At this point in the practice period I thought I might make some kind of orienting remarks or some overview remarks just to encourage clarity about how things are We started the practice period, opened the practice period by receiving the 16 Bodhisattva precepts in the ceremony. And just now as I sat down, I had a little kind of a vision or picture of the Bodhisattva vows as, I mean the Bodhisattva precepts as In one way, they can be seen as, or understood as, you know, just one precept.

[01:10]

They seem to be sixteen, but really they're just one. And that one precept is the precept of Buddha, the precept of enlightenment, the precept of not just enlightenment, but that what enlightenment is, is it's the way, it's the Buddha way, the way of enlightenment, which is the way that we're all practicing. It's the way in which there's not several different ways of practicing and several different beings practicing, but just it's the way of there being just one way and everybody's on that one way and everybody on that one way will realize Buddha.

[02:24]

That's the one precept. And this precept is not usually spoken of in the precept in ceremony. We don't usually say, now you receive the one precept. But I mention this to you because there is this one precept. And the vision I had was that this one precept is, you know, is the precept which you can't are here, but it's the way, it's the precept of the way you actually are. It's the way we actually are. The way you actually are is that you are us. The way I am is that I'm all of you.

[03:28]

The way we actually are is that we're one infinite Buddha. That is the precept which is the principle of the Buddha way. And that precept is sort of at the heart of our life. From that one precept, from that one Buddha nature, from that one path of one path precept, all the Buddhist practices come up, blossom from there. So at the center of our life is this one precept. And then, in some sense, blossoming from there are the 16 precepts. So the one precept is our heart, heart of our practice. And the 16 precepts are like the arms and legs and

[04:30]

eyes and mouth and activities of that one precept. Also the sixteen precepts can be seen as a guidance for our activity. But this way of looking at it is actually they're when they appear they're actually flowers or fruits of our actual nature. And sometimes those 16 precepts are seen as the gate to practice. Those 16 precepts are something you can see and work with, and they're like a gate to the one precept, or they're like a gate to practice. They give us opportunities to enter practice And when practice is happening, though, the other way, when practice is already happening, they appear.

[05:37]

So you can use them to enter practice or you can watch them appear out of practice. But as you're endeavoring to have your behavior, to look at your behavior in relationship to these precepts, sometimes from an ordinary dualistic human point of view of, I do this and I do that. And in the world of I do this and I do that, how does what I do, of course, relate to these precepts? So this is part of the practice, is to look and see in the world where I think I'm doing something, is what I'm doing in accord with these precepts or not? And as we watch back and forth, how the behavior, which maybe we think we do, relates to the precepts, as we watch that more and more, we have the possibility of finally seeing that when what we do gets closer and closer to these precepts, finally our activity is not something we do.

[06:58]

So you practice the precepts, and you practice the precepts, I practice the precepts, and you're successful or unsuccessful, I'm successful or unsuccessful. But as I become more and more intimate with the precepts, finally I get to the point, you get to the point, we get to the point where we see, oh, I haven't been doing this activity. I haven't been practicing these precepts. These precepts. appear through the concerted activity of the entire universe. And then we realize the one precept. Does that make sense? And another thing that this perspective, I think, offers you is that even though you're struggling away, and I'm struggling away, trying to think, now, is what I just said, is what I just did, does that go with the precepts or not? Well, I don't know. I don't know. Yes, sort of. We struggle with this kind of meditation. as we are mindful of our behavior relative to these precepts, all the while, the one precept is there.

[08:10]

Even though we may feel like we're not doing so well, or we may think we did pretty well, regardless of how we're doing, even if we don't even think about the precepts, the one precept is there. We're still that one teaching, that one precept of all this being on the same path with all the Buddhas, that precept is always there. There's nothing we can do about that. In terms of it being there or not, we can only like give our lives away to the realization of that precept fully. So that precept is not only our ongoing support So it may also make us not practice too hard in the sense of, I'm going to practice hard. It also doesn't relieve us of responsibility.

[09:15]

It actually opens up our responsibility so wide that we realize that we can't do it all. And also that although we can't do it all, we have a lot of support in doing what little we can do So that's the kind of precept container for the practice. Now, another thing that's important that is starting to work in this practice period pretty well is something that, from the early part of the practice period, Denny asked about, well, what's the point of the forms? And I discussed with you at that for me the main thing about the forms, the schedule, postures, the mudras that we assume, the forms of work, practice, and so on, the forms of relationship, all these forms that we have offered to us, that we practice at, that we learn about, is to bring to the light

[10:28]

any self-clinging, to bring to the light any misconceptions we have about ourself, to bring them out in the open where we can see them and contemplate how they relate to our suffering until, again, we see clearly what these misconceptions that are the basis of self-clinging and misery are and become free. So the point of these forms is to aid the realization of selflessness and freedom from self-clinging. Going through the stage, however, of becoming aware of not being free and of misunderstanding the self, we can't jump from misunderstanding to understanding in one step we seem to need to first of all see the misunderstanding to some extent before we can let go of it.

[11:37]

Because this misunderstanding is more or less genetic and it needs to be brought out. And the forms help a lot. And the forms of practicing in a group So what's happening with a number of you is the self is starting to come out in the open, and it's kind of like a little bit hard for you to see. You've seen it before, but it's somehow, it's like out there a little bit more than usual, and it's getting jostled around by all these other selves that are coming out of the closet, and it's getting kind of hard. So this is a normal part of monastic practice. So the monastery is a place where lots of emotions come up because the selves come out of the closet.

[12:41]

And we don't tell everybody to get the selves back in the closets. We keep emphasizing the forms, but not to get the selves to disappear, but to keep steady the context in which the selves do appear. So if we say, you know, like, just keep following the schedule, sit still, blah, blah, blah, that's not so that you won't be emotional. It's so that you will realize how emotional you are. If we break the forms, like say, okay, have the day off, you know, run around Green Gulch all you want, or go to the movies even, you know, go over the hill, you might not notice how emotional you are. But since you can't go to the movie, you know how much you want to go to the movies. You feel the impulse to maybe go get a candy bar. Because you can't get one, can you?

[13:43]

They don't give you candy bars, do they? Huh? Halloween, you got some candy bars? Oh, I didn't see those. Well, see, it breaks now and then. But now that you've tasted candy bars again, now you can start yearning for them. because you don't get them, because they're not served in the zendo and so on. So the more you sit still, the more you realize how much you want to move and so on. So the impulsive greed, hate, and delusion of self-clinging comes out because of the forms. We don't want to suppress that stuff. We want to hold the forms and the forms surface them. So then you can look at this material and the more clearly you see it, the more free you will be. Now, another thing that helps you see it, seeing it deeply is insight. But the insight functions best when you're calm and stable, when your mind is functioning nicely.

[14:50]

And so now I thought I might introduce something which I haven't been talking about so much, and that is how to, you know, make your mind, help your mind and body be stable and calm. One person talked to me about actually how, as he becomes aware of his self-clinging, she becomes agitated and distraught. So, although the forms are here to bring the self out, and when you see the self it may be somewhat, you may feel more agitated than you felt before. You probably were agitated before, but you maybe feel even more agitated now because the self's out in the open and you're seeing its activity and it's maybe horrifying. And I said to this person that, well, maybe, you know, you shouldn't necessarily at this time in your practice be focusing on the self. Continue to practice the forms and these appearances of self-clinging may still come, may still be there, and that's good that these opportunities are still being offered to you, but you don't necessarily have to focus on them now or, you know, study them so much.

[16:08]

Be mindful of what's happening, but we don't have to, like, focus on this material. So it may be best to focus on Where's Dave? Is he sick? Does anybody know where Dave is? He's not feeling well. He's not feeling well? Okay. So I thought I might mention that the meditation has these, you know, traditionally has these two aspects of stabilizing the consciousness and then and then insight, these two together. Insight operates on the base, the most important topic of insight is the self. But if you start studying the self right off, you may find that it's hard to study it because your mind isn't stable enough, plus studying it may destabilize the mind.

[17:23]

So you don't have to worry about turning away from this difficult topic or turning towards this difficult topic, and that the proper attitude with which to contemplate self-clinging will be given to you, will be set up by practicing stabilization. So I thought maybe for a while I would emphasize stabilization with you. So I recommended this person that he just practice tranquility. And the types of meditations which are tranquility types of meditation are, well, sort of the the broadest definition of tranquility meditation is that you train the mind to pay attention to the

[18:46]

way the mind is. And the way the mind... Take it back, not take it back, but to elaborate that you train the mind to attend to the nature of knowing or the nature of cognition or the nature of awareness. And the nature of knowing or the nature of awareness is... that it is non-conceptual. And non-conceptual means not that we don't know conceptions, because we do, but rather that awareness just knows conceptions. That's all it does. It just knows. Other aspects of mind besides basic awareness elaborate on conceptions, conceptually elaborate on conceptions.

[19:56]

But awareness itself just knows conceptions and just knows sense objects. That's all it does. So the basic training which all the different types of tranquility practices share is to train the mind, train the whole mind to be coordinated and pay attention to the way awareness knows, the way awareness is aware. And the way awareness is aware is that it's just aware. It knows something and that's it. It doesn't elaborate on it. It doesn't argue with it. It doesn't ask for something else. It doesn't elaborate. It doesn't disparage.

[21:01]

It doesn't demean. It doesn't promote. It doesn't like. It doesn't dislike. It just knows. That's the way knowing works. Its job is knowing, period. Other parts of the mind can wish something else was happening or can want what's happening to continue. or can want more of what's happening, or less of what's happening, can argue with it, can judge it, positively and negatively, can pick and choose and select. These functions of mind, when they're operating, they generally speaking cause turbulence. They are not the fundamental problem of our life. There are side effects which cause disturbance.

[22:02]

Not side effects. There are mental factors which, when they're undisciplined, can cause disturbance. And then in that disturbance, in that chaos, it's hard to see what the fundamental problem is. When those factors of consciousness when those related mental functions that are related to cognition, when those functions are coordinated and trained to pay attention to the way consciousness knows, this arguing with what's going on, this picking and choosing gradually subsides. So the whole consciousness becomes very simple and stable because all the different factors are coordinated around the way awareness is aware, the way cognition cognizes, which is so simple and unelaborative. So this is the basic nature of what stabilizes the consciousness.

[23:04]

That is, the consciousness is trained into stability through training the whole, all the different factors into no conceptual elaboration on what's going on. So like my name is Tenshin, and when, when Siddhartha gave me that name he said, Tenshin means reb is reb. Reb is reb, that's like no conceptual elaboration. Tenshin is this hand is this hand. So the way a child sees things like, what's that? That's the floor. What's the floor? The floor is the floor. That way of knowing and seeing, knowing what you know and seeing what you see, that's no conceptual elaboration. And through that non-elaborative, non-conceptual response to things, the mind is stabilized, stabilized through this simple training.

[24:16]

And then that's somewhat abstract, what I just said, because it applies to all the different types of tranquility trainings. But if you remember that, you can apply that basic principle to any kind of thing you're concentrating on. In other words, if you concentrate on something without elaborating on it, if you focus on something without elaborating on it, it's the non-elaboration of what you're looking at that calms you. If you focus on something and then elaborate on it, you get upset. Like if I focus on Courtney's face and then I elaborate on it, I get upset. But if I focus on her face and don't elaborate, it's a non-elaboration that calms the mind. So if I look at Maya's face, I can say, oh, she's so gorgeous, then I get excited. Or if I say she's ugly, I get angry. The elaboration, or if I say she looks sleepy, I get excited.

[25:31]

and so on. So, you know, any kind of like comment or wishing that things were different, I get excited. So if she's doing really well and I want her to continue, that wanting her to continue is an elaboration. If she's having a hard time and I wish she wouldn't, that wishing she wouldn't is an elaboration. Just seeing her as she is in this moment and letting it be that, the mind calms. If you do that more and more, whatever you look at, just letting it be, and be right there with it without wishing for it to be different or even continue the way it is, the mind is calmed. So that's the abstract principle that runs through all stabilization practices. So applying this to, for example, the object of the breath, because we don't all just sit in a round circle and look at Courtney during Dlazen, but we can look at our posture and our breathing So you apply this principle to your breathing.

[26:36]

So that means, first of all, what is the object? The object is the breath. So, now, it helped maybe to sort of like say, well, you know, to try to like define this, actually this idea of the breath and get the body to help you define it. So one way that helps is to try to feel the breath in the body. And there's many ways to feel the breath in your body, but one way is, first of all, to sit up. Sit upright. Sitting upright gives you a body that kind of like makes more room for you to feel the breath. And also the posture that goes well with this is to relax your abdomen so that your abdomen can be responsive

[27:51]

Try to make your abdomen kind of like responsive or soft so that it can feel and it can move with any kind of breathing that's going on. And also make your whole body kind of like upright and relaxed so that your whole body can like be relaxed and resonate with the breathing. Relax your face. relax your eyes. We ask you to keep them open, but make them soft and relaxed. And relaxed in terms of the tactile sensation of relaxed, but also relaxed in the sense of vision. In other words, not focusing hard on anything, but just letting them see everything that they see. And the same with the ears. Make all the senses the skin sense, the body, the body surface, the eyes, the ears, the nose, the tongue, make them all just be soft and open.

[29:08]

So anything that happens, it's like there's an awareness of sitting in the middle of this field of possible sensation. And I was just like, myself, I was just like, you know, sitting there in the middle of this field of sensation just now, and I noticed that my abdomen moved, and I felt like it moved in relationship to an inhale. There it happened again. So I find that it sometimes helps to get in touch with the breath using this body, this upright body, to feel the breath so that when the inhale starts, I feel it first in my abdomen. My lower abdomen, you know, grows a little bit. And so I sometimes feel the inhale actually starting in the abdomen.

[30:16]

And actually sometimes even not just starting in the lower abdomen, but actually the air entering the lower abdomen. I sort of see it that way. And then I feel, and I don't try to do this, but it comes to me that I feel it filling the abdomen and then filling around the heart and then filling the chest and upper chest and coming up into my neck, even though it doesn't really work that way. That's the way the body sort of is resonating with it. feeling the inhale first in the lower abdomen and feeling it as it develops, feeling the whole torso. And then as I exhale, the whole torso kind of... And to some extent, it deflates a little bit.

[31:20]

It doesn't sag, but it's just a little less full as I exhale. It slightly deflates. And I don't know exactly how to, you know, I wouldn't suggest any particular way. You might just see how does it, if you have a feeling that, do you have a feeling that it deflates when you exhale? Can you feel that? It kind of inflates from the bottom up to the top as you inhale. Can you feel that? Does that feel natural? Inhaling from the bottom up to the top of the torso, and then just exhale. It seems like, to me, it seems like it deflates, you know, fairly evenly, not necessarily one place more than another, but just... So part of the object of the breath is actually not exactly the breath, but this whole torso, which is rhythmically expanding or inflating and deflating.

[32:49]

So I can now... feel and be aware of the sensation of the breathing process through the sensations around this thing called the torso. And another area where the breathing process resonates a lot with the body is in the nostrils. In the nostrils, in Reb's face, the sensation of inhale is different from the sensation of exhale. For me, the inhale's cooler.

[34:02]

I think that has something to do with the fact that at this particular temperature of this room, I think the air that's coming in to my nose is cooler than the air that's going out. I guess that's it. I think the sensation might be different. If it was really hot outside, or really hot in here, then maybe the air coming in would seem hotter than the air going out. But anyway, I had a more vivid sensation of incoming air than the outgoing air. Did you? Was the incoming a little bit more vivid than the outgoing? Was the incoming a little cooler than the outgoing? That won't always be the case, right? If you're in a steam room, the incoming will be hotter than the outgoing. And then one more little kind of piece of information, which is quite helpful, I think, in terms of becoming intimate with the breath, is there's something that happens at the end of the inhale.

[35:13]

It is not exactly like it goes directly from the inhale into the exhale. a little kind of like a, I don't know how to describe it, but like a little something different, which is like the inhale's ended and something happens there for a little bit and then the exhale starts. It's like there's an inhale and a little bit of, a little transition there. And then the exhale starts. But as the transition, it feels one way on the inhale, and then that feels another way for a little while, and then there's another feeling on the exhale, which is not like that space between the inhale and exhale. There's a transitional sensation that I found. Do you find that? Try it. Do you know what I mean?

[36:24]

It's like, kind of like lifting something up, lifting, lifting, lifting, and then it kind of glides for a little while, but it's not really like an inhale anymore. It's more like just a little bit of momentum, and then it goes into the exhale. That's how, something like that. But anyway, notice what, see if you think it's inhale and then directly exhale, or if it's inhale and something a little bit that you wouldn't call inhale, wouldn't call exhale, and then the exhale starts. So I'm just offering this as something to pay attention to. This is like somebody's face, right? Or the sound of a bird, but it's your breath, and just trying to tune into some details about it. All right? So this is something, this is actually a kind of mindfulness practice that I'm talking about so far. To be mindful of these details in order to tune into the object. to remember to attend to these things. The stabilizing part is what comes next, and that is that as you feel the breath in the body and in the nostrils, that there's no elaboration of the sensation.

[37:50]

that there's just that. And that means there's not even an elaboration of like, I'm following my breath, or I'm doing meditation. There's just the breath. There's not you doing it. And so there's no grasping at the breath as you get close to it, intimate with it without grasping it, and also without rejecting it, which means without going away from it and getting involved in something else. The fundamental unit of this training is, I don't know, I guess I would say, actually, the fundamental unit is the exhale or the inhale or the in-between.

[39:09]

Those are like the fundamental units. So you might just see, if you can on one exhale actually feel it, in the whole body or some part of the body. And just for the whole exhale, actually, just be with that breath and just let it be the breath with no fussing with it. Okay.

[42:30]

One other thing I forgot to mention is not only is there a transition between the end of the inhale, for me anyway, and the beginning of the exhale, but there's a transition at the end of the exhale to the beginning of the inhale, and they're different. The transitions feel different. I guess for me it's like, it's like maybe like riding a roller coaster and going up on the roller coaster. And then you get to the top and there's a place at the top before you start going down, you know. It's like, it's sort of like that. Going up and then you just, you're not really on the inhale anymore. You're kind of like turning a corner a little bit and getting ready to go down. And then you go down. And at the bottom of the exhale, because for me, I kind of feel exhale goes down, inhale comes up.

[43:34]

At the bottom of the exhale, it isn't just, it's the end of the exhale and there's a kind of giving up there, final giving up. And then when you can't give up anymore, there's a little space there, and then this flood happens. This air comes in. So there's a kind of like giving up and almost like nothing left. And then there's this incoming surge. And that surge is kind of like, it's a little, you know, it's kind of something to deal with there. So it's, you're like just letting go and then now you've got to deal with all this new air. So that's a different quality than the other one. Whereas now you just filled yourself up And you coaster a little bit on that fullness and then you go, let it go. And the other one you just let go and now you're getting. So it's to be smooth with that.

[44:35]

Again, without trying to get it, without grasping it or controlling it, but just trying to be relaxed with that and gentle with it at all these different phases. So that's the object, or that's one way to describe the object, but you may find other ways of imaging it, which I would, you know, of course, you're completely encouraged to image it however you want to and however much detail or little detail you want to. Whatever image works for you is fine. And then that's your object. But the real stabilizing thing is to just let that object, which is changing all the time in some subtle ways.

[45:39]

It's the breath, so it's just the breath, but the breath is changing. Whatever object you choose, it, you know, it will change, but at the same time, it's the same object. And the training is to tune into the way the mind knows that, which is just it knows it, [...] and tuning into the way the mind just knows, just as aware, just as aware, just as aware, this is called the uninterrupted mind, or the uninterrupted nature of mind. Mind is always like this. So you tune into this uninterrupted quality of mind and tuning into that stream of the uninterrupted, bare, non-elaborative awareness, the mind is stabilized by this.

[46:44]

And I guess I would say one more thing is that stabilization practice is called... The Chinese character for stabilization practice, if most Chinese people look at that character that they use for stabilization practice or tranquility practice, the first thing they would think of is that it means stop. But it also means rest or take a break. So it's resting in the sense that it's restful. It's a restful way to be with what's happening.

[47:45]

It's also like resting in what's happening. And it's also taking a break from messing around with what's happening. it's stopping picking and choosing what's happening. So in the stabilization practice when you're doing it in sitting and walking or standing or lying down, you're first of all resting or settling into the object or with the object and you're also stopping any you're stopping all this fooling around with the object. And you're stopping running away from the object or running towards the object. You're just being with it. But also, you're resting with it. You're doing this in a restful way, not a mean kind of like, don't do anything with this object. It's more like, I'm just not doing anything with the object.

[48:47]

I'm just with this breath. I'm resting with in this breath with this breathing process. I'm settling with it. I'm stopping with it. It's stopping me. It's resting me. It's settling me. So this gentle aspect of the process is just the first one I'm going to mention. Gentleness. And also I would emphasize, just for starters, working with the exhale. Just see if you can do this practice, or see if this practice can happen with one exhale. And then see if you can be with the exhale

[49:49]

into the inhale and then be able to do it with the inhale and the transition from the inhale and the exhale. And then finally see if you can do one complete cycle Exhale, transition, inhale, transition, exhale. See if you can do one this morning. If you can do one, you basically got it. Then it's just like basically trying to make them extend that. But before we get into how to extend it, just see if you can do one. That's the first step is to do actually one. actual moment. Not moment, but cycle, because it will take more than a moment. Just even do one of those this morning. Be gentle and patient with yourself. And if you're having trouble doing one, be gentle with yourself with that.

[50:52]

Do not be hard on yourself if you're not able to do this right away. Because being hard on yourself is elaboration of the process. Judging yourself. When I was doing it, excuse me for saying so, I thought there wasn't a conceptual elaboration of, my God, this is happening. It does actually happen. I mean, one does notice one's breath. It happened here this morning. I had that thought. But that thought is not... That's an elaboration, which I just, I didn't get hard on myself for judging the process. I just let it go. And then I was noticing that there was awareness of breath without commenting on how it was going pretty well. And some other people are commenting that it's not going well. Okay, that commenting is just something to let go of. So you're following the breath after a while with no commenting on how well it's going or how poorly it's going.

[51:53]

No commenting on how good or bad you are at this. And if those do happen, you just gently release. Release that comment. Don't grasp it. And I wouldn't even say go back to the breath. because that's even a little bit of an elaboration. But if you do release it, release these comments, I think you'll find that there's a breathing body right here. It just, like, surprises you. You'll notice, oh, there's a sensation of a breath. As soon as you release, you just release everything else, all the comments that are going through your mind besides the breath, and you'll notice the breath will appear to you. It will come back. You don't have to bring it back. because you're going to be releasing everything else, and pretty soon it's all you're going to have because you're just letting go of everything else. So for a while, anyway,

[52:57]

Perhaps we could work on stabilization practice in the context of these precepts and not put too much energy towards actually meditating on all this self stuff that's coming up. And then if we become more stable, then it may be time to examine the nature of the self and self-cleaning that we're noticing. Does this make sense as a kind of overview? Do you have any questions about this? Yes? It often happens when I do that, focusing on my breath, that I think that the only way to stay awake is to let the mind be active. Well, she said it often happens that when she follows the breath, she falls asleep, and the only way to be awake is to have the mind be active. And I understand that.

[54:01]

Many people have that experience. So that's why I'm starting by saying, just see if you can follow one cycle of breath. Just see if you can do one this morning. Just one. Okay? Okay? Now if you are able to do one, then in the next moment you may go to sleep. Because two breaths may be just too much to stay awake for. Because a breath is so relaxing. One successful moment like this relaxes you. And so you might say, boy, this is a good time to take a nap. So once you become somewhat successful at this kind of concentration, the first problem that will come will be some kind of like sinking or even sleepiness. We'll talk about that later, the difference between those two. The issue of... If you said, when I start looking at the breath, I go to sleep, right?

[55:08]

Okay. So... before you start looking at the breath, you're awake, right? Okay? So there'll be a little bit of time between when you're awake and you're not looking at the breath, and when you start looking at the breath, see if you can look at one whole breath before you go to sleep. And then I would think you'd be a success this morning. That would be pretty good. Then we can talk about how could you do two, and ten, and thirty, and 60 and 80 and that's about, you know, in 200 you've got pretty much a whole period there. So just see if you can do one and then if you can't stay awake beyond one, fine, and then when you wake up again try to see if you can do another one. But the problem with sleep is after you do one.

[56:09]

Okay? I mean, I could express a lot of enthusiasm about any one of us being able to follow one whole cycle with no mental elaboration, because that is the core of this wonderful practice of stabilizing your mind. That's the module. And then once you've got that, then we have other practices to try to discuss how you might be... develop continuity in that. But first just try this. Yes, Greg. Do we focus on a breath that's loud in our attention? It seems to me that... Would you say that again? Would you say that again? Do we always focus on our breath, but with our concentration? Because it seems like... Actually, you're focusing on your breath with mindfulness.

[57:13]

You actually use mindfulness in concentration practice. Mindfulness, you've got some idea what the object is, whatever your image of the breath is. I gave you some ideas. You may have some others. So mindfulness, you're just mindful of the breath, first of all. Okay? Like, so there it is. You're aware of it. That's what I mean by breath. There it is. I remember that's breath. So now you've got the object. The concentration practice is actually how you give up all this elaboration around the object. That's what concentrates you and stabilizes you. I don't know if I answered your question. Yes. Just to be mindful, and you can be mindful and also be elaborating on things, like I can look at somebody's face and I can say, you know, I really like him, he's really doing great, blah, blah, blah.

[58:17]

In other words, my discursive mind can just go to town on somebody's face. And I can be mindful of what my mind's doing with that, but still, I'm running with it. And I'm getting really excited and distracted and maybe even getting caught by my discursive thoughts about the person's face. The mindfulness is there, but you can also be mindful of actually what you're intending to do as a meditation practice, and that this is the object. This isn't just in our face. This is the face I'm going to concentrate on. And then the concentration practice is to, in some sense, let go of all the kinds of elaborations or distractions that you set up around the object to discursively comment on it. Giving up that stuff is the concentration part. That's what stabilizes you and gives you a sense of composure with the object. Does that make sense now? Yeah, it does.

[59:20]

It's hard to reconcile the idea of using my willpower to concentrate with the idea of letting go and it's not great. Yeah. Right. Exactly. That's very good. So we're not using willpower to concentrate. We're using letting go. We're letting being simple. We're just letting things be as a way to concentrate. And when I first started to try to stay awake in meditation, I used this kind of willpower, like chopping away all distraction kind of way. And I was successful, but I felt really bad. So I was focused, but I wasn't calm. because I was actually elaborating on what was going on in the sense of saying, don't do this, don't do that. And I was making it into kind of like a fascist state. And it was a successful fascist state because there was no distraction allowed in this state, but it didn't have gentleness.

[60:29]

So the state I got, although it was in some sense completely focused and there was no distraction, in a sense, there was basically still not this quality of letting go of elaboration. I was elaborating all the time because there was this sword hanging over my meditation of do not get distracted or you will be punished. And so I gave up that kind of meditation. So this way is, I think, It's actually through, you start by, that's why you stabilize your mind by relaxation and resting and letting go. And it's not willpower in a sense, but in some sense this is your will. Your will is to let go. Your will is to trust non-elaboration. to trust being intimate with the nature, the non-elaborative quality of awareness, to trust being intimate with the nature of awareness as a stabilizing factor, as the main stabilizing factor in being with your experience.

[61:42]

Does that make sense now? Yeah, thanks for that point. Yes? No. Actually, I would change it. The concentration is not being intimate with the non-elaborative nature of awareness. It's not that. The training which results in concentration, the training in stabilization is to be intimate with the non-elaborative nature of awareness. If you train your attention to not elaborate on things and just let things be what they are, that training culminates in concentration. Well, it's slightly different to say train the attention to not elaborate.

[62:42]

That's not too bad, but it's more actually to train the attention into non-elaboration. into a way that your mind already has this quality, you've already got this quality. There's a part of your mind right now which knows the nature of your awareness is knowing with no elaboration. That's the fundamental nature of awareness, is it just knows. Period. So what you're doing is you're training your attention towards that quality which is already under your nose. I would recommend you don't get into trying to stop yourself from elaborating. That's an elaboration more. Try to find this quality which is already there rather than like cutting out something which can happen. I would recommend starting that way. So that's what you want to do.

[63:45]

If you want to ask that question you had in mind, go right ahead. The description that you're giving that I'm not ready to repeat accurately of non-elaborative awareness, that is already here. Yes. That awareness could be in meditation or in sitting direct into something other than the breath. You're suggesting the right way to do this now. That awareness during meditation is directed towards things other than breath. It is already. So when you're sitting in the meditation hall, you will be aware of your breathing, but actually you're aware of your body. You'll hear sounds, that means you're aware of sounds, and so on.

[64:47]

You'll be aware of much more than your breath. And I said, you'll be aware. There will be awareness of much more than your breath. And every one of those awarenesses has a non-elaborative nature. She's trying to get, she has a question there. You don't need the breath to do stabilization practice. You could just sit here and attend to the fact that every experience you have involves awareness of something. and that that awareness is non-elaborative. You could just simply notice that the mind is non-elaborative on whatever happens. That would stabilize you too. But as a training device, we often pick something, for example, like the breath, so we can sort of say, specifically, this is it.

[65:54]

Now see if you can notice how the breath is noticed, and see if you can notice if not so much is the mind aware of other things sometimes, but rather when you're aware of the breath, Do you notice how the mind then elaborates on that? So it's not really an elaboration on the breath to hear a bird. You could make it into that, but usually you don't. You're aware of the breath and you're aware of a bird. But if you're aware of the breath and then you sort of feel like you're running off from it and elaborating on it or going someplace else rather than just hearing something else, That's the quality of not to give up that, to give up what seems to be running off from, or discursive mean running back and forth with, or diverging from just being there. But that's different from just something else happening.

[66:59]

And when that other thing happens, just let that be too. So if you train yourself this way with the breath, then you'll be able to be that way with whatever happens. So then you just walk around with the mind trained towards what do you call it, the uninterrupted mind. And you're aware of that quality of mind no matter what you're looking at. The breath is just, I think a lot of people find it helpful as a training ground for getting intimate with this nature of mind. And then when we are intimate, when you do get trained to be intimate with this nature of mind, concentration is realized. And then once the concentration is realized, then you can look at this mess of your life with this self-clinging and all that. You can look at that and stay in and be calm with it and see what's going on because you're not thrown into turbulence.

[68:01]

And yet you can still see how it's a disease. And you can study this disease that we have calmly and joyfully because you've got this nice little mind here to work with, this little pal that can, like, study things because it's cool, you know, and relaxed. Okay? You all right? Okay. Michael? This morning I walked out and saw a beautiful... constellation, Orion is just huge up in the sky. And I thought I just got to stop and looked at it and thought, ah, man, it's just so beautiful. And that's an elaboration. It sure is. You liked that elaboration, didn't you? You know, when I first came to Zen Center, Sun Tzu Kureishi said, when you look at a flower and say it's beautiful, that's a sin.

[69:03]

And I thought, whoa, he's a strict little guy. But that's, you know, that's a sin. He did a sin there, according to Sun Tzu Kureishi. I wouldn't say so, of course. The sin is you're spitting on the flower by calling it beautiful. You've got this flower, you know, which is like, I don't know what. And then you sort of say, I know what to do with that flower. It's beautiful. That's what it is. That's what's happening to me. I'm in control again. It's not a terrible, you know, it doesn't kill the flower. It's not that bad. But it's a sin. It's a sin because it takes you away from that a radical, raw presence with the flower where you have no... It's just... Help!

[70:05]

I know what to do. It's beautiful. It's a kind of sin, and it's based... It comes from that place of, like, you know, you can't... You got to, like, set up some way for you to comment on the flower rather than just, like, you know... It's... And to be that way with our breath is also kind of hard, like just breath rather than me being good or bad at working with it or beautiful breath or wonderful meditation. So there is a place for comments on things. But first of all, let's see if you can be with them without comments and then calm down in the non-commentarial mode with your experience and then see what you have to say. You still can talk after that, but you're no longer talking to put things in boxes called wonderful, fantastic, beautiful, good and bad. Your talk then comes from freedom from these comments.

[71:08]

But first of all, let's see if you can train yourself at not commenting on this beautiful world and see how that stabilizes the consciousness. Okay? So I see 19 hands, which I really appreciate your enthusiasm, but I would like you actually to practice this this morning. You don't have much time before lunch for you to attain this great feat of following one breath. Okay? So let's just sit for a little while before Nenju, all right? Is that okay? And if you have questions, write them down, and I'll be happy to handle them later. May our intention

[71:50]

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