We want to have a different class. In the thing we didn't talk about last time, the point that was raised was that it said, in the application of mindfulness to thought, according to the Abhidharma, in the Dhajri Dulin. Under the discussion, which is initiated by the question, how is one known to know, how is one to know that all conditioned mental states are impermanent, The person talking in this commentary says, though I have stated it before, and that's interesting because he says, though I have stated it before, he's restating things again and again all over the place, but here he mentions that he's restating it.

[01:32]

In one sense, people ask me the same question, so he keeps repeating the same answer, but in another sense, even if you're not prompted, you'll do that. I will tell you again, he says, conditioned mental states are impermanent because they belong to cause and effect. Now the question is about conditioned mental state. Now this is a discussion supposedly about application of mindfulness to thought. Now the question is about mental state. So here in the commentary on the on the application of mindfulness to thought, the discussion has been turned toward application of mindfulness to dharma. OK, is that clear? Do you understand?

[02:37]

Yes? . Yes. Yes, we're talking about that. I would continue to talk about that. That follows upon the point that thought in its own being does not arise. We'll talk about that point, but you're still here. So why don't you take it easy? So is that clear, the point I just brought up prior to his point? That the dharma that they're talking about when you talk about application of mindfulness to dharma, it's primarily application of mindfulness

[03:40]

to mental states and mental darkness. Does mind, do you know, does mind come up with mental states? Yeah. Yeah. So would you say they come up together? Yeah, one from that very clear. Yeah, right. That's right. So that's one of the basic principles of all Abhidharma. This is according to Abhidharma. Is that mind never comes up by itself. It all comes up with mental states. In mental states, all comes up with mind. But mental states are inseparable from mind. All mental states are the states of mind. Or the functions of mind. They can also be called mental functions.

[04:42]

of mental entities, mental dharmas. They're actually called... Jinabhi dharmas are called chaitasika dharmas, or chaita dharmas. If you take the word chitta, which means mind or thought, and you want to make it into the form of thought, then you say chaita. of course are of mind, so it's an equipment. So here we see in a discussion under thought that now they switched to discussion chaita rather than citta. Supposed to be talking about citta, but now they're talking about citta. Supposed to be talking about mind, but now it's shifted to mental states, okay? So in the commentary on thought, the commentator has now switched over to actually being discussing application of mindfulness to Dharma. Okay? He can't really separate them.

[05:44]

In his mind, he can't separate them, so he's commenting on the offside. Did you have some things, Peter? Well, uh, I mean, uh, anyone was against, I am, he might have thought, you know, I'm watching the second time. Probably tired. I'm glad. I don't know if you want to talk to that guy again. I don't want to do it. But anyway, that makes sense to me. Where I want to go from there, they're going to take their way. What makes you think that if one would begin with notice initial application, you know, we can have a question about it. but I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead.

[06:47]

Good. Well, actually, when you first start doing application mindfulness to thought, when you, strictly speaking, have transcended application mindfulness to feelings, the first thing you'll do in application mindfulness to thought, probably, you won't even be getting down to dharma. You'll be dealing in somewhat more general terms than dharma. first of all. So, as we mentioned before, as you have the ability to turn your attention to your body, to be aware of your body, which most people can do at the beginning, and then you become aware of your body in more and more subtle ways, and after you can do that quite well, you will be able to be aware of your feelings. Some people I'm not able to be aware of their feeling. If you ask them, are you having, right now, positive feeling, neutral feeling, or negative feeling, they may say, well, that might be a neutral feeling.

[07:53]

Anyway, they may not be able to. But if you examine your body carefully and get good at it, you will be able to turn your attention successfully to awareness of the type of experience, the type of sensation. When you get good at that, they'll naturally notice how feelings arise. At the grosser level of noticing, they'll notice they arise in association with other kinds of events. Other kinds of events on the grosser plane are general statements about the mental states that arise in their feelings. If you get very good, very, very good at being aware of feelings, you'll also learn very exactly what mental dharmas are, the other ones. But first, you know, it may, the first time through, you might get quite good at feeling, you can feel that you can go on to the next practice, and your first take on awareness of thought may be awareness like distraction, or roughness, or faithful, something like that.

[09:06]

And as you get better at that, that will start to hone down into finer and finer discriminations. And then you're ready to go over to meditation on application of mindfulness to Dharma. But actually, if you've got very good at mindfulness of body, if you're very clear on that, then you also would be doing mindfulness on feeling, mindfulness of thought, and mindfulness on Dharma. But it's something like sanding something, maybe. If you take a rough sandpaper and you're sanding something, like application of mindfulness to body. I mean, to apply thought to body is basically using rough sandpaper. But if you sand very, very, very well, it's conceivable.

[10:12]

somehow, that you could sand something almost beyond the grain of the surface, like in infinite repetition. Or another way of what would actually happen is you would wear down the sanding surface. The rough sandpaper would become fine sandpaper. But usually what you do is You do rough sandpaper, and then you do the next finer, and the next finer, and the next finer. Then, if you come back after going through those stages and use rough sandpaper again, you can understand the rough sandpaper in relationship to the fine circles coming in, and you can see very clearly What the rough sandpaper does is a circuit that's been produced by the finer, finer sandpapers.

[11:15]

When you have a rough surface, a surface that's even rougher, actually, the surface is, first of all, rougher than the sandpaper. The sandpaper is actually going to smooth the surface. Even the rougher sandpaper will smooth the surface. So then you throw the rougher one in, go to the finer one, and so on. Finally, the surface is smoother than the sandpaper, first kind of sandpaper. Then if you go back and use that fine sandpaper, either that's been made into fine sandpaper by use, or if now the surface is very rough, that means it's very, very smooth because you've used fine sandpaper, then when you use the rough sandpaper, it's not rough sandpaper anymore because it's rough sandpaper on a fine surface. And then which is which? Then what you've got is fine sandpaper on a rough surface. And you can use the fine sandpaper, which is now the dharmas, you can use them on the body. And you can sand the body down with the fine sandpaper that you've made by going from body to, you see, from body to feeling the thought, the dharmas, that you made all consciousness smooth with, then take consciousness and put it back on the body.

[12:30]

And the consciousness, the refined consciousness will wear down the sandpaper of the awareness of the body. And pretty soon, everything will be smooth. can be mirrors on both sides. And yet, if you wish, you can pick up body sandpaper, feeling sandpaper, ball sandpaper, dharma sandpaper. Even dharma sandpaper is still real until you work it for a long time. OK, something like that. And when you change sandpaper, some people have to change as soon as possible. As soon as they could possibly switch to the next level of sandpaper without leaving. See, another thing about sandpaper is that if you switch too soon, then what you do is, as you sand, you take a rough piece of wood or something, and you sand, and you make it smooth, right? And then at some point, you switch to the next kind of sandpaper, and you start to sand.

[13:34]

And as you sand, what you find often is scratches. from the previous wallpaper. And then you have two choices. I have many choices, but you can keep sanding with the next grade of finer sandpaper until you sand it off the scratches made by the previous sandpaper. You know what I mean? Is everybody following these? In other words, As you make the surface smoother, the scratches will start showing up more and more. And then at a certain point, you will have actually brought the surface, kind of the average surface down to smooth. And what's left now are the gouges from the previous sandpaper. And maybe some gouges from the surface as it was too before. But then you can take this finer sandpaper sand off the scratches from the previous sandpaper.

[14:39]

Or you can go on to the next finer sandpaper and use the finer sandpaper to take out not only the scratches from this stage, but the scratches from the previous stage. But of course, the finer sandpaper will take a long time, will take a longer time to take out the scratches from the roughest sandpaper. It'll take longer to use than to stay with this rougher sandpaper. If you go on to the final sandpaper, then you get to, although it takes longer to take out the rocker of the first stage, it takes, you can start right away scratching up, taking out the scratches of the second stage, which when you have a second stage, you're still making some scratches, because you can't apply this, you don't know how to apply it to put the evening. But it's always your decision about what you want to do, you see. I can't say one's right or wrong, but you make these decisions. And some people, I mean, their values are such that they go on as soon as they can. Other people would keep going so that when they switch to the next sandpaper, as they bring the surface down smoothly, no scratches show up.

[15:46]

Because they brought the whole surface evenly to the highest level that they could with that gray sandpaper. So there's no scratches. All scratches are equal depth. So when they do the next sandpaper, they come down, and as they expose the surface of smoothness, They don't show any scratches from the previous stage. So they complete one level, and then they complete the next level, and complete the next level. Other people complete part of the level, leave these scratches, and go on the next stage right away. So the same would apply with these four practices. Do people? Yes. Do you? No. You don't want to? The reason I asked that I was speaking with my brother was talking to me because we were both in the midst of getting the fire up and all this community.

[16:49]

They were very excited. Uh-huh. And so that's what I wanted to send them to me by the way because they don't... I told her that you see... But what I just talked about is exactly that, that you're in different hierarchies simultaneously. And it's a question of presence, whether you kind of really are the kind of person who really digs into one of the hierarchies you're in and sort of emphasize one. And by emphasizing one, you define your presence in the others. But some people don't emphasize one. with a different way of defining the presence in the other hierarchies. But these three, four practices we're talking about are hierarchies. Each one has a hierarchy. And you don't know at the beginning, but actually, when you do the first one, you're also in a certain hierarchy, you're taking a place in the hierarchy of the other three. And depending on how you do the first one, and then before you move on to the next one, you'll wind up in a different place in the hierarchy of the next one.

[17:57]

So if you do the first one very well, you'll come in high in the next one. But you'll be in the first one for a long time. So you'll be really emphasized in the first one, and you'll actually simultaneously be moving up in the next one. But you won't be present in the next one, because you feel like you're in the first one. So some people would rather be Like the way Nakamura sensei teaches T, her way is to push you onto the next level of hierarchy, to another hierarchy which is in some sense more subtle or more advanced. She pushes you on before you do this hierarchy. With her, you're always in the bottom level of some practice.

[18:58]

And then she recycles you off and back to the beginning. And then you get to see, have you come, without even being in the first level, have you come up in it? Have you refined yourself in the first level without even practicing it? In one sense, you haven't, because in one sense, you forgot. But in another sense, your level of responsibility is much higher in the beginning one. And you remember it very quickly. In one sense, you come back and you're sort of out of it. But in another sense, you take more into consideration. The same could be said. But some tea teachers make you master it before you go on the next one. Now, still, if you do that, when you come back to the first one, you also will be aware of how much was involved there that you didn't realize. That will also be the case.

[20:01]

But you won't have that. The feeling of that case will not be the kicker. The feeling of the one method will be more precarious. You won't have a sense of grasping the mastery of the thing as you would in the other one. In one case, you're more vulnerable and don't really know what's going on. The other case, you master and you say, I've got it. You go on the next one, I've got it, got it, got it. You go back, oh, I know that one. And he's like, oh, yes, I still do know what it is. Got that one. So one is more like our heart way. The mastery way is more like our heart way. And the way of going on just when you barely have got it, or you haven't really got it, but somehow you're being pushed anyway. That's more like the bodhisattva way. Yeah? What about doing all four haphazardly?

[21:10]

That's another one. There's all these ways. There's complete ways. There's eight million stories in the naked city. And that means that Bodhisattva would take that rather seriously. There's a movie on TV. It's a TV show 20 years ago on TV. It's called The Naked City, New York City. At the beginning, the guy would say, there are eight million stories in The Naked City. And tonight, you'll hear one of them. There's eight million ways. In San Francisco, I mean, in the Bay Area, there's only about four million ways. In New York, there's 10 million. You can think the metropolitan area you're in. But if you're in a really big Buddhist metropolitan area, we say there's inconceivable stories in the naked universe.

[22:22]

And today, you will hear one. Today, you'll practice one of the ways. Actually, you always alter your practice. Today you'll be an arhat. Today you'll be a haphazard bodhisattva. Today you'll be whatever, you know. But in the tea class, you're being pushed because the circumstances are pushing you. You don't choose. Oftentimes the student would say, wait a minute, I want to stay in this one a little longer. I want to sort of get a little bit better before we go on to the next one. Because you know that you're going to be brought back there later and that's going to be very embarrassing because you won't know how to do it again. There you are, sort of, oh, you're stupid. And in Japanese, too, so you don't really know exactly. And the same would apply to, you know, many things. Otsan's way more mastered than you can go on. Anyway, we could talk about key family the rest of the night, but that's... And that's that.

[23:46]

Now... Oh, we're reading this. Application of mindfulness of thought, according to the Abhidharma, in that section, about the Mental states are impermanent because they belong to positive effect. Because they did not exist in the past and now do, because they now exist and in the future will not, they are impermanent. Further, since the mark of impermanence adheres to the conditioned mental states, and these states have no accumulation, but are only characterized by mutual encroachment, they are impermanent. Just stand up, there's nothing about mutual encroachment. Nobody does? He has to talk.

[24:48]

Why don't you say something? Sir, one. How about you? Very hard. They arise. They condition each other as they rise. Yes? What is business about encroachment? Why don't you say mutually support each other and mutually cause each other? The word encroachment is good. It's a good word. That's logically related to cockroach. Yes? Yes. They impinge, they encroach. Obscure. What? Crowd?

[25:50]

Crowd, yeah, crowd. How crowded? What? It's hard to separate them out. Yeah. There's this kind of encroachment, you know, just kind of like... If you start looking at the thing, you start seeing all this stuff around here, and pretty soon, you can't see the thing anymore, except the stuff. They not only crowd or make it difficult to separate, but it's really difficult to separate, and they're really crowded. In other words, the thing gets completely crowded out by the causative condition. The causative conditions completely take over the space of the thing, and you cannot see the thing back in a causative condition. So it's really a radical encroachment. And here's the thing. But this thing that came up here did not comply to this chalk in my hand, and the board, and the light, and the cards. They have all this unstuck out here.

[26:51]

And the encroachment is quite strong, This depends on me, it [...] depends on me. And it all can depend on all the other things and all the other things. They all measure it. And this thing, when you see these causes and conditions, you realize this thing is not this at all. It's all this. So it's really enforced upon because you actually lose it at the thing itself. Except the encroachment is a funny kind of encroachment, because it's an encroachment that these things are crowding it at first, and pretty soon the thing blows out and just includes the whole thing. So it gets encroached by exploding. I can point out, and I can understand, because here, you say kind of accumulation, but I always talk about the mutual encroachment.

[28:00]

So I have a sense that Instead of coming home with a different state, like they were changing from each other, and only making a statement, that's what they did last year. I thought, the friends I had met, they just kept wanting a question for each other. And when it's fair that they get, they put each other in the family, they just let them go home. What I would suggest is that what's meant by not accumulating is that you can't. You see, this is by itself, OK? This is a thing, right? It could accumulate this, that, and that. Or rather, accumulation would be this thing plus the mother stuff, that's accumulation. But this can't accumulate anything because this It's already totally dependent on these things, so there's no way for it to grow.

[29:03]

The reason why things can't accumulate is because they are already dependent on everything that they're in. Everything's that way. There's no way for it to accumulate. Things are just their relationships. There are no things, they're just relationships. But even the relationships are not things. And you can't grasp those because the relationships are things which are also dealing with relationships. And there can't be any accumulation because where would the accumulation be? It wouldn't be on here. Because this is already, where would you get, there's no place to get any accumulation from. You can't accumulate. You can only accumulate stuff if you're separate from other things. But remember, there's also a word that characterizes dharma is called isolated. Dharmas are also isolated. Once again, why are they isolated? Isolated for the very same reason.

[30:04]

This is the only kind of true isolation there can be. If you don't include everything, you're not isolated. And you can be encroached upon. So complete radical encroachment, or being crowded out of your existence by cause and condition, is exactly the things totally, absolutely isolated. The only way to be isolated, to escape the world and be isolated from it, to really get them peace and quiet, is to let everything in. Like that thing I quote oftentimes, that mafia statement. Keep your family close, but keep your enemies closer. enemies are far away you're very unstable and frail so if you keep your family close and your enemies closer you can be isolated okay so that's encroachment is a nice word keep it in mind because all of us are totally radically encroached by everything encroachment actually means

[31:28]

In a radical sense, encroachment is equality. But it's not equality like this equals that, but it's equality like making a cake, like that kind of equality. Not like this cake equals a donut. It's like, squish the cake and the donut together in one ball. That's what the cake is. because there's no such thing as a cape without Adana. Yet? . You have to start by focusing on something, because you think there's something, okay?

[32:36]

And as you study this thing more and more, you'll see that the only way you can see it arising is by causing conditions. And the more you study them, you'll see these causing conditions will totally encroach this thing. And this thing is none other than causing conditions. That's what we mean by doesn't exist. But doesn't exist means that kind of doesn't exist is the way things exist. That's the way things actually exist. In other words, it doesn't exist the way you used to think it exists. I mean, it's not a thing by itself. Yeah, but that's regular isolation.

[33:50]

The isolation of this sutra that we're studying, they say all diamonds are perfectly isolated, absolutely isolated. Absolutely isolated. There is relative isolation. Relative isolation is the way we usually think about dharmas or things. For example, we think this positive feeling or this body is isolated from other bodies. That's relative isolation. Absolute isolation is total encroachment. Absolute isolation can't be tampered with. You can't do anything to absolute isolation. It's unconditioned. It's the way things are. If something's got other stuff around it, it's not isolated. It can only be isolated when it's everything. The total cosmos is isolated. So the only way to truly realize loneliness is by touching everything.

[34:53]

And the people who touch everything with their whole body and mind, these people are very lonely. So if you look at a great Bodhisattva, you see this kind of flip-flop, this foreground, background flip-flop. One moment they look like this great compassionate hero or heroine. They seem to be glowing with going out to people and people coming to them. Everybody's loving everybody. Everybody's with them and they're with everybody. That's one side. The other side, flip and all alone. They're totally alone. Flop, they're with everyone, back and forth. If you're cutting anybody out, you're not alone. You're with that person. If you include some people but not others, you can't ever be alone. If they would want to be. Anyway, you may not want to be, but if you're with everyone, you're alone. But what most people are, they're with some people, not with others.

[35:55]

They're never alone and they're never with people. They're with some and they're not with others. They're with others and not with some. They never know totally being with things, and they never know totally being alone. Bodhisattva knows utter, absolute loneliness, and knows utter, absolute interconnectedness. In other words, they know that they're nothing other than other people, that they cannot be separated from all the other people, all the other beings that they're aware of. They have no other existence. That's the only thing they are. And that When you see that from the other side, it's very lonely. So we say, what did he say in Genja poem? And one side's illuminated, the other's in darkness. Like that. Yes? Yes.

[36:58]

Alone, I have to see through myself. She is me, but I am not her. Everywhere I go, I meet her. She is me, but I am not her. I have to see through myself. This is a cloud of a new one. Okay. So there it is. So we may proceed through ourself here. They are impermanent. Their impermanence is also due to the fact that such states are constantly beset with two forms of growing old, first being imminence of old age, the second being decay of old age. It is also due to the fact that they are constantly beset by two forms of death, first is self-death, natural, and the other is being killed by another.

[38:05]

We could talk about this for a long time. You've been studying this in Adi Dharma class. But we won't. Sorry with you. Because of this, you can know that all conditioned dharma mental states are impermanent. In a conditioned state, impermanence of thought is most easy to realize. Got that? If you want, among the conditioned states, in terms of thought, it's easiest to realize. That's what they say. And I don't think it'd be just a trick to encourage you to realize it. But you might think about it and see if you think it's true. Anyway, that's a little nice tip. You may have trouble seeing the impermanence of your body. You may have trouble seeing the impermanence of your feelings. So maybe this is maybe the easiest way to do it, to catch on. Because actually, people do have quite a bit of difficulty seeing the infirmities of the body. That's why the first time through, using the sandpaper of the bodily awareness, we don't demand that you see that the body is infirming you.

[39:14]

OK? All we ask is that you see that it doesn't really exist, and you can't really grasp it, and it's not really all that pleasure bag. Then you can go on. Still some scratches left, but you can go on. See, this is an example of where maybe if you get to the next can go and skip a couple practices, and when you get to the one on thought, you may be able to sort of get the knack of seeing the impermanence of things, and go back to the body, and you'll be able to deal with the body too. That's why the haphazard method sometimes is good. Okie doke. Well, see, here it is. Just as people just as the Buddha said, common people sometimes know that the body is impermanent, but they do not know that thoughts are also this way. And they're saying here that actually some people may not, may think the body is permanent, or can't see that the body is impermanent, really. You sort of, everybody knows, in theory it is, but they can't really get a full-bodied sense that it's impermanent.

[40:18]

Until they die. But some people, at least, to give lip service to the idea that the body is impermanent. They see these corpses going by and stuff. But they can't quite see the mind is. And that's kind of what we call it is a samcha heresy. If you read Bendowa, the monk at Dogen, he talks to Dogen about this luminous mind, you know. The body's impermanent, but there's a luminous kind of mind that goes on. And that's samcha heresy. The heresy that existed at the time of Buddha It's something that we can think of again and again, even if we're not in India, we can think of it. People in India can think of it, people in Tibet can think of it, people in China can think of it, people in Japan can think of it, and people in San Francisco can think of it. It's one of the things you can think of. Now, it's important to be able to discriminate in your mind, or not important, it's just

[41:27]

is better than important. To discriminate. The difference between saying that it isn't like the body was away and the mind keeps going. There's a difference between saying that and saying that five skandhas transmigrates. What a lot of people think is that you've got this body and this mind. The body dies and the mind transmigrates and gets reincarnated or gets another body. So the mind is the thing that goes from one body to the next body. But that's not the teaching of Buddhism. You say they have five skandas which have a body. Those five skandas deteriorate. They're constantly deteriorating. They disperse. And at a certain point, there's a giving up of a body.

[42:35]

You abandon the body. Permanently abandon the body. But you're always abandoning the body. If the body is always being abandoned, it's always dying. So what happens actually is not enough that you abandon the body, but you give rise to a new type of consciousness, which says, I don't want this kind of body anymore. I don't want this kind of body. I want hope. That five skandhas makes that decision. And that five skandhas is incarnated in, for example, in a human body. Okay, because of that decision, you wind up in a place where there's another five skandhas. Body is not there, but there's form. And the reason why body is not there It's not because body died and mind went on, but rather because consciousness and body together decided to just permanently give up this type of body and get a different kind of form.

[43:43]

But right away there's form. It's not like form's missing. Anyway, this is called inbardo, or intermediate existence. Then, five scoundrels get bored and may choose to be incarnate again. So if it does, it's born in whatever type of body it wants to have. So it's not like there's a consciousness or mind that floats free of the body, leaving the body behind. There's mind floating, and then the mind comes into a body again. It's actually these five pulsed gondas. And they give up a certain kind of destiny. And there's five whole skandhas again in another kind of what we call intermediate existence, which means it isn't really a destiny. And then five skandhas gets excited and interested and incarnates again.

[44:46]

There's not really a separation of body and mind. And this five skandhas is also constantly changing between incarnations. So there's this karma that basically the only thing that's going on all the time is karma. So there's five gandhas and that's karma. There's karma there. There's thinking. There's just keep rolling. It's not just keep rolling, but there's just this continual happening. There's this continual rethinking, recreating, happening, recreating, recreating, recreating. And sometimes it creates the thought of birth. particular type of incarnation. And then you keep recreating, recreating, recreating. It gives rise to a thought of death and decarnates. And then recreates, recreates, recreates. So it's always just the same ball, molding thing that actually isn't connected to anything, but just keeps recreating.

[45:54]

And one of the things that recreates is an idea of connection between these recreations. Okay? Yes? It's not the body, necessarily. It can be formed without being incarnated. For example, anyway, you can have that. You can have five skandas. One of them is form. The form is not necessarily a body. Form is the ability to relate to forms and the forms related to. So the eye organ is not the eyeball. You can have an eye organ without having an eyeball.

[46:56]

Various beings are sensitive to light but don't have eyeballs. And when we die, We can transform consciousness in such a way that we have no attachment to this eyeball anymore. And they put this eyeball in an incinerator and throw it in the ocean. But we, if we wish to continue this trip, there's still the ability to relate to electromagnetic radiation in a certain wavelength. But actually, it's being a human being you relate to a particular segment of electromagnetic radiation, which we call that part which we want to relate to. Well,

[48:06]

Once again, consciousness never arises by itself. The nature of consciousness is that it doesn't arise by itself. It arises in other states. OK? OK? Yes? So it doesn't arise by itself. So consciousness doesn't even go flying off this way and have and have its function of hate and delusion go off another way. And as you may know, consciousness arises from what? What is the supportive consciousness? Supportive consciousness is what, anybody? Organs? Huh? Yeah. It's the organs. And what's the field of activity organs?

[49:09]

The field, the vishaya. So the organ is the support of the consciousness. But the organ doesn't support consciousness except when the organ is functioning in its field. Just an organ isn't enough. An organ is the support of consciousness. But when the organ starts running around in its field, when the ability to receive light starts flying with light, and consciousness arises. Consciousness is inseparable from form. It arises out of form. Even when consciousness is in a formless realm, still, it arrives, its support, its root is in form. But these forms are not necessarily looking at, we're looking through eyeballs. Consciousness is not relating. to the field. And not that, but the field of the organs is similar to consciousness. Consciousness and the field are similar. Whereas the organs have been different from consciousness and the field.

[50:21]

So consciousness relates to this mental field of consciousness, relates through organs to physical things. So the nature of existence. is this interplay between matter and consciousness. And the interplay is, first of all, negotiated, or moderated, or mediated, or whatever, through the capacity to relate, called the energy of the organ. But then consciousness arises. Once it arises, it never, it's arising in its function is always There, in its function, are the mental state. And they come forth with three other varieties besides consciousness. So when you have this kind of thing, you always have five. Now, when you're in al-rikyadatu, you use consciousness in such a way that it completely obliterates its awareness of its source.

[51:24]

So for consciousness, in certain states of meditation, it doesn't even know where it came from. which is an interesting state for consciousness to be in. But it gets to that place by working on itself in a certain way. And as soon as the momentum of that effort to propel itself out of form, which is actually just propelling awareness out of its awareness of its form, it all comes right back. There it is, back in form. It falls back in form. Anyway, if you want to, though, you can, if you want to, as your particular consciousness, the one you're playing with over there, the one that's decided to reincarnate in that body, if you want to, you know, give me a few of your standards, go right ahead.

[52:27]

And I think you can't do that. The only way you can give me a few of your scoundrels is with five scoundrels. You've got to use five to give me two. Or one or three or whatever you want to give me. No way you can do that except with five scoundrels. What I just said is inconceivable. You want me to say it again? the same as not hearing me. OK? So that's that. Then what you're talking about. Also, another thing I'd like to point out is that under the section, under the Citta Sunriti Upasthana, the application of mindfulness to thought, it says, in the second paragraph, it says,

[53:34]

The bodhisattva reflects as follows. Under the Mahayana, under the application of mindfulness according to the Mahayana, it says, the second part of that, first paragraph, end it with, he reflects as follows, this thought comes from nowhere and when it is distorted, goes nowhere. Again, we see that it arises solely from a complex of internal and external causes and conditions. And as you know, on the previous page it said, for feelings, it said, these feelings come from nowhere. When they are destroyed, they go nowhere. They arise solely from error, perverted views, and imagination. They are fruits of retribution depending on causes and conditions. and these causes and conditions set up by actions of previous existence.

[54:42]

OK. Yes? So over time, . What? What kind of don't exactly know. It's consciousness that knows. Consciousness knows that what? What do you want to know? Consciousness knows all causes and conditions. Causes and conditions are called what? Faiskandas. All causes and conditions come into Faiskandas. Faiskandas do not include everything in the universe.

[55:51]

What do they exclude? Uh-huh. So, what's another way to say what they include, which is what we're talking about right now? Once again, yes? That's what she said. No, they include some spiritual dharma. Right. Hmm? That's what she said. She said. That's what she said. That's what she said. Okay, so... But I'll do it again. He said something about knowing the causes and conditions. And I'm saying, consciousness can know the causes and conditions of any dharma. Consciousness knows the cause can know the causes and conditions of any dharma. And what are the causes and conditions? What is consciousness?

[56:58]

That's where he found the causes and conditions. And I said, Now, the skandas don't include anything. What don't they include? And people say they're unconditioned. But what else could you say that they don't include? Very simple. Now, they include that. You pray to samskara, going to samskara skanda. Now, they include consciousness. What they don't include is the things that aren't causes and conditions, which is another way to say what they and conditioned are. So the five counties include the cause and condition, but they don't include everything. They don't include that which isn't the cause and condition. Whereas the 18 ayatanas, I mean the 18 dhatus and the 12 ayatanas, they include everything because they include the dharmadhatus. And the dharmadhatu has all objects.

[58:03]

And some objects are not causes and conditions. In other words, consciousness can know all causes and conditions, namely consciousness can be aware of five skandhas. Then it's aware of causes and conditions. And when it's aware of five skandhas, as they are, it sees that none of them exist without each other, plus all the little things that go in each of the five are totally due to the other five. You can't have one without the other. And you can't have the parts of one without all the parts of the other. So consciousness can know that. But this conduct thing does not include all things that can be known. There's nothing that can be known, and that is called those things which aren't positive conditions. The funny thing is that when consciousness knows bodhisthanas as they are, it knows or it has as an object, like awareness, that which is its problems and conditions.

[59:15]

When you see that all dharmas just arises, when you see that all bodhisthanas mutually cause each other and totally encroach each other, at that time you are looking at nirvana. That's what nirvana looks like. Nirvana is when all dharmas are totally encroached. Nirvana is when everything is practically isolated. That's what Nirvana looks like. And if you're in Arhat, when you see all dharmas totally encroached, when you see that all dharmas are absolutely isolated, you grab it. You see it. You touch it. You taste it. You smell it. You feel it. And you are not. But if that's all it is, sees it as a bit of a problem.

[60:19]

Because the seeing is also the tasting, the smelling, the touching, the knowing, they're all totally encroached. Therefore, you cannot attain or get at Seeing nirvana, tasting nirvana, feeling nirvana. You can't attain that. The bodhisattva does not do that. The Buddha does not do that. Why? Because there's eight million stories in the next city. There's no way. There's no mode that can do it. You see, because it's all modes at once really do it. What are all the modes? All the modes are all the causes and conditions. There's no way that somebody can take something home in the situation. Our heart goes home. What? With the total encroachment of dharmas. But it's not total encroachment of dharmas if you can take it home because there's no way to take it home if you're totally encroached.

[61:22]

If you're absolutely alone, you can't get anything. There's no place to... There's no getting and taking. There's no receiver and so on. Problems. This way is the actual realization of total encroachment, which means you can't really have nirvana in that sense. And this is what real nirvana is. Nirvana isn't seen, in this case. It's a case that isn't spelled. Nirvana is not an object anymore. This is actually nirvana. As you can see, this also shows why nirvana is exactly the same as in Sara. Sara is quite enlightened actually, but their enlightenment has a bit of a painting. What? You don't get painted in the light?

[62:25]

Well, that's okay. You don't have to get it. But if you get it sometimes. This teaching will protect you from it. Some people get it anyway. But you should be able to be close to it. You sort of kind of almost be able to see how kippah lived differently. Maybe you could get it. It really doesn't happen. You're right. Okay, so, the feelings come from nowhere. So also, under each one it says, under the feelings it says, that these feelings, the commentary says, these feelings come from nowhere, and when destroyed, they go nowhere.

[63:31]

And here, under the mind application, thought, He said, this thought comes from nowhere, and when this thought dies, it goes nowhere. And under body it said, same thing, and also I brought up that koan about Shren Shah, stubbed his toe, and he said, this body does not exist, where does the pain come from? In the, when we do cremation ceremony, let me say, first of all, when we, often when we have Buddha's birthday, and, stand up, when we have Buddha's birthday ceremony, and when we have Buddha's parinirvana ceremony, the dedication of the merit from those ceremonies, we say, in the Dharma world,

[64:34]

There is no coming or going. So we see it in our ceremony today. And we'll find in studying the dharmas also that there is no coming or going. Or the coming and going to nowhere. It's also a story here. In all four cases, this coming and going of magic, in all four cases, it is the coming and going of these illusory entities of body, illusory entities of body, illusory entities of feeling, illusory entities of thought, and illusory entities of diamond. All of them are due to perverse view and imagination. And in the cremation ceremony, it said, talk about this dream, now it's burned, now it cremates this dream body of 100 years.

[65:50]

So you dream the body, and this body you dream has a lifespan of 100 years. This date has a lifespan of 100 years. Now, sometimes they live with older, but approximately. Traditionally spoken of is one of the weirds. That's the body you dream of. You dream of this human body. It's a hundred years. You don't dream of two-minute life body. Two-minute dream body. Five-year, seven-year dream body. The nice people have dreamt, the nice beings have dreamt up seven-year, seven-ten-year dream bodies like dogs. I heard about my stuff. That's when I heard about the book called In Reverence for All Life, or In Kingship with All Life. In Kingship with All Life. And I asked Jill and Bill Godfrey for me, and I read part of it.

[66:53]

And if you have a dog, and you watch a dog, and you find a being in a dog, Being in the dog. And the being in the dog is, I can't exactly say, it's more or less intelligent than we are. Exactly. But it's come into this body, which has a different type of brain, and different lifespans. But you feel that a being, which is basically the same kind of being you have. It's habit of this dog. It's also the same thing as children. Peter Coyote came over one time and saw the book on the shelf. Where did you get this book? I never seen anybody have this book. But when he was 12 years old or something, he knew this horror-bringer of an annoying game order.

[68:00]

And the guy gave me that book. He said, he gave me that book by giving me the most favorite piece of literature. But it is a good look to kind of exercise, get yourself into exercising, tuning into being in the dog. And then once you can do it with one animal, probably do other things too. to watch TV and TV and television. And hopefully that he would come back and do the TV, the being and the, this podium and television that the manifest itself in various ways. It likes to, it likes to,

[69:09]

It manifests itself. And the way it manifests itself, it likes to do it in different sets of organs. All these different organs would have very close organs of animals and organs of planet. It likes to do it. It likes to do it in organelles, too, which are inside of cells. of animals. I like to do it that way. Why? Have you noticed? Have you noticed that when the snow falls on the trees? If you have green trees and snow falling on the leaves, have you noticed? A bit folded. If there were just one set of organs, you wouldn't be able to see no one of those two.

[70:16]

If there's just one set of organs, you wouldn't be able to see all this beautiful stuff, actually. Consciousness, skillfully knowingness, has manifested itself on various capacities, and therefore incarnate itself in a wide variety of situations Because I like to do it that way. I like to do it individually. I like to do it for the individual. I like to do it in other individuals. And for the totality, I like to do it for the totality. For each case, it is necessary for it to fulfill itself. It's a question of whether you, you know, appreciate it. I'll answer that that would be fair enough. So David left, but that sort of leads into the next point in the idea that under application of thought, I had an application of mindfulness to thought.

[71:32]

It says on the top of page, on the second page of application of mindfulness to thought, which is, I don't know if it contains that number, but it says, page 1192 at the top, it says, in this thought, the true mark of thought does not exist. Can you find that place? In this thought, the true mark of thought does not exist. Let's read the next sentence. Thought in its own being does not arise and does not disappear. OK? The true mark of thought does not exist.

[72:34]

In other words, please, tell us the true mark of thought. Show us what it is. Do you think the true mark of thought is bad for us? that self-inflation can lead, that you could get all of that. But what's the true mark of thought? What are the true marks of things? We say impermanence. Does impermanence exist? What's the true mark of things? Emptiness. Does emptiness exist? What's the true mark of things? Not-self. Does not-self exist? Those are the true marks, right? Can you think of some other true marks? Go ahead. Find them. Anyway, the true marks, these are the true marks. These are the marks of nirvana. So do they exist? For example, take emptiness. Does emptiness exist?

[73:37]

You could say, yes, it does exist if you want to. Well, what will that mean? Or say it doesn't exist. You can't say it doesn't exist. How do you say emptiness doesn't exist? The way emptiness exists is the way it exists is outside of existence and non-existence and neither and both, right? That's the existence of emptiness. That's what we call that you can't say it doesn't exist. Those are the true marks up there, and they don't exist. Because any way you can think of existence, they won't be that way. Do you know what is that good? You can't pet pigeonhole it. Non-existence won't work either. Absence, presence, needable, and so on.

[74:39]

None of the ways can you find true marks of anything. Well, how about the own thing? If you can't find the true marks, how about just the own marks, the special characteristic, the individual characteristics of thought? Will you be able to find those? They don't arise and they don't disappear, so you're going to have trouble finding them. This is the thought itself. It can't be found aside from its cause and conditions. The same will apply to the characteristics of thought. you actually won't be able to find thought. What's the characteristic of thought? You know, the characteristic of your own nature of thought? You know, the Svabhava or the Svalakshina, there it is. You know, that's Samanya Lakshina. That's the characteristic of all conditioned darkness. The particular characteristic of thought is that if the bare impression

[75:43]

fundamental basic impression of all mental states, of all experience. It embraces, it's the embracement and the effect of the embracement, you know. Like, if you hug somebody, It's your thought and you hug somebody. The shape of the hug is the impression you are of them. So consciousness can embrace all mental states and it also can embrace and be aware of physical objects. It can be aware of mental objects and physical objects and also it takes a shape determined by the way it's thinking.

[76:47]

And the way it's thinking is the shape of it. The shape of consciousness, the overall shape, is cetana, is volition. And that shape is what we call thinking. That shape is the impression of all the mind and mental state, the way they tag in themselves in total awareness. That's the own mark of thought. That's the own mark in the arbitrariness. But it does not arise and does not disappear. Although that's what it is, you cannot find it's arising and disappearance. Although that's what it is, there's no way to attain it. And then you come to the next line that David wanted to talk about. This thought is always luminous. But what about this luminousness of thought?

[77:54]

It's always luminous, but because of adventitious defilements, because adventitious defilements attach themselves to it, one wrongly speaks of defiled thought. We're talking about application of mindfulness, but we're actually doing application of mindfulness to dialogue right now. And this is a good exercise. Why is thought lenient? Now, can you find the lenientness of thought? It never turns off. but it's constantly being destroyed. So how do you keep the lights on when it's constantly being destroyed?

[79:00]

That's the point. Why is something not luminous, how it exists in you. And why is something that doesn't exist luminous? Are you there? Can you see how not existing in this way is luminous? Can you see that? Don't say no. Because if you say no, adventitious defounds. Or go ahead and say no. is now as it embraces or is embraced. Okay? These don't come into all these characteristics that you see there. Thought is always luminous. Why is it luminous? Because the thing that she doesn't understand, that's why it's luminous.

[80:08]

The very point that she doesn't understand is the key to the luminousness of thought. The fact that thought exists in freedom from existence, from the opposite of existence, called non-existence. The fact that it's not both and it's not neither, plus all the other possibilities you can imagine, that's the way thought is. That's why it's always luminous. The fact that you can't trap it, that you can't understand how it can exist and yet not exist in these categories, that the way it is, that it doesn't exist, it's luminousness. And what luminousness is, is freedom. And what freedom is, is not being caught in any category of existence. Which we call, for shorthand, luminousness, or freedom, or inconceivable liberation. We also call it not or no existence.

[81:09]

In a dimension, it's called no existence, or does not exist. That's shorthand for luminousness. for absolute encroachment, for total liberation, incomparable liberation. If you can allow yourself to think about your experience outside of these categories of existence, you will experience what we mean by this luminousness. If you can examine your experience, your thought, in this way, seeing its impermanence, seeing its lack of any characteristic which you can attach to, thing that doesn't come and doesn't go, you will attain the luminousness of your thought. Because attainment, once again, is something that you can't grasp. And the willingness to entertain that state of being is the willingness

[82:16]

to be lenient. But as soon as, as soon as you think about it, and think that that thinking characterizes it, it is what's called adventitious defilement. And you can put your hook in this lenientness and reel it in. And as you reel it in, sure enough, there's a big fat fish out there You've got it. Maybe a good fish. Maybe a bad fish. But anyway, it ain't luminous. Because you've got it. Or even if you reel it in and there's not a fish there, you've got it. Luminous is something else. Luminous, you throw the hook out. And I don't know what happens.

[83:16]

I don't know if you don't catch anything, or do catch anything, or you can reel it in. I could say, well, you throw it out there, and you go with the hook. You become the hook. You turn inside out. I didn't want to be the hook. But that may happen, OK? But that's not really what, that doesn't have to happen. That could happen, but doesn't have to happen. So we could tell as many stories as we want. We could say you become the hook. We could say you become the lion. We could say you become the sinker. You become the fish. You become the water. Anything you want to say. There's endless stories about what might happen. That's the point. You can't say it. You can't trap it. That's the luminousness. When you arrive at the luminousness, you want to have the luminousness, One of the ways to arrive is to practice application of mindfulness to the body.

[84:24]

Concentrate yourself on your body. On your breathing, on your posture. In such a way that you calm your mind. And then further concentrate yourself so that you even can see that the body does not exist. That it doesn't come from anywhere and doesn't go anywhere. That it has no own mouth of its own. It is lonely. And go on to feelings and see that they also don't come from anywhere and don't go anywhere. That they don't unite and don't separate. See that they always depend on various causes and conditions and are none other than that. And so on go on to thought. And see that thought also does not come from anywhere and does not go anywhere.

[85:29]

See that it's impermanent. Say that it's impermanent. Reflect that it is impermanent. Reflect that it doesn't come from anywhere and doesn't go anywhere. Just sit there right now and say it to yourself. See it that way. See how this thought just happened. Happened. Happened. Not coming from anywhere. Not going anywhere, just happening. Are you coming from your home?

[86:39]

I'm not going with it. Not Riley? Not going with it. And the only way to see arising and going, the only way to see coming and going is by using the various stuff, various positive conditions. If you want to see coming, you can bring coming back. If you want to see going, you can see it. But if you watch, you'll see the only way you can make coming, make going, is by bringing together various causes and conditions to create the image, the imagined thing, all coming and going. Then you can do it. But once again, you can also see that there's no coming and going aside from these causes and conditions.

[87:39]

So there is no coming and going. It's just the causes and conditions. When you're back again, there is no coming and going. So you're safe to just tell yourself that. You don't have to remember the reason. You can just see it over and over again that it doesn't come from anywhere and it doesn't go anywhere. It doesn't arise. It doesn't fall. The characteristics are ungraspable. And they also do not arise, do not come, and do not go. Being constantly aware in this manner, and this is the lenientness of knowledge. It has no characteristics. There's no signs. It does not have the absence of sun.

[88:55]

There's nothing it has to be and there's nothing it can't be. It can be a nice big fat fudge that go right in your face. It can be a nice shiny car zipping by. It can be your finger touching on your cheek. None of these things, but it can be anything. That's why it's meaningless. Anything. Nothing, no hindrance. The reason why it's no hindrance is because it has no mark. And no mark does not hinder any mark. No mark means it can be any mark. And that's what we mean by no mark.

[89:58]

And that's why nirvana is samsara. The loonelessness of mind sees nirvana as samsara and sara as nirvana. No hindrance between the two. Thought does not come from anywhere, does not go anywhere. Has no marks in the way we just talked about. It's free of coming, it's free of going. It's free of coming together, it's free of falling apart.

[91:00]

This thought, this mind, is totally encroached upon by everything. All aspects of experience totally take over this mind. Which is again why it doesn't come to me. Why it has no accumulation. Why we're totally isolated. Total isolation is exactly the same as absolute purity. Absolute purity is the same as no accumulation. Think in this manner And you will be a Buddha.

[92:07]

It says in Kamsa Zendi. Practice in this way. Reflect in this manner. And you inherit the lineage of Buddha Dharma. You enter into the complete luminousness of thought. If you don't think this way, then you may give rise to adventitious defileness. And you will wrongly speak of the mind as defiled. You will not The peak of the mind is total luminousness. But you always can return to it simply by rather than creating these adventitious defilements which are nothing other than marks.

[93:23]

All marks, all characteristics of consciousness are adventitious defilements. the convenient limitations which we exercise upon total luminousness. And let's imagine that it caught the big fish. If we wish to, we may see consciousness, see thought, That thought be aware of itself without attaching any marks. And again, we return to luminousness, to the total freedom. This is yoga of the Prajnaparamita.

[94:31]

This is turning the light back to the source. It's hard to promise that.

[94:39]

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