During the meditation session you just had, I said something like, forgetting all about yourself is Samadhi. Samadhi is freedom. Forgetting about yourself is freedom. And perhaps I could add, being attentive while being attentive, forgetting about yourself is freedom.

[01:05]

But even without adding that, I'm still offering you the basic suggestion that samadhi is forgetting all about yourself, forgetting about oneself. Once again, going back to the primary definition of samadhi as the one-pointedness of mind. and its object.

[02:11]

The one-pointedness of mind and its object is the basic definition of samadhi. In mind being one-pointed on its object, in awareness being one-pointed with its object, There is forgetting all about the self. Even if the object was the self, even if there was awareness of the self, or a sense of self, or a person, whatever the object of awareness. In the one-pointedness, there's forgetting about the subject. Subject being one pointed with the object means that there's not two points.

[03:43]

There's not a subject point or an object point. There's not a subject over here being aware of the object over there. Because it's not a me and it. This is the understanding of one-pointedness of mind, an object that I propose to you. As this one-pointedness is somehow celebrated And I believe the word celebrate means to visit again and again. As the one pointedness of mind and object is revisited, it's possible somehow to deepen the sense of composure more and more in conjunction with this freedom.

[05:03]

So I'm proposing that by the basic definition of samadhi, every moment of consciousness not only has this quality of samadhi, but it is free. Every moment of consciousness is free. And yet, this sense of, and this one-pointedness is the source of, celebrating this one-pointedness is a source of developing composure. So even though every moment of awareness is free and one-pointed, that the composure and tranquility of that moment of consciousness can be developed deeper and deeper. So although every moment already has this quality and every moment is already free, since being settled and calm with this freedom and this one-pointedness can be developed.

[06:17]

And that the meaning of the word samadhi, not the definition, but the meaning of the word samadhi, needs to be settled, or firm, or established, and resolute, sometimes fixed. Also unused to translate. Or concentration. Many people's idea of concentration is that mind and object are two, and concentration is to get the mind onto the object. But this meaning of concentration is a little different. It means more to be settled into the non-separation of subject and object.

[07:48]

There's a whole bunch of other definitions of samadhi, I mean concentration, which might be interesting to read if I find it quickly. And I did. Concentration, the verb, means to employ all one's thought or attention or effort on something. to bring or to come together to one place, to make less dilute as a verb. Or the constant, oh, excuse me. And then there's also to bring together to one point, to employ all one's power. So some related words are intensification, contraction, vocalization, convergence, engrossment, but also to contemplate, study, ponder, toy with,

[09:10]

play with, play around with. Last week, I think maybe both weeks, I mentioned that there's a related practice to the practice of samadhi.

[10:12]

There's related practices. One is called mental stabilization, calm abiding, shamatha, and the other is higher insight, vipassana. Shamatha is a process of calming by attending to an inner object, not an outer object. And if you look at some manuals that teach calmabiding or teach tranquility or mental stabilization one of the ways it's taught is to say be mindful or be aware of the breathing process and when people

[11:38]

First, sometimes when people meditate on their breath, they think of their breath as an external object. They don't meditate on the breath as an inner thing. And even if they think of the breath as inside the body, as staying inside the body, they may think of it, again, as not inner in the sense that it's out there relative to the subject. So there's me and it still. So even if I'm following the inside of my body, I still may feel like it's me following it or me focusing on it. And so some people try to follow their breathing in that spirit of, I'm following my breathing.

[12:49]

And I would propose that as long as the attitude is, I'm following the breathing, even when the feeling is or the thought is, I am now successfully following my breathing, That understanding of the process of attention to the breathing, although it may be a relatively wholesome thing to do, if you're sleepy, it might help to stand up. Although it might be somewhat wholesome, it actually doesn't stabilize and doesn't really celebrate samadhi until There's a release of this kind of me thinking about the breath until it shifts from me meditating on or me thinking about the breath to being simply, basically, breath.

[14:04]

The knowing that there's breath. The awareness of breath. And really light on the of. And it's like tonight, as we're sitting, I thought, in many ways, a lot of Buddhist practices are like that story that some of you may have heard when you were a kid, or maybe now telling to your children. It's a story of, and guess what story it is? I know it's a hard one, but you only have three more seconds to get it. That was a tough one, I know. Well, it's the story of a little duck who was born in this world, and shortly after he or she was born, somehow became separated from his or her mother.

[15:11]

and was wandering about in the world I guess able to survive but not knowing his mother was a duck and so he was doing all faith for a while and one day he walked by a pond which was had a few ducks in it and these ducks were swimming around the pond And he looked at them, and they looked at him, and they said, come on in. And she said, I can't go in there. They said, why not? I said, I'll drown. And they said, no, you won't. You're a duck. You can swim. And she said, I don't know about that. And then one of the ducks said, oh.

[16:16]

Here, you can use this sky hook. Just hold this with one of your wings or one of your feet and hook it on the sky and it'll hold you up. And you won't sink. You heard that story, Jeff? He looks like he never heard it. Looks like that's not going to work. Anyway, it did work. The duck got in the water and hooked the skyhook onto the sky, and she didn't sink. So then she could swim around with these other beings who were ducks. And one day, she and the other ducks were hanging around the edge of some pond, and something happened, and they all jumped in the water very fast, and so did she. And they're all swimming around. And one of the ducks turned to her and said, you notice you don't have your sky hook anymore? And she noticed she didn't have it unless she was swimming perfectly well.

[17:28]

And then she realized she had a duck. Just like those other ones who didn't need a sky hook. So when you first start practicing meditation, I think you need to have an object. And then with the object, you can tell whether you're meditating or not. And if you're meditating on the object, I mean, if you're aware of the object, which you think is your meditation object, then by definition, you're meditating, so you feel pretty good. Without that, you might feel like, how would I know if I'm meditating or not? But again, me being aware that I'm meditating is very similar to me meditating. Me being sure that I am now doing the meditation is very similar to the feeling of I'm doing the meditation. I'm in control of that.

[18:28]

Or I've got a hold of that. And so this is, we're quite familiar with this. And we do almost everything with this perspective. So then if we were meditating, it would seem reasonable to apply the same perspective to that practice too, then we'd be able to do it, right? And I just might very briefly mention that not only is that attitude of me meditating, or me being successful at meditating, Not only is that attitude not calming, it is actually agitating. And not only that, but it is agitating in the form of anxiety. It is a source of anxiety. It is a source of fear. So thinking in terms of I'm doing the meditation of me and it is exactly the same attitude of me and the threat or me and the enemy.

[19:37]

the same way of seeing things so it's and and again we feel bound to it we feel like how would I be able to live in another way and we and so we feel bound and frightened thinking that way and again trying this new way of giving up that approach just seems too hard so when you first start meditating you keep using your old approach for a while and then someday you notice you notice even but someday you just forget that approach and you and you allow yourself to celebrate the way of being with the object the breath is still breath but it's no longer you in the breath and you realize somehow it's okay you know it's not the end of the world that it's not you in the breath anymore So if you just forget about yourself, you are concentrating.

[20:50]

And if you just forget about yourself, there will be breath sometimes, and you'll be aware of it. But it won't be because you're in control of yourself and the breath. So once again, although we are by nature this way every moment, that we're really not. I shouldn't say we're really not. Yeah, we're really not. There's not a samadhi. I mean, there's not a factor of consciousness which is present in each moment of consciousness called non-samadhi. Or there's not a factor of consciousness which is that the subject and that the mind is not one pointed on the object. They don't have that on the list. So it's not like in each moment you have this thing of

[21:54]

The mind being not one-pointed with its object. You don't have that in every moment. Matter of fact, you never have it. But what you do have is the conception. And this conception can occur quite frequently. There is the conception of the mind not being one-pointed with the object. There's that conception. There's that view. But the sense of the view of you doing your practice or you doing your life, of you and it, of here and there, that conception is just a conception. Whereas no matter what conception you're looking at, that one or perhaps you could be looking at the conception mind and object are one-pointed. That can also be a conception. But no matter what the conception is that you're aware of, in fact, the mind is always one-pointed with the conception.

[22:55]

You can also have a conception of Thursday, Thanksgiving, Mark, Diego. These are conceptions you can have. And whenever there's a conception, you have one available and whenever you're aware of it, your awareness is always one-pointed with that conception that you're aware of. Okay? But you may not have much of a sense of that. You may not even believe it, especially if you have the conception, which quite frequently occurs, of you being separate from it. So when it seems like you're separate from it, it may be hard for you to appreciate that you're not separate from it. But even though you have that conception or that sense, if you visit the sense that you're not separate, which could be realized by many methods, tonight I'm mentioning, just forget about the subject.

[24:04]

Just forget about the subject. Don't push the subject away. In other words, don't push the sense of over here, which is aware of it. Don't push that sense of subject away. Don't get rid of it. But kind of forget about it. Let it go. And try to be with the objects, kind of like that's all that there is, is what you're looking at. And take away even what you're looking at. The object is all there is. The object is all there is. And you may notice some resistance. Like, what about me? The object is all that there is. The object is it. Just the object. Just [...] object. In other words, that's it. And then what about me? What about me? What's going to happen to me? What are we going to do to me? That's it. Just let go of that. So every resistance or argument with that is that old pattern coming back.

[25:04]

Just let go of it. Or let go of it, let it be there. But don't go with it too much, just let it be there. Or just confess it. So that's another way to appreciate, celebrate, revisit this samadhi. And this, I would say, is calming. And thanks to Charlie Corny here, we have a nice diagram of this kind of rough thing I drew on the blackboard. Even though Charlie made these on a computer, even though they're sacred, he can still play with them.

[26:07]

Want one? Have enough out there now? Need some more? I threw so many. Pass them over that way. How many are left over? OK, I think we've got enough out there. I think there's maybe enough out there. Let's see. OK. Anybody else need one? Anybody else need one? Anybody else need one? OK. Got an extra one there? OK. So at the center is kind of what we call Samadhi One.

[27:23]

And this is the, you could say, and I'm recently reading one of the texts that teaches these ten, that teaches the ten dharmas, the ten facts, the ten things, or the ten mental factors, or the ten qualities, of mind that are always present in every mind? And last week I told you eight, right? Tonight I'll tell you the remaining, the missing two. But anyway, one of them is Samadhi, and there's a considerable and quite interesting discussion in the text. One is, the main part of the text is saying that the Samadhi is present in every state of mind, and there's a kind of critical, an objection to that, which says, why do you call Why do you make a thing out of the mind being one pointed with this object? Why don't you just say that the consciousness itself is just that way? Why do you make a thing out of it? And that's something which you might listen to now and think about for quite a while.

[28:36]

One school would say that the mind being one pointed with its object is actually an actual event, an actual thing in itself. And in that thing, the fact that the mind has this quality or this factor, you can use that factor then to develop and deepen the sense of the concentration. And this other person says, well, aren't you just adding something? Isn't it really just that the mind is that way? Anyway, that's whether you see it as the mind just being that way or that actually it's a quality of the mind or a factor of the mind. The argument isn't about that because either the mind is that way or it's a way the mind is. And that the mind being that way is a thing. So saying that the mind being that way is a thing is the realest school of Buddhism.

[29:42]

and criticizing that and saying, why make a thing out of it, why don't you just say that the mind is that way, is the critical realist. And that's the center of Samadhi. So in some sense, that our mind is like that is the source of all these amazing awarenesses which can be developed through practice. We don't have to bring samadhi into our life. We need to unfold it. It's already there. The second circle is where samadhi has been celebrated, revisited, and developed so that there's an uninterrupted sense of this one-pointedness. So there's continuity in the sense And so there's continuity also in the calm abiding.

[30:44]

So in a given moment, when you appreciate, when you find some way to appreciate one-pointedness without, again, you trying to make yourself appreciate one-pointedness, like you actually accord with the one-pointedness, is training in mental stabilization. But as this training is reiterated, the stabilization becomes more profound. And then when that happens, and this happening can start and become quite substantial and still be just sort of in the foothills of what can be developed. You could do this practice of mental stabilization, which is to appreciate this one-pointedness of mind and to appreciate the way the mind isn't messing with things.

[31:55]

You can appreciate that and develop quite a bit more mental stabilization and really feel the benefits of that, which are that your mind becomes kind of like your best friend. It becomes very relaxed, flexible, joyful, light, undistracted, these kinds of things. And you can have quite a bit of sense of that and still there's like tremendous developments that can go beyond that. And I think that in this class it would be probably not a good idea to talk too much about, you know, the vast horizons of how this company can be developed. It would take, I think, too much of our time. If we had time later, I'll tell you about it, but just I'm telling you now that that there is this potential of the human mind to become very, very stable and also barely, in other words, to enter into a state that's very, very stable and very, very free and very, very unafraid and non-anxious.

[33:17]

just because of developing this stabilization and celebrating the one-pointedness of thought. So it's like this mode of samadhi is to develop actually, to use the way the mind is to develop a kind of a mind. So the mind is already one-pointed on its object, but as you celebrate this more and more skillfully, the one pointedness becomes very very well established and it becomes a very deep sense of relaxation and fearlessness and so on but it's a state of mind and also the state of mind would end basically as soon as you stop doing the celebration practice so it doesn't really change the way the mind is this kind of practice because the mind is already samadhi it just celebrates the Sai Samadhi so much that the other way that the world seems to most of us most of the time namely me and it is like pushed way away and you're in a world where there's no hassle out there and where things happen but they're not there's no you and it but it's more like you're in this state where things are like that

[34:44]

like, I don't know, visiting some place where everybody was like totally on your side, you know, and where everybody completely loved you and would never abandon you. To be in a place like that, it's like being in a world like that, which is, you know, these states are compared to heavens. But the misconception, which is the basis of the sense of self and other as being substantially separated, has not been overcome yet. So in the second Samadhi, that's the case. However, in that state, you are very much ready to receive the teaching and understand the teaching that not only is mind one-pointed, but the conception that we're separate and that we can live dualistically in this life, that's an illusion. When we understand that, it's no longer that we're in a state of mind,

[35:46]

which is like one-pointedness, although we are. It's more that you understand the illusion of the appearance of subject and object, things separate. And that comes more in the third Samadhi. The first Samadhi is the source of all the Samadhis in a sense it's a source of our access to reality of the one-pointedness of all things in a way. Like I read one place in physics books that all the different places that there are in the universe today were originally one place. Anyway, so that's samadhi two is the sense of, and we call this dhyana. And dhyana is a name for a well-developed samadhi, a samadhi that's strong.

[36:47]

Not just a samadhi that exists in each moment, but a samadhi that has a developed sense of continuity. And the word dhyana actually, I think the root has means, is related to knowing truly. So when you get into this kind of state of mind, you're getting into a mode, state of mind, which actually makes it easier to know truly. The next samadhi, which I mentioned last week, is when you now, as before, you're appreciating the one-pointedness of mind, but you now start to appreciate something about the objects that were one-pointed about. and you start to realize that the objects are selfless and you realize and you also realize that there's a way of knowing things which is free of signs by which we ordinarily use to know things I'm gonna go over these samadhis more later and the other one is you get to know things free of wish so you not only at this one point as a thought

[38:09]

but you take these samadhi which you develop and apply it to these three qualities of all your experiences and these three qualities then are called the three doors to liberation yeah the three and now you're not just you're not just working with another very excellent state of mind but you're But you're actually changing the nature of mind from the way it usually is and liberating the mind itself. But these first three samadhis here are the samadhis of the type which we call individual liberation. So these samadhis liberate the individual, namely you, the meditator. And then the next kind of samadhi are the samadhis which are not about liberating you individually, but about liberating all beings, the entire world.

[39:16]

And the liberation which occurs in the third type of samadhi is a liberation which is conceivable. And it's kind of a psychophysical liberation, which one can know about. The next kind of samadhi is inconceivable and it's more about actually saving the world rather than you knowing about saving the world. And so the third kind of samadhi and the fourth kind of samadhi is the kind of samadhi that is the samadhi that's been discussed in the teaching which I passed out last week. which is a teaching of the samadhi where we're settled and one-pointedly aware of how all things come forth and give us life.

[40:23]

And then in that awareness, in that one-pointed, stabilized awareness of how everything's coming forth and giving us life, we also get to see how that thing which was given life how it acts or how it's employed by all things so you get to see how you're born of all things and how all things use you for their own purposes so how all beings and things and Buddhas give birth to you and then how all beings and things and Buddhas use you for all beings and things and this samadhi is a samadhi which you know you don't get to see how that samadhi works but you are that samadhi and that samadhi is you understanding that you are

[41:30]

but it's not something you're psychologically aware of. However, still we're psychologically here in the room and we're psychologically going to read this piece of paper, read the words on this piece of paper, and we're going to probably have a psychological conceivable experience of reading it. So we're psychologically and conceptually dealing with a teaching about something that's not psychological and inconceivable. So why do that? If I do that, you might ask. Okay, well, that's probably more than enough. And before I stop, I just want to remind you, I think you all know, that next week on this day, there's this wonderful event that occurs in the United States called Thanksgiving.

[42:33]

So on that day, the yoga room will not be open, so we can't come here. We can come here. We have to be outside in the hall. So I guess we just won't have a class. So you're welcome to not come here next week. So then we'll start again on December 6th. Yeah. That's a long time. So... It's okay, it's December 6th, we'll be here too. But November 29th? November 29th. Okay, so November 29th is our next class. So I've got to get ready now for how you're going to take care of this practice for those two weeks. So maybe you have some questions about how you can be devoted to a practice, how I can be devoted to a practice, how you can be devoted to a practice while forgetting all about yourself.

[43:39]

In particular, how can you be devoted to a practice of forgetting all about yourself while forgetting all about yourself? Nancy? Did I say you don't need to be? I don't know if I said it, but I think it's true that you don't really need to be focused on your breathing. I'm sad both of them. So she said she's always thought that you sat focused on your breathing. And I think I said earlier in the meeting that a lot of people think that that's one way, that the way to practice is that you, you sit and you focus on your breathing.

[44:44]

A lot of people think that that's meditation. And it is a kind of meditation. But most people that sit and focus on their breathing, what they report is they're not able to do that. So... Part of the, what I thought was interesting about what you said was, I think you said something like, did you, Reb, say that you don't need to focus on your breathing? And when she said that, I thought, yeah, I don't know if I said that, but I think that's true, because in fact, people don't focus on their breathing, and they seem to go right along. Like, you know, my grandson runs all over the place, and he's not focusing on his breathing, you know? Like, if you walk up to him, he goes, uh, Or he goes, huh? But he's not focusing on his breathing, so obviously you don't need to focus on your breathing. Now you say, well, how about if you're meditating? If you're doing the meditation practice of focusing on your breathing, then you'd say, well, then you have to focus on your breathing, don't you?

[45:49]

And I say, well, not necessarily, because you could be doing the meditation practice of focusing on your breathing and not do it, but still say that that's a meditation practice you're doing, but then you would just say, I'm not very good at it, because I almost never do the practice that I'm doing, but I confess that I don't, because that's a practice I've signed up for. So anyway, you don't have to follow your briefings, who have minds, and who have minds that think in terms of, this mind, or this person, is going to do that. This mind's going to control itself into focusing on that object called breath. I find that people who do that, although they're somewhat successful, they may think, they're not happy about it. Yeah. Okay. You always... Okay, she always thought that, she thought that meditation was focusing on the breath.

[46:53]

She said, what does it look like if, what? Well, she says, what is the practice just sitting? And in fact, that is one of the names for the practice, just sitting. Okay, just sitting is one of the names. And if you just sit, if what's happening while you're sitting is just sitting, then you have forgotten about yourself. Okay, if there's just sitting, then it's not you sitting. Now, if it's you sitting, that's not just sitting. We don't say the practice is you sitting. We don't call that the practice. Okay? We do not call the practice you sitting, and we also don't call the practice me sitting. We also don't call the practice us sitting, and we don't call the practice them sitting. We call the practice just sitting.

[47:54]

And just sitting means not me sitting. It means forget about me sitting. It means about forget about me sitting, which means about me, I mean, which means about sitting having forgotten me. That's the practice. Now, if you do, if you do, manage to receive the gift of a life where there is just sitting, then you have a life where the self has been forgotten, in particular your self has been forgotten, and they're just sitting. At that time, you may notice, and you probably will notice, that you're breathing. And you will notice his breath. You will notice his breathing process. When you forget about yourself, you will notice your breath. When you forget about yourself, you'll be aware of your breath. But, I said you'll be aware of your breath, but probably better to say, when the self is forgotten, not even when you forget the self, when the self is forgotten, there is awareness of breath.

[49:06]

Only because there's breath. If there wasn't any breath, there won't be awareness of breath. But this time, there's breathing, and there's awareness of breathing, but there's not any, like, trying to force yourself to focus on the breathing, which is not concentration, and is not freedom, and is not happy, and you can't do it anyway. You can focus on something for a little while. It's possible to focus on something for a little while, but as that unbelievable statement I make, you can only do it for three seconds. Now, some people think they can do it for five minutes or something, but you cannot focus on an object for very long. It's not possible. So what some people do is they try to focus, and then they lose it, and they go back, try to focus, lose it, go back, lose it back, but they do that. And, of course, that's not calming, but if you go back really fast, every time you lose it, then, you know, a lot of the time you're looking at what you want to look at, so you feel kind of like powerful.

[50:18]

But you're not calm. Now, some people can't do it, though, so they feel like a wreck. They're lucky, though, because they're open to trying another approach. So, anyway, it's hard to remember such a simple instruction as practice is, if it's sitting practice, the practice is just to sit. If you're standing, it's just to stand. If you're lying down, it's just to lie down. If you're walking, it's just to walk. No matter what you're doing, just that. That's the practice, which is the same as saying, just forget all about yourself. Forget about the one who's doing meditation. Then, in that forgetting, there will be just what's happening. And just what's happening is the meditation practice. However, again, people think, well, I can't do that, I'm not a duck. So you have to have a sky hook to say, well, I can't just sit there without something that I'm doing, something that I'm meditating on.

[51:29]

So say, okay, go ahead, meditate on something. Here, take the sky hook and hook it on to the breath, the posture, a mantra, whatever, go ahead. But as soon as possible, please jump into the meditation before you even think about you doing it. In other words, forget about yourself and jump into the meditation. and wind up with a meditation which is just what's happening. Which, you know, if you're cross-legged on the floor, what's happening is you're sitting. Just sitting. And when you're just sitting, I forgot to tell you the other two factors and now I'll tell you. The other two factors that are always present, one of them is called mindfulness. In every moment of consciousness, there's mindfulness. You never don't have mindfulness. Which means there's two meanings of mindfulness.

[52:32]

Well, there's 17 meanings of mindfulness. One meaning of mindfulness is not forgetting the object. Another meaning of mindfulness is wisdom. Another meaning of mindfulness is to note or be aware of what's going on. In every moment of consciousness, you have that mindfulness. And the other factor which is present in every mind is discernment. There's some discernment of what's going on. And when the discernment, and the word that they used when they listed these ten, in the part where I found these ten, they listed that discernment as what we call prajna, which is wisdom. But in another place they list these ten, they call it mati, which means intellect. So again, there's a range of words that mean discernment. Prajna usually means very clear and penetrating discernment, and mati can mean just sort of general intellectual awareness of something.

[53:38]

So if you are Not if you are, but when there is forgetting about the self and then there's just awareness being one-pointed with its object. At that moment, the samadhi is being celebrated, the mind calms down and the self is forgotten. And if the object is breath, then there is awareness of the breath in one-pointedness, and being with the breath in one-pointedness and celebrating the one-pointedness, not celebrating getting the mind over on the breath, but celebrating that when you're aware of your breath, then the awareness and the breath are one. Appreciating that and not trying to do anything about that calms the mind. Then you have awareness of breath with calm, without that duality. Now you're in samadhi. Now, you always have samadhi, but when you appreciate that you don't have to make your mind go over to the breath, that when your mind is aware of your breath, it's aware one-pointedly, then that awareness calms you.

[54:51]

Okay, so, Elena and Paula? I'm not sure about that, but I'm going to tell you. I think that... Okay. Yes? The same is that you're going to treat every moment the same. So if it's blue, you say thank you. If it's green, you say thank you. If it's purple, you say thank you. If it's black, you say thank you. If it's white, you say thank you.

[55:52]

In other words, what you're doing is you're trying to settle into not jumping around and acting differently with every object. So if you feel like you're treating every object differently, then you feel like you're jumping from object to object, which disturbs your sense of mind being unified with its object. But another way to treat everything the same is when it's blue, forget the self. When it's Sonia, forget the self. When it's Maggie, forget the self. When it's Cynthia, forget the self. When it's Nancy, forget the self. When it's red, forget the self. When it's black, forget the self. When it's green, forget the self. When it's pain, forget the self. When it's brown, forget the self. When it's green, when it's salty. Whatever it is, forget the self. Just forget yourself, no matter what it is.

[56:56]

And then, no matter what's happening, you're celebrating the fact that mind is one-pointed. Pardon? And if there is residue, you can have an auxiliary practice, which is the practice of confession that you're not doing the practice. Now, another way to, instead of have auxiliary practice, which is I'm not doing the practice, in other words, not doing the practice would mean that you start treating things differently again. That would be the residue. Like, okay, I see, I see Karen. Okay. Thank you. I see Reed. Wow. You know. In fact, I can confess, well, I didn't do the practice that time. Or I could just say, well, then I say thank you to the well. Or I look at Karen and I just see Karen, I forget myself.

[57:58]

I look at Gloria and I just forget myself. I look at Vera and I just forget myself. So I'm the same way with all three of these objects, with all three of these people. And when I do that, when I check that out, I feel like that's the way I want to live. I want to meet you and forget me. That's what I want to learn how to do. And that doesn't stop me from being here. It starts to move me into awareness, away from holding on to myself, opening my eyes to the birth of me. So I'm treating each one the same means I forget myself, [...] forget myself, I forget myself. That's the same. The things aren't the same. I'm relating to them the same. But that's what mind does. It relates to them the same. So the more I do this, the more I celebrate the way the mind is. I celebrate more the one-pointedness of mind.

[59:00]

So you can pick your sameness. Yeah, that's a thought. It's not an actuality of the mind going from thought to thought. It's a thought that the mind goes from thought to thought. It doesn't go from thought to thought, but it looks like it does. You can think that way. Paula? It seems like if you are practicing the mind, you can't have attention. Gripping, you mean? Tension like gripping? Intention. Oh, intention. Intention. Now, you could have the intention to practice samadhi. Yeah, you can... Like you could be devoted to forgetting yourself, or forgetting about yourself whenever you mean anything, which would include that you'd be devoted to not thinking in terms of that you're going to forget yourself. But there's this forgetting of the self, or this mode of being...

[60:04]

where you kind of like let go of the sense of this and that, and maybe emphasize for the meditation that. Because there, now of course there wouldn't be a that if there wasn't a this, which knows that. But if you can like let go of the knower or the subject and just look at the object, you can be devoted to that and intend to practice that. And then at the beginning it may seem like I'm intending to practice that I'm devoid of that, but as you plunge into the practice, you may find that there's not you doing it anymore. There's not you doing the practice of forgetting yourself. There's not you doing the practice of saying thank you to whatever comes. There's not you doing the practice of relaxing with whatever happens. There's not you doing the practice of giving up the distinction between objects. There's not you giving up the sense of movement from things. There's just that practice. And again, if there's a little resistance to this practice, you can either include that resistance as something else which you meet,

[61:17]

you know, it, the resistance, you can meet it, the resistance, and forget the self, or meet, you know, in other words, accept the resistance as another thing to just relax with, or you can confess the resistance and go back to work, and understand that confessing the resistance to a practice is part of, most practices would include confessing your resistance to the practice, or confessing that you're not doing the practice, but that is part of the practice usually. So in this way, if you would adopt a practice now, and you don't do it very well, but you keep noticing that you don't do it, you're doing it. And if you, or take away, again, take away you doing it, but if you adopt a practice, like we have these various practices which need to be adopted, so all these orphan practices in the room now, if you would adopt these practices and take care of them for the next two weeks, like you had a little baby practice to take care of it, and if you don't take care of it, you would confess that you didn't take care of it, and confess that you don't take care of it, you're back at the practice, unless you would change your intention and say, I don't want to take care of the practice.

[62:32]

If there's any of these practices you'd like to take on, adopt one, and then if it's happening, then that's fine, and if it's not, confess that it's not happening, and include that as part of the practice. If it's not happening, realize that that's another thing which you can take on in the same way that you're supposed to be taking on things besides that. So everything you meet, you treat the same, including failing to do that. You treat being successful at the practice the same as being unsuccessful. So if you meet things and forget yourself, and then you meet things that remember yourself, you treat those two situations the same, namely, when you meet things that forget yourself, you forget yourself, and when you meet things and don't forget yourself, you forget yourself. In other words, you don't care that you just plopped at the practice. Say, oh, I didn't do the practice. So what?

[63:35]

I forgot myself. I forgot the one who's like concerned about doing this well. And if you don't, and if you're not concerned with doing it well and you forgot yourself, then also you don't get worked up about that either. So you don't pat yourself in the back when you're successful and you don't beat yourself up when you're not successful. In both cases, you forget yourself. In other words, you're tending to one-pointedness of subject and object. So do you have a practice to adopt? If you don't, please raise your hand and we can try to give you one. Some way to develop samadhi right through Thanksgiving dinner. Yes, Fran?

[64:40]

Well, right now, I'm sitting here looking at you, you know, and I'm watching you, and I, in response to your question, I immediately started to forget about me while I was listening to you. And while I'm talking to you now, I'm also just trying to forget about me while I'm talking to you. That's one practice I can do. No matter what happens, just forget all about yourself. I'm saying these words to you rather than, and I'm not simultaneously whispering to myself in the ear, forget yourself. But I have a kind of a general feeling of forgetting about whoever's talking to Fran. Even though I notice he's chatting away. I'm not so much concerned about him. I'm not exactly more concerned about you. The main thing I'm concerned about is letting go of, you know, my opposition over here separate from you. And that makes me, you know, I feel encouraged.

[65:54]

When that practice is happening, I feel encouraged in that practice or by that practice and of that practice. It seems like a good way for me to be with you. Not like I'm not here anymore. It's just that I'm here with you, forgetting about me. And that's the best way for me to be with you, I feel. Because then I'm in samadhi with you. Well, hopefully, yeah, we're both meeting each other, and we're both seeing each other, and we're both forgetting ourselves. And we're not trying to remember the other. It's just, you know, the other's given to us. But also, as you're given to me, and I forget about myself, then I start to get warmed up and get ready for the big samadhi. which is realizing that I'm given too. I'm being given. Usually you know, usually I think it's easier to figure out other people are being given to you. Because they kind of like show up, right? But you don't, you forget, you think you're already there.

[66:59]

Right? Like I'm here and then now there's Dorit. But now there's Dorit, and now I forget Reb, and now I open up to like Rebs given to me too. And now I that, but the Reb, if I can, being with the Reb that's given rather than the Reb I drag, that Reb can really, whatever you want to call it, that Reb really can function. That's number four. That's the big one. That's your great activity, that's your great potential. in this life of, you know, you are all, we are all, you know, the universe is, you know, cool. We're all like potentially here to be used most effectively and most beneficially. And when you can see how you're given in each moment, you can also see how you're used. And when you see how you're given, there's no fear, there's complete freedom and composure,

[68:00]

And there's this tremendous dynamic activity, which is not done by you, but is done by everybody together and vice versa. Doreen, it's 9.15, but do you have a short question, do you think? Isn't that short? Okay. Well, since it's 9.15, we probably should stop. I do, I hope that you have a practice to adopt. I have said by myself, so if anybody's short, I will give you a couple of my extra ones because I'm just going to use, you know, I'm not going to use them all in the next two weeks. But they're all basically the same practice. It's just there's infinite forms of the same thing. So I hope you have a practice, and I hope you practice it. And then we can come back and move forward into these, into these Samadhi two and three. Did I say there's one, two, yeah, three and four, Samadhi three and four, I'd like to look at more.

[69:04]

Let me come back. But you have to, you have to do, you have to give yourself, you have to donate yourself to Samadhi one and two, if you would, please. So thank you. Pardon? Thank you. Oh, thank you. When I tried to tell you what I learned, what I realized is I won't be able to do that, but that helped me remember what I learned. Okay, thank you.

[69:43]

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