And further, Sibuddhi, the great vehicle of the bodhisattva, the great being, colon, the four applications of mindfulness. Which four? Mindfulness as to body, as to feeling, as to thought, as to dharma. This is on page 154. There the bodhisattva dwells with regard to the inward body, feelings and so on, in the contemplation of the body and so on. But he does not form any discursive thoughts associated with the body and so on.

[01:07]

He's ardent, clearly conscious and mindful after putting away all worldly covetousness and sadness. and that without taking anything as a basis. And so he dwells with regard to the outer body, to the inner and outer body, to feelings, thoughts, and dharma. So this is the general set of the bodhisattva when practicing these four applications of mindfulness. How does the bodhisattva dwell with regard to the inward body in the contemplation of the body? Here the bodhisattva knows, when he walks, I walk.

[02:12]

When he stands, I stand. When he sits, I sit. When he lies down, I lie down. In whichever position his body may be placed, whether in a good way or not, he knows that it is in that position. And that's through non-apprehension of anything. that I used to like a lot. It was something like, Oh When He Walks. When Jesus Walks. Oh When He Walks. Oh Happy Day. When Jesus Walks, He Washes the World's Sins Away. So this is this kind of walking.

[03:20]

I'm walking. And I'm sitting, I'm standing, without taking anything as a basis. This washes the world's sins away. And this is a happy day. Further, Bodhisattva is clearly conscious when going out and coming back, when looking towards and looking away, when bending and stretching the arms, when carrying his waist cloth, robe, and alms bowl, eating, drinking, chewing, dispelling exhaustion by sleep, when coming and going, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, speaking and keeping silent, and when retiring for mendication, meditation and mendication. And that through non-apprehension.

[04:24]

Bodhisattva is clearly conscious when going out and coming back. and so on, and that through non-apprehension of anything. When talking and when being silent. Bodhisattva listens to herself as she talks. She hears herself talking. That's the first step, but this through non-apprehension of anything. This is the bodhisattva's way of practicing the application of mindfulness to the body.

[05:40]

While the bodhisattva is listening, there's no discursive treatment of this listening. And even if there is a discursive treatment of this listening, that's not apprehended. And how is that not apprehended? Through realizing that, there's many ways, but through realizing that discursive treatment of this listening, is cut off from the listening, is unnecessary, and itself is not discursive without all kinds of other causes and conditions which are imagined. The difference exists the person who sees the difference the bodhisattva does not see the difference although the bodhisattva will note that some people do see a difference and those who see a difference are those who see it apprehended different those would be the pratyekha buddhas and the disciples bodhisattva doesn't really see a difference because the only way you construct a difference is by apprehension yet if the bodhisattva hears the

[07:31]

He hears himself saying, there is a difference. There's apprehension and non-apprehension. Well, he's often hears that, but doesn't fall for it. That's the only difference except that Also, that's the only difference in that section. But then before that section, we had this introduction up here. The kind of basic warm up is that first paragraph. Early Buddhism is not actually different from bodhisattva past, except as it's misunderstood.

[08:40]

These so-called mythological beings, these disciples and Pratyekabuddhas, these Shravakayana people and Pratyekabuddhyayana people, these beings may exist nowhere other than the mind that makes the discrimination at this present moment. That's the only place these beings actually exist. If you hear about bare attention only, and you understand that in one way, this bare attention is exactly the bodhisattva's practice. If you understand it in another way, it will be what we mean by shravagayana practice. It will be the disciple's understanding, not the bodhisattva's understanding. So if you understand it that way, I say, yes, that's what it meant. This is a sutta. But it is also possible to understand in other ways. That would be not the bodhisattva's way. So here's the sutra. Now, this other practice is mentioned here. For example, then comes the meditation on the breathing.

[09:46]

Then the meditation on the elements. Then the meditation on all the different parts of the body. Then the meditation on all the different phases of the corpse. So, what would be nice to do tonight would be to develop exercises in non-apprehensions. Just like now, when he was talking to me, I was trying to practice it. with his questions. Okay, now if you look at the commentary, you have the first two paragraphs there, which have the, which are like these two big paragraphs on page 154 of the sutra.

[10:58]

Namely, they seem to be looking at the body in such a way as to, in a way that someone might consider to be a negative way of looking at it, which we talked about last week. And we mentioned that in some sense these practices If they're taken by themselves and if they're apprehended, they would probably be antidotes to passion, to a passion for something attractive, something lovely. If a person was not

[12:03]

passionately attracted to something as lovely, to a body as lovely, these practices would not be assigned. Someone who is very depressed should not do these practices. It won't be necessary and may actually drive them to deeper depression. Someone who's climbing the wall with passion, it's good to lock them in a room. Someone who's depressed, it's not good to lock them in a room. They'll curl up tighter in the ball. So these practices are not necessarily The commentary chooses these two out of a number of possible mindfulnesses of the body.

[13:09]

I mean, chooses this section of them. But it could have chosen a section on being aware of posture or breathing. You didn't have to pick these. But these are chosen and they wouldn't always be practiced. So within mindfulness, the practice of mindfulness of the body If you look into the Siddhimaga, there's a very big section of practices of mindfulness of the body, lots and lots of them. And these practices would be assigned to the beginner, until the beginner understood their emotional temperament, and they could assign themselves which of these mindfulnesses of the body would be appropriate for their particular mood or their general tendencies. So if some people do these practices, they will become sick. Other people do them, they will become quite calm and nourished.

[14:11]

People who have hateful tendencies, who generally see the negative, shouldn't do these practices, probably, if they're predominant in that way. It'll make them nastier and more irritable. People like that, should be aware, perhaps, of not necessarily the loveliness of the body, but should give rise to friendly feelings for the body, feelings of appreciation, hoping for the well-being of the body. Now, this is not that this person, who ordinarily dislikes things and has negative takes on things, is not to help them to become attached to the body. No. is in order to help them be aware of the body and be aware of their anger for the body and for everything else. By giving rise to friendliness, they can override their natural tendency to become distracted from such a meditation because their difficulty in meditating is that they just turn away from everything and disgust.

[15:30]

their agitation is an avoidance type. But now by giving rise to friendliness towards the object, which is the body in this case, it will make it more possible for them to keep their attention on the meditation object. They don't have to worry about attachment to it at this point. So you develop a friendliness towards your own body, first of all. First with regard to your own body. Once you can tune into this body, you will soon see it evaporate. But you have to tune into it to evaporate it. You have to, as we said before, you have to yoke yourself to form in order to realize emptiness. You have to become very intimate with form in order to realize emptiness, or that it is empty. If you don't like to look at your body, well, then if you develop some way

[16:33]

interest yourself in it and be friendly with it so that you can tune into it and thereby, by meditating on it properly, see it as empty. So we yoke ourselves to the emptiness of form by becoming intimate with form. For some people, however, who find their own body quite attractive plus other people's bodies attractive, for them, they cannot yoke themselves to the form of the body and thereby see its emptiness because their passion makes them jump all over the place. They find so many things interesting that they can't keep their mind on it and they jump around. So for them, turning away from the idea of loveliness is a balancing and calming. So then they can calmly contemplate the body. And in fact, what these meditations will do for such a person, by looking at the body which is ordinarily passionately exciting, now they'll be able to dispassionately observe it.

[17:42]

Basically they're interested in bodies. They like them. So now this is a way to go into the observation of the body with equanimity. So these repulsiveness practices will make it possible for the passionate person to equanimously contemplate this dream body. for a person who has a positive attraction to body?

[18:46]

Would you bring that up again, please? Is it possible? Certainly. All kinds of combinations are possible. Very few people are purely hate types or purely greed types. There's usually a spotty pattern in it. And confusion is involved in both extremes, plus confusion is the place where you're not either one of them. So when you confuse, you can flip-flop on one object back and forth.

[19:48]

You can have a whole bunch of confusing sets of criterion by which you like or don't like things. You name it. Patterns of delusion are endless, as we say. But somehow, in order to release ourselves from them, we have to be able to get them under our scrutiny. Keep them from jumping around and deal in them long enough to see the pattern. Once you see the pattern, you'll see what the pattern arises from and is related to, and pretty soon it will be ungraspable. And therefore it can't grasp you, and that's far enough. Go on to the next one that's grasping you as you're grasping. Okay? So, to go over this again, I would suggest that if you found yourself to be in a state of excited, positive attraction to body, or whatever like that, if you do these kinds of meditations, this particular type of taking inventory on the parts of the body, I think you might find it common.

[21:28]

And after you're calmly in the presence of your own body and others, then you go on to the other practices, which will then show you that the parts of the body which you took inventory of in such a way that now you're calm, the parts of the body which you took inventory of, the parts of the inventory, they themselves won't stand up. Then proceed with the next level of study, next level of examination. you're about to start. If you're the other kind of person that you're repulsed and you're completely disgusted by the situation and you just can't, you're just restless to get away from things, then a different form of meditation would be better. For example, breathing, almost no one is angry at their breath. So breathing will be a mindfulness practice that can that will work for the angered person. But it will also work for the lustful person.

[22:33]

Some people are so agitated in a lustful fashion that they can't even meditate on their breath. So it might be good to do these first. Okay. Yes? What was that obvious? In Christian history, Obviously, the feeling of the appreciation of beauty involves some attraction, some feeling of attraction. You may not want to put out the beautiful landscape, but there's a feeling of attraction. Does that mean that all appreciation of beauty and dispassion is delusion? All appreciation of beauty, what was the next word?

[23:35]

Even though it's dispassion? The bodhisattva's way of contemplating the body, the bodhisattva's way of contemplating the feeling, the thoughts, and dharma, that is totally, you know, totally best expressed as an aesthetic experience. So, rather, even stronger than saying what you said, I would say that the dispassionate consideration of body, feeling, thought, and dharma, that is beauty. And

[24:36]

then to just passionately contemplate these without even apprehending them, that is a higher level of beauty. The object is not beautiful. Object and the process of observing it are one thing. So, you can't say that actually the Bodhisattva's way of seeing an object is that the object is not separate from the team. And that's the most beautiful way to see. So, what do you mean? make it beautiful?

[25:40]

We make it beautiful. That's what we like best. If you see that way, you know that's the most beautiful thing. Yes. But dog shit is, in some ways, more beautiful because you're so happy to see dog shit is beautiful. Okay, so if all things can have equal around the community... But the things don't have it, it is. Can be appreciated equally as beautiful. Okay. The language is closer to the experience you're talking about. Right. At that point, doesn't the entire concept of beauty disappear?

[26:48]

Isn't it somewhat... The concept could disappear, but the experience doesn't. The experience being an intellectual experience or an emotional experience? Intellectual, emotional, physical, psychic... So beauty is just a... Religious? What? It can be that, but the reason why I'm going to use the word beauty or aesthetic is because I'm pointing to the processor, to the experiencer, to the bodhisattva, as the one who's in charge, who's responsible for the quality of life. That's why I'm going to use the word beauty and so on. But if something's beautiful, nobody has to tell you it's beautiful. And even if somebody comes by and says it's not, it won't move you at all.

[27:48]

It won't bother you at all. As a matter of fact, you'll hear beauty when they talk, too, if you maintain the same ability to hear what they're saying in the same way. Just like you said, you were looking for a way to talk that we could agree on, but it's very important that you like to talk that way too. It isn't just that I sort of feel like your language is getting more non-dualistic, more do-it-and-more kind of in accord with not pushing things around, but you also like to talk that way. It's not like you're shuffling through possible ways of saying it, and you find one that I go beep, but rather you find one that you like. You say, hey, I found one I like. Now, do you like this one? Rather than, well, do you like this one? How about this one? Oh, you like this one? Okay. No, you shuffle through. I don't like that one. I don't like that one. Oh, I like this one. Do you like this one? Like that, you know? Did you like that way of talking? Was it a nice way for you to talk? So it's saying that somehow the bodhisattva has to take responsibility for judging whether this is really, feels totally, you know, authentic.

[29:03]

Authentic's another word instead of beautiful. But I'm just saying that the way things are actually is the most beautiful thing for a human being and for any being. To experience the way things are is nothing more beautiful than that. So, going back to your original thing, The problem is only when you see the flower and you say, that's beautiful. That's the only problem. But that's maybe just an old habit that just sort of cropped up. You experience beauty and then you commit the great sin called naming it. And you forget that you just named it. But if you just named it and you know it's a name and you don't fall for it, then it's okay to say beautiful. But most people go, and that's a great sin. Or as Ezekiel said one time,

[30:07]

He was looking at a Vermont snowscape and he said, it's so beautiful here I almost forget to die. That's a great sin. That you see the snow, you see the snow. And that's just that, and that's just, you know. But then, just because it's so wonderful, You cling to it, and you forget to die. You died at that moment, and then you cling to it. Great sin. But just before you did that, you knew completely what was happening. And no one had to cling to it. Hey, you know what's happening now? In other words, as they say in that text, you could hear the snow falling. Again and again, the Zen monks are enlightened when they hear the snowfall.

[31:13]

Have you ever had that dream? Even close to it, to hear the snowfall? It's wonderful. No one has to tell you. But you can hear it. But what do you hear it with? You hear it with your eyes. You hear it with your armpits. I think you hear it with your eyes and your body and your nose. And you really hear it. But then you say, and you kill it. And there's nothing worse than that. But you can start over. So it really comes down to, you know, there's this place there. You just get very close, you know, and if you just let it be as it is, that will be, I think we can call that beauty or whatever, or it keeps it as truth. There's a pivotal point that I've found recently.

[32:21]

Like if I'm eating something, at the very moment I'm eating, I'm saying, I wish I was eating another one, too. I wish I had another one already. Then it sort of pivots on that moment and I can arrive. Or if I'm seeing something, I wish I could see this all the time. And then it's a pivotal moment. It's like I wish I had two. Yeah, it's like in a moment of ecstasy, you say, let's do it again. You just crunch. You're completely free. It's all you're doing. You have no attachment, no problem, no grief, no anger, no nothing. You just crunch, and then you say, where's the rest of them? You come right back. You come out of the ecstasy right back down to sort of counting your money up again. But we have these experiences.

[33:25]

They're all over the place. Every day you have them if you're there. And then there's this habit of flipping back. But even when you flip back, flipping back is another crunch. Because nothing actually stops us. because ecstasy can't be stopped. So when you go, crunch, and then you go, where's the other one? That is another crunch. You see? That is another ecstasy. You actually can't, ecstasy is not something that sometimes happens. You say, you go, crunch, and you believe it. So once you believe, yes, I did it, I bid it. And then you say, no. I've got to get some more of this. but then that itself if you know if you just don't say that that saying that that is outside and that's just another experience you know if you if you could say that one is too then even that will be and then and so on and so forth you're never separated except by you drawing along and saying this this is ecstasy and that's not yes um

[34:37]

That's another one. Wait a few minutes. Some of your comments. This thing's got potential, but... Because if I see it now, I know I can see it that way, but if I see it now, I may blow my chances. But I think I can do it in a few minutes, because I just wait, and somebody will overcome, and I'll do it then. It's not really a failure of imagination, it's just using imagination in a certain way, which by definition of the way you're using it, crosses you off the list of those who receive the happiness.

[35:55]

But it's not really the failure of imagination. When imagination goes like this and says, goes like that, Then you fall on this side, so the net's on that side, so the net gives rise to a certain psychophysical thing called lust, because you're separated from beauty. But really, imagination is working perfectly well then. And if you just see that, namely, I put myself on the other side of beauty, isn't that neat? Look how my mind works. Then that's not really a fence anymore. It's just a bump in the middle of your imagination and you're including the whole thing. So you move the fence out and include the cow. Imagination is prior to our experience. Imagination is prior to our experience? Isn't it simultaneous with our experience? It defines our experience. It defines our experience. That's right, that's what it does. It defines it. And what it's often times the definition gives is, and the image is,

[37:02]

alienation, separation, duality, cutoff, ugly, unenlightened, and so on. Other times it says, I'm just an imagination. I'm just an image. Don't take me so seriously. Take it easy. You can do whatever you want. That's another imagination. Yeah, likeness, flexibility is an essential ingredient because you have to be able to not only, first of all, not have to be able to, but you do experience those ecstatic moments, those beautiful moments, and then the mind functions in such a way that you imagine yourself out of them.

[38:15]

But you should also have another ability called lightness or flexibility, prasarabni, which can switch over and say, I'm still riding it. The horse has changed its name, but I'm still on it. And then switch it back. If you're stuck to only those kinds of experiences, then still, although it's ecstatic, you have a very fragile contact with the beautiful. Now, maybe we've talked enough about how the function of these so-called repulsive things, but remember, in the commentary, they've only got a certain section of what's in the sutra. The sutra has other kinds of mindfulness of the body which are not negative at all, but they just happen to choose these. Maybe, you know, what's his name?

[39:19]

Kumarajiva was in a greedy mood the day he gave that lecture, you know? This thing is supposed to be by Nagarjuna, but it was actually dictated by Kumarajiva. There was no Nagarjuna around when he was saying this stuff. He was Nagarjuna's disciple, so he could say what he wanted to. Maybe there were some very beautiful things out in the audience that day, trying to calm himself down while he was talking. So he started out with these. I don't know. But he could have talked about other things. He could have been following his breath. He didn't talk about that while he was starting to get into these bodhisattva practices. Now, the next thing it says, this body formed a combination of the four elements, unreal without substance, like a ball of foam. Now, if you start doing meditations on the body, now we're starting to roll into the bodhisattva. If you start to hear about how this body doesn't have any characteristics, you might sort of think, well, it doesn't have any characteristics, but...

[40:24]

look down there and see my arms and my knees and stuff with my nose. So you may doubt that. Well, the four elements, I think I mentioned this before, the four elements are earth, fire, air, and water. Those are the four elements. These four elements, in any particular experience of form or matter, These four are always, all four are present. And by alternations in these four, you have the varieties of matter. The matter means all different kinds of colors, all different kinds of sound, smell, taste, and physical touch sensations. Each of these five dimensions is composed of these four elements. But these four elements, This is what most people don't know.

[41:27]

These four elements are ways of experiencing. It's not like you take a little bit of fire element, and a little bit of air element, and a little bit of water element. Of course, most people know that it's not actually literally fire, air, water, and whatever it is. But it's not like this sort of stuff that is these metaphors, metaphorical material elements that you mix together. But actually these are ways of experiencing matter. And by experiencing matter in various ways, that's what is primary in determining how matter comes in. In other words, the organ is primary. So, in other words, this is a way, by talking this way, this is a way to break down the experience of your body, because your body comes to you, actually, in these five dimensions, but these five dimensions are composed of four.

[42:37]

So, the watery way of doing it is like what, you know? It's like water. What's water like? Think of all the way that water is, you know? Think of ocean water. river water. Think of water in the air and clouds. Think of rain water. Just sit down and think of all those different kinds of water. Once again, that will show you a way that you have of experiencing. You'll see that there's a kind of way of experiencing. Then think of air. Think of what air can do. Think of all those kinds of wind and air movement. Then think of earth. Think of rock and planets. all kinds of solid things. And then think of fire, think of kinetic energy, and so on. If you do that, you'll be more and more able to see that this body is not so solid. I just did that very quickly, but I'm talking about, you know, you might really sit down and really work at water for a long time.

[43:45]

Just work at water. So I honestly admit to you that In the process of doing these meditations on the body, one, you know, I do experience now and then the body seems to be there, you know.

[44:49]

It seems to be there. Unlike what you're reading about. But each one of these paragraphs are ways to give up your belief in this. In this thing, it's actually due to your imagination, due to various things being turned around, due to certain errors that you see this way. And what we're talking about here is ways to see it another way. If you look at this other way, you put your energy into this other way, which is no more correct, actually, which is liberation from the other way. If you're stuck in seeing your body as four great elements interacting, we'd have a whole different world where we'd have this little empire of sin and corruption in that world. It wouldn't be like this one. be another one. It would be too bad. Maybe worse. Who knows? Do you understand? but you could also start just by working on one element, not even looking at your own body, but just really get into one element.

[46:19]

Just work on the element, all the kind of images you can of water. First of all, train yourself at seeing that these things are, that you have at your disposal, a kind of experiential, what do you call it, reservoir. of these four types. You actually have a whole variety within each type. All three of them, all four are really quite different types and ways of experiencing phenomena, locatable forms. When you're good at those, then turn to your body and see what you see. See if you can see only those. You can see individually, plus you can see one at a time, plus you can see the combinations of the two. You'll see actually then that Water includes heat. The movement of water includes heat. It includes air. Water not only contains the flow, but also supports.

[47:23]

It also has movement in the sense of air does and it also has power. It also has heat in the sense of to bring things to completion. And fire also has the other two. So you'll start to be able to see that and pretty soon you can see the body has nothing but those or as one of them if you want. But that's, you know, every phenomena I can come to this, every physical phenomena will come in this form, but mental phenomena will not. These four will not account for all mental phenomena. You can have mental phenomena, for example, that can be just one of them, because you can say so. You can say. This is earth. Only earth, and there's no air, there's no fire, and there's no water. In the mind, you can do that. As a matter of fact, you can say, this mountain doesn't have air, fire, earth.

[48:30]

It also doesn't have water. In other words, this, there's no form here. The mind can do that. So there you are in the Arupa adopted. The mind can do things, can imagine things that don't have any form. But when it comes to form, This accounts for the basic ways of experiencing it. And when you see that none of them exist without the others, you get to the third element, which is called emptiness, and the fifth element, which is emptiness. But none of them exist without the others. So on the stupids, over our gravesite, we have earth, water, fire, air, and emptiness. But anyway, that's why they have this thing about the four elements here. This is a meditation. Next it says, his body is impermanent and must perish after a time. The marks of the body are found neither inside, outside, nor between the two. Here's another meditation. Look at your body and say to yourself that the marks aren't found inside, aren't found outside, and aren't found in between the two.

[49:36]

Just keep doing that. This thing comes and says, the body does not know itself. It is ignorant, inactive, like roof tiles or like stones or wall. And I want to use this as a point of departure for discussing the fact that although we do not, we want not to be attached to the body, we want to be free of the body and consult to the body. At the same time, you have to take care of the body. We already know that because we're supposed to be doing these meditations while putting all kinds of energy into taking care of our posture. So this meditation on the body should be, if it's done a sitting meditation, you should be always taking care of your posture.

[50:40]

It says there that the bodhisattva in whichever position his body may be placed, whether in a good way or not, he knows that it is in that position. So while you're doing these meditations to dissolve your attachment to your concept of body, you're aware of the position of the body. Now if you're sitting up straight and aware of all the different points of posture so that your body is sitting in the most helpful, comfortable way, That's what's called a good position. But if you're in a bad position, you're also aware you're in a bad position. Bodhisattvas get in bad positions sometimes. And they're aware they're in bad positions. And when they're in good positions and in bad positions, they know that. Plus, in those good and bad positions, in all the positions in between, they do the meditations which relieve them of their body.

[51:45]

As a matter of fact, just the meditation on the body and the posture of the body, you will see these things which are said here. These meditations, if you do them, will help you when you let go of your body, but you don't even have to do them. Just being aware of your posture will lead to these conclusions. So, by being aware of your posture, you can say, the body formed of a combination of the four elements. It is unreal, without substance, like a ball of foam. Or you could say, while you're sitting being aware of your posture, you could say, this body is like a ball of foam. This body is like a ball of foam. Or you could say, you know. Actually, this one paragraph there is four or three meditations can be gotten out of that one little paragraph. Now, this would be meditations in which you could set your body in a certain posture and then take each one of these phrases

[52:49]

and repeat them as a meditation that you impose on yourself. But what I'm suggesting is that if you just sit and are aware of your posture, these meditations might pop out of you. All of a sudden you'll be sitting there, just being aware of your posture, working on your posture, and you say, it's a ball of foam. Or you might say, hey, it's just a combination of the four elements. is unreal. I mean, it's not a real thing. And how do you arrive at that? By thrusting up the back of your neck, by thrusting down, by relaxing your stomach, lifting your chest without lifting your ribs, and so on, expanding this way, expanding. You start working on all this stuff and making this nice, big, round, whole body that you're aware of the whole thing, pretty soon, you think that's your body? Almost nobody that you know thinks of their body that way. But that's all you're doing after a while.

[53:51]

You're just doing these meditations. These are meditations which make your body nice and big and healthy and sitting there. And that's the way you think about your body. And you're not any longer thinking of nipples or armpits or shoulders necessarily. And you're making this thing, this nice round cylinder and air going up and down through it. And where did the body go that you came to sit with? And then you get up from meditation, maybe, and the body comes back again. There's arms again, the legs, and you can recognize yourself. But when you're sitting, it's like you're a diagram in a meditation book or something. You really feel like that. It feels much like something like this. You feel like this, you know? Pretty soon, the better you get at it, pretty soon you don't do them one at a time.

[55:19]

It's kind of a gestalt. And where's the body now? Where's that body that you can find and that you can tell the difference between your body and other bodies? Everybody who thinks this way has the same body. And then the differences between people are not so much between fingerprints, but the differences in their meditation. Some people need all this part of the meditation. Some people can get this and don't go check too much. Some people are greedy to have good posture for a position to get that. The difference is not in terms of body anymore, the difference is in terms of imagination of what the meditation practice should be. Where's the body? What are you working with here? What are the characteristics of the body? Most of the characteristics of the body now seem separable from characteristics of your intention. The body has disappeared in a physical sense.

[56:24]

these instructions here will come out of a person who's aware of their body this way, who's just sitting like this, who's just sitting, just taking care of this sitting, naturally they can speak this material. As a matter of fact, the people who wrote this didn't read it someplace and repeat it. They were just sitting and all of a sudden they said it. Their experience of their body was these statements, they said, in this body, there is no definite bodily characteristic. When you have that kind of a body, you can look there and you can say there's no definite bodily characteristics. I can't find bodily characteristics which are over there as bodily characteristics. My total experience of my body is in this meditation. So where can I find a bodily characteristic? You cannot find one. It doesn't mean that there's no body, in the sense that there's nothing there. you cannot separate these things and call them definite or definitive or that which defines the body you can't do it anymore and you could easily say that when you're doing when you're sitting like this there is no one who makes the body nor anyone who causes it to be made when you're sitting like this you you don't feel like somebody's making this body now you feel like someone's making an effort to

[57:54]

be aware that the back is straight and someone's being aware of the breathing, but is the breathing in the back making the body? It's no more making the body than it is resolving the body. Which is it doing? And there's somebody someplace else, either here or outside, that's having this thing made? Well, obviously you won't, in this state of meditation, you will not be able to find such a thing. In this body there is neither previous term, posterior term, or middle term. If it means period of time, it also means logical term. And then this thing about worms, will we skip that? The bodhisattva who meditates on the body in this way knows that there is neither a body

[58:57]

of the own and our body of another. A bodhisattva who meditates in this way will not come up with ownership. So it seems to me that they're going against almost common sense, I would think. But there may be Indian common sense in those days, or if not Indian common sense, then philosophical descriptions of other schools. Yeah. How about some parables that I thought that the lord of the angels in their own time?

[60:05]

Oh yeah, parables, yeah, right. Well, Ishvara is Brahma. self-existent one, the creator. The body is empty of marks, lakshana shumya, born of unreal causes and conditions. This body, which has only nominal existence, depends for its causes and conditions and past actions. This is another thing that... The physical possibilities are due to past actions. Your organs, you inherit from past actions.

[61:05]

As you'll see in a page or two. Also, feelings are also what we call vipaka. They're also fruits of retribution, but also for the body itself is a fruit of retribution. Now, this is something also that will come out of meditation. It also will come out of Abhidharma. I don't know how much time you should spend on this. Maybe you can tell how much time you spend on that by asking what you think about that. Does that make sense to you, that the body is due to past death? And how so? Well, if nothing else, I mean, I'm very mundane on that. My body is considered that this is what I've eaten, what I've felt, but it's not already.

[62:09]

Because of where I find, because of the kind of work that is. Their actions aren't going to give you your body. Actually, the body is due to two things, and you looked at one of them. The body is due to accumulation, which is due to eating, due to the food itself, and also due to active eating. But the organs, the capacity to receive the sensory information is due to past actions. In other words, We think that there's such a thing as past actions by which we receive these organs.

[63:17]

That's what we think. That's what they're saying. Yogacharya, Vijnana, Vodanly speaking, we think that we thought up this stuff. Some people don't think that they thought that, but that's what they're saying. that it's your desire to be born in a world like this that gives rise to your ability to receive this data in its way. You want to see, want to hear, and you've been fairly good, so you have the equipment. It's karma. The bodhisattvas are born out of vow, and also the bodhisattvas are able to pay attention during conception, birth, and afterwards.

[64:29]

There's three kinds of beings, or four. Some choose birth and aren't conscious of it. I mean, they aren't mindful of it. That's most people. and also they're born unmindfully. And after they're born, they also are unmindful of what they've done. Let's see now, what is it? The wheeled rolling king, you know, they call it Chakravartan. The wheeled rolling king is aware when they choose birth, they say, I'm just choosing birth. The Pratyekha Buddha is aware of choosing birth and at birth. And the Buddha and Bodhisattva are where, even after born, they don't forget. Most people forget one of those phases, or don't. Or even as a choice, they don't recognize consciously that it's a choice. They're floating around in the under-abhava, intermediate existence, and they're looking around and they choose, but they don't say, okay, now I'm going to choose.

[65:33]

They just like it. But they don't see it as a choice. Ever had the experience of liking something and not knowing that liking it was a choice? Maybe some of you know what I'm talking about. And those of you who don't, then you never were aware that you chose what you chose. You just liked it. And you were born into liking that thing. And that's what you got. But liking a thing is choosing to be born in that realm where that thing lives. So if you are aware that by liking it you choose your birth there, you are a real rolling king. Do you understand? In other words, if you are aware of that kind of thing, that is what we call the prototype of somebody who makes the world roll. In other words, you know how the world works, you know how you dream it up.

[66:41]

as you then see now that's going to send you rolling into another realm now okay here you go now if you remember when you go into the next realm what you what you did the knowledge you have power in the world but you as you as you send yourself across realms you don't lose track as you switch now you've got the intelligence of a tragic ability that's at the birth level then if acting you come into the post you know conception stage if you still remember That's what bodhisattva can do. And that's absolutely necessary because, you see, they vow to be born, and if they aren't able to do that, then it's not as good that they got there because they're completely fooled by it, just like everybody else. So what point is them coming back then? They're just going to cause trouble. But notice that the wheel-rolling king, the queen, is the one who knows that what they want to their decision about where they go in life.

[67:44]

When you're in a space where you can make a decision, all you have to do is like something and that's your decision. If you know that, you have considerable power in this world. These are the most powerful beings. They're called real rolling kings. And actually they have the 32 marks of a super person. That's why they say, you know, if you see a wheel-rolling king, you won't be able to tell unless you have pretty good education. There's a difference between that and a Buddha because they look really good. And why do they look so good? Because when they have time to choose how to be, what they can think of, whatever they want, all you have to do is like a Buddha and they look like a Buddha. However, although they look like a Buddha, They can't remember their choice across realms. So they just, as soon as they make their transition, they're kind of confused again.

[68:51]

I don't know how we got on that particular topic. What? I think we brought up about 45 years of being born. Yes? The part that I talked about your body or your organs are beauty and past. But before you talked about past not being something that exists at some other time, the present configuration of that, I mean you just call it have these events that you call your past. So there's not really a real past. I mean, you call it your past, so this is a past that then creates your organs moment after moment.

[69:54]

You mean if you saw it that way, would that create organs? No. It's not a past that exists some other time. Right. Are you wondering if you're going to have organs? if you realize the past is not someplace else? It is saying that if you think the past is someplace else, that's what most people think, that that vision of the past, a past organ, gives you your present organ. But it's not a fixed... But then if you see it's not a fixed past, then will your organs disappear? That's your question, right? Did you know that? They don't just do it. Why not? Because I understand. But maybe you didn't really believe that the past isn't that good.

[70:59]

Or they completely changed. They completely changed? How? I think it's kind of a good question about whether they disappear when you realize that the karma by which you made them is illusory. It's the way of thinking that there's a past that gives you your present organs. Or if you don't call it a way of thinking, then it's some actual past that creates your present ability to see. Your present body is due to past actions. You can either say there really is past action which makes this present body, or I think there's past action, and that way of thinking makes me think I have a present body. I see one now because I think I had one before. Either way you want to put it anyway, it's either that you actually go out of the past and you had a body, or you thought you had a body, and you had eyes and so on, and you wanted to have that stuff, and now because of that you have one here too.

[72:10]

Or right now you think that way, because you think that way, you've got this solid thing. This is thought. And I can't do this unless I think about a past where I did this before. Do you understand how I can't do this without a past? Do you? What? See, Abhidharma Kosha does not... See, I'm talking both Abhidharma Koshin says there is a path that really exists. And it talks about, it isn't talking about all, it doesn't really say that it's all, it's a realistic philosophy. It says there actually is form outside mind. But even they say that to do this, that's a skill. And I had to learn how to do that. You just think, oh, it's quite this.

[73:17]

You have to learn how to do this. It takes a lot of experimentation to get to do that. Well, there's two different ways of learning how to do it. One way of learning how to do it, you'll see that your skill, although its form, It's not form outside the mind. And you'll see that it's form that's in the Dharma Dattu. The Dharma Dattu is the realm of object of mind. That the ability to go like this is something that you confer with your mental objects in order to do it. And the reason why that material, that skill is there is because in the past, You did something like this. You made a bunch of gestures like beef gestures. These are all individual physical karmas I'm doing.

[74:19]

Millions of little physical karmas to reach down and hit my leg. Because I think this, and I think this, and I think this. In other words, I think in such a way I make this shape. I think in such a way I make this shape, and I think in such a way I make this shape. I think all these shapes. This is the school that says these shapes are not my mind. But all schools say, you think and then you make these shapes. The Jnana Vadim would say, thinking and the shape are both thoughts. Either school anyway, you think and make the shape, think and make the shape, think and make the shape. All these little things that I do leave kind of these things called these, the Vibhasa could say, Avigyantis, they leave these little pieces of matter in my realm of consciousness, my realm of objects of consciousness. And I can just refer back to them and see them again, and I can do it again. But it's due to a large number of small actions that I have that leave some physical shape, some physical residue in what I can relate to with my mind.

[75:26]

So I just sit there, and I just look there, and there it is, and I go... Oh, I play the piano. But I can't play the piano. There are two ways of looking at it. One is the realistic school of the avidharma, and the other would be the yogachara. The realistic school would say, I went like this before, and I went like that sock, and I went doop, doop, doop. I did all those things, okay? And by doing each one of those things, I put these two pieces of matter in my dharmadhatu, in my realm of dharma that I can consult with my mind, okay? Then, because I did that, now if I want to play the piano again, I just look at it, and I just do it. but as I'm reading off of stuff I already put up there, okay, the jnana body would say that I think, right now, that I did that. And I think it again.

[76:27]

That there isn't any form there that can place it. And as you pointed out to me one time, this Christian philosopher said, Christian theologian said, that the human being, God created man God created us with such depth that it came with a history. And it came with evolution. That's what we are. In other words, that's the mind we have. A mind we have which can immediately think up evolution. I don't know if you've followed that. In other words... If I think, you know, right now, as I say, you say, well, why don't you just tell me anything you say to me? Why don't you just go play the piano then? I say, I don't even know how to play the piano. All right? So you can say, well, if you can think it up, why don't you just go think it up and go play the piano? What's the reason why I can't go play the piano, if I can think it up?

[77:32]

Can't do? Sound with me? What? Anyway, the answer which I would give is the reason why I can't go play the piano, because even though I said I can just think of how to play it, is because I don't think of how to play it. Okay? What? it if you think you can do it you see one thing is to say i think i can do it that doesn't do it no to think you do it means you think that you are doing it in other words i think my fingers are hitting the notes and i think my new finger can hit those notes the reason why i can't go play the piano is because i don't think i can in other words i don't think of my hands

[78:51]

and my mind doing that thing. But if he thinks of it, he thinks of it. And he can go in there and do it. Why does he do it? Because he can think of it. And he can actually think of it. And he can do it. If I thought of it, I could do it. As a matter of fact, thinking of it and doing it are very closely related. But he might not be able to think of nothing He might, what do you mean? We don't have access to how we made the body. That's right, you might not.

[80:05]

Yeah, maybe he can't. I feel that you don't quite have a tactful sense of what I'm talking about. doesn't know how to hit certain notes. If I think, if this conscious thinks about how to hit those notes, actually thinks of how to hit them, this finger can do it. And you say, can you do it without actually going in there and touching the keyboard? Well, you're asking me, can I imagine the piano without going in there to see it? Can I imagine my finger before it gets to the piano? Well, of course I can't, because you just said that I couldn't. Because you said I can't imagine it before I get to it. But I'm saying that if I can get to the piano and think of it before I got to it, then that's what makes it happen.

[81:08]

But it turns out, why go to the trouble of not going to play the piano? Well, the reason to go to the trouble of it is to show that it's possible, and it is possible. But how would I even know the word piano? Yeah, I mean, by think, I mean Chaitana. Chaitana is like the overall, the main thrust of consciousness, of a given moment. I'm not conscious of consciousness, You're not usually conscious of it, but you can be conscious of it.

[82:11]

That's what you do. You find some place where you can be. So you go like this. You do something so you can catch on to the fact that you think this up here. Now how does this get up here? How do I do this? He is continually thinking this, so I'm suggesting. And all schools agree. The question is that one school says, the Abhidharma says, that there's an interaction between these four great elements, which are external to mind, and the thrust of consciousness, which wants to make this shape. And one school says it's not even shape, it's only color. And then the sequence of events is actually a separate moment. There's really no movement. That's also imagined. This is imagined. There's no movement. There's this, and this, and this. The movement is imputed.

[83:12]

But Jnana Vadim said, this is not form. This is actually consciousness which wants to see itself. This is consciousness which wants to see, so it does it this way, or feel. The hands are thinking what? The hands are thinking. You have to do that part too because They found out, these Russians have found out, that if they just mentally rehearsed the sports thing before they perform, that it seems to be about half as good as actually doing the exercise. Plus it has the advantage that you don't get tired. What's missing?

[84:19]

What's missing? That's the key. When they mentally rehearse, why is it only half as good? What's missing? And what is the physical karma? That's right. You only have to believe it. So one school says that you just have to believe it. That if you believe it the other way, it would make it true. The other one says you don't project the mind into the form. So that in both cases it's different. But the difference is because in one case, the mind doesn't hit form. In the other case, you don't believe it hit form. But why would it be a dream? But why do you call it a dream then?

[85:21]

You're the one who says one thing is dreaming and the other one is awake. You'd still say that was a dream. If it didn't make a difference right now, you wouldn't say it was a dream, you wouldn't be making up that example. You feel it's a different realm, therefore it would be. If you didn't think it was a dream, and also, like in a dream, you'd say the body was doing it, then, in fact, that's what it is to do it. Do you see that? That's what it's like when you're actually running on the field. You say, it isn't a dream, I'm actually on the field, and I'm actually moving my body, and I actually think of moving my body before I do it. That's what we call actual sports. And if you think, and then if you sit down, okay, now I'm just going to stop, sit down, and think of it, okay, that's what's called half of actual sports. Now if you have a dream, where you dream, you don't realize you're doing half of it. But if you think it's a dream, then that's called dreaming of it. But if you wouldn't say that, it would be the actual thing.

[86:27]

And if you're a Buddhist, all foam you do distinguish between dream and the other one that's what the difference between dream and the other one is is a distinction but you realize that it's just a distinction it's just here i go you know i'm just making this distinction and a little while later from now i'll be making another distinction you know we'll call one the one and one the other but The reality of the difference is just due to my discrimination. Otherwise, there's really no difference. And you can't, you know, and the lines between these different realms is built up out of these discriminations, which don't really do anything other than that function which they are, namely their discrimination. They don't really make borders, you know? So what's my dad when they're taking me? When somebody dies, they... Well, when somebody dies, what they do is they think that this is going to make a difference.

[87:39]

That's before they're dead. The moment of death, they say, this is doing that. And afterwards, that way, that sort of mode of thinking will still be there. And the next thing that happens, which is called unto above us. You'll still be doing that. However, you will think that there's a change. You'll feel uncommitted because of what you thought. What do you think? You think you just have disconnected yourself from your commitment, from your entanglement. You pulled your arms out of the tar baby, and now you're sort of standing there kind of free. Why are you standing there free? Because you think you are. So you feel pretty good. But the discrimination is still there. What's the discrimination? Discrimination is, this is what it's like to be an entire baby, and this is what it's like not to be an entire baby. Okay? So discrimination is there, but it's kind of like the other side of that discrimination.

[88:44]

And then you sit there and you say, gee, it should kind of be nice to be, put stuff in a entire baby again. Do you know what a entire baby is? Does everybody know what a entire baby is? It wouldn't be inaccurate. What? Inaccurate? Just talk. You could say it. You could say it. Some things are more real than other things. Okay? I'll say that.

[89:44]

Some things are more real than other things. Okay. And I said, everything's equally real. Is one more accurate than the other? Well, what do you think? How does it feel? Well, it seems like the world is based on the assumption of something that we're aware of. That our daily lives are aware of. Yeah, it does seem that way. It does seem like the world works on that. That some things are more real, that some things are more important than others. Based on measurements and discriminations and evaluations. So then it's a world of freedom based on not making that kind of... It's based not on discriminations and differences of evaluations and differences of importance.

[90:54]

Probably not based on those things. Probably not based on anything. So that's why I don't want to say that that other one's more accurate, because that just sounds better. But you see, when you actually say them, they're just words. That's what I'm wondering. To say either, to say both of them, it seems like what we do here, the talking that we do here, is eventual conclusion to reduce all speech to almost equal equal level of meaning. What equal level of meaning? Good idea.

[91:55]

I know. Exactly, but all things being equal, it could be either meaningful or meaningful. Do you understand what I'm saying? Which there's no way to, well, no way to match it. Huh? Uh-uh. This is a way to practice. Ma! Did he draw a distinction to hear that? Did I have to draw a distinction to make the sound? I didn't draw a distinction. It made a sound. I didn't know it was a good sound or a bad sound, a real sound or a fake sound. You can make that distinction, but I didn't do it. But you can do it all you want.

[92:56]

Everybody here can do it. You can say, boy, there's a lot of things you didn't say when you said that. Boy, I know a lot of stuff you didn't say. Not that, but what he said was kind of useless. Actually, it was rather helpful. No? It was pretty smart. No, it was dumb. It was tall. No, it was fat. It was stupid. Yeah, but it was kind of really stupid. No, it was smart. You can say all you want and make all the discrimination you want. But I didn't make any. I just made a sound. And the sound just swells me. And I can practice when I make that sound just like I can practice when I'm talking like this. You can say everything becomes equally meaningless. If that's the kind of sound you like to make, If that's beautiful to you, and when you make that sound, that's just it, you know? That's snow falling. You hear the thug of the snowflake. If that's what that sounds like when you say, everything's equally meaningless, then say that.

[93:56]

Just say, everything's equally meaningless, and really, that just sort of lets everything go, and you just feel really right there, and taking care of everybody. That's fine. Or you can say, everything has equal meaning. Everything is the total meaning of the universe. Everything is the whole story. You can also say that. It sounds a little bit more hopeful, but it's just sound. But if it turns on and turns off, switches and releases you and makes you feel free and good and makes you feel to go and have a peanut butter sandwich after class with an open body and mind, fine. It's up to you. Such talk is, you know, I can say it's either good or bad, but even though I say that, you can make it good and you can make it bad. You can say it's a bad talk. You can say it's good talk. Whatever you want, it's okay. Such talk is not... You can say this is a lousy book. You can say it's a chauvinist book.

[94:56]

You can say it's a racist book. You can say it's a smart book, a dumb book, a liberating book. Whatever you want about this book. Anyway, it's a certain type of book. It has certain words and not other ones. It makes certain sounds and not other ones. I'm not saying that this kind of talk doesn't reduce everything to equal level of meaninglessness. I'm saying put the criterion of whether that kind of talk is useful or not on your own sense of your life. When you say that, does that feel like wisdom manifesting itself in compassion when you say that? If not, would the other way of saying it be that way? He said, all things are equally meaningful. Would that seem good to you? You might say, you know, that's interesting.

[95:58]

But is there a way of understanding either one of them, a way of hearing either one of them, or a way of making either one of those sounds, a way you can make that sound and just make it? And you just have to be beautiful when you say it. That's what we're trying to know how to do here. And if you do that with your body, Pretty soon, just like with that statement, everything's meaningless, everything's meaningful. You can make all kinds of discrimination to make stuff out of that. Just like with your bodily experiences, you can make all kinds of stuff with it, or you can think of your body like that. And you decide whether thinking of your body like that is freeing and light and happy and comfortable, or whether thinking of your body in other ways is that way. It's up to you. So I'm trying to turn back to, again, what's the kind of vital detail? Come back to examine the form and yoke ourself to its entities.

[97:17]

So the characteristic of my fingernail was to just put down on it. When I was four years old, six years old, I was insane in French, but I tried to get rescued from 19 grand times to the prayer. I got my fingernail in the water. I'm just thinking that ever since I was grown, I was just that long. It was good. It seems irreversible. What if I didn't think that I tried to say like guinea pigs and my fingers would have a nice flat nail? Okay, so go ahead. Don't think that and see what kind of nail you have.

[98:21]

You would not have the same nail. I'm saying if you did not think that that thing with a guinea pig happened, you would not have the same nail. That's what I'm saying. I mean, that's not what I'm saying, but it says right here. It says the body is due to retribution. That means the shape of your body is different from what you either did really do when you were six, or what you think you did when you were six. Which it turns out now, it's either your word or mine about what you did when you were six. Either way, we're talking about this category called past. And I'm saying that your fingers will change. Now you can pretend you know that you changed your mind about what you thought when you were six, and the fingernail won't change. I'm talking about reading, not seeing it that way anymore, and then look at your finger and it won't be the same thing. But pretend.

[99:29]

You said pretend. Instead of actually think, really think that way. And not, you know, kind of a gloss over the top of what you actually think, but actually alter the way you think. If you alter the way you think, your fingernail will change. And all schools will agree with that. Now, one will say that alter your way you think means that you did a different thing. If you think that form is outside of mind, then you would have grabbed not for a guinea pig, but for a hedgehog. He would have thought differently. And if you had thought differently, you'd have a different shaped fingernail. But now, from the point of view of Yogacara, if you think differently now, you'll have a different finger now. You think you have that finger. Now you think, this finger's irreversible. I mean, this is my finger. But when you realize you can dissolve this into a ball of foam, you have quite a bit of flexibility.

[100:32]

To straighten the little crease out of your fingers, nothing compared to turning your whole body into foam. And you can turn your whole body into foam if you just change the way you think about it. If you use your present thinking system, you don't even think you can be shorter or taller. How can I think myself into being 6'6"? It's just impossible to do that. I mean, how can I do that? And the reason why I can't do it is because within the system of thinking, in which I think I'm 6'2 now, or 5'4", I can't do it. The system doesn't work to do it that way. I'm stuck in this system. If I completely revolutionize the way I think, I can be as tall as I want or as short as I want. But then when we ask, in such a revolutionary situation, why would you make yourself 6'6"? I say, well, I just will. Okay, you're 6'6". I'm not saying it's impossible. I'm saying, I can't imagine using my present equipment, looking at how tall I think I am, I can't get myself to be another size.

[101:38]

But if I want to dissolve my body, I can recreate lots of different stuff. including going back to being 5'9", or whatever. That's where the city comes from. That's exactly where they come from. That's exactly why you can be much bigger and much smaller, where you can go into the ground and jump up, where you can fly and all other stuff. Even Jonathan Livingston Seagull knows that. What did he say? The trick of being able to fly instantly great distances is to realize you're already there. Because from wingtip to wingtip, it's just thought. It's like the other chart, right?

[102:38]

The way to go from here across the street in a flash is to think that you're already there. That's the way to get there fast. That's a little bit faster than the speed of light. If your desire and various kinds of emotional disturbances will interfere with your realizing and your power of imagination. You won't be able to really believe how powerful your imagination is unless you can really be concentrated. Because there'll be some fudging and you'll say, oh, well, you make a discrimination. You're a flip-flop. When you, if you, when insight applies itself to an object, but without concentration, it's called vikalpa.

[103:42]

It's false discrimination. The mind's wobbling across there. You won't be able to realize the power of your imagination in that case. One time, when I was head monk at Kalsahara, I was watching the Junko. Junko was standing in front of me with a stick, and the Junko jumped 55 feet. Why did the Junko jump 55 feet? He said, because I saw sleep. But, it's more than when I just fell asleep. A lot of people fall asleep, but the junker doesn't just jump to the back seat. Why did the junker jump to the back seat? For what? Somebody said that. He got, yeah, that's the reason I said he did. It had something to do with the fact that I fell asleep, the way they took him to walk up there. But also, I thought he jumped to the back seat. And because I thought I jumped to the back seat, not only did I see him go jump,

[104:44]

I saw his body go from... I saw him fly through the air. He didn't just... It wasn't just... He was... A perfect landing. Once again, if you read Jonathan Wood and Steve Segal, how do they land? They come... And they land with... Just completely softly. How do they do that? Because they think they do. How do they think they do? they're concentrated. How do you get concentrated? You practice flying a lot. Get into really flying, fly fast and watch very carefully and pretty soon you get concentrated and you realize when you really concentrate that what you think is what you do. What you do is what you think and if you think this you can do it. But if you think, oh no, I don't think I can, well you can. Or if you think, oh no, I don't think I do, I think somebody else is running this boat, well then they are. because that's what you think.

[105:45]

No one doesn't feel? Well, he can't be all right. All wrong? The power of positive thinking should say it's not a light. So these meditations, anyway, You can either look at them as something that would come out of the bodhisattva who's just sitting. If you're just sitting, you could say all this stuff. Then a meditator could say all this stuff about the body while they're sitting. Very likely that some people say this stuff. You can also sit and say this stuff. And if you say this stuff and think this stuff, then this will be what you think. And if this is what you think, this is what will happen. But if you say this stuff and think this stuff, but you're not really thinking it, but rather you say, I'm just thinking it, but this is not really what I'm thinking, then you're not thinking it and it won't happen.

[106:51]

In other words, if you're ambivalent about this meditation and you don't believe it could happen to you, then for sure your body will stay right here, arms and legs, and it won't be a luminous ball, I suppose. Yes, we will get into it. But for today we can say that the issue is ambivalence. Okay? I know, but I'm just saying that already to do this meditation you have to be concentrated. And concentration already starts to deteriorate any ambivalence. But we'll study the other ones, but the whole point of concentration is to get rid of the ambivalence by which you would sort of be able to say, well, I am and I'm not.

[108:05]

See, you realize that you are and you're not, not by saying you are and you're not, but by seeing completely that you are, and when you completely, 100% see that you are, without any ambivalence, 100% that, that's when you know for sure that you're not. When you know completely that you are, and there's no fuzzing because you're totally concentrated on your are, that's when you see that your are is never, ever, one iota different from your aren't. and you're completely confident of that fact. But if you're ambivalent, flipping back and forth, and you're not really on your are or your aren't, and you flip back and forth, and you never know that either one exists, and you think they're two different things, you feel like you're moving back and forth. But when you totally realize you are or you aren't, then you realize that all you're sitting still, they're one thing, inseparable, and there's no movement. So one is stable, clear, and powerful without ambivalence, and knows that there's not two things, and everything is the same, the other one thinks, has ambivalence, and is flopping around, and is always jiggling, and you can't be sure of anything.

[109:20]

So you don't realize your power to create the universe, and that you are the one who's doing it. And therefore you don't have any riddy, or city. Okay? You don't have these powers because you won't allow yourself to have them. Just as you have them, you say, Can't do that. No, can't do that. You wiggle off them. So power, these kind of psychic powers, they arrive out of concentration. That's where they come from. But they're nothing compared to the imaginative powers of bodhisattva. They're just kind of like, they're still, you know, trivial compared to the revolutionizing power of wisdom and compassion. It can not only jump your body around the planet or something, or jump junkos across the room, but it can free everybody. It can get into the mind of the piano player and let go of the fingers.

[110:24]

Even though they can't get in touch themselves with the process of which they learned it. So this is meditation on the body. If you do it, you'll do it. You can see your body as foam, just like he did. He was trying to do it. You see, where was he trying to do it? Sorry to make a point to him, but anyway, one of these students in the class, in the midst of all the chaos at Tata Hara, was being silly enough to try to do this meditation. And what happened to him? Well, he happened to see his body was a ball of foam. That's what happened to you. If you try to do these meditations in your daily life, actually try to do it. while you're driving your car and stuff like that. Maybe you shouldn't do it while you're driving your car, I don't know. But anyway, if you try to do it in safe situations, when nobody's going to get hurt by you're driving off the road, walking around or standing in the hall or something, eating dinner, you may see some of this stuff may happen to you.

[111:30]

Either you're aware of your body and it comes out of you, or you're doing some, you know, just take one paragraph and run it through. you should do or learn something. Even if you only learn your resistances, you already learn something. Even if you pick up yourself saying, hey, this is ridiculous. I can't do this. That's a start. As a matter of fact, hey, this is ridiculous. I can't do this, or this isn't going to work. It's not so far from doing this. Not so far from doing this. As a matter of fact, that's the first stage of doing this stuff. Other people don't go around saying, I can't do these meditations. Only people that think that are people who are trying to do them. So it's the first step. The first step of trying to do them is some doubt. And the second step is a little bit less doubt.

[112:35]

And so on. Until finally, The final step is there's no doubt. That's called doing it. Or, I mean, thinking of doing it. So I think next time we will jump over to study the feelings, okay? So why don't you try to do the feelings one. Now feelings one, you can start by trying to figure out what the old way of doing it, the, you know, the, what you say, or the Shravakayana way of doing it is, if you want to, and then try to see how the Bodhisattva does it. And I don't know if we'll get to the one about thoughts or not, but you could of course go on and try that too. Okay, any questions?

[113:32]

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