlier part. What problems might you have with doing those? Yes, Barry? No.

[63:47]

You still can be at the conceptual level. That's not a problem at this point. Even when you're Even when you're experiencing the breath with your whole body, you still could be conceiving of the breath and the whole body of the breath. So conceptualization is okay at this point. The place where you're going to drop conceptualization is in the third phase, not at this phase. That's too advanced at this point. If you drop conceptualization, almost no one here would be able to practice for foundations of mindfulness. That's the third phase where you're aware this is a body. but just to the extent that you can be aware of the body. That's the third phase. Does that make sense? Maybe not. But the non-conceptual level of meditation is in the third phase, which is simply mentioned, and will be expanded on later, simply mentioned as, or else, the mindfulness that

[64:50]

There is a body. It's simply established in him to the extent necessary for bare knowledge of mindfulness. That's the third phase. We're in the first phase, and I'm asking you, what problems might you have in practicing the first foundation of mindfulness on the body? ... You might lose concentration on the breath. You might lose concentration. You might lose concentration. You might forget. That's basically what, that's going to be one of the main problems. You're going to forget to do this. In other words, you're not going to be mindful. That's one of the main problems you're going to have. And that will be listed under the hindrances where you're going to get, you're going to be forgetful. You're going to be excited and forget. What other problems might you have? What's it like? Manipulative and interfering. Like how?

[65:53]

Having an idea that regret should be a certain way or that one experience should be of a certain kind. That thought affecting the quality of that regret. So which hindrance might that be? Restlessness? Pardon? Yeah. Ill will. Yeah, it could be ill will or restlessness might come into play in that form. So then we try to, like, let go of those and just come back to, like, at this point anyway, not being manipulative with the breathing. Just whatever kind of breathing it is, we're aware of the breath in and of itself. Would that be one of the problems?

[66:55]

Sloth. Sloth and torpor. That's another one that might happen. So that's going to, probably some of you will run into that. That will be part of the problem. So we have to look at how to deal with that one too. So we have to look at the hindrances. Those will be the things which will make it harder, harder for us to pay attention to the process and do this meditation. So that would be part of the problem. We need to look at it. The first level here is these hindrances, the gross hindrances at this level of the practice. Trying to get something out of it, I think, again, is like going back to which? Greed, yeah, greed relative to the world, that you're going to get something out of this. You're not just looking at the breath. That would be like, I don't know what, you know, like, Getting this oxygen mask on your face so that you can take care of this other person, but, you know, thinking that you're going to get some kind of an award from the airlines for doing this or something like that.

[68:01]

You're getting off the track of getting this thing on your face, you know? You're getting off the track of like, well, geez, I wonder what's going to happen to me if I should happen to meditate on my breath really well. You know, that's getting away from like the breath. The breath right now And I'd like to look at that. And I'm not going to be concerned about consequences at this point. I understand from reading the beginning of the scripture that this practice is really the direct path to liberation from suffering. I understand that. That's why I'm doing it. But when you're doing the meditation, you put that aside. Don't get into, like, past and future. Right now, you're just concentrating on the present, breath, and then you're going to run into trouble. Like, you're going to find that's really boring, overly simple. A moron could do this. I can't do this. I'm below a moron. You know, I hate myself. I hate the practice.

[69:02]

I hate Buddha. Or, you know, I love Buddha really a lot because Buddha... I'm really good at this practice, but I'm going to be... All that stuff is not the instruction. However, It is the instruction to pay attention to the hindrances. They're the fourth category. But you don't actually focus on the fourth category most of the time. You just start working on the first three, and you use the things in the fourth category to help you figure out how to meditate on the first three, because they're actually what's happening. The fourth category is more like the teachings about the trouble you get into that you need to abandon. and the things you need to develop in order to be successful, and the very basic principles that you need to understand to apply to these actual... This is very empirical. You're applying these teachings to this empirical phenomenon. So the first part of it is get empirical. Get down to what's happening and try to be the kind of a person that's working with this that's good at looking at what's happening.

[70:08]

scientists who are getting really upset have trouble seeing what's under the microscope either really overly excited or overly sleepy overly worried or overly doubtful and so on these are things which you probably if you if you start doing if you don't do the practice you probably won't notice these things if you start doing the practice probably notice these things. Now, if you almost start doing the practice, you still might notice them because you might say, I almost started, but then I forgot what it was that I was doing. But I almost started at one point, but then I lost the mindfulness. So probably it would be good to look at the hindrance section, but don't think about it too much, but just have it in mind there, someplace to refer to if you notice you're not able to do the practice. Like, for example, if you're not able to watch your breath in the way it's described here.

[71:11]

This is something you could practice in an empty room. But it's okay if other people are in the room, but it has to be empty before they get there. So your room's good, but if you have another empty room you can go into where you could sit and look at body in this way, that would be the practice.

[71:39]

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