Also I brought tonight a somewhat excerpted translation of what's called the Satipatthana Sutta or the scripture on the foundations of mindfulness. This particular Scripture on the four foundations of mindfulness is perhaps the most used one, but there are many, many scriptures on the four foundations of mindfulness. The four foundations of mindfulness are the first of the seven sets. So tonight I thought we'd start going into some, look at some ways to practice the four foundations of mindfulness. And also I thought we might start again by reciting the Wings of Enlightenment, the 37 Wings of Enlightenment.

[01:09]

The seven sets, the four foundations of mindfulness, remaining focused in the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world, being focused on feelings and in and of themselves, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. remaining focused in body and of itself, ardent and mindful, laying aside, reading, and distressed with regard to the world, remaining focused in body and of itself, ardent and mindful, laying aside, reading, and distressed with regard to the world. They were like desertions, generating desire, endeavoring, and arousing diligence, following in the desert towards the tent for the sake of knowledge, righteousness, and evil, unstable qualities that I could not get rid of.

[02:19]

generating desire, endeavoring, arousing diligence, upholding and exerting one's intent for the sake of abandoning evil and skillful qualities of the risen, generating desire, endeavoring, arousing diligence, upholding and exerting one's intent for the sake of realizing of skillful qualities that have not yet risen, generating desire, endeavoring, arousing diligence, upholding and exerting one's intent, the same theory of enlightenment and culmination of spiritual qualities. or faces of power, that of the face of power endowed with concentration, founded on desire and fabrication of exertion. Developing the face of power endowed with concentration, founded on diligence and fabrication of exertion.

[03:25]

Developing the face of power with concentration, founded on intent and fabrication of exertion. devised a high civil power endowed with a concentration founded on discrimination and provocation of exertion. Please. the faculty of compassion, the faculty of diligence, the faculty of mindfulness, the faculty of concentration, the faculty of wisdom, the high of strength, the strength of conviction, the strength of diligence, the strength of mindfulness, the strength of concentration, the strength of wisdom. Seven factors of awakening. Mindfulness as a factor of awakening. Analysis of awareness as a factor of awakening. Diligence as a factor of awakening. Rapture as a factor of awakening.

[04:27]

Serenity as a factor of awakening. Concentration as a factor of awakening. Agony as a factor of awakening. but I don't think it will ever happen. Why not you? Why not yourself? Why not you? Why not God? Why not the Lord? Why not Matthew? Why not the church? We don't know for sure, but it seems that during the Buddha's lifetime, mostly people that were studying with the Buddha listened to the Buddha's teaching and even could converse with the Buddha and ask questions, and even got private interviews about how to put the teachings into practice.

[05:39]

And they probably discussed among themselves the teachings. And after Buddha was teaching, I think, for twenty-five years, or maybe twenty years, he asked his cousin, who was one of his students, whose name was Ananda, Ananda would be his attendant. And to make a long story short, Ananda said okay. And one of the things that Ananda asked the Buddha, one of the conditions for being attendant, that Ananda told the Buddha. You know, you can say, if Buddha asked you to be attendant, would you, like, have conditions? But anyway, Ananda actually had some conditions upon which he would accept the position, and one of the conditions was that if the Buddha gave a talk and Ananda wasn't around, that the Buddha would give the talk again so that Ananda could hear it.

[07:00]

and any talks that the Buddha had given before Ananda was around as a student, he would give again for Ananda to hear. And the Buddha said, okay. So part of the reason why Ananda did this, I think, was because Ananda just happened to have a mind that could remember everything he heard. It may be that at that time in the Indian world, that people could generally remember things better than we can by hearing, because there was very little reading going on. and they didn't have computers and stuff, or books generally. People didn't have books. So they really listened in some ways more carefully. It was part of their culture to hear things and recite them, to memorize them. So Ananda was particularly good at this. He wanted to hear all the Buddha's teachings so that he would actually be able to remember them all for the sake

[08:04]

of the welfare of all beings. So, in fact, it seems as though Ananda actually was able to remember all the Buddha's teachings. I just brought two books here. This is some of the stuff Ananda remembered. And again, I brought you a copy of this Scripture of the Foundations of Mindfulness. It says, Thus I have heard on one occasion. This is Ananda talking here. Ananda's name does not appear in this, but he's the one who's talking. In some cases, there's actually conversations with Ananda, which Ananda then recited later. Then after the Buddha died, Ananda was available to tell people what the Buddha said, and then it looks like what the monks did then is that they would actually recite the teaching. They would get together and recite the teaching. And so tonight, we've recited one of the

[09:06]

important summaries of the teaching, these 37 wings of enlightenment, just like people did actually from shortly after the time the Buddha died. The monks recited the teaching together. Some of them actually had memorized the teachings. Others would be kind of like going along with it, like you were tonight. By going over it and over it, the more experienced people would gradually memorize it. And the new people that would join would enter into the recitation, and then they would learn it. They would hear it and learn it and memorize it. And this way, it was transmitted for hundreds of years before they started writing it down. But even after they started writing it down, they still recited it and memorized it. So I did this partly so you'd have the experience of traditional Dharma practice, which is to recite the teachings of the Buddha and the Buddha's disciples.

[10:11]

And of course, the next step would be that you would memorize these. And you just start with this first group of four. And actually it's not that difficult because it's four, but the pattern is repeated four times. All you have to do is change one word in the first sentence and you'll know all four. This particular presentation of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness appears in many scriptures. So this one that I brought for you tonight, which you can pick up and take home with you and read and recite and memorize, and you can also write it out by hand.

[11:16]

These are also traditional practices to do is to copy, make a copy of the text. It's actually very good to make copies of these texts, not just to have another copy, but just to get your body into it. So you can have this text, and you have this list. And this list, by the way, is also found in a number of texts. So our basic list of 37 wings is found in a number of texts. But it's not given to you as a scripture. It's given to you as a list which appears in scriptures. And this other handout is actually the scripture. And the part I excerpted was the part of contemplation of the repulsiveness of the body and meditation on corpses.

[12:19]

I actually don't mind. I don't think people these days, at least in Berkeley, are that averse to meditation on corpses, because I think people are becoming more used to doing hospice work and being with dead people. It's not considered so obnoxious anymore. There's some sort of coinage. or there's some appreciation of being with the dying people, old people, and being with dead people. But I took it up because the meditation is actually having a corpse that's rotting that you actually find in eternal ground. Since we don't have that situation available, I thought maybe just leave it out. repulsiveness in the body because I have found that people get, without considerable introduction, they get upset about the negative framing of the body which is presented in there.

[13:36]

So I changed it a little bit to make it a little bit more palatable for you. So again, the basic instruction is remaining focused on the body in and of itself, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and desire with reference to the world. And then just change the next one word and say, remaining focused on feelings in and of themselves, ardent, alert, and mindful, putting aside greed and distress for the world. And then again, changing one word, remaining focused on the mind. And then again, changing a couple words, saying, remaining focused on dharmas. I put in dharmas and... But another thing you might write in there to take notes is remaining focused on mental qualities. Mental qualities.

[14:37]

In and of themselves, ardent, alert, mindful, putting aside greed and distress for the world. And as I mentioned before, this is often called the Four Foundations of Mindfulness. It's also called the Four Stations of Mindfulness or Four Bases of Mindfulness or Four Pillars of Mindfulness. But I ran into another translation which I thought was good and I mentioned to you, the Four Frames of Reference. This, so we can say that this teaching is a set of instructions about where and how to train your attention.

[15:58]

They show meditators how to train and focus attention and where to train and focus attention. So the where, in a sense, is the where is like the object of your attention. Where? Body, feelings, mind, and mental qualities. But also, where, what object to pay your attention to? Pay attention to ardent, alert, mindful. Where else? Pay attention to focusing. Pay attention to attention. Pay attention to giving up greed and distress with regard to the world. So all those items in each section could be considered, you know, where to direct your attention.

[17:06]

Different objects to pay attention to. then how? by remaining focused by being ardent by being alert by being mindful and by giving up or abandoning or letting go of covetousness and dislike of the world the where or the object of attention and how to pay attention start to actually interact with each other because you're actually paying attention to how to pay attention so what you should be paying attention to is how to pay attention and how to pay attention is what

[18:11]

should be ultimately paying attention to. So they're really dynamically related and they're actually very intimate. But you can distinguish between what you're looking at and how you're looking, or what you're using to train and how you're training. Does that make sense? And I thought it's also nice to look at the etymology of the Pali or Sanskrit word. In Pali, it's satipatthana, and that can be etymologized in two ways. Sati means, it's a Pali word for mindfulness, so it could be sati plus patthana. And patthana means, you know, a foundation or a pillar, you know, or a... when it's a frame or a source or a condition, patana.

[19:29]

But you could also etymologize it as sati plus upatana. Upatana means like establishing near or setting up near. So when you see it as a frame or as a foundation, there it's like the patana, the foundation or condition or frame for the mindfulness. You could also see it as upatana, which means the approach to mindfulness or how you practice mindfulness. So they're both telling you what to look at and how to look at what you should look at. And again, what you should look at is to a great extent how you should look at what you should look at. Well, I'll go into detail about the different terms we have.

[20:32]

We have focus, we have mindfulness, we have We have alertness, we have ardentness, and then we have this giving up these attitudes of covetousness or greed or lust towards the world and dislike or distress about the world. I think the first thing I'll mention is this term, in and of itself. So, remaining focused on the body in and of itself. So, remaining focused, that's pretty straightforward, that you keep on track, keep on track of whatever object you're using as your focus for this meditation, okay, in and of itself, I think, is really, really important.

[21:44]

So another translation besides in and of itself is, instead of saying focused on the body in and of itself, another translation would be focused on the body in the body. focused on the body in the body, or focused on feelings in and of themselves, focused on feelings in the feelings. So, like, if you're focused on the body, for example, you could be focused on your body now in a sitting posture. Focused on the body in and of itself means that you're focused on the body as a phenomenal event And this sort of connects to the last part where it says, sort of, what's the term? Putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world. You look at your body not in terms of its slenderness, its fatness, its healthiness, its attractiveness, its strength.

[22:48]

Again, its healthiness. Of course your body is relatively healthy or not healthy, but when you're doing this practice you don't look at your body as like how healthy it is, or how attractive it is, or how strong it is, or how flexible it is, or how, yeah, those kinds of things. Basically those, those relative terms, you don't look at your body that the world uses to look at bodies. So if you are a person who, you know, is kind of like Lee is kind of big, but he would look at his body not so much as that it's big. And Lynn, for an adult, you're relatively slender and small.

[23:56]

You probably weigh about 100, and you probably weigh about 200. So he's twice as big as her. But when he's looking at his body in this practice, he would not be looking at, like, this is a big body. Just that body in being a body. Not that, and also that it didn't gain some weight or lose some weight or that you gain some weight or lose some weight. You're not into that for this meditation. And as you probably know, a lot of people are into like, not into their body, but into their body relative to the world. Like, you know, is my body like old or young, good looking? thin, fat, and so on, right? People spend a lot of time looking at the body that way. And if the body gets, if the color changes one way or another, they're quite concerned about it.

[25:04]

In this meditation, you're not so much concerned about the relative condition of your body, but actually the current, immediate condition is what you're looking at. without reference to what was before or after. Even though that is so, that there is a before to your body and an after, you're not focusing on that. another way to say this which is again related to the the last part of the instruction which is putting aside greed and distress with reference to the world you'd apply that to your body that you wouldn't be like greedy for your body to get more attractive and thinner or stronger or healthier it's not to say you shouldn't be taking care of your health

[26:19]

but in this meditation you actually put aside greed for and lust after your body getting healthier which includes that you're not into the stories about your current state of health so you're kind of giving up your stories about your body while you're looking at your body It seems easy to imagine that a lot of people wouldn't have a clue of how to do that, because they're so used to not looking just at the body as the body or in and of itself. They've almost never experienced just considering the body being focused on the body without the stories about the body that usually keep not only your sense of your body, but keep your sense of your world and your place in it.

[27:21]

Like, I've got a cute body, so that's my, you know, this is part of when the world works for me, is I've got a cute little body, or I've got an unattractive body, and that's my position in the world, and so on and so forth. So imagine now that you'd be paying attention to your body through giving up all your stories about it, male and female would also be given up. Except in the sense of, I guess, if you were just simply paying attention to some male or female aspect of your body. So I think that maybe I'll just stop there and see if that makes any sense to you as a way to remain focused on your body that way. Well, you can be focused on your, like if you're sitting in a chair like you are, and you have, for example, one foot is flat on the ground and the other one's up on the toe, and now both are flat on the ground, you'd be aware of your posture.

[28:30]

You'd be aware of your sitting posture in and of itself, period. sitting in a chair is better and not so good as sitting on the floor or something like that. You just be aware of the immediacy of your physical posture. And if you nod your head, be aware you nod your head. Well, the comfort, that's not the body so much. That's more getting into the feelings. Okay? And that's, it's okay to notice your feelings, but, and I'm just saying now we're talking about the way to look at the body. Now if we switch to feelings and you notice a comfortable feeling, then you notice a comfortable feeling in and of itself. without getting into, again, the stories about comfortable feeling, like how can I keep this comfortable feeling, which is like greed.

[29:31]

It's a normal thing of how can I keep my health, keep my comfortable feeling, right? Or if you're uncomfortable, how can I, like, some distress or dislike? You don't have to dislike discomfort and you don't have to like comfort. your feelings and your body and your mind and your mental qualities. Give up liking and disliking what's happening. And again, it says, like and dislike with reference to the world. In other words, the world is maintained and created by our likes and dislikes. The world, in a sense, is not your body and your feelings and your mind. The world is your body and your feelings. the relative judgments and likes and dislikes. That's what the world is in the Dharma.

[30:32]

In other words, you can have a body, you can have feelings and transcend the world or be free of the world if you start training yourself, for example, to be free of your likes and dislikes with regard to feelings, body, and so on. This is how the world is made and maintained by these kinds of covetous and displeased feelings. That's what makes the world and maintains the world. Whereas this practice is for becoming free of the world without messing with it. Matter of fact, the world is created by messing with your body and mind. and the world is created and maintained by continually trying to fix it. Make it, make it, make it, make it. Okay? Yes, was there a question?

[31:36]

Yes? It seems like discernment is a big factor. Yes. I was just thinking of the ardent, alert, and mindful. So it takes a certain amount of discernment to see if one is ardent or one of these. And then also in the to see one's strength of the body to avoid its ailments without noticing it. So how does that relate, mindfulness and discernment? Are they that different? Yeah, discernment is different from mindfulness to some extent. However, this practice here of these four foundations of mindfulness, some of our ancestors would say that these four foundations of mindfulness are actually discernment itself, that they actually are for developing discernment. Someone else would say that aside or along with developing discernment, they're really about developing concentration.

[32:43]

So I hope to help you understand how these four foundations can be used to develop concentration, and how developing concentration uses discernment and how using discernment to develop concentration, your discernment grows with the concentration. And then after the concentration is developed, discernment is augmented and realized by the concentration which the discernment was used to develop. So this is part of what So these four can actually be all working at the same time. I mean, possibly. Kind of like judgment. Yes. So for example, again, he mentioned that being ardent, it denotes the factor of effort. Ardent is primarily about effort. It's about the effort to bring yourself to the work. It's not so much about being clear about what the work is, but there's some element of discernment in being ardent

[33:50]

It has to connect with discernment. Otherwise, you don't know where to bring yourself to, what effort to bring yourself to. So it's actually not only effort, but it's right effort. So this ardentness, which is applied in this practice of the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, this ardent is connected to the Eightfold Path, which is Right effort. And right effort also connects you to the next group of the four right efforts. And the four right efforts, you're going to try to generate desire, enthusiasm, and endeavor, and arouse diligence, and you're going to, like, make an effort to avoid the arising of unskillful states. So it's about effort, but there needs to be some discernment about what's skillful and unskillful. So ardentness actually, although it's mostly concentrating on effort, it also has an element of discernment.

[34:54]

So as you're developing effort in all these practices, but not particularly if you're developing effort or being ardent about being focused on your body in and of itself, You're also going to be developing discernment at the same time. So you're going to be developing mindfulness, you're going to be developing effort or ardentness, and you're going to be developing discernment. Just in for looking at the ardent part. The next part's the alert part. And the alert part is not so much about remembering or bringing yourself to the work. It's more about pure presence or just being clearly aware. So, but still there's some discernment there in clear awareness because that's what allows discernment. So the next, the alertness can also be sometimes translated as clearly observing or clear awareness or exercising clear awareness.

[36:05]

just being aware of the present, the present part, for example, the present body, the present feeling, the present quality of mind. That's the alert part. And the next part, the mindfulness part, mindfulness is very much, basically mindfulness, the basic meaning of mindfulness is remember or memory. mindfulness is to remember what the frame of your attention is. So when you remember, then the ardentness helps you make an effort to be there with what you remember. You can remember, oh, I'm supposed to be paying attention to the body, and then not. But if you're ardent, you remember, oh, I'm I'm practicing the four foundations. I remember now I'm practicing the four foundations of mindfulness and I'm in the body one.

[37:14]

Oh, yeah. And I'm in the body in and of itself. Oh, yeah. But I've got other things to do. That's not very hardened, right? The hardened would be you remember and you say, yeah, and I really want to do that. And also, again, there's some discernment there because I really want to do that. That. rather than not that. And that is this. It's this mindfulness in and of itself of the body. And then the alertness is like just what is it? What is the body in and of itself? And what's the difference between body in and of itself right now and other bodies not in and of themselves? You can look at those too if you want to. Check them out. Just that awareness of them would be the alertness. And the alertness then can also have discernment too because you can tell the difference between looking at your body in this in and of itself way and looking at your body in the gain and loss way.

[38:16]

You can see how one is kind of silly and the other one is like, well, liberating. so again the mindfulness is is remain is remaining focused on what you decide to be mindful of and it's also for mindfulness is also remembering to put aside the distractions of greed and distress the distractions of greed and distress that come from shifting I'm shifting your frame from the body in and of itself to the body in its relative position in the world. If there's no gain and loss, it's not the worldly body. We feel distress and desire for gain and loss, for gain of health and loss of unhealthiness.

[39:24]

So of course Buddhism is about being healthy, but it's not about desiring to be healthy and trying to avoid being unhealthy, because desiring being healthy and disliking unhealthiness is not good for our health. The eight worldly views, yeah. Eight worldly views? Well, one of them is that when you gain something, you get happy. And when you lose something, you get unhappy. And that when something pleasant happens, you get happy. And when something unpleasant happens, you get distressed. And when people compliment in a complimentary way towards you, you get happy. And when they talk in an insulting way, you get unhappy. And when you hear that people are talking well of you, you get happy.

[40:33]

And when you hear that they're talking badly of you, you get unhappy. Rather than just gain something, I mean, you do gain things, but you can stop there. And you do lose things, but you can just stop there. I lost something. Actually, I forgot what I lost. And you do have pleasant feelings. And you do have unpleasant feelings, but you don't have to get happy about pleasant feelings. But we tend to. So this kind of practice would help you give up those habitual responses to pain and pleasure which again would be meditating on the second foundation of mindfulness a feeling that you look at the feeling in and of itself not the feeling in and of in related to what was just there before because a pleasant feeling is related to what was there just before and what you think is going to come right after it it's relative

[41:39]

And you're not looking at the present feeling in and of itself and the present immediate feeling. You're distracting yourself into the ways of relating to feelings which create and maintain the world in which you suffer. The world is where you suffer. Freedom from the world is freedom from suffering. But freedom from the world doesn't mean you don't have a body and mind. You still have a body and mind. It's just that you do this practice with the body and mind, and therefore, you're all set. So the beginning of the sutra, this scripture which I'm offering to you, it says, the Buddha says, monks or bhikshus, There is a direct path for the purification of beings, for the surmounting of the sorrow and lamentation, for the disappearance of pain and grief, for the attainment of the true way, for the realization of nirvana or nirvana, which is freedom from suffering, namely the four foundations of mindfulness.

[42:49]

Okay, so, now in addition, before I say in addition, do you have any questions? Yes? In mindfulness of the body, you have posture, you have movement. Yes. You also have internal, you have sensation, you have an economy. Like what? Well, like hunger. Yeah, hunger, uh-huh. And warm, cold. Warm, cold, right. Then you have, uh, then what about the image? Would that, when you look in a mirror, or when you think of what other people are, is that thing, that, that, is it not, that goes to an image or to an abstraction? That's the one that comes to mind. Yeah, to some extent, if you're looking in a mirror, I didn't have so many mirrors in the early days of the Buddha way, but anyway, if you're looking in a mirror, you're looking at an image of yourself.

[44:01]

Right? In that case. So, it's not so much, that's not so much a bodily experience, it's more like a visual, it's bodily in the sense that it's visual, but you're more looking at your, you know, imagination of this image. So that can certainly be part of the practice, but it's not actually so much a thing where the body is mostly about what you know about your body without seeing a picture of it in a mirror or on a wall. So that picture would not be in the body, that would not be in and of itself, that would be back in the body. Yeah, those mirrors are for the worldly purposes. If you go on a retreat or something, a meditation retreat, sometimes you actually don't see yourself in a mirror for a long time. And you don't even maybe notice that it's kind of a big problem. Kind of like, I haven't looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. It's okay. You know, maybe there's not even any windows, you know, to see your reflection on or anything.

[45:07]

You're just not into that. And yet you're all day long thinking about your body. And the funny thing is that people who are very concerned with their bodies actually do not necessarily spend much time being mindful of their body in and of itself. They're worried about it without actually checking it out. All day long they're worried about it, but maybe spending no time actually feeling what the body in and of itself is. So those are good examples. And another main one, which we'll get into probably somewhat here, is breathing. Breathing is, being mindful of breathing is being mindful of the body. It's a very important way to be mindful of the body in and of itself, but that would also mean that you'd be aware of the breathing in and of itself. You wouldn't be so much into gain and loss kind of thing. How about your breathing? Yes, Bob? . I think it would be good for you to read this scripture under the heading of, what does it say?

[46:42]

Contemplation of mind objects. Okay? And then read about this and then talk about it next time. But basically, if you look under this heading, you'll see that it's a detailed description of mental factors and mental qualities or mind objects. And a lot of it's about the kind of experiences that happen to you as a result of doing the practice. So the first three... categories of body feelings and mind are kind of like as these experiences are how you develop in the practice and there's teachings about the about the nature of your mental experience which you are actually going to learn there and start to learn how to see

[47:48]

Now to some extent you have to learn how to see your body, which Lynn's question just addressed. In some sense you have to learn about how to pay attention to your feelings, and it also explains it there. But those are relatively simple compared to that fourth category. So feelings, what we mean by feelings in this context is pleasant, unpleasant, and either neutral or you sort of can't tell whether they're pleasant or unpleasant. That's what I mean by feelings. It's the way your mind is evaluating the current experience. And this is something which every moment has a feeling that way. It's not talking about anger or confusion or, you know, lust. It's not talking about the liking of pleasure or the disliking of pain. It's talking about the pleasure and pain and neutral sensations. And then mind, in this case, it's more about how the mind, just what's the general quality of your mind?

[48:56]

And also, can you actually see how your state of mind is changing moment by moment? So it's kind of to tune into the flow of your mind That might be good just to talk about right now, those first three, because see if you can... We talked about the feelings, the bodily sensations, the body, mindfulness of the body. Do these next two categories make some sense to you? You said on feelings that you don't pay attention to anger. You don't pay attention to anger? The frame of reference... Under the heading of mindfulness of feelings, that frame, you're looking at positive, negative, and neutral feelings. And if you have a negative feeling come up and you kind of go, oh, you know, in response to it, that's not really a negative feeling, although it might not be pleasant.

[49:59]

Some people actually might feel good about it, but that's more like dislike or distress. So some stress reaction occurs to a negative sensation. That's what we're recommending in this practice to just kind of let go of that stress reaction or that dislike with that feeling or with body awareness. And also, if something positive happens and you feel like, oh, great, let's have more, just let go of that. That's not the awareness. That's more like how to practice the awareness. Does that make sense? At the same time, it's sort of trying to get rid of the anger or who she Yeah, okay. I'm joking. It's not quite so strong as get rid of, but more like put it aside, set it aside. Maybe like, well, you know, I could get really angry about this negative sensation or this overheated room or something.

[51:08]

It's kind of uncomfortable in this room. I could get worked up about that, but I'm just not going to right now. Maybe later. And that relates, by the way, Bob, to... the first category under the contemplation of mind objects or mental qualities, the first category is the hindrances. So one of the hindrances is restlessness or kind of anger towards negative sensation. So under that mindfulness, you will look and start becoming aware of this stuff you're supposed to set aside. So it says set aside this stuff And under the fourth category, you're going to look and see whether you have set it aside or not. And if you haven't, then you're going to start paying attention because you haven't done what you're supposed to be doing. But sometimes you have to look more in detail to notice how you're not doing the setting aside of this covetousness and displeasure with these phenomena that you're being mindful of.

[52:11]

So we want to learn how to be mindful very purely. And if we're not able to, Then we look at the first category under the mind objects, and then we check the list to see if we're hung up on any of those. And then we pay attention to those, and paying attention to those tends to encourage us to practice what's done in each one of these phases under the last sentence or last clause. But not so much to get rid of, but a little bit more gentle than that, like just let it drop. Let these things drop. And just for the moment, just in the moment. You don't have to like a big heavy duty like give up pleasure about, I mean give up being pleased and happy about pleasure, just in the moment. Yes, Laurie? It seems like you use the word feeling also for anger. Yeah, we do. Yeah, those will be more like mind objects, right?

[53:12]

So hear feelings or sensation or even evaluations. Like being angry is not really an evaluation. Being angry is not really an evaluation. That's not the way I would use the word anger. So I... No, I don't think so. I think first you evaluate them. as you know unpleasant and then you get angry at them anger is like you want to get away from them or get them away from you you want to avoid or even annihilate the obnoxious thing but the obnoxiousness is the evaluation so anger is this unpleasant or negative reaction to this unpleasantness and again lust isn't really an evaluation it's based on an evaluation like positive valuation, you want more of that. Does that make sense?

[54:18]

So if you look at that first category of the fetters or the hindrances to the process here under the mind object, you'll notice that there'll be ill will in there, which is this negative reaction, actually unhelpful reaction, to good old discomfort discomfort is sometimes really really helpful like i tell the example of breaking my leg two and two and a half years ago it was really helpful that my leg said don't even think about moving this you know it didn't even hurt that much it just it hurt it hurt this special way where some kind of things happen to you where your body says, there's a pain here waiting for you if you move one little bit. You don't feel it yet, but if you would push this, you will feel a pain that will... I felt this special kind of sensation, which was not actually that unpleasant, but it was like it was saying, you will feel something extremely unpleasant if you move this leg.

[55:30]

And so I started to move it because I thought, well, let's try it. And I just moved it a little bit, and I got this sensation like, no. It's like it's just not meant to be moved. But if I had moved it, I would have gotten an extreme pain. And also what would have happened probably is these two, the femur was broken, so there was these two sharp bone blades inside this mass of flesh, and they would have started working around in there. There's already blood all over the place, and they would have caused, they could have cut arteries, right, or nerves. And then when they wanted to x-ray me, My leg was in a bent position, and they wanted to x-ray me, and I said, I just can't let you do that. Please take the x-ray in this position it's in, because I just wouldn't be able to tolerate what I know would come if you tried to move that leg.

[56:39]

So they had to knock me out. I didn't practice that trick, but they had to knock me out straight of my leg. I just couldn't. My body wouldn't let me go along with that. So pain is sometimes really helpful. Because sometimes if you don't get without pain, you might do things which would kill you. And your body's sometimes very nicely set up to say, And the way it tells it is like pain. Do not walk on this leg. Do not walk on this ankle. Do not move this neck. It tells you that, and it's really good. And to get angry about that, it's really not helpful, right? It's silly. So that's part of what this training is about. Pardon? When? Was I meditating? Probably. I was meditating, but I wasn't doing so well, because there was a certain point where the tire hit an uneven surface, and then I was very quickly onto the cement.

[57:52]

And there was a gap there in my mindfulness. I think if I had been more mindful, I might have been able to be more present as I fell. It was very fast. I think I was a little bit not, I wasn't so present. I think I might have been able to break my fall with my arm if I was a little quicker. And I probably would have broke my arm, but I kind of would have made it better to break my arm than my leg. So I was not so quick there. And then when I hit the cement, my first response was not very meditative. So that first thing was not meditative. But one second after that was a good meditative. Immediately I said, relax. And I just kept practicing that through the whole thing that kept happening up until now. I'm still telling myself to relax with this condition.

[58:56]

and you know to practice these four foundations of mindfulness particularly the first one and the second one are very useful when you have a broken leg and during the recuperation very helpful not only help for the recuperation but if you're recovering from a broken leg why not get enlightened in the process And if you're getting sicker, actually you're not recovering, why not get enlightened in the process? All the more, you're not getting healthier. Get enlightened instead. And then you can take good care of yourself and other unhealthy people. So any other questions about this basic, this is the first, I would say the first level of practicing the four foundations of mindfulness we're talking about here, which is actually getting established, that you're actually like trying to get situated in applying these frames basically all day long, because your body, you can deal with your body all day long.

[60:12]

Okay, so doing on the mind. So sometimes, as you'll see, I'll just read you what it says here. It says, contemplating the mind. How and how, bhikshus, bhikshus means monks, how, monks, does a monk abide contemplating mind? Here, a bhikshu, a monk, understands mind afflicted by lust as a mind afflicted by lust. And a mind unafflicted by lust is a mind unafflicted by lust. He understands the mind afflicted by hate is a mind afflicted by hate. And the mind unafflicted by hate is unafflicted by hate. He understands a mind afflicted by delusion is a mind afflicted by delusion. And a mind unafflicted by delusion is a mind unafflicted by delusion. He understands contracted mind is contracted mind. You know what I mean by contracted? Yeah, good. You don't know about contracted?

[61:17]

Huh? Contracted kind of like... They're not being nice to me. What's in it for me? I don't want to give that to them. Stingy, contracted, unopened, closed. Is that contracted? Huh? No, it's contracted. A contracted mind is a contracted mind. Where are we? What's the next one? A distracted mind is a distracted mind. And he understands an exalted mind is an exalted mind, and an un-exalted mind is an un-exalted mind. He understands a surpassed mind is a surpassed mind, and so on. Concentrated mind is a concentrated mind. Liberated mind is a liberated mind. That's part of what it is. To notice the mind as being the way it is, okay?

[62:18]

And then you'll notice that it changes. So that a constricted mind, you know, changes into unconstricted, or that a lusty mind changes into an angry mind, or a confused mind changes into an angry mind, or an angry mind changes into a confused mind, or a dull mind changes into a sharp mind, or a sharp mind changes into a confused mind. So it's also noticing, try to tune in to what kind of mind you have and watch and notice, it doesn't last very long. Just noticing. This one particularly notices, particularly conducive, which we'll talk about later too, getting in touch with the impermanence of phenomena. Okay? So, the alternative, just noticing, like what would you be doing, how could you get off that, without? Well, if you decide... If you decided to... So let's say it's an anxious mind.

[63:20]

So if you decided to practice mindfulness of the mind, then you would remain focused on that you were going to use that frame of mind now. Okay? You would remain focused. Now, if you'd made that decision, and that was going to be your frame, and then you stopped being focused on it, And you wouldn't notice you had an anxious mind. So you wouldn't be doing the practice. Well, you might still be noticing it, but you might be trying to alleviate it. Well, if you're noticing it, then you're partly doing it. Then you're doing the first part. You're staying focused on the fact that you're going to be looking at the quality of your mind. And you notice that. And so it's to contemplate this anxious mind as an anxious mind. That's all. And you're going to be ardent about that. In other words, you're going to be discerning the anxious versus not anxious. And you're going to be discerning that that's somewhat unskillful, this anxious mind. And you're going to be alert to the present example of it.

[64:23]

You're going to notice the present anxious mind. This is very important. When you're anxious, I think it's very helpful to be alert, to be clearly aware of the present anxious mind, rather than that you're generally i have a suspicion that i'm anxious today that's really more disturbing than like this anxiety right here which i feel right here in my gut the present example that that alertness is really a helpful part of mindfulness and then remembering again oh yeah and i'm practicing the four foundations of mindfulness which are the supreme way for all this great stuff to happen. So you can be happy that you're diligently, ardently meditating on the mind and that the mind is now anxious is the mind you're supposed to be looking at because you're supposed to be looking at the present one, not the mind that you used to have, that you might have someday, but the present one, which happens to be anxious.

[65:30]

And you're supposed to be aware of it as an anxious mind, if it's an anxious mind. And then in addition to that, you put aside what, in this case, distress about being anxious. Because you're anxious, you've got enough problems, okay? You're anxious. But now you're not just anxious, you're practicing meditation with your anxiety. And you can also remember that Reb told you that Buddha was an anxious person. but Buddha was mindful of her anxiety as anxiety Buddha wasn't like anxious and then like all over some other place when she was anxious he practiced this way he looked at the anxious mind as anxious mind and he wasn't distressed about it then when you're not distressed about your anxious mind you're starting you're getting established in this practice if you're still distressed about this you haven't yet actually got your feet on the ground in this practice.

[66:33]

And if you've got an unanxious mind, which you then compare to the anxious mind you used to have, and you get excited about that, then that becomes a pitfall, and you're in trouble again. But to have an unanxious mind and look at it as an unanxious mind as an unanxious mind, and remember to look at it that way, and also to look at it in its very very very present form of an anxious mind or as an anxious mind you also remember now and understand you're doing these practices you're doing the mindfulness practice you're getting established you're getting established in this practice and there's a joy in getting started in this first of these wings of enlightenment And by the way, I also want to mention a couple of things. One is that any four of these are proposed as any one of these four can take you to enlightenment, according to the Buddha.

[67:38]

And he used the example of this one little sutra which is called The Pile of Dust. The Buddha says, imagine that at the intersection of four roads, or intersection of two roads, I guess, there was a pile of dust, a heap of dust in the middle of the intersection. And if a chariot comes from any of the four directions to that intersection, and the chariot passes through the intersection, it will obliterate the pile of dust, no matter what direction it comes from. In the same way, no matter what foundation of mindfulness you use, if you approach your confusion and attachment and misery If you ride on one of these foundations through this experience, they will be dispersed and liberation will occur. So any of these four, if you get established, get you established on a path that in and by itself, when practiced thoroughly, simple practice like mindfulness of the body can actually take you to awakening.

[68:45]

Once you're awake, you might go back and check out the other three. Just because you're awake and you want to help people, so you might want to learn about a few other practices. Because some people do not like the body approach as much as the feeling approach or the mind approach as much as the mental. So different people have different ways that they'll get started. In the end, all four will be understood. Yes, Susan? just a second before we go on are you being focused on the mind of confusion as a mind of confusion you have anxiety and confusion okay so you have an anxious and confused mind Yes, but do you want to do the practice? Before you finish your question, do you want to start the practice?

[69:49]

Yes. Okay. So now you remain focused on the mind, the anxious mind, the confused mind as the anxious mind, ardent, alert, and mindful, giving up the stress in regard to the world. Okay. Now you have a question? Okay. Pardon? What I'm not. Yes. Yeah, that makes sense. Yes. Well, there's a number of approaches to try to get back on track.

[71:01]

One is, again, to be mindful of what practice you're doing. Now, if the practice that you've decided to do is the Four Foundations of Mindfulness, and mindfulness will remind you that that's what you're doing. And then which one of them are you doing? You're doing one, all four, three, two, one. You can do all four at once. You can do one by itself without really paying attention to the other ones. You can do one, two, three, or four of them at a given time. Be mindful of that. If you can't even remember what practice you're doing... then there you are. Now you're aware. Can you be aware that you don't even know what practice you're doing? And if you can't, then you not only don't know what practice you're doing, but you're not even aware. Now what do you want to do? Tell me any example you want with that. Should we just start with that?

[72:02]

You don't know what practice you are doing. You don't know what practice you want to do. You're not aware that you don't even know what practice. You're totally lost. Okay? So in that case, you probably wouldn't even be talking to me about this. Yeah. Yeah, you would have nothing to say. So there you would be, totally lost, totally miserable, and not even be able to ask a question about it. But as soon as you start asking a question about it, like, you'd ask, well, what foundation of mindfulness would be appropriate here? You're already starting to become aware. So if there's no awareness, not much can be done. unless we can get the person to be aware of something. But if we can't get the person to be aware at that time, we just have to be patient until they're ready to pay attention. And sometimes people are so wrought up that they cannot even notice anything other than... They just can't notice anything, so that's pretty tough. So if I was taking cancer, would I have to offer anything?

[73:14]

So with the aid of this little teaching here, these four things, you can start working on what point of this instruction you're not yet realized. And if you can find the part that you're not yet realized, noting that part will be the beginning of getting over that hindrance. And again, I also I want to remind you that last week I mentioned that the prerequisite and also collateral practice of virtue, prerequisite for these practices are virtue, and the collateral practice with these practices are virtue. And part of virtue is to hear about, think about being contented, being contented with what you have, with what you have, being contented with what you have.

[74:28]

This is not the whole of Buddhism, to be contented with what you have. But if you're not contented, it's pretty hard to start doing this meditation. Because this meditation is to work with what you have. It's to work with your bodily sensations, your feelings, and your mental states that you have. Not to be trying to get some other state by means of whatever you can do to, like, change your state, or to get some other material thing which you think would perhaps change your state in a way you'd like. This practice is saying, can you be contented before you start this practice? And if you can't be contented before you start this practice, maybe you should just work on somehow being contented. How can you get yourself to a state of being basically kind of contented with what's happening? And when you've got that, you'll be ready to start this practice.

[75:34]

And practicing virtue, it's hard to practice virtue if you're not content with your state of health, with your state of wealth, with your weight, with your fate. And that practice is not, you see, is not all those spoken of in terms of virtue as a prerequisite. As a matter of fact, in middle-length sayings uh... middle-length sayings scripture number ten is the one that i'm giving you tonight and middle-length sayings scripture number seventy seven is the scripture from which i extracted this list of the wings of enlightenment and the beginning of that scripture uh... there's an interesting discussion which to make a long story short Buddha's disciples respect the Buddha and follow the Buddha's example.

[76:40]

And then the Buddha says to this person who noted that the Buddha's disciples do respect the Buddha and don't lip off a lot and listen carefully to what he says, the Buddha says, is there some reason why they respect me? And this guy says, yeah, because you have five qualities. And then the guy lists the five qualities of the Buddha which he thinks are the reasons why the Buddha is well-respected by his disciples. What are these? First, the Venerable Blessed One eats little and commends eating little. The Buddha eats little. This monk looked at the Buddha and said, one of the reasons why people respect you is you eat little and you commend or you recommend, you honor, you praise people who eat little.

[77:48]

In other words, they just eat the right amount. They don't overeat. And they're not always looking for special little treats for themselves. They're just... they're trying... they're working on, you know, enlightenment, not... not getting the best possible meal for themselves. That's the first quality he noticed about the Buddha. Next... the next thing he noticed about the Buddha was that he was content with whatever robe he got. And that he was content with whatever kind of food he got. And that he was content with whatever kind of resting place he got. You know, great master, you know, but he wasn't kind of like, well, could I have a different place to rest tonight? You know, people, he's walking around and people say, well, we made this place for you to sleep. Blessed one. He didn't say, well, yeah, but could I have a night out with more padding?

[78:52]

He was content. He was a contented person with whatever came up. Now, it's possible that they gave him a bed of nails. He would say, well, thank you very much and wouldn't lay down on it. But it wouldn't be that he wasn't content. It's just he didn't want to lay down on the nails because it would be bad for his skin. See the difference? You don't have to, like, eat poison just because you're content that they offered it to you. So he was content. Then he says, but it's not because of these qualities which you see that people respect me. The reason why people respect me are because these tells of reasons, and the reasons are, for example, the 37 Wings of Enlightenment, that's what he says. Those are the reasons why people really respect the Buddhas, this wonderful teaching. as a prerequisite for this teaching coming was he's just kind of a contented person so we also have to keep looking are we content and if not we have to work on being content because it's hard to do this practice if you're not content and if you look at it once again being content is kind of related to being mindful of these things giving up covetousness and distress about the world

[80:15]

so it kind of warms you up to these practices and these practices then deepen actually will deepen your contentment with what's happening and again as you get more content you're going to be able to be more purely mindful and get more and more established in paying attention to what's happening in this mindful way So this is the first step. It's called the step of establishing yourself in this practice. And then next week, take a deeper step, which is you might get a hint of what the next step might be by reading the scripture. Okay? Remind me next week to tell you the story about the acrobat and his assistant. It's another analogy for this practice. I really love the story.

[81:20]

It's about the poor conditions of mindfulness. Thank you.

[81:24]

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